I’m really starting to hate the police station. I got called down here –again –to talk to the local deputies in charge of investigating Eddie’s murder. They’re a lot more relaxed towards me now since they dropped me as a suspect, so I did not feel the need to call Lillian to come down and straighten them out this time.

The deputies who had been investigating the murder don’t really look me in the eye when I enter the precinct although they are somewhat friendly –asking me how I’ve been coping and whether or not I received the flowers they had sent to the funeral home. Suddenly they are being shooed away by a woman cop, the precincts chief, who asks to speak to me privately in her office. It’s a change of pace from the interrogation room, I’ll admit. She introduces herself as Chief Lawrence, but she tells me to just call her Kathy as she offers me coffee and sits down behind her desk. The door is closed so we can have a private conversation, and I’ll admit I’m suddenly finding myself on edge.

“How have you been?” she asks.

“I’ve been better, to be honest,” I say.

“I’m sure,” she says, “My deepest sympathies.”

“I’m actually glad you all called me down here. I think I found something that could be useful. This woman, I don’t have a last name, but she’s the one who has been initiating the lawsuit against me. Her name’s Suzette, and I have an email address –but that’s all. Something in my gut is telling me that this mystery woman might know something.” I say this with confidence, so the chief writes down the information as I presented it to her –saying she will have her deputies’ look into it.

Her demeanor tells me that she is uncomfortable. She looks sad. She leans back in her desk, and I can tell that she is beating around the bush with whatever it is she is about to tell me. Eventually, though, she gets right to it. “James,” she says my first name to appear as friendly as possible, “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Eddie did not die from complications from his injuries.”

“I thought his heart attack was brought on by stress from his surgeries and his injuries?” I question.

“Your brother had rat poison in his system. Upon further investigation, we have concluded that someone inserted liquefied rat poison into his iv. The hospital is cooperating with a full investigation.” Kathy pauses, letting what I have just heard sink in.

I bite my bottom lip. One thought occurs to me. “He would have been okay,” I say, my throat tightening.

“Yes,” she says. “Whoever hurt Eddie went back to finish the job. We are convinced now more than ever that whoever poisoned your supplements also attacked and killed Eddie. The same form of poison that was used in your supplements was used to kill Eddie.”

I don’t know what to say. Eddie was recovering. He was getting better –now they’re telling me he would have been fine if someone had not come back after him? Kathy keeps talking to me, but I’m not listening. She’s trying to assure me that everything is fine. That they’re going to find out who did this. I pop off at her, “Well you’re not any damn closer than you’ve been for months! You don’t have a damn clue who’s behind this! I don’t either! Your jackass investigators wasted their damn time looking into me, now whoever killed my brother is probably gone and has moved on by now. He’s probably in hiding laughing his ass off at how stupid you all are! Why don’t you do something? What the fuck are you even…” my voice trails off. I bite my tongue. “I’m sorry,” I say in a much calmer voice. “I think I need a minute.”

“Of course,” she says and leaves me alone in her office.

He would have lived. He would have been okay. That’s the part I can’t get past. Eddie was healing. He was getting better. I had just assumed all of his injuries and medications and repeated surgeries and all the stress he was under had caused his heart attack –not this. Not rat poison. Not someone coming back to finish the job –to make sure their tracks were covered. Whoever did this, I’m going to kill him. I’m going to fucking kill him.