He had an appointment with forensic pathologist Dr. David King, the one who had performed the postmortem on Parvesh Dhillon. They now had proof that Ranjit had been killed by strychnine. But proving Parvesh had met the same fate was a much greater challenge. King, when consulted on reopening the investigation into her death, had an idea. Parvesh had been dead 19 months now, but he had filed away a box of Parvesh’s tissue samples sealed in wax in the storage room. Minute quantities of poison in her system could have already disappeared with time, or been eliminated when the samples were sliced and packed in wax at the autopsy. But it was worth a shot. He walked to the storage room, just around the corner from his office in the forensic pathology department, the smell of formaldehyde present as always. He had a staffer take photos of him at every step. The box was still there. Inside were 32 square blue-gray plastic cartridges, each about the size of a watch face, each containing a tiny piece of Parvesh’s organ tissue sealed in wax.
