Poison

by Galt Niederhoffer

  Cass holds him tighter. She walks briskly across the beach, calling the names of the older children, conveying from her gait and tone that there will be no negotiation. Soon she is walking, baby on hip, flanked by Pete and Alice, marching swiftly across the beach from the surf to the rambling stairs, up to the hotel lobby.

  “Mom, what’s wrong?” says Alice. The sun has turned her cheeks red, and her eyes are as blue as the water. She hoists her towel around her shoulders. “Mom, I was having fun. I don’t want to go now! Mom, what’s wrong?”

  Pete is far more stoic, trudging dutifully up the beach, accepting this impromptu exodus.

  “Nothing,” she says. “Keep walking.”

  Of course they know it is something. She will not share the reason for her alarm, but her urgency is apparent.

  “Then why did you make us leave?” says Pete.

  “Just do as I say. We need to move quickly.”

  In the lobby, she stations the kids at a table with a stack of jigsaw puzzles, instructs them to stay and play at this table, and to keep the baby distracted. With the kids in her sight, she walks to the front desk and sets her plan in motion.

  She approaches the hotel concierge, a young blonde too pretty to be indoors in such a tight-fitting jacket.

  “Good morning,” says Cass.

  “Morning,” she says. “How can I help you, Mrs. Connor?”

  “There’s been a change of plans,” says Cass. “Is there any way you can help me change my flights?”

  “My pleasure, Mrs. Connor. Do you have your flight information?”

  Cass locates her phone in her cluttered beach bag, sifting past sandy bottles and books to find the email with this information.

  “Is there an ideal departure date?”

  “Immediately,” says Cass.

  “Absolutely,” says the woman. She hides her surprise with a smile and quickly makes a phone call.

  “Thank you,” she says. Cass lowers her voice to a whisper. “My husband is trying to harm me.”

  The concierge regards Cass strangely, not with the shock she expects to summon with this comment but rather an utter lack of surprise, as though she has been prepped in advance for this very declaration. “He mentioned you’ve not been feeling well,” she says. “I’m really sorry to hear this. Would you like us to call a doctor? There’s a small clinic on the island. A handful of medical doctors and some very experienced counselors.”

  The weight of dread drops from Cass’s throat to her stomach. “No,” she says. “No, thank you. That won’t be necessary. Just your help with the flights. And a telephone I can borrow.” She smiles now in a way designed to convey composure, regretting her choice to confide anything more personal than flight information.

  Cass’s first call is to the number on the email. A man answers from what sounds, from the substantial echo, to be a very small space like a suburban garage or a basement.

  “This is Cass Connor. I just received your email.”

  “Oh, hello,” he says. “I’ve been waiting for your call. That was quite an interesting sample.”

  “Right,” says Cass. She tries, with her tone, to curtail small talk. She looks to her children, who are for now playing contentedly at the table. But this must be quick; she is racing the clock of their attention spans, and it is only a matter of minutes before Ryan comes to find them. “Is there any way those metals could exist in nature?” Every fiber of her being is now steeped in awareness. And yet she tries, once again, to play devil’s advocate, to consider some alternate explanation. It is either a default journalist’s instinct or an attempt to submit her own findings to the same skepticism with which they have been met by others.

  “Not at these levels,” he says. “And not this constellation.”

  “What do you mean by constellation?” she says.

  “The number of metals in the sample. This indicates…” He trails off. “This indicates … deliberate contamination.”

  “But how would someone do this?” she says. “What is the likely source here?”

  “Hard to say.” He pauses. “Some sort of alloy. All of them seem to be metals. Metals that bond easily.”

  “Where would someone get such a thing?”

  “Industrial-grade chemicals, expensive synthetic drugs, or a very expensive chemistry set.”

  “What industry would that be?” she asks.

  “Metals are used in many. The pharmaceutical industry in chemo drugs and preservatives. Agricultural in pesticides. Wood preservative. Construction, renovation, building supplies. Pulp and paper. Greeting cards for preservation. Textiles with dyes and tinting. Tattoos.”

