San Diego Noir

It’s harder to inject poison into dense chocolate than you might think, a matter of physics, really, and I had to do some experimenting with truffle reconstruction to make it work. At one point a failed venture rolled clear across the floor, dangerously close to the bathroom door where Gwendolyn was howling her displeasure at being locked away for her own safety.

The ones I botched went down the toilet, since I’d determined that entry into the sewage stream would diffuse the poison and render it harmless. In fact, I was a little dismayed to find out just how much terrible stuff was already in our local sewage stream, though too tired to care.

When I was finished, I repackaged everything, boxed it, wrapped it, tucked the card among the packing peanuts, and sealed the white carton. I changed my appearance a bit and took it to a shipping store in a business park facility during a busy spell. I kept my nerves mostly under control, though I did drop my purse and have to gather its contents at one point.

Then I went home to take a nap. There was no reason yet to monitor the Internet, and I was increasingly tired anyway, sometimes sleeping sixteen or eighteen hours a day. I even kept my phone turned off much of the time because there wasn’t anybody I wanted to hear from.

I’d paid for next-day delivery and it was Wednesday, so the present would arrive tomorrow. On Thursday mornings, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Laverne always attended a business breakfast, so she’d be gone before it was delivered. If she paid attention to packages that came to her house, as women tend to, she’d open it tomorrow night and be unable to resist taking a bite out of a succulent chocolate morsel.

Her last succulent chocolate morsel.

I slept well and soundly, setting an alarm to wake me for my eight a.m. meds and returning to bed, then sleeping clear past noon. I spent the afternoon reading newspapers from around the world online, pretending I wasn’t aware of every minute that passed. Then I was tired again, so I took another nap after my four p.m. meds. When I awoke, it was nearly dark.

I went to the computer and found the story third on the headline list of my favorite news service: Western Health Executive Dies Under Suspicious Circumstances. It was breaking news with few details, just that Leonard Patterson had called 911 when his wife suddenly collapsed and that homicide detectives were investigating and had no comment.

I’d expected to feel some kind of satisfaction and relief, vindication for those who had suffered at Laverne Patterson’s hands and would be saved from her future attempts to mold health care. But I didn’t feel much of anything, really.

In a corner, Gwendolyn batted her favorite pink ball and I remembered running across the room to grab the cyanide-treated truffle that was rolling toward the bathroom door. I remembered reaching down and picking it up with the gloved hand that wore the heavy silver poison ring. I wondered if Molly knew what I had done.

Then I checked my e-mail and found a message marked Urgent from my doctor’s office.

I had been approved for the clinical trial, he told me, after somebody dropped out at the last minute. They’d been unable to reach me by phone but time was an issue, and I needed to get to Philadelphia for pretesting as soon as possible. There were no guarantees of the new orphan drug being tested, but it had proven promising in animal studies. Like most clinical trials, there was no way to know if I’d receive the actual drug or a placebo, but they were certain I would be as pleased by this surprising development as they were.

Somebody had “dropped out” of the study. Had dropped dead, more likely, but that hardly mattered.

I had a chance again. I might be cured. I might live and cheat those charities out of their speedy inheritance. Of course, I might also get the sugar pills, but then I was no worse off than I’d been to start with, except that I’d be in a hospital in Philadelphia.

It was all terribly confusing, and I was getting tired again. I wished Molly were here, or somebody else I could talk to.

If I joined the study and lived, I’d get a double pass, from both death and the criminal justice system.

I’d taken every possible precaution to avoid spending my final days in a literal cell instead of the figurative one of my impending death. I obscured my identity two different ways at the candy store and the shipping service, made cash payments with twenties from East County ATMs, wore gloves at every stage of the maneuver except the actual sale counters, where I touched nothing. I used my own cheap ballpoint to fill out shipping forms, flushed or burned the remains of the chocolate-doctoring session, kept only Molly’s cloisonne box and the four rings it contained.

The rings.

I watched Gwendolyn continue to bat the pink ball and remembered the heavy silver ring I’d been wearing when I fixed Laverne’s final snack. It was back in the cloisonne box, but I’d slipped Molly’s opal onto my finger for good luck when I headed out to ship the candy. The ring was a little loose, but that didn’t really matter. It didn’t fit the character I was playing at the shipping service, so I’d tucked it into my purse.

I moved in slow motion now toward the little drawstring bag, its contents still jumbled from when I’d stuffed everything back in as I waited in line to send my package, dismayed that I’d called attention to myself. I dumped the contents on the table.

No ring.

I took my time about it, checked and rechecked, ran the film back and forth in my brain. I went out and searched the car. Checked my purse again. There hadn’t been pockets in the sweat suit I was wearing at the time, and in any case I’d left it in a Salvation Army drop box on my way home twenty minutes later, after changing in a McDonald’s restroom.

So I’d dropped it on the floor at the shipping service, where cops were probably already trying to find out who’d sent the candy. Where somebody would surely find it. And trace it to Molly, who bought it on eBay and told me the seller had assured her only three existed in the world just like it.

I opened the cloisonne box and put the chunky silver poison ring on my finger. I sent a brief reply to the doctor’s e-mail, saying that I had decided not to participate in the clinical trial. Then I opened the poison ring and removed the capsule it still held.

Instant karma.