“The rest, you keep for yourself. That Pinot Noir runs close to three grand a bottle. I’ll see you at work, and we’ll pick out your new office.”
“No hurry, Lizzy. And thank you. I’ll do a great job with the company with your guidance. And Elliot stays on as Vice President. I don’t want him to worry any.”
“That’s kind of you, Todd. I had the same plan in mind—if anyone deserves to be on the team leading Kinsey, it’s Elliot. Finish your wine. I’ll show myself out.”
Steele followed Joy back to the hospital. When they walked into Max’s room, Kate and Red were there visiting. They’d brought flowers and chocolates.
Red rose to his feet. “We’ll leave ye to your friends, Max, and check in with ye tomorrow.”
Max tried overly hard to enunciate. “I’mmm chick-ing ou’ ta-morr...”
“Did the doctors clear you, Babbling Betty?” asked Steele, approaching the bed. “Cause I couldn’t understand a word you just said.”
Max struggled to speak clearly. “I can feed mm-self.”
“With a little help,” added Kate as she passed by Joy. “You slap cuffs on him if ye have to. Talks like a blatherin’ baby.”
Red exited after her and whispered, “Feeds himself like a baby too. Nurse said he’s on-the-mend, though.”
“Thanks,” said Joy. “Seems like it, since he wants to argue.”
Dr. Roberts strolled in for his evening rounds and headed straight to his patient. “Good evening, Max. Lots of progress today. Fingers and toes still probably not minding you yet, but they will. Hemlock starts at the extremities and works its way to the core, to your diaphragm. It wears off from the core out. You’ll be walking in time.”
Max raised a limp hand. “Check out.”
“One day at a time, Detective King. In the morning, we’ll get rid of your catheter and we’ll see if you can make it to the bathroom to pee on your own. Remember that up until this morning, you couldn’t even breathe on your own. I know it’s hard, though. The one area hemlock doesn’t attack is the brain, so you’re fully aware of everything.”
The doctor brushed past Joy and Steele without a word.
Max held up his hands as a sign of futility. Joy tucked them back at his sides and sat on the edge of the mattress. She shared information about the case to pull Max’s mind away from trying to break out of the hospital. “Turns out Kinsey Pharmaceuticals has a poison garden, complete with hemlock and numerous other toxic goodies. I have to admit, it’s pretty impressive. Lots of people had access and there are no cameras.”
Joy yawned. She stood on her feet and tucked Max’s arm under the blanket. “Rest up, pardner. I might need you to hold a gun.”
“Chick ou’ to-morr…”
“I’ll be here in the morning, Max,” said Joy. “If the doctor cuts you loose, I’ll be your wheels.” Joy grabbed a paper towel from the bedside stand. She wiped the drool away that dribbled down Max’s chin. “Get well, Max.”
Steele followed Joy to her house.
Once inside, Joy wasted no time. She headed for the sink and grabbed the defrosted rat, whose white fur had fluffed up nicely.
“Feeding time, huh. Can I watch?” asked Steele.
Joy’s voice carried a tone of surprised relief. “Sure. Not many people want to see her eat. But we eat. Why shouldn’t she?” She didn’t wait for an answer. She handed the rat to Steele. “I’ll go get her. I like to put her in the living room aquarium to eat, so I can keep my eyes on her.”
On the way to her bedroom, Joy stopped and removed the top of the aquarium. She returned minutes later, holding Monty. She coiled Monty in the glass enclosure and took the white rat from Steele.
“Dang, her head is so much smaller than that fat bastard.”
Joy laughed. “It has to be the size of the thickest part of Monty’s body. She’ll expand her jaws.” Joy opened a pair of forceps and clamped onto the back of the rat’s neck. She lifted the rat into the enclosure, so that the head faced Monty’s face. She jiggled the rat about to make it look alive.
Monty surged forward with open jaws. Joy released the clamp as Monty’s jaws snapped onto the rat’s head. Monty spun her head in a circle such that, had the rat been alive, the coil of Monty’s body would have squeezed the life from it.
“Good girl.” Joy put the lid back on the enclosure. Her shoulders sagged.
“You must be dead tired. You couldn’t have had much sleep at the hospital last night.”
