Unhappy Birthday

As Lieutenant Smith blew out the candles on his birthday cake, his coworkers cheered. He wasn’t expecting anyone to remember his birthday, let alone celebrate it with cake and presents. He grinned as he cut into the cake.

“What are y'all trying to do to me? I just lost this,” he joked, patting his stomach.His colleagues chuckled. “Seriously though, thank you, guys. I wasn’t expecting this at all.”

He took his first bite of chocolate cake and smiled, signaling the others to start on their own pieces.

Rachel flopped onto her couch. Lieutenant Smith, or “B” as everyone called him, had had a great time. She let out a contented sigh, all the planning she and Captain Andrews had gone through, all the little white lies they’d had to tell him to keep the party a secret, had paid off. As she kicked off her shoes, wondering where her roommate was, her phone rang. It was Captain Andrews. He’s probably just calling to recap the party, she thought.

“Jay? What’s up?”

“Rachel?” he sounded frantic.

“What? What is it?”

“Meet me at the hospital downtown as soon as you can.”

“Why? What happened?”

“It’s B.”

“Oh my gosh! What’s wrong? Is he okay?”

“I don’t know. Just please come to the hospital.”

“Alright. I’m leaving now.”

“Thanks.”

Rachel hung up and sped to the hospital. She ran into the waiting room of the ER, where she found Captain Andrews pacing back and forth.

“Where is he? Is he okay? What happened?” she asked, panicking.

“They just got him a room. I had him stay after to talk about a case. He was perfectly fine and then he said he wasn’t feeling well. Then he just keeled over. I called an ambulance. I rode with them, so I’m also going to need you to take me back to the station.”

“Oh my goodness. Of course. Have you seen the doctor yet?”

“No. The nurse said he would talk to us as soon as they got the results of the tests.”

They waited for a few minutes until the doctor came up to them.

“You called the ambulance for Lieutenant Smith?” he asked, looking over the rims of his glasses at Captain Andrews.

“Yes. How is he?”

“Who is she?” the doctor directed his demeaning look towards Rachel.

“I asked her to come. She works with us.”

“Alright. Lieutenant Smith is stable. He seems to have received a lethal dose of ricin. Thankfully, it’s a slow acting poison, so we are giving him the antidote as we speak.”

“Ricin?!” Rachel and Capt. Andrews exclaimed in unison.

“Yes. What was the last thing he ate?”

“Cake.” the captain said, looking concernedly at Rachel.

She gasped.

“Now, the Lt. will be fine. We are going to keep him overnight, just to make sure. In the meantime, you two are detectives I assume. You might want to figure out who was trying to poison your friend.” The doctor left them.

“I guess it’s back to the station, then?” Rachel suggested.

“I guess so.”

They drove back in silence. Although they saw it often in their line of work, it still amazed them both. It was hard to fathom why anyone would try to kill their friend. They checked in and walked up to the homicide division, where the party had taken place.

“I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night,” the captain observed, sitting down.

Rachel nodded and sighed. “Well I guess we better get solving. Coffee?”

“Sure. I just can’t think of who would do this.”

“We should focus on the source of the poison first. That will lead us to the killer. We can’t know who if we don’t know what.”

“Good point. Okay. We know it’s not the cake, because we ate it and we’re fine.”

“Did he eat or drink anything after the party?”

“Coffee!”

Rachel dropped the pot, shattering it and spilling coffee everywhere.

“Wait. No, he didn’t actually drink any. It’s still sitting in the cup on my desk.”

Rachel sighed with relief and found a rag. “I’ll get a new pot in the morning,” she said, cleaning it up.

“No, that’s my bad, I’ll pay for it.”

“We’ll split the cost.”

“Ok. So it wasn’t anything he ate or drank. It must have been something he touched.”

“We should probably wear gloves, then.”

“There are some rubber ones in the drawer there.”

“So what did he touch, from the time of the party till the time he started feeling sick,” Rachel asked as they donned their gloves.

“Uh, let’s see there was the knife we used for the cake.”

“No good. Everyone touched that.”

“There was his fork?”

“I handed it to him, plus it was in a box with a whole bunch of other forks and there was no sign anyone had tampered with it. What about his presents?”

“No, I had them in my apartment, remember. I had to touch them to bring them here.”

“What about the actual things themselves? Someone could have worn gloves.”

“No, Sergeant Gray took them out to B’s car afterwards. Besides that would suggest an inside job,” he paused, “You don’t think it could be someone on the force, do you?”

“I don’t know that there’s any other explanation. I mean he must have come into contact with the poison here. Who else could have done it if not one of the people in this division?”

“I guess you’re right. But who?”

“What else did he touch?”

“He touched his coffee mug.”

“And no one else touched it?”

“No. Let’s get forensics on that. I’ll call them right now.”

Forensics had tested the mug for ricin and found none.

“Back to square one, I guess,” the captain sighed, dropping the report onto his desk.

“Not square one. At least we know what it isn’t. Can you think of anything else?”

“No, I mean he touched the case file, but I did too.”

“Are you sure he didn’t touch something in the report that you didn’t? It’s starting to look like our only other option.”

“Maybe. We could get forensics on that too. But there’s just one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Why would someone poison the file? No one knew B would be handling it.”

“If it was the file, maybe it’s time to consider another option. One we haven’t thought about.”

“And that would be…?”

“That the poison wasn’t meant for B, it was meant for you.”

The captain’s eyes widened. “For me? Who on the force would do that?”

“I’m not saying it’s for certain, but while forensics is testing the file, you should probably think about who here might have it in for you.”

Again, forensics ran the report. This time it came up positive.

“Have you thought about anyone who might have done it yet?”

“Well, there’s Detective Sanchez. She and I but heads a lot, but I don’t think she would try to kill me. Then there’s Officer Roberts. He doesn’t seem to like me very much.”

“Roberts doesn’t like anybody. He’s a jerk, but not a killer.”

“There’s Lieutenant Donahue. He just got transferred from LA. I don’t know him very well, but his background check was great. The LA commissioner had nothing but compliments for him.”

“You’ve only named people who work for you. What about any of your higher ups?”

“Well, the only one I can think of would be Commander Johnson. She’s been really edgy around me lately.”

“And she would have had access to the file.”

“But why her?”

“I don’t know. Are you in line for a promotion or something?”

“Yes, but I’ve been in line for a promotion for three years and nothing’s happened. Why now?”

“Say for argument’s sake that you’re going to be promoted in the near future. What would happen to her?”

“She would just have to work with me.”

“She wouldn’t lose her job or anything, right?”

“Not unless she wasn’t pulling her weight. I know there are a limited number of commander positions, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she would be affected. Even if it did affect her, she might be promoted too.”

“She’s the only other one you can think of?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, maybe she heard from someone that you would be getting promoted soon and that she was going to lose her job. She decided to poison you so she could keep it.”

“That seems like a stretch.”

“It’s the only explanation I can think of right now.”