“I considered watching the solar eclipse but I didn’t have the right glasses and I’ve been told that there are more enjoyable ways to go blind.”

--Dying To Laugh

In the early morning, less than forty-eight hours after the police came to my house to take Cat away, less than forty-seven hours since Anatoly had taken me in his arms, kissed me passionately and tended to my rapidly forming black-eye, less than forty-four hours since I had called Dena to tell her the whole story, and less than twenty-six hours since I had called Mary Ann to ask her where I had gone wrong with the cupcakes, I sat with Charity in my car across from Nolan-Volz. I had stopped her from going inside and asked her to sit with me for a few minutes while I caught her up on a few things. Now, on her lap, was a newspaper. She read the article detailing Cat’s arrest. She looked up at me, and then read the words again. “I can’t…I can’t believe this.”

“London had been taking Gaba,” I explained to Charity. I watched her through my dark sunglasses (which were necessary to hide my black eye). “The particular Gaba pills he was taking came in big, clear capsules. So Cat just ordered up a bunch of clear capsules and filled them up with all the drugs in the medicine cabinet. The Abilify that London used to take before the Gaba and then all of Anne’s old pills. Her allergy pills and...other stuff. Apparently there were a lot of pills. When filling up capsules proved to be too time consuming she just sprinkled the pills into the sugar he sweetened his coffee and oatmeal with, mixed it into baked goods she made for him and so on thereby making sure he was getting drugged all the time. She replaced Anne’s pills with over the counter stuff that looked similar enough. It’s not like London was checking on it. Of course, after London died Cat cleared out the medicine cabinet, otherwise it might have been discovered that the drugs were all mixed up and not what they were labeled.”

“Why?” Charity whispered. “Was she really trying to kill her own father?”

“Maybe?” I ran my fingers over the steering wheel as I watched the doors of Nolan-Volz. “Aaron London had rejected both her and her mom for this other woman and when the other woman was out of the picture, he rejected them again in an even more humiliating way. It’s possible she thought that if her dad got sick, he’d turn to her mom. Then she’d stop poisoning him, he’d get better and credit…well, her mom.”

“Seriously?” Charity asked.

I shrugged. “Maybe not. Maybe she was trying to kill him. What Cat’s saying is that she was just worried about her dad. She knew he had ditched his prescription for holistic medicine and she was trying to trick him into taking the pills he needed. But I’m pretty sure that’s bullshit.”

“But…to mix a whole bunch of pills together…some of them weren’t even his…you know what that could do to a person?”

“Drive them crazy? Cause hair loss? Congestive heart failure? Yeah, I know. And by stalking him in Zipcars…she was full on gas-lighting him. The thing is, London was already kind of losing it due to the loss of his girlfriend and his decision to go off his meds. So people just saw his descent into madness as the natural progression of things. They didn’t suspect.”

“Wow. Just…wow.” She finally looked up from the paper and patted her perfect curls. “And you figured all this out because I told you he was married to Anne?”

“That and some other things. I had actually thought Anita was the killer but I didn’t take into account that Cat had access to all the things that would have enabled Anita to stalk and kill London.” I glanced out my window just in time to see Gun walk into Nolan-Volz. Perfect. Charity hadn’t noticed so I simply looked away and gave my full attention to her. “Anita brought her work home with her, so Cat used the tiny little GPS devices to place on London’s car. They’re so small if you put them on the underside of a vehicle they’re practically invisible. I got the one she planted on my car removed yesterday and the mechanic told me that if I hadn’t been able to tell him exactly what to look for he never would have found it.”

“Wow. That’s so Mission Impossible.”

I laughed. “Yeah, kind of. She was also using her mom’s Zipcar account although she wasn’t an authorized user. But I guess if you’re planning homicides, abiding by the user agreement for Zipcar isn’t really your number one concern.”

“Wow,” Charity whispered for about the eleventh time. “Well…thank you for sharing this?” she said uncertainly. “I can’t believe someone I knew was murdered. He was a dick but…wow.” She handed me back the newspaper. “I’ll tell Gundrun. I really have to get into work now—“

I put my hand on her arm. “Don’t go into work today.”

She looked at me askance. “I can’t just play hooky. Gun will be in there any minute now--

“He walked in two minutes ago,” I said, quietly. “I saw him.”

“What?” She exclaimed and then immediately reached for the handle of her door. “Oh God, he’s going to be pissed.” 

But I kept my hand on her arm, holding her firmly. “Charity one of the drugs that Cat poisoned her dad with was Sobexsol.”

“What?” she turned back to me. “But…she couldn’t have. She doesn’t have access.”

“She shouldn’t have had access. But London apparently had lots and lots of it in his medicine cabinet.”

“He stole drugs from the lab!” She sounded almost awed now. “Do you have any idea how illegal that is? Oh my God, when Gun finds out…”

“Gun knew,” I said quietly.

“What?” 

“Cat told the police that she overheard her dad on the phone with Gun, talking about how after three years on Sobexsol Anne started having suicidal thoughts, intense anxiety and whatnot.”

“But the clinical trials started less than one year ago.”

“Exactly,” I said with a sigh. “She was taking the drugs before it was even supposed to be tested on humans. You’re the one who told me Gun and London used to be friends years ago. The police think Gun let London give the drugs to Anne as a favor, and maybe to help get early data that would help them further develop and perfect the drug. The FDA was dragging its feet on its approval.”

Charity just stared at me, then shook her head. “You’re taking the word of a murderous child.”

“Yeah, I am,” I admitted. “And under normal circumstances, I’d say that was ill advised. But why would she lie about this? Cat didn’t think there was anything wrong with Anne being on a clinical trial. She didn’t know Anne wasn’t allowed to have those drugs. And the thing is…I think the long-term side effects of Sobexsol are…problematic. I think it may cause some level of psychosis…or at the very least severe depression. Those people who are taking the drug now in the approved trials? They could be in trouble. Gun should be stopping the study. But instead he sold the company. He’s planning on taking his share of the profits from the sale and getting out before things go down hill.”

Charity blinked and then looked down at the paper again. “And the cops…you said the cops believe this too?”

“Well, not exactly the cops. The Feds.”

“The Feds!”

Charity looked across the street at the Nolan-Volz office. “This is too crazy for me.”

“Me too,” I admitted. “At first I thought that London’s murder might be part of some grand conspiracy but there was no conspiracy. Just an accumulation of lies and misdeeds by a bunch of different actors that unwittingly came together to form a big, giant mess. Maybe that’s what most conspiracies are, you know?”

 Charity gave me a weird look. “I have no clue what you’re talking about. And honestly, I’m not sure I want to know all this. I just want to keep my head down and got to work.”

“Charity, I like you,” I said, sincerely. “Marcus likes you too. And you really helped me out whether you knew it or not. That’s why I’m trying to help you out by telling you not to go into work today.”

“Because why?” she asked, exasperated. 

“Because that.” I pointed out the window just three, no five, no eight, black sedans pulled up in front of Nolan-Volz along with four black vans. Men wearing jackets that said, FBI started pouring out of them and going into the building.

“The place where you work is being raided by the FBI. It’s a good day to call in sick.”