Poison Most Vial Page 8

  “Ruby Rose, look at you,” said Rex. “Now, what d’you know about that number, Sharon? Is that a student, or what?”

  “Oh no, shoot, I don’t know. It looks like a miscellaneous number. Could be anyone’s.” Sharon was working the computer. “Wait, I see. It’s a general passkey. The kind they give to visitors, totally anonymous. Of course. This person is not stupid.”

  “Well, it means something already,” Rex said. “We know it’s not Lydia and it’s not Victor; we can scratch them off. If our theory is true, anyway.”

  Sharon pulled her chair closer to the computer and said, “No reason I can’t search the whole system for this number”—when the screen froze.

  The girl clicked and clicked, but there was a humming sound; Ruby peeked at the other screens in the cluster just as they all went black.

  “How extraordinary,” Simon said. “All the computers in this whole library seem to have simultaneously—”

  “Pick up everything, now, they on us like white on rice,” Rex said. “Time to move our getaway sticks.”

  “Our what?” said Sharon.

  “Legs—let’s go!” Ruby said.

  Ruby made sure their table was clear before leading everybody along the wall toward the main lobby. She had no interest in going the other direction toward the hallways leading to the main school. Still dead quiet, and they were into the stacks now, under some cover, close to the doorway leading out to the main library lobby.

  “Listen,” Ruby said. “For one second.”

  The mumble of heavy soles on the stone floor, a whispered voice behind them, everyone down now, near the floor. Between the shelves Ruby and the others saw legs swarming around the computer cluster, now fanning out. “Follow me,” Rex said. “Look natural.”

  He stood and slipped through the door to the lobby, just a student with his books under his arm. The others trailed, smiling hello to the woman in the main information booth near the door. Briskly now, across the lobby—other kids were coming through, and teachers; it was busy—and here was an entire High Honors group coming down the stairs.

  “Everyone, excuse me, your attention, please.” A voice over the intercom.

  Campus police officers were slipping into the lobby behind them, two moving quickly toward the main door, another to the information lady. “Excuse me. Everyone in the library please gather in the lobby. Everyone, please. Campus police are searching for a lost child in the building.”

  “So let’s get lost,” Ruby said. She led the others through the stirring crowd of students, across the lobby, and into the far wing, history and literature. The back of that wing was under construction—she could see the workers from the second-floor window of the Regular Ranch. There must be a way out.

  “C’mon,” Ruby said; there were students strolling in the opposite direction, some college students, and then the lights went up—way bright—and a red light blinked somewhere up high.

  “Whoa, are you kidding?” Rex said. “When’d they get these lights? Ruby, someone wants us bad.”

  “Quiet, quiet. Let’s find that construction area,” she said.

  There it was, in the back: a wall of plywood, a door cut in the middle with Men Working in orange spray paint across it. Ruby turned the handle: locked. Rex grabbed it and turned with all his might.

  “Are you absolutely sure that this is our best—” Simon was saying when Rex said, “Outta the way,” and threw his shoulder into the door. It snapped open and Rex landed on the floor on the other side, covered with white dust.

  “Look, the Pillsbury Doughboy,” Simon said, but there was no time. Ruby yelled, “Go, go,” put her head down, and banged into a giant blue tarp, which shuddered and lifted. They were outside, in back of the library.

  The gang split in two.

  Fall, Ruby thought as she and Rex plunged into the bushes and leaves that ringed the library building, everything orangey and earth-smelling. Why was she thinking about the season now? “Where you think they went?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Rex. “Across that way, the other side of the campus, the Manor, whatever they call that nice neighborhood.”

  “They live over there, in those big houses?”

  “Simon and Sharon? Where you think they live . . . in Davenport with Ronny?”

  Ruby got on her knees and peeked through the bushes. They crawled along the base of the building and turned the corner. In the failing light she could make out the DeWitt front gate and beyond that a few lights in the familiar silhouettes of the brick apartments along College Avenue. Blue-red tracers swept the area, lights from a campus police car, maybe two.

  Some memory came of a campout or fireworks back home. She shivered. “What now?”

