The Same Compound
Chapter 03 - The Same Compound
The rush toxicology results came back at 2 AM.
Georgetown University Hospital's forensic lab didn't normally process wedding reception evidence at two in the morning, but Detective Katz had called in a favor from a lab director she'd worked with for a decade, and the director had called in her own favor from a night-shift chemist who owed her one after a case involving her ex-husband's dog.
The chemist's name was Priya Nair. She called Katz directly.
"Detective, you're going to want to sit down for this."
"I'm sitting."
"The champagne in the ribboned glass contains a compound called colchicine. It's derived from autumn crocus — legitimately used in low doses to treat gout, but in higher concentrations, it's essentially untraceable poison. Symptoms mimic gastroenteritis or cardiac distress. Most general autopsies miss it entirely because nobody thinks to test for it unless they're specifically looking."
"How would someone even get access to that?"
"Prescription. Or a compounding pharmacy willing to look the other way for the right price. The dose in this glass was significant. If your groom had drunk that toast, we're talking cardiac arrest within four to six hours. Slow enough that by the time symptoms appeared, everyone would assume he'd had too much to drink or was having a heart attack from excitement."
Katz felt something cold settle in her stomach.
"Priya, I need you to run something else for me. Cross-reference this compound against any flagged cases in the state database from the last three years."
"Give me twenty minutes."
---
Priya called back in seventeen.
"Detective, there's a match. Not an exact case — the file's closed, ruled accidental — but the toxicology supplement lists trace colchicine found in blood work from an autopsy eighteen months ago. County of Fairfax. The case was closed as a single-vehicle traffic fatality. Alcohol was cited as a contributing factor."
"Whose autopsy?"
"Name on the file is Claire Hawthorne."
Katz closed her eyes.
Claire Hawthorne. Sophie's mother. Margaret Winslow's daughter. The woman whose blood alcohol level had never made sense to anyone who actually knew her drinking habits.
"Priya, why would colchicine show up in a car accident toxicology report if nobody was specifically testing for it?"
"Because it's not a standard screen. Whoever ran Claire Hawthorne's original tox panel was thorough — probably because the M.E. on duty that night had training in toxicology beyond the basic screen, which most counties don't budget for. They found trace colchicine, noted it as an incidental finding, and moved on because the primary cause of death — blunt force trauma from the collision — didn't require further investigation once alcohol was confirmed as a contributing factor."
"So colchicine was in her system. Enough to impair her. Enough that combined with even a small amount of alcohol, she could have lost consciousness or coordination behind the wheel."
"That's consistent with the dosage and symptom profile, yes."
Katz sat back in her chair at the makeshift command post the department had set up in the Hollowbrook Estate's business center.
"Priya, I need that file pulled first thing tomorrow morning. Full re-autopsy request. And I need every pharmacy within fifty miles that dispenses colchicine to run their records against the name Victoria Sterling."
"You think she did this twice?"
"I think she perfected a method eighteen months ago and used it again tonight. And I think if Sophie Hawthorne hadn't broken that glass, we'd be doing this exact conversation again in four to six hours, except this time we'd be calling it Daniel Hawthorne's funeral instead of his wedding."
---
Victoria Sterling was formally arrested at 3:15 AM.
She'd spent the hours since the reception's collapse sitting in a holding room at the estate under the supervision of two uniformed officers, refusing to speak without an attorney, her wedding dress still on, the veil discarded somewhere on the floor of the bridal suite where she'd retreated after the slap.
When Katz walked in to read her the formal charges — attempted murder, and now, pending the reopened investigation, potential charges related to Claire Hawthorne's death — Victoria's face did something Katz had seen before in career criminals but rarely in first-time suspects.
It went completely, professionally blank.
No tears. No protests. No demands to see Daniel. Just the flat, assessing stillness of someone recalculating an equation that had suddenly acquired new variables.
"I want my lawyer," Victoria said. "And I want it noted that I have said nothing else."
"Noted," Katz said. "For the record, Ms. Sterling, are you aware that colchicine traces were found in Claire Hawthorne's toxicology report from her fatal car accident eighteen months ago?"
Victoria's jaw tightened. That was all. A single muscle, betraying nothing and everything at once.
"I want my lawyer."
Katz stood.
"You'll get him. But I want you to know something before I leave this room, Ms. Sterling. That little girl you've been living with for two years, the one you thought was too young to notice anything — she's the reason we're having this conversation instead of planning a second funeral."
Victoria said nothing.
But her eyes moved, just once, toward the door, toward the direction of the reception tent where Sophie Hawthorne was still sitting in her grandmother's lap, and for a fraction of a second, something flickered across her face that wasn't fear of prison.
It was fury that she'd been outsmarted by a child.
May you like
---
Keep reading Part 4 — because Daniel Hawthorne doesn't sleep that night. He sits with his daughter until sunrise, and somewhere around 4 AM, Sophie tells him something she's never said out loud before — something about the night her mother died, something she saw from her bedroom window that nobody ever asked her about, because nobody thought to ask an eight-year-old what she remembered.
