The Secret Poison Garden

by Maureen Klovers

  When she got to the fourth page, her jaw dropped. Jay Stiglitz had had a second visitor that day: Elizabeth Van Der Hooven. She’d signed in at 3:00 and out again at 3:52.

  Craig Balducci had come to the hospital for a 3:45 post-op appointment with his orthopedic surgeon.

  And there was a signature that she recognized before she even read the name. The handwriting was spiky, with many more jagged sharp edges than rounded curves, and it sloped slightly downwards.

  She winced as she forced herself to read the name and times out loud. “Vinnie Calabrese, in at 3:15, out at 3:45.”

  He was supposedly visiting a Mrs. LoPresti. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but Rita couldn’t place her.

  Her son was either a murderer, or he had the world’s worst sense of timing.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Rita leaned down to inspect the 7-Eleven’s gum selection. There was cinnamon, spearmint, banana—all kinds of artificial colors and flavors, although nothing, she supposed, could be as artificial as the ninety-nine-cent “taquitos” that rolled incessantly back and forth under the heat lamp on the counter. She tried to earnestly look as if she were debating the relative merits of each pack of gum, waving the other customers to the register manned by a smiling Sikh in a bright blue turban.

  At the other register, a red-headed clerk with scrawny arms and an oversized bust was ringing up a seemingly endless assortment of lottery tickets, beer, and candy bars for a pot-bellied trucker. Just as he was about to hand over two twenty-dollar bills, he stopped himself. “Oh,” he added, rubbing his belly, “and three taquitos.”

  Rita shuddered. There really were people who ate the taquitos.

  The clerk rolled her eyes, cracked her gum, and started ringing up his order all over.

  Leaning in towards her, he hitched up his jeans. “If I win the Lotto, will you come to Vegas with me?”

  The clerk rolled her eyes again. “Next!” she shouted in a nasal voice about as pleasant as a car alarm, shoving the tickets towards him.

  He moved on, reluctantly, as Rita approached and slid a twenty-dollar bill over the counter.

  “You want twenty Lucky Buck scratch-offs or four five-dollar scratch-off tickets?” the girl asked.

  “No tickets. Just information.”

  The clerk took the twenty-dollar bill, folded it, and shoved it in her pocket. Her green eyes, which were smudged with heavy black make-up like two emeralds in a coalfield, regarded Rita with suspicion. “What kind of information?”

  “I want to know who hired you to have, er, relations with Craig Balducci.”

  The girl’s face was blank for a minute. “Relations?” Then she flushed. “Oh, that’s what old people call it.”

  Her spine stiffened. “I’m not a whore, if that’s what you think.” Pulling a little gold cross out of her cleavage, she slid it gently along its gold chain. “I wouldn’t stoop to that for money.”

  The girl slapped a “Register Closed” sign on the counter, told the Sikh that she was taking a break, and motioned for Rita to follow her outside. She led Rita to the back of the parking lot, behind a dumpster that reeked of spoiled milk and cheap wine. Reaching into her back pocket, she took out a pack of cigarettes, and, with trembling fingers, lit one.

  “I’m Tiffany, by the way.”

  “Rita. Nice to meet you.”

  “I’m not sure if it’s nice to meet you or not,” Tiffany said warily. “First there was the crazy skinny chick with the short hair who says I ruined her friend’s marriage.”

  Rita nodded. “Pam.”

  Tiffany shrugged. “She didn’t have the manners to introduce herself. Then the chick whose marriage I ruined shows up wanting to play Twenty Questions.”

  Rita tried to hide her surprise. Pam hadn’t mentioned anything about Angelica going up here to confront Tiffany. Then again, maybe Pam hadn’t known.

  “And now you,” Tiffany said, pointing her cigarette in Rita’s general direction. “What’s your connection to this whole mess? Are you the mother of one of those crazies?”

  Rita shook her head. “I’m a reporter for the Morris County Gazette, and I’m investigating a murder.”