Joy yawned and stretched.
Steele rose to his feet and gave Joy a hand, which she took. He pulled her to her feet and into his arms. “I’ll get going so you can get some well-deserved sleep.”
“Sure. Right after feeding time.” Joy wrapped her mouth around Steele’s and kissed him as she tugged at the buttons of his shirt.
Steele reciprocated, peeling Joy’s shirt from her body. He curled his neck down and grazed his lips against her neck.
Joy opened his shirt and flung it off his muscular shoulders. She let out a sigh as she dove for the button and zipper of his black utility pants, which slid off of his hips.
She let out a low growl of pleasure.
In a flurry of flying clothes, they undressed one another.
Joy sank to the carpet and Steele coiled on top of her, his hair loose and cascading over her.
They writhed like mating snakes.
Their hands swept over one another, pinched and groped and probed and stroked, but not simply in a fit of sexual need, rather as a way to know the other wholly and completely.
They submitted, each giving all to the other—their dark and their light—freely, without inhibition or critique or fear.
They kissed and caressed like they’d never kissed or caressed anyone before, as if each tender stroke of fingers or tongue bridged crevasses in the heart of the other. Their fingers smoothed over faults and filled every fissure.
With each surge and wave and pulse and sigh and nibble, they met each other’s eyes and bored deeply into the interior of the other. They reached down as deeply as one could go. They gripped each other’s hair as if pulling the other out of their dark abyss.
Filled with desperate desire and even more desperate need, they rose to the edge of ecstasy that carried them out of the mundane troubled world and set them in a black and star-filled space where they floated together. A space no two humans had ever occupied before, because at this moment, at this time, it was Joy and Steele. No other existed. The moment could not be shared and never repeated.
When the star exploded and the supernova rippled through them, they shouted each other’s names. “Joy!” and “Steele!” and they fell through space, locked in a fleshy capsule. They fell slowly, with heaving breaths, lingering in their euphoric high as they touched down on the plush carpet in Joy’s living room.
As they caught their breath, neither said a word, for no words could express the journey. Steele kissed Joy’s forehead. She kissed his neck. Their arms clung still, as if to hold on to all they’d won and in fear that if they let go all would be lost.
Joy flipped on her side to watch Monty, and Steele spooned next to her. He grabbed the throw from the couch behind him and spread it over them both.
“Let’s tuck you in. I don’t want you falling asleep on the carpet.” Steele kissed the back of her head.
“In a minute.”
“I’m in no hurry, Joy. If you fall asleep, I’ll carry you to bed.”
They watched Monty expand her jaw to bite down on the hindquarters of the rat. Grip. Devour. Re-grip. Devour. Re-grip. Until the last of the tail disappeared and a forked tongue whipped out as if Monty had licked her lips.
7
Feeling light and cheerful, Joy showed up at the hospital, wearing a navy blue short-sleeved top and beige trousers. She found Max in his room, arguing with Dr. Roberts. A full tray of food had not been touched: oatmeal, toast, eggs, gelatin, milk, and coffee.
“I’m leaving today, Doc. Just bring me the papers.” Max us
ed a tone of authority.
“I see you can talk, but can you walk?” Joy stepped up to the bedside.
Dr. Roberts, who had never spoken to her before, suddenly implored her, “He really should stay another day for the effects to fully wear off.”
“I made it to the bathroom—” Max began.
“With two nurses and a walker,” argued Dr. Roberts.
“And I peed on my own.”
“Sitting down,” added the doctor.
Joy smiled.
Max didn’t even blush. Something about hospitals and hospital gowns stripped a patient of all dignity. All personal barriers came crashing down too.
“Joy, get me a wheelchair.”
Dr. Roberts shook his head. “Fine, but you’re leaving against doctor’s orders.”
“I’ll take that chance.”
Dr. Roberts met Joy’s eyes. “He’s not all there yet, muscle-wise. Good luck.”
“I’m all here brain-wise, and I am going after the rattlesnake that did this to me, even if I do it from a wheelchair like Ironsides.” Max clumsily poured himself a cup of coffee.
