Deadly Currents by Beth Groundwater Page B

saved?”
    “There’s no antidote, only treatments for the symptoms if the dose is small enough for the body to purge it in a few hours. But aconite is one of the strongest plant poisons. A dose of one-sixteenth of a grain can kill an adult. The toxicology report indicated at least twice that much was in Tom King’s bloodstream. He was a doomed man before you even got to him.”
    A dizzying wave of relief washed over her, flooding her senses until her throat clogged and her eyes burned with unshed tears. She couldn’t have saved him. She wasn’t responsible for his death. She put her hand over her mouth and looked out the window to try to regain her composure.
    When she looked back at Quintana, she saw that he understood—perfectly. “Thank you,” she said in a hoarse voice. “Thank you for telling me.”
    He gave her knee a couple of quick pats and moved his tissue box closer to her. “This also means your uncle can’t be faulted in Tom King’s death. Paula King’s negligence lawsuit now has no basis.”
    “What about the media? Will they be told? If the newspapers say it was murder, Uncle Bill’s customers will stop blaming him and calling to cancel trips.” Her ballooning excitement made Mandy jump out of her chair. “I need to tell him right away.”
    “Hold on.” Quintana put a hand up. “We need to talk about this. You can tell your uncle that King was poisoned, but not what substance was used. We’re doing the same in our press release.”
    “No problem.”
    “You can also tell him that in light of this new information, we’ll need to re-interview him and all his staff who were involved with that trip.”
    Mandy plopped back down in her chair. “You don’t think any of them killed Tom King, do you?”
    “Right now everyone on that trip has to be treated as a suspect, plus anyone else King had contact with that morning. But our immediate need for information is on the timing of the appearance of King’s symptoms. If we can map the progression of the poisoning, we may be able to come up with an educated guess as to when he ingested the aconite.”
    “How long does it take for aconite to kill someone?”
    “The Pueblo coroner is consulting some poison experts, but his best guess is anywhere from thirty minutes to a few hours.”
    “Were the symptoms I saw—the unconsciousness, gray skin, and weak pulse—consistent with the poisoning?”
    “The poison was attacking King’s heart by the time you got to him, and he was going into ventricular fibrillation.”
    “And the weak paddling strokes, sweating, and thirst that Gonzo saw?”
    Quintana consulted the toxicology report. “Muscular weakness and excessive sweating are listed as symptoms. And a tingling in the mouth when it’s ingested that the subject can confuse with thirst.”
    “What about the wooziness?”
    “The way Gonzo expressed it was that King was having a hard time processing what Gonzo said to him. That’s consistent with the symptom of impaired hearing. The man could also have been confused by what was happening to his body.”
    Mandy imagined what her own confusion and terror would be if her body was falling apart on her and she had no idea why. She shuddered. “What a horrible experience to go through.”
    “Not a pleasant way to die, I imagine. But most ways aren’t.”
    And who would want to do that to Tom King? “So your only interest, then, in talking to Uncle Bill and the guides is to get information on symptoms and who had access to Tom King?”
    “No. As I said, right now everyone who got near King that morning is a suspect.”
    “But Uncle Bill and the guides would have no reason to kill him. They barely knew the man! You should be talking to his bitchy wife instead. She’s got to be your prime suspect.”
    With a cock of his head, Quintana asked, “Why’s that?”
    “Because Tom King was cheating on her.” Mandy related Cynthia’s story of Paula tossing King’s things out on the lawn.
    Quintana