Free The Nicholas Linnear Novels by Eric Van Lustbader

him.
    “This steel,” he said carefully, “was manufactured from a particular type of magnetic iron and ferruginous sand. There are perhaps twenty separate layers. The size of the fragment makes it difficult to tell. I’m going by past experience.”
    Vincent, whose eyes had never left Nicholas’, took a deep breath, said, “It wasn’t made in this country.”
    “No,” Nicholas agreed. “It was manufactured in Japan.”
    “Do you know what this means?” Vincent said. He sat back, including Doc Deerforth in the discussion.
    “What can be inferred from that alone?” Nicholas asked.
    Vincent took a folder off the tabletop, handed it to Nicholas. “Take a look at page three.”
    Nicholas opened the folder, leafed through the pages. His eyes dropped down the typewritten sheet. He sat perfectly still but, abruptly, he could feel the rushing of his blood through his veins. His heart raced. He was nearing that far shore. He looked up. “Who did the chemical analysis?”
    “I did,” Doc Deerforth said. “There’s no error. I was stationed in the Philippines during the war. I’ve come across this particular substance once before.”
    “Do you know what this is?” Nicholas asked him.
    “I can make a pretty good guess. It’s a nonsynthetic poison that affects the cardiovascular system.”
    “It’s doku ,” Nicholas said, “an enormously powerful poison distilled from the pistils of the chrysanthemum. The technique of its manufacture is virtually unknown outside of Japan and even among the Japanese very few know how to make it. Its origins, it is said, lie in China.”
    “Then we know how the poison was administered,” Vincent said.
    “What do you mean?” Doc Deerforth broke in.
    “He means,” Nicholas said heavily, “that the man was killed by a shaken— a Japanese throwing star—part of a skuriken , a small-blade arsenal—dipped in doku .”
    “Which means we also know who killed him,” Vincent said.
    Nicholas nodded. “That’s right. Only one kind of man could. A ninja.”
    For reasons of security, Doc Deerforth hustled them out of the building. They were careful to take with them all the pertinent readouts and evidence.
    Since none of them had bothered with breakfast, they stopped on the way back to West Bay Bridge, pulling into a diner right off Montauk Highway that offered authentic Portuguese food.
    Over strong black coffee, broiled sardines and clams in a rich steaming winy broth, they sat and watched the cars silently pass on the highway. No one seemed to want to begin. But someone had to and Vincent said, “Who’s the new lady, Nick?”
    “Hmm?” Nicholas turned from the window and smiled. “Her name’s Justine Tobin. She lives right down the beach from me.”
    “On Dune Road?” Doc Deerforth said and when Nicholas nodded, he added, “I know her. Beautiful girl. Only her name’s Tomkin.”
    “Sorry, Doc,” Nicholas said. “You must be mistaken. This Justine’s named Tobin.”
    “Dark hair, green eyes, one with red motes in it, about five-seven—”
    “That’s her.”
    Doc Deerforth nodded. “Name’s Justine Tomkin, Nick. At least, that’s how she was born. You know, Tomkin, as in Tomkin Oil.”
    “ That one?”
    “Yep. Her daddy.”
    Everyone knew about Raphael Tomkin. Oil was but one of his many multinational moneymakers but by all accounts the most lucrative. He was worth—where had he read it? In Newsweek, perhaps—somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred million dollars, the last time anybody had bothered to count; at that rarefied level, there did not seem to be much of a reason to do so.
    “She doesn’t like him much,” Nicholas said.
    Doc Deerforth laughed. “Yah. You could say that. She obviously doesn’t want any part of him.”
    Nicholas recalled Justine’s words, He’s as dead as he could possibly be. Now he began to understand the irony of that remark. Still, he was annoyed at finding out this way.
    “Now what can you tell me about the