Red Death

by Alan Jacobson

  He rested his back against the wall and took a deep breath. All this thinking on the fly was exhausting. He thought he had done his homework. He thought it’d be easy.

  Scott closed his eyes and again wondered if he wanted to do this. He was afraid that if he didn’t do it, and do it now, he never would.

  Could he live with that? He did not know … nor did he want to find out.

  He needed to push forward.

  Scott began climbing the stairs—then had an idea and stopped. He went back to the front door and crumpled a small piece of cardboard and shoved it into the female end of the lock’s strike plate. He tried opening and closing it, but the male “tongue” of the knob did not catch. Perfect. He would be able to get back in.

  He did the same thing to the outer door and then left to find a street vendor or store that sold what he needed.

  Upon returning, he found that his security workaround was still intact. When he hit the fifth-floor landing, he took his backpack off and rummaged through it, pulling out the flowers that he had just purchased. He pulled on a white baseball cap and pressed on a fake moustache and goatee he brought from home, then stepped up to the door. Knocked, keeping the large arrangement front and center.

  An eye covered the lens and after a second’s hesitation the door swung open and revealed Nannette, her left hand cradling a mixing bowl against her hip. “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said in a bad southern drawl. “I’ve got a flower delivery for you from George Simon.”

  Nanette scrunched her nose. “Who?”

  “George Simon. All I know is what the delivery instructions were. Could be wrong, I guess. Office mighta screwed it up.”

  She sighed. “Fine,” she said, extending her free hand.

  “It’s real heavy and they overfilled the water. Here,” Scott said, pushing his way past her and heading for the nearby table. He set the glass vase down then turned toward her and hooked his foot behind her ankle. With a shove against her chest, she went down fast and hard, landing on her back. The bowl went flying, sending its creamy yellow egg-and-flour concoction into the adjacent wall.

  He leaped atop her and grabbed her neck with both hands.

  “Bitch! I’m gonna kill you. For what you did to me. Made my life a living hell!”

  Nanette’s eyes bulged. She bucked and squirmed—anything she could do to dislodge him. Her face began shading red, a choking gurgle emerging from her throat. But she continued to struggle.

  Nothing worked—until she swung her right fist into Scott’s left eye. It stunned him and he released his hold. She followed with her other hand and connected with his nose. Another to his mouth, whipping his head backward.

  He saw stars.

  Scott sat there, stunned, trying to make sense of what was happening. He tasted blood and then another punch to his mouth and he was on his back.

  rolling around

  pain exploding from his face and

  blood spurting everywhere

  He was not quite sure where he was. He ducked his chin down and covered up, then swung his arms blindly. He struck something—and then the pummeling stopped.

  He steadied himself, saw his backpack—grabbed it—and stumbled sideways out of the dining room.

  Scott somehow made it into the hallway. The woman was yelling … somewhere behind him … was she coming after him?

  He started running, sort of, down the stairs. His thoughts were still foggy, but he knew enough that he was in trouble.

  He had to get out of the building … into the fresh air … away from the screeching. To safety.

  Scott hit the street and the damp, cool night slapped him across the forehead, restoring some sense of self.

  He remembered now. Nanette, the ruse to get into her place.

  The metallic taste in his mouth nearly made him vomit. He brought a wad of blood-tinged saliva onto his tongue and spit it toward the curb. It was then that Scott realized he was missing part of a tooth.

  Damn bitch. This was not supposed to happen.

  He turned down the next street and did not stop until he saw a subway entrance. He scrabbled down into the station and hit the turnstile hard. He gathered his body over the top and somehow rolled over it, landing on the other side.

  The train came seconds later and he stumbled on and sat down, keeping his face hidden as best he could. Last thing he wanted was for someone to call and report him to the police. He had no idea what he looked like—until he caught a glimpse in the window across the car.

  Holy shit. His face was swollen and bloody and bruised, as if he had been worked over in a street fight. That was not far from the truth. It brought back painful memories of the bar brawl a few years ago. In a night of anger, frustration, and personal woe, he had asked for that beating. But that was not his intent tonight. He expected to have the upper hand, the advantage.

  He was not Phil. He could never be.

  He was a coward. An inept one at that.

  As the subway sped forward, rocking slightly side to side, he realized that no one could ever find out he had been pulverized by a thirty-something woman. No.

  No one could ever know.

  But he knew.

  He closed his eyes and cried.

  40

  New York City

  August 21, 2001

  Scott called in sick for a few days following his run-in with Nanette, then worked remotely from home for a week after that. His position as a computer coder afforded him such flexibility.

  His facial swelling cleared up with repeated rounds of ice, and makeup covered the residual bruising. He got his front tooth bonded. It looked good as new.

  But his ego had been battered beyond repair. He could not speak of what happened to anyone—for obvious reasons. Beyond the criminal nature of the attack, he could not stand the embarrassment. He would rather jump off the roof of his apartment building than face the pain and ridicule.

