Page 35 of Death at a Scottish Halloween

We’d stopped by and picked up the keys we’d found earlier.

“Everyone mask up,” Ewan ordered. “We found a poison in his system. We don’t know how it was released into the body. We need to handle everything with care.”

He was right, and good on him for thinking of it. I’d already suited up back at my house. I’d learned a great deal about transfer DNA in the ME courses I’d been taking. I was officially certified now, but like Abigail, I was always taking some sort of class to further my knowledge in forensics.

We were both fascinated by the information, and it came in more than handy with our work.

Ewan used the key to open the trunk and then the doors. It was old enough that it didn’t have automatic windows or locks.

“Do you think we have enough evidence bags?” It was like a hoarder’s car, though everything had been stacked like a game of Tetris. And it was clean.

“He’s been on quite the journey,” I said. “But why risk leaving all his stuff where someone could break into it?”

“Not much traffic out this way,” Ewan said.

“The only reason Jack saw it was because one of his lambs was lost,” Henry said. “They’ve been looking all over it for it.People sometimes park out here to—” he glanced at me and then ducked his head.

“It’s some kind of make-out place? It’s a field, not very romantic.”

Ewan laughed. “But well-hidden by the line of trees on each side.”

I glanced at the trunk and then the inside of the car. “I need to go through everything and test it all. I worry about your people accidentally touching or inhaling the poison.”

“I can help with that,” Henry said. “We have several of those strips you ordered. We can swab and test.”

With the contents of the car, that could take days.

“All of it?” Ewan said.

“Yes.” I peeked into the front seat. Then I felt under the floorboard. I don’t know why. It seemed the thing to do. My hand hit a bottle, and I pulled it out. The bottle was empty.

“I don’t remember seeing alcohol on the list,” Ewan said. I hadn’t realized he was still beside me.

“The wife said he didn’t drink anymore. That he’d given it up.” I tapped a gloved hand on the bottle.

“What are you thinking?”

“The way his body had seized up like a stroke. If he hadn’t drunk much in the last few years and then drank a lot … It might have adversely affected him. There’s a syndrome where it can affect the brain.”

“But there wasn’t alcohol in his system,” Ewan said.

“Right, it could have happened a few days ago, and he began to feel worse as time went on. He may have even acted drunk without an ounce of alcohol in him.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” he said.

“I’ve run across it a few times with addicts, mostly. Like I said, it isn’t common, but it does happen when people relapse. Their bodies just can’t cope with the sudden onslaught of what it deems as poison. That mixed with the actual poison could—”

“Kill him,” he said.

“Yes.”

“OK, so we’ve found part of the problem?” he asked.

“Possibly. I’ll need to run a few more tests. But this makes sense. If his body was already under duress, the trace amount of hemlock could have wreaked havoc on him.”

“Any chance you could test all of this at the station? Chain of evidence and all that. We have more storage space, as well.”

True. All of our storage was filled with medical supplies. We tripled up in the fall in preparation for winter when sometimes the roads were unpassable.