The Collector of Dying Breaths Read Online Free PDF Page B

he’d witnessed had worn him down. More than once Jac had wondered if, when he was with his wife and family, the expression in his face lightened and his shoulders lifted. She hoped so.
    It occurred to her now that her own expression was dark too. Since Robbie’s death, whenever she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she didn’t quite recognize the lost soul who glanced back.
    Jac poured coffee into two white porcelain espresso cups and brought them over to where Marcher was sitting.
    He sipped the coffee. Smiled at her. “This is excellent. Thank you.”
    She nodded. To her it was hot and distracting, and that was enough for now. Both her sense of smell and taste seemed dulled since Robbie had died. Grief had numbed her.
    “Would you mind turning that on?” He pointed to Robbie’s stereo system.
    Jac was startled by the request but turned it on. Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony filled the air. The last time she’d heard it was when they’d been here working on a new fragrance. This was the music her brother had chosen. How many of these last time moments would she have to endure?
    “Based on the rapid onset of organ failure and how healthy your brother was prior to the attack, they still suspect poison.”
    “But the doctors tested his blood for poisons when he was in the hospital and didn’t find anything.”
    “And they still haven’t.”
    “So how is that possible?”
    “Certain poisons clear the system after a particular amount of time. The complication here is that even so, there’s no known poison that presents in the manner of Robbie’s reaction.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I know uncertainty isn’t helpful. The bottom line is they don’t know the root cause yet, but poison remains the most logical answer. Especially because, being a perfumer, your brother was always working with foreign substances and could have easily inhaled or ingested something that he reacted to this way.”
    “An accidental death then?” she asked.
    “No, Jac, not necessarily accidental. Someone might have come to see him and asked him to smell some new fragrance, sold him something tainted. Perhaps switched one of his ingredients with an exotic substance.”
    Marcher gestured to the eighteenth-century perfumer’s organ that took up a full quarter of the room. Where every nose in the L’Etoile family had composed fragrances, drop by drop. Lined up on three tiers were more than five hundred bottles filled with essences and absolutes of flowers, plants, spices, woods and chemicals.
    “With your permission, we need the lab to come in and take samples of all these ingredients.”
    “Of course.”
    “If it’s not a substance typically used in perfume making and we can’t prove that your brother purchased it, that will suggest foul play. And in the meantime, I don’t want you using any of these ingredients.”
    She told Marcher she had mixed up a fragrance just before Robbie died. And she was fine.
    “All right, but don’t mix up any more until the lab runs their tests. Okay?”
    Jac nodded.
    Marcher drank more of his coffee. The antique cup’s gold rim glinted in the light. Limoges from the late eighteenth century was very valuable. Once she’d asked Robbie if they should be using it as everyday china.
    “Never put treasures away in a cabinet,” he’d said. “You need to surround yourself with beauty, be aware of it and enjoy it—allow your soul to feed on it—gorge on it.”
    “So the case isn’t closed.” Jac had expected this visit to be the detective’s last.
    “No, not closed, not at all,” Marcher said and placed the tiny cup in the saucer.
    “Would you like more?” Jac asked.
    “Yes, perhaps I would.”
    She brought the French press over to where he was sitting and poured more of the fragrant brew.
    “These findings have me most concerned,” he said as he watched her, “because if it was poison, then your brother’s death mimics the pseudo journalist François