  That night scared him. He was a wimp, plain and simple. He was the polar opposite of his brother, who dodged bullets in foreign countries. Who died a hero.

  Nope. Scott Meece was a goddam coward, just as Nick had said when he told him and his mother that he was moving out. Leaving.

  During the months after his encounter with Nanette, he pondered his next steps. His anger toward Mary intensified. He decided he would no longer think of her as his mother. He did not want to be identified with her in any way. He was not a part of her. And he sure as hell did not want any part of her.

  He wanted to kill her more than ever. Over and over and over.

  But he could not go through that trauma again. It was like reliving his childhood. It put him in a bad place, back when he felt worthless. There was no Dad, no Phillip to talk to, hang out with.

  No one who understood what it was like living with Mary.

  Scott spent weeks trying to think of a way around his dilemma. He kept a list by his night table and added to it whenever he had a new idea … which usually came while he lay awake in bed, unable to sleep. Once he identified an acceptable target, he could proceed in a variety of ways:

  1. Hit it with a hammer from behind. Don’t give it time to fight back.

  2. Shoot it in the face with pepper spray, then attack.

  3. Choose an older target. Can’t fight back.

  4. Stab it with a knife. As it bleeds out, choke it.

  Scott looked over his list. All the possibilities held promise, but … blood. It did not matter whether it was his or not. He didn’t like blood.

  And what if it turned around right before he hit it with the hammer? Or stabbed it? Could he look in its eyes and still do it?

  Probably.

  Probably? Not good enough.

  He slammed a fist into the mattress. This is who he was. He hated being a wimp.

  He hate
d himself.

  And so it went for weeks at a time, penciling out ideas and then rejecting them. They all held risk—risk of failure. Risk of embarrassment. Fear of confrontation.

  As he stared at the copy of the Daily News, splattered all over the back page was the shame of a Yankees loss to lowly Texas, 13-3 … a thrashing by Bronx Bomber standards as Jeter, O’Neill, and Posada all took o-fers. They were still in fine position with an exceptional record, on pace for another mid-ninety-win season. Good enough for the playoffs if not the World Series.

  Scott tossed the paper to the table. Engrossing himself in the sports pages was escapism; he knew it … and yet he did not know what else to do. The stress was becoming untenable. He had to figure out a solution before he walked out onto the roof and jumped.

  Did he have the guts to end his meaningless, pathetic life?

  If he did not think of something soon, he would find out once and for all just how much of a coward he was.

  41

  October 31, 2001

  Scott sat in his easy chair watching the news. There was little else on TV other than unending reports of the 9/11 attacks. He had been in Connecticut the day the planes hit and was not able to return home until three days later.

  His employer had canceled work for a week, so even though he had transitioned to working remotely most days, his boss told them all to take time to reflect. He said it didn’t feel right to produce when others were mourning.

  Regardless, most of his life was consumed with the tragedy. Everyone in New York City had been deeply impacted. Many knew someone who had died in the towers. The mass hysteria and confusion that followed was unlike anything he had experienced. He had difficulty empathizing with them, with feeling what others felt. He didn’t know why. Other than anger toward Mary, he was kind of numb, as if he was living with the mute button permanently activated.

  He learned how to feign concern, as that seemed to be essential to relating to his coworkers.

  Even now, seven weeks or so following the attacks, the news was dominated by reports. Follow-up reports. New information discovered. The president talking about going after those responsible.

  He closed his eyes and reclined, a beer in his right hand. Enough already. Move on to something else.

  Please.

  Grabbed the remote. Kept blindly pressing the channel up button until his finger got tired. Stole a look at the screen. He had stopped on CNN.

  The story was the same here. Tossed the clicker down as the anchor droned on: “The Environmental Protection Agency has sent dozens of polarized light microscopy testing kits to Ground Zero to test bulk dust samples for the presence of asbestos fibers. According to Dr. Paul Zantar at Maimonides Hospital, there is a real danger of chronic airway disease afflicting the firefighters who were exposed to toxins during the 9/11 rescue. Because of the size of the toxic particles, the poison could …”

  Scott’s eyes shot open. He listened a second, then abruptly sat up.

  Poison.

  His mother had poisoned him when he was a kid. That’s how he ended up in the emergency room. He had blocked it from his memory but sometime later he remembered his father coming to the hospital, the doctor explaining what had happened.

  He stared ahead, seeing nothing. Whatever it was, she had to have put it in his food, mixed it in his breakfast. The … uh … oatmeal. It was oatmeal. It tasted too sweet.

  What if he tried poison? On his targets? That way, if he did not want to risk it, he did not have to be even in the same room with them. No face-to-face confrontation. No chance of embarrassment, no blood, no chickening out.

  Scott turned on his Compaq desktop and waited for Windows 98 to boot up. Like a watched pot taking its time to boil, the software took forever to load. Finally, Scott dialed in to the World Wide Web and listened as the modem noises whooshed and buzzed while making the handshake to the server and authenticating his account.