  “Dark soon,” Rex said. “When it’s night, we’ll mosey out right through the main gate like a couple of students. Which we are, in fact.”

  Down low, knees damp and cold, they inched closer to the library main entrance to get a better look. They stopped just this side of one of the science library’s broad windows, still glowing with the turned-up lights. Waited.

  “Looks like cops are letting people out one at a time,” said Rex, up on his knees, peering over the bushes. “Some of them coming up this way, too; a little darker and we can just step out and walk.”

  Restless, Ruby turned, pushed herself up, and peeked through one of the library windows. She sat back down suddenly.

  “Oh no,” she said.

  “What happened?” Rex said.

  “Nothing. But have a look in there.”

  Rex looked and then sat back down, eyes wide. “What’s she doing in there?”

  Ruby felt like crying but couldn’t. “Mrs. Whitmore, Mrs. Whitmore . . . We’ve never even seen her come out of her apartment, and now she’s in the forensics library with the campus police?”

  The newspaper article was more than thirty years old and so yellow, it was hard to read. But one line near the end was clear enough: “Mrs. Clara Whitmore, a forensic assistant in the office of chief toxicologist Dr. R. J. Ramachandran, said the driver’s blood contained traces of narcotics, as well as alcohol.”

  Ruby read it again. Dr. R. J. Ramachandran? Could there be two people with that name?

  She reached over and punched Rex, who was fast asleep, his head resting on an open folder of old newspaper clippings.

  “Huh . . . Where am I?”

  “Downtown library. You’ve been asleep for an hour. Wake up and look at this.”

  “I’m taking a break from libraries after this, that’s one thing.” Rex blinked, stretched his shoulders, rubbed his eyes. “OK, I’m looking; so what?”

  “Near the end.”

  “Oh, there she is.” The boy shook his head. “And another Rama name? Maybe it’s his dad. Or mom. But I don’t see why you had to wake me up; we already knew Mrs. W. worked in forensics.”

  “Yeah, but she’s up to something,” said Ruby. “Why else would she be snooping around the library, in the forensics section, too?”

  “Maybe she was there to help us, do some research on her own.”

  “And not say anything? And the campus police just let her stay. Maybe she’s in with them, too.”

  “Nah, Ruby, now you’re seeing things. I do wonder, though, about that apartment.”

  “Whose apartment?”

  “Hers. Mrs. Whitmore. A scientist, in the beat-up old Terraces? I never heard of that. Most people with those kind of jobs, they’re too scared to even come down College Avenue, much less live in the Terraces. At least since me and my Jamaican brothers arrived.”

  “What about those Woods brothers? They’re whiter than I am.”

  “I consider them partially Jamaican.”

  “Yeah, right. They hate the islanders.”

  “They hate everyone. They’re equality-based, deep down.”

  “Deep down, you’re disturbed.” But Rex was right about Mrs. Whitmore in the Terraces, and now Ruby wasn’t so sure of anything. You’d think an old woman
who never left her apartment would be—what? Nice and helpful? Not so complicated?

  “Huh, I wonder if this is the same one, too,” Rex said, squinting at the old newspaper article. “Diaz. That’s the name of your dad’s lawyer, right?”

  “What?” Ruby grabbed the old article from him and saw the name. “‘The defendant’s attorney, Bernice Diaz, charged that the city’s toxicology analysis was incomplete . . . ’ This couldn’t be the same—Wait. Maybe it is. No—It is, has to be.”

  “So?”

  “So they knew each other—that’s why Mrs. Whitmore told us to go see Diaz. They knew each other, and they knew this other Ramachandran guy, and so, so—so I don’t know. Arg! I thought it would be a good idea to research Rama and Whitmore, but this is just confusing.”

  “Easy, Ruby, you gonna wake up all these other researchers,” said Rex, as an older man in a chair across from them stirred in his sleep. “There’s got to be some explanation; you just got to ask someone. Like whatshername—Diaz. She’s your dad’s lawyer; she’s supposed to be working for you.”

