Twelve Angry Librarians

Lisa nodded. “It all started because I was the one who handed Gavin Fong that bottle of water he drank from right before he collapsed.” She shuddered. “That was awful. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the shocked expression he had right after drinking from that bottle. At first I was so stunned by it all that I didn’t think clearly. It wasn’t until someone at my table asked me about the bottle that it dawned on me that whatever killed him was inside it.”

“You couldn’t have known there was poison in the bottle,” I said. “If, indeed, that turns out to be the case.”

“No, I couldn’t have,” Lisa said. “But the fact is, I handed it to him. I brought the bottle to the table. Actually I brought a couple of them because he, Gavin, I mean, insisted that he had to have them. He refused to drink the hotel water.”

“There were two bottles. That’s interesting. Where did they come from?” I asked.

“From his suite,” Lisa said. “I arranged to have two dozen there for him during the conference. I figured that ought to be enough water for anyone for three days. Any that were left over he could take home with him, and I told him that.”

“How many were left when you went to get the two that you brought to the table?”

Lisa gave me a blank stare. “I’m not sure.” She thought for a moment, then shrugged. “There are a dozen bottles in each shrink-wrapped package. One package was still intact. The other one was open, of course, and I think maybe five bottles were left after I took two. Could that be important?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It might be. They’re going to have to figure out when someone had the opportunity to put the poison in the bottle. Did you happen to look at the caps? Perhaps notice if one had been opened already?”

“No, why would I?” Lisa said. “They were still with the others in the shrink-wrap, and I simply pulled them out. I wouldn’t have had any reason to examine them closely.”

“You wouldn’t,” I said. “The killer had to count on the fact that no one was looking closely at the caps, I suppose, unless there was another way of getting the poison into the bottles.” I frowned. “It seems a chancy thing to do, frankly. A lot of people would check to make sure the seal was unbroken before they would remove the cap. I usually do.”

“I guess.” Lisa frowned. “If I’m in a hurry I don’t pay much attention to things like that. From now on, though, I darn sure will.”

“Probably a good idea,” I said. “Now, about the sheriff’s department. Why do you think they might arrest you? I think if they seriously intended to, you wouldn’t be here. You’d still be at the sheriff’s department.”

“They kept me down there for four hours. I thought I would go crazy because they kept asking me the same questions over and over.” She shot me a dark look. “That friend of yours, the chief deputy, nearly scared the life out of me. She looks at you like you’re about to be taken to the gas chamber if you don’t answer her questions.”

I had certainly experienced that same look from Kanesha, and, while intense, it wasn’t as scary to me as Lisa claimed it was for her.

“What seemed to be the focus of the questions?”

“First, they asked me how well I knew the deceased. I told them I didn’t know him. I’d maybe seen him at a couple of SALA meetings, but that was it.” Lisa paused for a breath. “Then it was all about the stupid bottle of water. I had to go over, and over, and over, every blinking thing I knew about the bottles.”

“I think they’re trying to zero in on opportunity,” I said. “To my mind, that’s the critical question. When did the killer have the opportunity to add the poison?” I thought for a moment. “I suppose there’s a chance that the poison was delivered some other way, but his collapse only seconds after drinking from the bottle seems to preclude that. They have to take a hard look at you, naturally, because of opportunity. They can figure out the motive later.”

“Because I retrieved the bottles from his suite and had them in my possession.” Lisa nodded. “I guess I was too upset earlier to think clearly about that.”

I remembered that she had mentioned bringing two bottles to the luncheon. I asked her about that.

“He finished one of them a few minutes before he was going to speak,” Lisa said. “He ducked out to the restroom for a minute, and when he got back, it was almost time for him to go up on the dais.”

“I wonder why he didn’t take the bottle with him then.” That puzzled me, because it would have been the obvious thing to do. Yet he hadn’t done it.

Lisa snorted. “Knowing him, he left it deliberately so he could snap his fingers and make me bring it to him. He did other things like that to show that he had to be waited on.”

I shook my head. “Sad, but that does sound like something he would do. Now, another question. The tables were set for eight people, so who was at your table, besides you and Gavin?”