Joy pushed the food tray toward Max. “Eat your breakfast. I’ll go check on the paperwork.”
Dr. Roberts exited first, followed by Joy.
Max shouted, “Thank you for saving my life, doc! I mean that!”
Max figured he’d better eat, as he would have a full day. He set down his coffee. His fingers didn’t fully work. He struggled to curl his fingers around the spoon. He eventually pinched the spoon between his thumb and his first knuckle joint. He grinned at the triumph.
Max dug the spoon into the oatmeal. His dad had never made oatmeal for him. He scooped up a spoonful and brought it toward his mouth. His hand trembled—not from a new side effect but from an old memory he’d long repressed.
That memory burned through his brain like a spark igniting a forest fire. His hand shook more.
Max hurled the spoon across the room. He could barely breathe. He saw Joy coming toward the doorway. He grabbed his coffee between his palms and gulped down the hot liquid. He wanted it to scald his throat and burn. He needed real pain to push the old memory out of his mind.
“What’s wrong, Max?”
“Get me out of here!”
“The orderly will be here in a minute with the wheelchair. Can I help you get dressed?” Joy reached into a cupboard and pulled out the clothes Max had worn to the party. She set them on the end of the bed.
“Go get the car. The orderly can help me.”
By the time Joy drove up to the loading area, the orderly had wheeled Max to the curb.
Max walked the few steps to the car as if his toes were asleep, and his fingers still lacked the ability to move much, so he couldn’t grip well.
The orderly helped Max into the car and buckled him up.
As Joy drove away from the curb, Max shot an angry glare her way. “For the record, I’m sticking to donuts. The salad almost killed me.”
Joy laughed, but Max didn’t laugh back. He stared out the window, refusing to engage. Joy didn’t know if Max harbored anger for his near-death experience, for the perpetrator, or for her. Something ate at him, but it wasn’t the time to ask.
She tossed a white bag at him and it fell into his lap. “Speaking of donuts, I figured you would be tired of gelatin and porridge.”
Max pushed the bag off of his lap and it fell to his feet.
“Or not.” Joy motor-boated her lips.
Joy drove Max home in silence, where they found Steele leaning against his Jeep Liberty—a snazzy white vehicle with black fenders, roof and bumpers and off-road capability.
Max fumbled at his door but managed to open it. He exploded, “You’re not putting me in bed, guys! I already called Angelo, and he wants to see us a-sap.”
Joy hopped out and came around the SUV. She plinked an imaginary object from her shoulder to signal to Steele that Max had a chip on his and to be careful.
“Chill, Max. Joy called me to swing by the medical supply store and meet you here. I picked up a portable wheelchair and a walker. She also thought you might need help changing clothes. And, hey, don’t worry. There’s no shame in sitting to pee.”
Max closed his eyes and hung his head, half in fury, half in embarrassment, but the chip remained, and he offered no apology. He gave Steele a stony glare. “Good, then we’re all on the same page.”
Steele set up the collapsible wheelchair and helped Max from the car. He eased Max down, helped him sit, and rolled him inside.
Joy opted to wait outside in the warm August air. The oak tree centered in the turnabout driveway had to be a couple hundred years old. The birds chirped. The sun danced off of the hills, dry and golden, that stretched out, dotted by green trees. Bald patches of earth or roads etched the land. But the city closed in. Housing developments edged ever closer.
Joy held off on checking in with Captain Banks, since the doctor had not cleared Max to leave the hospital, let alone to return to work.
In time, Steele rolled Max out the front door, which he locked before handing Max his keys. Steele helped Max figure out a way he could get himself in and out of the SUV with little assistance. His core was strong. As long as he used his core to balance and kept his weight over the bulk of his body, he could maneuver. Max wore black stretch-waist pants and a white polo shirt—easy to get into, easy to get out of. “My job is done. I’ve got to get back to work. You know, Max, technically, you’re not on duty unless the doctor clears you.”
Max buckled himself into the passenger seat of Joy’s vehicle. “I was poisoned, Steele. Would you sit around on your ass squeezing a tension ball, trying to wiggle your toes, and watching television?”
Steele shook his head. “Nah, man. After I was shot, I flew to Peru and walked the Inca Trail.”