  Tiffany’s eyes grew so wide that her heavy black eye makeup almost disappeared from view. “Murder? I didn’t off anyone, I swear.” The words tumbled out of her mouth, faster and faster. “Not even those crazy chicks. Sure, I might not be National Honor Society material and I’ve made some mistakes, but I’m no criminal.” Her eyes were filling with tears now. “Oh, no, they’re gonna take my babies away, aren’t they?

  They’re—”

  Rita reached out and squeezed one of Tiffany’s skinny arms. “Tiffany, relax. I know you didn’t kill anyone. But you may have information that could be important.”

  “I don’t know anything,” Tiffany insisted.

  “You might not realize it,” Rita said, “but I think you do.”

  “Huh.” Tiffany didn’t sound convinced.

  “Just answer a few of my questions,” Rita said. “Maybe it’ll help the investigation, maybe not. But either way, I’ll keep your identity secret. You’ll be an anonymous source. Like Deep Throat.”

  “Deep who? Is that some Indian guy?”

  Rita sighed. Didn’t they teach anything in school these days? “Never mind.”

  With her free hand, Tiffany pressed the twenty-dollar bill back into Rita’s hand. “Here. I don’t want you to think I’m making something up for the money.”

  “But you did, er, whatever it is that you did, for the money.”

  Tiffany nodded diffidently. “I got two kids with two different deadbeat dads and this job don’t pay so good. The landlord was threatening to evict us.”

  “So you were in a tough spot.”

  “Right. I was in a bind, so when I met a good-looking guy while bartending in Albany one night—yeah, I moonlight as a bartender too, can you believe it?—and he offered me three hundred bucks to play a practical joke on his friend, I thought, why not? All I had to do was drive down to Mount Washington, wait for his friend Craig at the neighborhood bar, and then run my hands all over him like I was some old flame.”

  “What did the guy who paid you three hundred dollars look like?”

  “Like a football player, but a little bit older. Maybe forty.”

  “Like this?”

  Rita swiped to a picture of Jay Stiglitz. The girl cocked her head and studied it for a moment.

  “Yeah, I think that’s him.”

  “Who took the pictures?” she asked.

  The girl shook her head. “Don’t know. That wasn’t part of the deal.” She started to smoke faster. “My old man’s right, I guess. I’ll believe anything, I believe it when a man tells me I’m special and he loves me and wants to have my babies—right up until the moment he splits and leaves me with a swollen belly and all the bills in my name. And I believed that someone would pay three hundred dollars for a harmless little joke.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “Guess it wasn’t harmless, was it? Because someone ended up dead.”

  “Did you give either woman a description of the man who put you up to it?”

  “The second one, yeah. Craig’s wife, er, ex-wife, I guess. I would’ve said anything to shut that chick up. She was waving pictures of me and him around, screaming like somebody on a reality TV show.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “She said, ‘that sounds like Joe.’” She frowned. “Or did she say ‘Jim’?”

  “Jay?”

  Tiffany snapped her fingers. “That was it. Jay.”

  Rita’s mind raced. So Angelica had known that this was Jay’s doing. But how could Angelica have known that Craig had been set up, that Jay had tricked her into leaving Craig, and still gone ahead with the wedding?

  Rita frowned. Of course, technically, she hadn’t. He had conveniently died first.

  Trying to sound as casual as possible, Rita asked, “And when was this?”

  The redhead lit another cigare
tte. “The day my kid got a huge gash down his cheek during a fight at school.” She shook her head. “Seven stitches. Talk about a day going from bad to worse.”

  “Yes, but what day was that? August twenty-eighth? October first?”

  “Oh, I dunno. One crummy day kind of runs into the next. But I can find out for you. I’ve got the discharge papers at home. We can go there after my shift ends at five.”

  Tiffany looked at Rita sharply. “You never said who died, by the way. Craig? The guy who paid me? One of the chicks?”

  “The guy who paid you. Jay.”

  Tiffany shuddered. “It was the wife, wasn’t it? The one whose marriage they said I ruined?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I dunno. Just a feeling.”

  ***********************

  When Rita came home, Sal was fast asleep. He lay back in his recliner, his hairy legs poking out from beneath his ratty bathrobe, his mouth hanging open. Evidently, he’d had leftovers for dinner—tomato sauce speckled his moustache, and raspberry sauce was smeared on his chin.

