Chapter 5 - Victoria's Fury and the Lover's Mistake
Victoria felt all the blood drain from her face.
Toxicology panel.
She remembered the tiny vials of digoxin. She remembered slipping the colorless, odorless liquid into Jonathan’s nighttime water glass for six straight months.
“No,” Victoria whispered, stepping back from the table. “No, I am not allowing an autopsy. He suffered enough. I want him to rest in peace.”
Arthur raised an eyebrow. “That is your right as his next of kin. But if you refuse the autopsy, you forfeit the $5,000 stipend. You walk away with absolutely nothing.”
“Fine!” Victoria snapped, her voice trembling slightly. “Keep your pennies! Come on, Raymond. We are leaving.”
She grabbed Raymond by the arm and dragged him out of the office, her high heels clicking frantically against the hardwood floor.
Once they were in the elevator, Raymond rounded on her. “Are you crazy?! We need that five grand! I owe my bookie twenty thousand dollars by Friday, Victoria!”
“Shut up, you idiot!” she hissed, slapping his chest. “If they cut him open, they’ll find the digoxin! They’ll know he was poisoned!”
Raymond’s eyes widened in panic. “Wait... you didn't tell me it would show up on a test! You said it mimics a natural heart attack!”
“It does! But not if they are actively looking for the chemical!” Victoria paced the small elevator like a caged animal. “We need a lawyer. We need to contest the will on grounds of mental incompetence. We can still win this.”
Later that evening, in a dingy motel room—since they could no longer afford the luxury suite they had booked for their celebration—Raymond made a fatal error.
Panicked about his debts and fueled by cheap whiskey, Raymond called a shady defense attorney he knew.
“Look, hypothetically,” Raymond slurred into the phone, “if someone died of a heart attack, but there was a specific drug in their system... how long does it take for a body to decompose enough so they can’t find it?”
The attorney on the other end paused. “Raymond, are you implicating yourself in a murder right now?”
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“No! No, just... hypothetically!”
He didn't realize that his phone was connected to the Bluetooth speaker in the room. He also didn't realize that Victoria, enraged by his stupidity, was standing right behind him with a heavy glass ashtray.
