A Bouquet Of Ashes, A Detective Sonia Gilman Mystery

The Detective stared off into the distance, eyes unfocused. 

Mentally however, she was as focused as a Sniper's scope. Several questions presented themselves as she methodically reviewed what she had learned about the events leading up to the discovery of the body of Mrs. Lynda Towne.

The most telling would be whether or not Mrs. Towne was indeed the woman that was captured on video leaving the B of A branch on the corner of Garnet and Bayard at 3:30 last Tuesday afternoon. If so, why was she wearing clothing that concealed her appearance? It was 98 degrees at that hour in P.B., and all of that clothing would be extremely uncomfortable.

There was also the issue of the safety deposit box. The annual fee for the the large metal drawer was paid by automatic withdrawal from an account at the bank - an account that was now empty save a token $25.00.

The woman who came into the bank claiming to be Mrs. Towne, and who presented what the bank clerk swore was valid ID, had the original key - the bank clerk swore it wasn't a duplicate. 

Mrs Towne had not been in that branch of B of A for almost eight years, and no one working that Tuesday had ever had any contact with her, save for the employee who had answered the phone when she called in that morning to inquire as to the possibility of accessing her safety deposit box.

When the warrant was finally approved and they were able to open Mrs. Towne's safety deposit box, all that was in the large metal drawer was a small coin purse with twenty-eight pennies in it. All of the pennies bore the date 1978, and all of them were well-worn. Were they left behind intentionally? Was it just an oversight?

Detective Sonia Gilman returned her attention to the notecards on her desk. The 5" X 7" cards all had three or four short sentences scribbled on them in a small though very legible script. As had been her habit since she first read the Confucian adage that the faintest ink is better than the strongest memory, Sonia wrote all of her observations down as soon as she could. It was a habit that allowed her to graduate top of her class in High School, College, and the Police Academy, and it was a habit that facilitated a quick ascension from evidence gathering scrub to full-fledged Detective.  

It was a habit that helped her solve problems. The problem in front of her today appeared fairly simple - a body was found in one of the many canyons that surrounded the enclave of La Jolla. The body had been identified as that of 73-year old Mrs. Lynda Towne, a woman who had not been seen by her neighbors in nearly eight years. Mrs. Towne was dressed for hiking, or some outdoor activity, and she was found only a few hours after the time of her death. 

At first her death had been attributed to heat stroke, a probable result of hiking on such a blisteringly hot day. However, after the Coroner had made a more thorough examination (at the insistence of Mrs. Towne's daughter, an attorney in Costa Mesa) two small puncture wounds were found in the back of her right thigh, directly above the femoral artery.

And the puncture wounds were clean, made with an extremely small and sharp pin. The tip of which had been dipped in Aconitum.

Murder by wolf's bane was almost a cliche - but not here in the dry, though irrigated desert that is Southern California. This was something new, something unexpected. This was a challenge, and it was a challenge Sonia Gilman relished, macabre as the motive may be.