  She licked her finger, rubbed the sauce off his chin, and gave him a kiss on the forehead. “My knight in shining armor,” she murmured with contented resignation.

  Sal awoke with a start. “What’s that? Oh,”—one brown eye opened a crack and then both flew open—“Rita, you’re home. I, er, just fell asleep for a minute.”

  “I see you had leftovers.”

  “What? Oh, yes,” he grumbled, “but they didn’t taste as good as they did yesterday.”

  “That’s because they’re leftovers, caro. Food is always better when it’s fresh.”

  “No,” he said, putting his hand on hers. Rita could feel his callouses as his thick fingers encircled her hand. This was the hand of a man who worked—a man who had supported their family financially and even, sometimes, emotionally. Which is much more than poor Tiffany could say about any man.

  “No,” he repeated, the gruffness melting into something more tender. He squeezed her hand affectionately. “It didn’t taste as good because you weren’t here with me.”

  Rita squeezed his hand back. She settled into the couch and pulled him next to her.

  “So what did you find out?” he asked.

  “That I’m a lucky woman and there are a lot of deadbeats out there.”

  Sal puffed out his chest. “Now you know why I greeted Gina’s Prom date with an old hunting rifle.”

  “Sal…”

  “Did she end up knocked up?” He raised his palms towards the ceiling and jutted out his chin. “No. I call that mission accomplished.”

  Rita could have quibbled by pointing out that Gina’s Prom date turned out to be gay, but she decided there was no harm in letting Sal take the credit.

  “I also found out,” she said, “that Jay was behind the pictures sent to Angelica.”

  “The ones that showed Craig canoodling?”

  Rita nodded. “And—here’s the really strange part—Angelica found out about it.”

  “When?”

  “September eighteenth.”

  “So after the prank at the pool and before he wound up in the hospital.” He whistled. “That Angelica sure can act. She really looked the part of the grieving widow.”

  “It might not have been an act. Just because she found out he set up Craig doesn’t mean she wasn’t grief-stricken when he died.”

  Sal grunted. “Sounds fishy to me.” He raised a scraggly eyebrow in her direction. “Do you think she offed him?”

  “She had a motive, but not an opportunity. She visited first thing in the morning, but he didn’t die until almost four.”

  “Maybe she gave him something but he didn’t consume it right away.”

  “The nurses didn’t notice anything like that.”

  Sal frowned. “What about a slow-acting poison? He could have ingested it around eight a.m. when she left, but not gotten sick until later.”

  “I doubt it. If the symptoms had come on throughout the day, the nurses would have noticed something.”

  “Susan was on duty.”

  “Even Susan,” Rita said firmly, “would have noticed.”

  Sal caressed his stubble for a moment. “Here’s what I think,” he said slowly. “Craig and Angelica are in it together. She finds out that Craig never cheated on her and that Jay is a lying little piece of—”

  Rita coughed.

  “Er,” he continued, “not a nice person. She tells Craig she wants to break off her engagement with Jay and get back together.”

  “But then she finds out that Jay already changed his will.”

  “Exactly.” Sal snapped his fingers. “So, they plot to kill Jay. First, they try having him inject himself with those crazy horse drugs. Then, that doesn’t work—”

  “And so Craig stops by the hospital and poisons him? Craig was at the hospital around that time for an appointment.”

  “There! You see?”

  “But you’re forgetting,” Rita said, “that Jay and Craig were bitter enemies. Jay would never drink anything Craig offered him.”

  “Maybe he forced him to drink it.”

  Rita was not convinced. “Maybe.”

  “See? I’ve solved the mystery, cara. Just by sitting here and thinking.” He tapped the side of his head and stood up. “It’s good to end the day on a positive note.”

  “Why? Did something bad happen?”

  “I’ll say! Emily quit.”

  “Did she?” Rita worked to keep her voice light and vaguely concerned. “Whatever for?”