  “And what about the levels?” she says. “Could any of them be naturally present?”

  He pauses to cough. Cass waits for something clearer.

  “Those levels were off the freaking charts,” he says. “The arsenic alone was one hundred thousand times the trace level.”

  Cass takes a moment to digest this statement. She does not have the time right now for leisure or discretion. “Can you suggest any hypothesis for how this could have happened?”

  Another laugh or cough. “Whoever gave you this food is not someone you want to have over for dinner.”

  “Right,” she says, and then again, “so you can’t think of any other explanation?”

  “Like I said, I can’t speculate on any criminal matter. In fact, it’s probably better for you that I speak directly to your lawyer. Only way to retain privilege.”

  “Oh,” she says. “I see.” She is back in foreign territory, a world with new rules and jargon, a world with words like chain of custody, privilege, and matter.

  “Good luck,” says the man.

  Alice joins her mother now. She has tired of the puzzle.

  “Mom, what’s going on? Did you say we’re leaving?”

  “Our plans have changed a little, honey. Everything’s going to be okay. I need you to try to stay very calm. Can you do that for me?”

  She nods, studies her mother’s eyes. She is too smart both to be deceived and to defy her mother.

  Sam, too, has reached the limit of his distraction. He is wandering from the table, and Cass needs to corral him. Pete is close to tears because he wants to be back on the beach, jumping in the waves, finishing the castle. Cass has her eye on the door, watching for her husband.

  She looks back at the front desk where the receptionist is pretending not to listen, then back to the table where her kids have abandoned the puzzle.

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Connor?” says the woman at the desk.

  “Yes?” says Cass.

  “I’m afraid I’ve been unsuccessful. Flights are booked through the New Year—that is, if you want to travel on the same plane as your children. We may be able to charter a flight to one of the Florida airports, but if you want to travel together, your best bet is probably to go wait at the airport and try to fly standby.”

  “How much does a charter cost?” says Cass.

  “I’d have to call to get a quote.”

  “May I have the phone? I can do it.” She has already done the mental math, added up the maximums of all the cards in her wallet.

  The lady provides a small pamphlet with pink-and-purple lettering, an absurd portrait of an extravagant jet-setting couple. Cass grabs the paper and dials.

  “Hello,” she says. “I need to charter a plane for this afternoon. From the Bermuda to Miami or Atlanta.”

  She tries not to flinch when they quote the price, $2,000. She gamely removes a card from her bag and recites the numbers. She waits for one awful minute before they inform her that her card has not been accepted.

  “But that makes no sense,” she insists. “I paid the bill in late November. The limit…” She trails off. It’s not worth it. It’s all too clear. Ryan has cut off her finances.

  “Thank you,” says Cass. “Thank you for trying.” She returns the phone to the woman and gathers her belongings. “I’m actually feeling much better,” she lies.
“Perhaps we’ll stay through Friday, as planned. Thanks for not mentioning this to my husband. I don’t want to worry him unnecessarily.”

  “Of course,” she says. She smiles in a way that conveys an absence of feeling. “Shall I put you all on the dinner list for tonight’s New Year’s Eve celebration?”

  Cass studies her face, as though a thorough scan will reveal the extent of her knowledge. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, please do. We wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Wonderful,” she says. “They’re roasting a lamb. Potatoes, creamed spinach. And chocolate cake for dessert.”

  “Scrumptious,” says Cass. She musters a smile. “The kids will be ecstatic.”

  With effort, she summons the strength to feign composure a little longer. Gaining speed, she gathers the kids at what remains of the puzzle, praising them for their patience and good behavior. They have completed the corner of a cloud that looks unmoored without its center.