  Ruby closed her eyes, took a breath. Smiled. “Yes, she is.”

  “Well, now, will you look at Mr. T-Bone Big Rooster Funky Rex. I just had my second good idea. Your dad must have Mrs. Diaz’s number up there on the fridge, where he keeps everything.”

  “No need. We can walk there. Her office is about three blocks away. I saw it on the bus ride over. Let’s see if she’s there.”

  Rex rattled the door when he knocked, and there was no answer. He tried again—a light was on in the office—and this time a voice came from inside.

  “Go away!”

  Ruby knocked the third time, more politely, and they heard, “No one home! This is my writing day, OK?”

  “Writing day?” said Rex. “She’s a writer, too? How many jobs this lady got?”

  “Too many to see us, I guess,” Ruby said. “Maybe we should come back when—”

  “No more Girl Scout Cookies, please!” The door was open; Ms. Diaz was standing in it, hands on hips, in a gold-and-purple sweat suit. “Oh—is that—Ms. Rose, is that you?”

  “Yes, hello. This is my friend Rex.”

  Ms. Diaz looked Rex up and down and shook her head. “OK, c’mon in, make it quick. What’s up?”

  The office was different. Messier, an ashtray full of cigarette butts on the desk next to two empty diet soda cans, opera playing on the radio. Ruby wondered if it had something to do with it being a writing day.

  “I have a question, Rex and I do—just something to ask, if you don’t mind,” Ruby said.

  “Ask it already, and I’ll tell you if I mind.”

  Ruby’s heart was pounding up in her neck for some reason. “Do you know Mrs. Whitmore? I mean, Clara Whitmore, this old lady—I mean, elderly, you know, at the Terraces, a woman?”

  “I’m not sure that’s a question, but the answer is yes, I know Clara. And she’s certainly an old lady. She’s at least ten years older than me, and I’m a dinosaur.”

  “You known her a long time?” Rex said.

  Ms. Diaz circled around her desk, sat down, and opened another diet soda “Forever and a day, young man.” She took a sip. “Clara was one of the city’s top toxicologists back when I was a young lawyer. Not that they treated her like one.”

  “And did she, did you—was there another Ramachandran, like the one who was killed?”

  Ms. Diaz, up on her feet again, motioned them into two chairs, like students, and leaned back on her desk like a teacher. She didn’t look happy. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, OK? But you need to know this: I will say not a word about the Ramachandran case to anyone but my client, your father. Understood?”

  Ruby swallowed; Rex was nodding manically.

  “Right. The answer is yes: R. J. Ramachandran was the father. He’s long dead now, but in his day he was as famous as the son was. More so. And, in the end, just as petty. Though you didn’t hear that from me, and it will not leave this office.”

  “So, Mrs. Whitmore was—”

  “Clara was a scientist in his office. A toxicologist, a good one. All of this is public information. And what happened in the Plaxton case was—strike that. You want more, you ask Clara.”

  Ruby peeked at Rex, tipped forward on his chair, who said, “So how you spell Plaxton?”

  “Look it up. I’ve said too much.”

  “Would she want to kill Dr. Rama for some reason?”

  Ms. Diaz rocked forward, then back, looked up at the ceiling, and let out a loud whispering cough that Ruby realized was laughter.

  “Oh dear me, no,” the woman finally said, her face still red. “Clara would not kick a squirrel who came to eat her dinner. That’s one reason she disappeared and ended up in those proj—I mean, why she disappeared.”

  “You got a problem with the Terraces?” Rex asked.

  Ms. Diaz took a deep breath. “No, young man, I don’t. I grew up in Davenport Towers. First floor, 112, next to the elevators: never a dull moment. But I do have a problem with what happened to Clara Whitmore, and that is all I have to say to you two.”

  She stood and opened the door. “Please say hello to Clara for me.”

  “Not one hint?” Rex said. “Like, did it affect one of her eyeballs?”

  “Out,” Ms. Diaz said, pointing to the door. “Writing day.”

