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"Serendipity Don't you like the coffee? Is it too strong?"

"There is no such thing And it's fine"

"You're not drinking it"

"I'allons of coffee already today, it's been that kind of a day But I'uess I don't have too much confidence in it," she said "After all thosei more about Eddie? And as on his mind?"

"No," I said "But then I didn't really expect to"

"Oh"

"Because I already knew"

"I don't follow you"

"Don't you?" I got to my feet "I already kneas on Eddie's mind, and what happened to hi that her daughter was dead, that the knowledge had to have existed on some level I knew about Eddie on aabout, but I didn't want to know about it I tried to shut out the knowledge, and I went out there hoping I'd learn so about what?"

"Wrong about as eating at hiht it was autoerotic asphyxiation" She frowned "Or are you saying that it was actually suicide? That he really had the intention of killing himself?"

" 'Your mother is on the roof' " She looked at ently, Willa I knohat happened and I knohy You killed him"

"It was the chloral hydrate," I said "And the funny thing is it wouldn't have flagged anybody's attention but mine He only had a very sh to have any pronounced effect on hih to kill him

"But he was a sober alcoholic, and that meant he shouldn't have any chloral hydrate in him As far as Eddie was concerned, sobriety was unequivocal It s He'd tried dicking around with ra to help him sleep, not even one of those over-the-counter preparations, let alone a real drug like chloral hydrate If he couldn't sleep he'd have stayed awake Nobody ever died froet sober, and God knows I heard it enough myself 'Nobody ever died from lack of sleep' Sometimes I wanted to throw a chair at the person who said it, but it turned out they were right"

She was standing with her back to the refrigerator, one hand pressed palainst the white surface

"I'd wanted to find out if he died sober," I went on "It seemed important to me, maybe because it would have been his one victory in a life that had been nothing but a chain of small defeats And when I learned about the chloral I couldn't let go of it I went up to his apartave it a pretty decent search If he'd had any pills there, I think I would have found them Then I came downstairs and found a bottle of chloral hydrate in your oing nuts He wouldn't take a drink or a bottle of beer so I gave hiood, Willa I gave you a chance to tell me that after I searched his place"

"Well, you iving a sedative to an alcoholic was like giving apples with razor blades in them to Halloween trick-or-treaters I sort of hinted at it I said he ht have given him one"

"Coral hydrate"

She looked at me

"That's what you called it We had a conversation about it, and you were very good about getting the nah this were the first ti about it That was a nice touch, casual as could be, but the ti it all just a fewa bottle of liquid chloral in your o to sleep I didn't know the naht on the label"

"Maybe I never read it properly in the first place Maybe it never registered, ot a mind for that kind of detail"

"You? The woreen was? The woman ould kno to poison a municipal water system if the word came down from the party leadership?"

"Then ue"