  “To go work for Phil Baldassaro. She calls me this afternoon with some cockamamie story about how her phone has been ringing off the hook all weekend. She tells me she’s got nine job offers. Nine! Can you believe it? And then she tells me that she’s got the opportunity of a lifetime to work for Phil Baldassaro as his office manager.” He stomped toward the hallway. “Phil!” he cried with contempt. “Phil Baldassaro! The kid who froze his tongue to the flagpole.”

  “That was in second grade, caro. You forget that he’s an excellent attorney now. He’s our attorney, in fact.”

  Spinning around, Sal demanded, “Do you think he’s good-looking?”

  “Oh, very.”

  Sal grunted. “Well, she probably does too.”

  He stomped up the stairs, and Rita trudged behind him, a smile on her face.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Hunkered down in the back booth of the Sunshine Café, Rita stared at box 37 on the death certificate. She had suspected foul play all along, and yet the black mark still made her shudder. There was no longer any doubt about it—the medical examiner had determined the “manner of death” to be homicide. The immediate cause of death was listed as asphyxiation, and the underlying cause of death was noted as “ingestion of poisonous substances.” In box 43, the medical examiner had specified that the substances in question were “Atropa belladonna, Ricinus communis, Convallaria majalis, and Datura stramonium.”

  Rita flipped through her notes from her interview with Miss Simms. These were the Latin names for belladonna, castor beans, lilies of the valley, and devil’s trumpet.

  In other words, Jay was killed by a deadly cocktail that consisted of nearly everything in Miss Simms’s garden.

  The death certificate noted that Jay Stiglitz had been declared dead at 4:07 p.m. The “actual or presumed time of death” was estimated as 4:03 p.m. The estimated time that the “injury” (i.e., poisoning) occurred was between 3:30 and 4:00 p.m.

  Rita ordered a slice of chocolate cake—chocolate always helped her think—and began sketching out a timeline of the last forty-eight hours of Jay’s life:

  Saturday p.m. –Athletic Boosters party

  Sunday 9:11 a.m.—Jay admitted to hospital with suspected overdose

  Sunday 5:40 p.m.—Jay’s feeding tube removed; condition is upgraded to “stable”

  Monday 8:00-8:30 a.m.—Angelica visits Jay

  Monday 1:00-2:30 p.m.—Mrs. Walker visi
ts her mother on Jay’s ward

  Monday 2:00-4:30 p.m.—Marion Von Beek visits multiple elderly neighbors on Jay’s ward

  Monday 2:30-3:55 p.m.—Al Scalzo visits Betty Manfredi on Jay’s ward

  Monday 3:00 p.m.—Susan checks Jay’s vital signs; nothing seems amiss, no one in room

  Monday 3:00-3:52 p.m.—Miss Van Der Hooven visits Jay

  Monday 3:15-3:45 p.m.—Vinnie visits Mrs. LoPresti on Jay’s ward

  Monday 3:30-5:00 p.m.—Craig Balducci has post-op appointment for orthopedic surgery in ward adjacent to Jay’s

  Monday 4:00 p.m.—Susan finds Jay convulsing and calls for help

  Monday 4:07 p.m.—Jay pronounced dead

  Rita frowned. Based on this timeline, Miss Van Der Hooven was by far the likeliest suspect. She was the last known person to visit Jay before his death, and she could have easily put the ketamine in his bottle during the Athletic Boosters party. He probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it if she had offered him a dessert or fruity drink smuggled into her bag. She had a motive, albeit a weak one—the unhinged jealousy of a woman about to lose her (coerced) lover to a much younger, more attractive rival. And she had the perfect accomplice in Miss Simms, a loyal friend who could have easily furnished Miss Van Der Hooven with the poisonous plants days in advance and then conveniently “found” a footprint in her garden that was washed away before anyone could verify its existence.

  Plus, Miss Simms had a motive of her own. As the unofficial counselor to two girls humiliated by the members of the football team, she had every reason to hate the coach.

  It was a tidy explanation, but it had one glaring problem. Whoever prepared the poisonous concoction seemed like an amateur. Any one of these plants in the right concentration could have killed Jay Stiglitz, and yet the murderer felt compelled to throw them all in.