  Flanked by Pete and Alice, baby on her hip, Cass marches from the main house down the rambling stairs to the beach, back across the cooling sand. The chalky clouds of an afternoon storm cast a shadow over the beach that makes the entire island look as though it is underwater. It is as though Ryan is being fed information, as though he has a clone of her phone. He has beaten her at this game also. Ryan knows that she knows and what she knows. He has begun an acceleration, and if she waits any longer, she and the kids will face even greater danger. She must pack their belongings, gather her children, and leave the hotel before morning. They will wait in the airport for the first flight to the States. From there, she will take the kids to New York, install them safely with her mother, then walk to the closest precinct. She does not have the luxury of completing this investigation. Not without becoming its first fatality.

  * * *

  The afternoon passes without any unexpected drama, the kids exhausted by the sun and consumed by a hearty debate about the night’s celebration. Every year, bets are placed on who will stay up the latest—and who will fall asleep before the awaited hour. But this year, they have a fail-proof plan, no less sly than the one to stake out Santa, armed with brownies and alarm clock, parsley for the reindeer. This year, they will not be foiled. Rumor has it that the chocolate cake has special properties, and this will afford the energy to stay up long past midnight. Heated debate and friendly hazing continues as they shower. Cass takes advantage of the kids’ distraction to assemble a pile of clothes. Three days’ worth for both children—six shorts, six shirts, two dresses, two pairs of pants, and two skirts, six pairs of underwear, socks, and sweaters—which she shoves under the mattress. Ryan has remained on the beach, reading, napping, or scheming, affording Cass the much-needed time to plan their escape in private.

  At seven o’clock, the Connor kids are teeming with excitement. Alice’s hair is combed and brushed. Pete proudly wears a jacket. Sam sports his very first sunburn. Ryan returns from the beach, sullen and silent. He ducks quickly into the shower, delaying their departure, testing the outside limits of the children’s patience.

  “Who’s ready for dinner?” she says. She feels oddly like Ryan when she says it, the fearless camp counselor.

  “I am!” everyone exclaims at once.

  From the shower, Ryan calls out, “I’ll meet you up there in ten minutes.”

  Cass opens the front door, and the kids bound out before her. They topple onto the beach like puppies from a crate, tumbling across the dunes into the lavender sunset. The kids are blissful, unaware, but Cass knows this will be their last night in Bermuda.

  “Wait,” she says. She is speaking to herself and the children. “Where are your shoes?” She addresses Pete, who is wearing a clean striped oxford shirt, khaki shorts, and no sign of footwear.

  He stops short, falling to the ground in a theatrical show of contrition. “I left them in the room,” he says.

  “Run and get them, sweetheart. They won’t let us sit down without them.”

  Still smiling, Pete sprints back across the sand. Cass holds Alice and Sam at bay as he backtracks. The door opens and closes as Pete hurries in. Cass stares at the little house and marvels at its storybook proportions, imagines if this were their home. What if they had lived in this little pink house, silhouetted by these charcoal clouds and this peaceful sunset? Would they have been happier? Would things have been different? Not more than thirty seconds pass before Pete emerges and begins retracing his steps toward the stairs and his mother and siblings.

  “You can hold them in the sand,” she calls out.

  But he doesn’t hear her. She looks away to track Alice and Sam, who have started up the stairs toward the main house. It is hard to spot them now as the sun has fully set and shadows and bodies blur like lovers. Her heart catches before she spots them again, farther up the stairs, nearly at the terrace. When she looks back, Pete is gone. And the beach is washed in shadows.

  “Pete,” she calls.

  He does not respond.

  “Pete!” she cries.

  No response. Only the increasing volume of the breaking waves. The tide always seems to come faster as soon as the sun sets.

  “Pete!” she yells. Her eyes scan the beach with no success. And then, in her periphery, a dancing reflection of a tiny light, as the buttons on Pete’s shirt catch the last of sunlight. When she reaches him, Pete is doubled over, rocking like a blind man. She grabs his wrist and finds his pulse. His pulse is speeding.

  “Pete, sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

  He writhes on the ground, moaning. “Mom,” he says. “Can’t breathe.”

  “Pete, sweetheart. Can you talk to me?”

  He opens his mouth, but a moan comes out. He raises his head but cannot lift it to an upright position.

