The Prodigal Son. Colleen McCullough

he opened one clear eye. “Nope. Alex is teething and Julian is like his daddy—a very light sleeper.”

      “You would have them so close together.”

      “Don’t look at me. It was Desdemona’s idea.” Carmine swung his feet off the kitchen table he used as a desk and opened both eyes. “Why are you slumming, Patsy?”

      “Have you heard of tetrodotoxin?”

      “Vaguely. It’s been suggested in a sensational Australian case some years ago—the symptoms fit, but they couldn’t isolate a poison of any kind. The Japanese flirt with it, I found out during my years in the occupation forces as a Tokyo M.P. Blowfish, blue-ringed octopus and some other marine nasties. According to my sources, it’s fully metabolized and out of the system before autopsy can detect it,” Carmine said.

      Patrick blinked. “You perpetually amaze me, cuz. I presume it has to be logged in a poisons register if it’s anywhere near the general public, but what happens if it’s nowhere around the general public, yet goes missing?”

      “That depends on whether you’re ethical, or the type who covers his ass. Ethical, and you report its loss to someone. If inclined to cover your own ass, you write ‘accidentally destroyed’ or ‘out of date and discarded as per regulations’ in a register. But I presume this victim is ethical, right?”

      “Right. My problem daughter, Millie. She’s been working with the stuff, had enough left over to kill ten heavyweight boxers, divided into six glass ampoules of a hundred milligrams each—yes, yes, I’ll slow down! She put the six ampoules into a beaker, stuck the skull-and-crossbones on it, then shoved it in the back of her lab refrigerator.” Patrick frowned. “She didn’t tell anyone it was gone until she came to see me. I advised her to remain silent, to tell no one further.”

      “Who else knew it was there?”

      “Only Jim. She told him, in passing. Not his field.”

      “Was it labeled, apart from the poison sticker?”

      “She didn’t say. But while she may be too honest to forge an entry in her register, she is highly organized, Carmine. It would have been coded rather than named. Anyone poking through her refrigerator wouldn’t have known what he was looking at,” Patrick said. “My girl’s worst fault is that she’s too trusting. An untidy worker she’s not. The trust baffles me, I confess. How can you trust a world that shits on you the way Millie’s world shits on her?”

      “It’s her nature,” Carmine said gently. “Millie is an honest-to-goodness saint.” He caught sight of the railroad clock on his wall. “Lunch at Malvolio’s?”

      “Sounds good to me.”

      As soon as Merele cleared the dishes away Carmine returned to his cousin’s problem.

      “You’d better look up tetrodotoxin’s clinical symptoms,” he said. “If anyone took it with nefarious intentions, a gurney holding a victim is going to roll through your morgue doors, and the faster you can screen for tetrodotoxin, the better your chances of finding it. In fact, why don’t you tell Paul you’re running a little unofficial test to keep your technicians on their toes? Tell him they’re to look for abstruse neurotoxins like tetrodotoxin. It won’t fool Paul, but your technicians are used to your—er—unofficial exams. Let Paul in on it, he’s no gossip, Patsy.”

      “Well, I have to keep my technicians on their toes now my lab is the major one in the state. I’ll look, Carmine—and look hard.” His face puckered; he fought for control and found it. “This isn’t fair! Millie doesn’t need extra grief.”

      “She did exactly the right thing in reporting her loss,” Carmine said, voice level. “Had she concealed the theft, you might easily have missed a tetrodotoxin death at P.M. If the thief’s motive was nefarious, he was looking for a rare and undetectable poison. And that means he’s knowledgeable. A biochemist or biologist, or maybe a doctor.” Carmine frowned, toyed with his spoon. “Given Jim’s relationship to Millie, he’s out of the picture, and that means someone else knew about the tetrodotoxin.”

      Patrick shivered. “Carmine, don’t! You’re talking as if the thief really does have murder in mind. I mean, this is all pure hypothesis! A bottle washer does her glassware once a week, there are electricians and plumbers—Millie doesn’t work in a vacuum.”

      “Calm down, cuz, of course it’s hypothesis. We’ll cross the bridges as we come to them, but it never hurts to be fully prepared. I can already note that Dr. Millicent Hunter informed the Medical Examiner and the police that she found six hundred milligrams of tetrodotoxin missing from her laboratory refrigerator—what else could she have done? The substance wasn’t named, though it bore a generic poisons sticker—that really is suspicious, Patsy. She’s sure nothing else went missing—hang on.” Carmine slid out of the booth. “I’ll be back in a minute—and lunch is on me.”

      Patrick watched his cousin say something to Luigi, who pushed a phone across the counter. Carmine made a couple of calls, the second one the longer of the two, then returned.

      “Nothing else is missing, even sterile water. The substance in question was coded—no indication of its real identity.”

      “So she can’t be blamed? Ought it to have been locked up?”

      “Given that she locked her lab door even if she was only going to the bathroom, Judge Thwaites would probably rule that the circumstances of Millie’s research routine made locking it up unnecessary, given its anonymity. A white powder in a glass ampoule—it could be anything from cocaine to flour. Honest, Patsy, Millie’s okay.”

      Carmine gave his cousin a look that held as much love as exasperation; one’s children caused torments and apprehensions just not possible in any lesser beings. Patrick was caught in the web of his fear for this most worrisome daughter.

      “You know, I don’t label my stuff poison,” Patrick said.

      “You don’t have to. Your lab is off limits to those who don’t have clearance, especially now there’s a viewing room two floors up for identification,” Carmine said comfortably. “All it took was the installation of an elevator shaft between your floor and ours.”

      “I keep all the known poisons in a safe, of course,” Patrick went on, grappling the problem like a dog an old and meatless bone. “Trouble is, there are so many toxic ways to die, from Drano to household bleach. It used to be much easier when people just used rat or wasp poison—Carmine, don’t let life hurt my Millie yet again!”

      “I’ll give it my best shot, I promise. How long have they been together now?”

      “Eighteen years last September. They’re thirty-two.”

      “What drew them together, Patsy?”

      “I asked Millie that a long time ago, before they went to Columbia. All she said was that their eyes met.”

      “Doesn’t happen that way for many.”

      “Never did for me.” Patrick sounded desolate.

      “Nor me, though I did love the color of Desdemona’s eyes. Like pack ice, that eerie blue.”

      “I deemed them cold. That was why I disliked her.”

      “We do go on the eyes, Patsy, no argument there.”

      Patrick put his hand over Carmine’s on the table. “But not for a long time now, cuz. She’s a great woman, your wife.”

      Carmine changed the subject. “M.M. whispered to me that the Chubb University Press expects Jim Hunter’s new book to be a popular bestseller. It’s about the hand of God in our design for life—I didn’t really get it, but M.M. says that anyone who reads the book will. He read it in manuscript and he’s wild about it. Lucky for Jim that Don Carter lasted as Head Scholar of C.U.P. through to the end of the publication process. Tom Tinkerman, the new Head Scholar, is not a Jim Hunter fan—too Christian in the orthodox sense, brands