Max looked away. “Good analogy. This is my Inca Trail.”
Something about the way Max said it made Joy rip off her sunglasses and cast her eyes over him. “Then let’s get going.”
8
Joy drove the half hour to the coroner’s forensic facility in silence. Max ate his two glazed donuts. Joy smiled, imagining him dressed as an Incan warrior stepping through the Gate of the Sun, where he would see Maccu Picchu down the mountain, all the while munching on glazed donuts.
Once she parked, Joy helped Max step out of the SUV. As soon as his feet touched down, he pivoted and lowered himself into the portable wheelchair. He didn’t want to try to make the distance with the walker. Joy pushed Max forward.
Inside, the smells assaulted their nostrils: chemicals and rotting flesh.
Joy pushed Max’s wheelchair into an autopsy suite filled with stainless steel tables, jars of formalin, bone-cutting saws and dissection tools that created a grisly work space. Vials with colored stoppers, scales, polished steel sinks, and a freezer stood ready to receive human specimens. The fluorescent fixtures hummed overhead.
Angelo, a handsome Italian man with a close-shaved beard and silver-gray hair, greeted them. His large gloved hands almost looked cartoonish jutting out of his white lab coat. “Max. You have no idea how good it is to see you—even in a wheelchair.”
“Better than on one of your steel slabs, right?” said Max.
“Damn right!” agreed Angelo. “Come with me.” He led them to a table, peeled back the blue drape, and they stared at Sally’s face. Even with beautiful features, she looked like more of a witch than usual. Angelo’s crew had removed her red lipstick, some of which had smudged, revealing blue lips. Her garnet-red hair poked in various directions. “This woman has more fake parts than my father’s 1964 Maserati Sebring: cheekbones and gluteal and breast augmentation.”
“Gluteal what?” asked Max.
“Butt implant,” said Joy. “Where have you been?”
Max dropped his jaw in disbelief. “Cause of death?”
Angelo shook his head. “That’s where it gets interesting. Someone really didn’t like this woman. I’m waiting on to
xicology, and you know how long that takes, but from the contents of her stomach and intestinal tract, I’ve extracted a few interesting possibilities: mushrooms and belladonna berries.”
“Hemlock?” asked Max. “I ate her hemlock-laced salad.”
“We’re running tests on the soup.”
“If it was in the soup, then someone really wanted her dead,” said Joy. “The soup was the original item on the menu, not salads. If it’s laced with hemlock, we all would have been poisoned, not just Sally. I only found a tiny flower on Sally’s cake plate, but no one else had it on theirs.”
“But I took her salad. We know that had hemlock. Someone had to improvise. Who was in the kitchen?” asked Max.
“According to Alice, many came and went during the evening,” said Joy. “And there were two maids: Maria, Sally’s maid, and Rosa, the Wolfs’ maid. But by then, most of us were at the table.”
“One more thing,” said Angelo. “The lab retrieved a tin of Comfrey tea from Sally’s office. Comfrey looks a lot like foxglove. I won’t know until we test it. It seems like overkill. Pun intended.”
“Or,” suggested Joy, “there’s more than one killer?”
Angelo’s coffee-brown eyes shot wide open. “That’s an interesting idea. But did that many people hate this woman?”
Max nodded. “I just met her for the first time, and I wanted to kill her.”
Joy concurred, “Yep. At the FBI, I had tactical training. I wanted to do to Sally what I did to that poor dummy.”
Joy drove south, back to Wine Valley. “We’ve got a long list of suspects. Where do you want to start? I was thinking Elliot or Lizzy?”
Max stared out the window. The hills to the left and right normally gave him a sense of living in a giant cradle of Mother Earth—they swaddled him, rocked him, held him in hands of protection. Not today. Today, they boxed him in, trapped him, squeezed him in ways he never thought possible.
The dry, brittle, gold and brown hills became a pair of lions, ready to devour Max, no matter which way he turned. The August sky oppressed him too. Instead of the bright blues and reds and golds of February, the August sky was washed out, bleak, devoid of clouds, a pale blue expanse that drowned him in icy cold emptiness.
Pinot Noir and Poison Page 5