  She searches the ground for a cause, for some explanation. Her eyes search from his head to his hands, his hands to his feet. His light-brown bucks untied and loose around his ankles.

  “Oh, my God,” she says.

  She grabs his ankle and yanks the shoe from his foot. She pulls off the other and throws it across the sand, far from them. Pete lies on his stomach, his arm twitching in a slow-motion convulsion.

  “Ryan!” Cass yells. “Alice, Sam. Come down here! Ryan.” Her voice is shrill, her volume higher than the pitch. No effort is made to sound normal. Only the hollow roar of a mother who knows her child’s life is in danger.

  Instinct tells her what has occurred, plays it out as though on a stage, as though she were sitting on the bed in the hotel room. Ryan emerged from the shower and, standing in his towel, spotted Pete’s forgotten shoes on the floor. Thinking fast, he seized this moment, the privacy it afforded and the certainty that Pete would be back in moments—when his mother dispatched him to return for the shoes he would need for dinner—to place the toxin in the shoes of a seven-year-old child with the intention that he step into the shoes, soak in that substance, and fight for dear life as the poison absorbs in the soles of his feet, through the layers of muscle and skin, winding into his blood, heart, and brain, and causing the cardiac arrest or stroke that could kill him.

  She picks him up like a baby, fighting the sand to get to the main house.

  Questions of motive are often misplaced in the interpretation of violence. There is not always a reason why. There is not always an answer to satisfy the craving for explanation. But in this case, Cass can supply several, not least the vendetta of a psychotic man against the child of another man, nor his vendetta against that child’s mother, and her increasing threat—and his rising terror—due to her knowledge of those intentions. I’m gonna make it look like a suicide, and everyone’s gonna believe it. Or better yet, make it look like an accident, an unknown fatality of the environment. Just like Marley.

  But these plans are too arcane for Ryan, not sufficiently Byzantine in their mode of torture. Ryan would do something more elaborate, Cass now decides. Ryan would do bigger. He would raise the level of arsenic in Pete’s system so that he tests positive for the poison when his mother di
es suddenly and others are submitted to testing in some lackluster investigation. She imagines the chaos after her death, her children’s fear and torpor, her family traipsing up the East Coast like a maudlin armada. She can see the whole thing playing out like a fifties melodrama. The muted suspicion after her death, the halfhearted investigation, Ryan’s stoic performance of grief, the hushed tones of the heartbroken husband. And then, once too much time has passed, once it is too late to detect the poison, the autopsy, the ambiguous results, the feigned effort to test the children, followed by the inconclusive decision that it must have been in the environment, some horribly botched batch of food, some hideously tainted groundwater, that this poor, lovely family fell prey to the worst of all tragedies, a senseless accident.

  Cass looks up from the ground to find Ryan above her. His hair is wet and neatly brushed. His eyes are as shiny as his hair, like the mercury in a thermometer.

  “What’s wrong with him?” she says. It is not a question. It is an accusation.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What’s wrong with him, Ryan? His heart is racing.”

  “Get ahold of yourself. You’re losing it, Cass.”

  “Get the fuck away from me. He needs to see a doctor.” She rises from the ground, hoisting Pete into her arms, and begins to trudge across the beach, carrying her limp seven-year-old child as though he is a newborn. He is heavy, too heavy to move quickly, but she gains strength with every step forward. Ryan watches, and he follows.

  “Help!” she yells. “We need help!”

  Alice stands at the top of the stairs as Cass approaches. Mother and daughter make eye contact.

  “Get Sam,” she says. “Follow me.”

  Alice nods and follows instructions. She hoists Sam to her hip. “Mommy, I’m scared.”

  “Don’t be scared,” says Cass. Her voice is low now, deep and fierce. “Everything’s going to be okay. Just do exactly what I say. And stay close to me.”

  “Mommy, I’m scared,” she says again.

  “We need to move quickly and stay calm now.”

  They move together up the stairs, Cass holding Pete and Alice holding the baby. They are two women, one tiny, one tall, united in fear, united in their capacity for ferocious love and protection.