  Grady Funk was not picking up his home phone, and she dared not call him at work. Dearest Grady. He was doing nothing more than simple tests at the city’s crime lab these days, and he’d surely lose even that job if he was caught informing her about the Rama case.

  He’d told her plenty already: that Rama’s teacup was empty when they found him; that just two vials of toxin were found; that traces of all three were in the empty cup.

  Then again, so what? Was Grady’s job worth letting an innocent man go to jail?

  Clara Whitmore reached for the phone and froze. A knock rattled the door. “Who is it, please?”

  “Us.”

  “One moment,” she said, hanging up the phone. She wrote herself a note on the front of the Rama Jr. manila folder: Ask Grady about glass vials. Underlined it.

  “I wasn’t expecting you so late on a Saturday,” Mrs. Whitmore said. “Please have a seat while I fetch some cookies.”

  She brought a tin of oatmeal raisin cookies from the kitchen—an old batch; they’d surely eat every last one—and noticed that the children weren’t seated. Ruby stood by the couch with her hands in her pockets. Rex was over staring out the window. What was it?

  Awkward. Like the very first time they came over. She straightened her sweater. The two of them weren’t even looking at her.

  “Lookit down there. Mrs. Juliette, that lady with that orange wig?” Rex said, finally breaking the silence. “Now, how you gonna wear something like that? It glows in the dark! It’s the color of one of those traffic safety cones, I swear.”

  Mrs. Whitmore could think of no response.

  “Hey, how come you don’t go down there more?” At least he was looking at her now. “Down on College? We never see you out.”

  “I don’t move around as well as I would like,” Mrs. Whitmore answered. “I am—well, I’m not so young as I once was.”

  “You’re no older than all these ole ladies round here,” Rex said. “They’re out everywhere, too. I’ve seen Mrs. Juliette in the bars. Biddy’s—she’s in there all the time. Even the Orbit Room once.”

  “You did not see her in the Orbit Room, Rex,” Ruby said. “Don’t make stuff up.”

  “I did, too.”

  Ruby made a dismissive motion with her head and cleared her throat. The girl was about to say something. “But we saw you, ma’am. At the science library. Yesterday.”

  Ma’am. So formal, with a cold note of Southern detachment in it.

  Mrs. Whitmore put a hand on the table to steady herself. She didn’t know why she should feel so guilty; what she did on her own time was her business, after all. “I was doing som
e investigating. On my own. I am not perfectly helpless, you know; I am not just a . . . a . . . ”

  “What?”

  “A shut-in. That’s what people call me, I’ve heard them. A shut-in.”

  “We never called you that,” Ruby said.

  “Look, we almost got caught over in there,” Rex said. “By the campus police. They shut down all the computers and searched people like criminals.”

  “How come they didn’t check you?” Ruby said. Like a pair of cops, interrogating, the good one and the bad one. “You’re not working with them, are you?”

  “Stop! Stop this. I feel like I’m being ambushed. They didn’t check me because I’m an old lady, that’s why. Did that ever occur to you? Because I’m invisible. ‘What can she do—she’s so old, she’s so nice!’” Don’t let them see you shake, she thought, not now.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Ruby said. “Maybe let’s sit down. You maybe want your cane?”

  “No, dear, let the cane rot for all I care; I’ll be fine.” She would not sit down. This was her apartment. If she could not hold her ground here, she had nothing left. She straightened herself, took an oatmeal raisin cookie from the tin, and strode into the small kitchen to put tea on.

  She returned a few minutes later, steadier. “All right,” she said.

  “Tell us,” said Ruby.

  Mrs. Whitmore pulled a chair from the table, sat, and straightened her skirt. “I worked for Rama’s father, R.J., a greater man than the son in my opinion. Brilliant, rigorous, even approachable. Up to a point.”

  “What do you mean?” said Ruby, now seated next to Rex at the table, the cookies between them.

  “Well,” Mrs. Whitmore continued, “forensics is a team sport, that’s what I mean. It’s people working together to unravel the thread, to run the tape backward—it’s important, and mostly it’s fun. But team members need to support one another.”

  “Kinda like we’ve been doing here, on this case,” Rex said.