  He opened Alta Vista and began a search for poisons. He needed something that would work quickly but not be obvious as a toxin. If the police knew it was murder, he would have to leave town. He didn’t want to move, so it had to be surreptitious. It’d be better if no one—except him—would realize his target had been killed.

  After poking around for an hour, he was not finding what he was looking for. Maybe you weren’t supposed to put on the web the kinds of information he wanted to know. He shut down the computer and decided to go the old-fashioned route.

  That Saturday he went to TR Dhanes, a well-known used bookstore in Brooklyn that a coworker had once told him about. They improperly bought advance readers, or bound proofs, that publishers gave out free to reviewers to help promote a book in advance of its release. Scott did not know if his colleague was right, but he did not care. If it was cheaper, who cared where it came from?

  He walked in and saw a sign that advertised fifty tons of books—a statement that seemed grandiose. The place was dusty and old … probably an atmosphere the literary, intellectual types of Manhattan treasured.

  To him, though, the musty smell was irritating and reminded him of a damp basement.

  Scott perused the stacks—metal bookshelves stuffed with used hardcovers and paperbacks. As he walked through the store, he was beginning to think their claim was possible. Tons? Good. The better the chance he could find books on poisons.

  Two hours later, he had settled on three that drew his interest: two on toxins and their effects on the body, and one that chronicled both famous and little heralded cases from the files of a former New York City medical examiner, including the methods the killer used and how police ended up catching the person responsible.

  As he paged through the chapters, he realized that most of those who had been caught were women. Did that mean most poisoners were women? Or were they the only ones who got arrested and convicted?

  He shook himself out of his fugue and dug out cash from his pocket. He paid and caught the subway back to his apartment.

  By Sunday evening, he had assembled a list of potential poisons. Each had its advantages and disadvantages, but the first concern—even more important than being able to disguise it—had to be whether he could get his hands on it.

  One caused malignant ventricular arrhythmias due to an accidental intoxication—essentially the person suffered a fatal heart attack that appeared to be a death by natural causes.

  Yes. This poison ticked off all the boxes on his list of needs: Aconitum napellus.

  Also known as aconite.

  He found some additional details in the third book and discovered the toxin was derived from a plant. He could buy one, keep it in his apartment, and grind up the roots when needed.

  Aconite was commonly used in herbal medicine for treating musculoskeletal pain, but the margin of safety between analgesic and toxic doses was very low. In Southeast Asia, where it was widely used, aconite-related deaths were not uncommon … at least at the time the reference text had been published.

  The purchase would not be difficult—and it would not be questioned. This was it … the solution he had been looking for.

  As Scott continued reading about it, he turned the page and found a few color photos of the plant. His jaw dropped. He recognized the blue violet flowers because of their unusual shape, which the text described as resembling a monk’s hood.

  It was a plant his mother kept by the sink in their kitchen. She nurtured it, watering it religiously, trimming it often. She gave more love and attention to that thing than she ever showed him.

  Holy shit. Is this what she used on me? Or had she bought the plant afterward?

  Wait.

  His father had supposedly died a natural death. But was it? Was it really? Impossible to know.

  But Scott knew.

  His dad’s heart attack was likely not an act of God or poor health or bad genes. It was a bad wife. A very bad wife.
<
br />   Mary had killed him.

  He knew that now.

  The anger built inside Scott’s chest. He wanted to grab a bat and smash the nearby window. And the television. And anything else within reach.

  Instead, he grabbed his coat and walked out of the house in search of the plant known as Aconitum napellus.

  42

  Vail’s phone vibrated. She thought about ignoring it but checked the caller ID and it was the assistant special agent in charge of the Behavioral Analysis Units, Thomas Gifford. Her boss’s boss.

  She could not send it to voice mail.

  Vail groaned aloud.

  “Problem?” Russell asked.

  “We’ll see.” She brought the Samsung to her ear. “Sir. So nice to hear from you.”

  “Cut the crap, Karen. We’ve got a problem.”

  “With all due respect, whenever you call me there’s a problem.”

  “And I seem to call you way too often.”

  Touché.

  “What ‘problem’ do we have now?”

  “You want to tell me?”

  “Sir, I’m in Oahu and we’ve got a major case here. If this is something that can wait till I get back, then—”

  “It can’t.”

  Vail glanced over at Russell, whose brow was bunched in concern.

  She held up an index finger and refocused on Gifford.

  “Then let’s hear it.”

  “I’m trying to piece things together, but it looks like DOJ got a complaint,” he said, using the abbreviation for Department of Justice—the parent of the FBI, as well as a host of other federal law enforcement agencies.

  “A complaint? About what?”

  “Not what, who. And that who is you.”

  “Who’s the complainant?”

  “The assistant chief at Honolulu PD. Brad Ferr—”

  “Ferraro.” They said it in unison.

  “I see. So you do know what this is about.”

  “Not really. But Ferraro is the brother-in-law of Chase Hancock, and, well …”