by Diana Saco
Maybe I was setting my sights too high. I knew that moving billions was just hyperbole and not a realistic goal. Or a desired one, for that matter. I could already think of whole subgroups I had no desire to reach. Would I care if some misogynistic terrorist found my stories amusing? Hell, no! Child abusers, religious fanatics, racists? They could all go read something else! Email spammers, too, for that matter. And those “click here” jackhole, rascal, weasel, snake-in-the-grass, good-for-nothing miscreants who phish for my login by pretending to be my bank. These are not people I would care to enthrall, enlighten, or entertain. Why would I bother trying to engage anyone I wouldn’t like and who wouldn’t like me regardless of how well I write?
As an artist, Chloe didn’t try to win popularity contests. That much I already knew about her. She certainly didn’t care whether Monica Munch hated her work. She seemed cool that way, nonchalant. Maybe that was the right approach. I could learn from Chloe’s example. I wanted to learn from her. And about her, too.
Thinking of Chloe reminded me that I had background checks to run. I’d have to put my movel writing on hold and focus on the more tedious tasks at hand. I logged into my people-finder accounts, kicked off my first search and sat back waiting for results to come up, considering whether I thought this was mundane work.
“Ah, who am I kidding? I love this stuff.”
Seconds later, I got another text message, this time from Bruno.
“Can you meet me at PGH ER?”
PGH was Park General Hospital. I texted back a short reply. “Can be there in 10. What’s up?”
“May have second victim,” he texted back.
Holy Toxic Encore! I tapped an “On my way,” and headed out.
*****
Randall Kirkland hated cell phones. He was a new arrival to Millsferry, so none of his neighbors knew a lot about him. But his aversion to computers and smartphones was known through the grapevine. Unfortunately for him, he had just set out in his small motor boat to go fishing when he was seized by severe stomach cramps. He was able to shut down the motor. Still close enough to the cell towers, he also would have been able to call someone for help but for his vow never to be caught dead with one of those “portable soul-snatching devices” on his person. I bet he started reconsidering the wisdom of that decision just before he lost consciousness, cast adrift in the North Atlantic.
Lucky for Mr. Kirkland, his nosy neighbor Felix Exley had been watching him through binoculars. Exley witnessed Mr. Kirkland’s predicament and immediately called 911. A police cutter rescued him and deposited his still unconscious body at the emergency room. It was there that I met up with our suddenly busy sheriff, who filled me in on the victim.
“What makes you think this is related to Munch?” I asked.
“After I got here, Kirkland came to. I asked him what happened, and he said he had eaten breakfast and then headed out on his boat. He said his throat started to burn, so he stopped to get a drink of water, and that was the last thing he remembered. I was about to ask him what he ate when he had another convulsion. That’s when I texted you. Unfortunately, he slipped into a coma shortly after that. I didn’t get anything more. I’m going to go raid his kitchen to see if I can figure out what he ate. Wanna come along?”
“Sure. But how do you know this isn’t just a severe case of heartburn? Heck, we don’t even know yet what killed Munch.”
“I asked Doc Peebles to look at Kirkland, and she confirmed that his mouth and throat show the same signs of irritation she found on Monica Munch. That doesn’t prove anything, but it sure does support the theory that we’re looking at a second victim.”
“But of what?” I asked.
“If it’s accidental, then there’s still a contaminated food source out there that we have to find. And if it’s not an accident . . .”
“Then someone out there is deliberately poisoning people,” I concluded.
I imagined a pair of dramatic piano chords punctuating my comment.
8. Stymied by Rhubarb
Even the most upbeat person can’t help occasionally thinking about her own death and immediately sending a tiny wish into the cosmos. Let me “shuffle off this mortal coil” like a band-aid—quick and painless. To this I would add a third wish. Please, oh please, don’t let it be embarrassing! Of all the ill ends one could meet, the ignominious end is certainly among the worst.
Consider Attila the Hun. His name conjures images of a merciless barbarian pillaging his way through Western Europe. But it wasn’t blood-lust and swordplay that did him in. No, the mighty Hun was vanquished by a simple nosebleed on his wedding night, apparently from drinking too much wine.
Poor Isadora Duncan is another case in point. The mother of modern dance met a tragically ungraceful and freakish end in a convertible. She was strangled to death when her signature long scarf got caught in the rear axle. This costume mishap led Gertrude Stein to remark, “Affectations can be dangerous.”
Intellectual curiosity can also be dangerous. Francis Bacon, the famous English philosopher, statesman, and scientist was certainly too curious for his own good. Wondering whether he could preserve a chicken by freezing it, Bacon took a test sample of poultry out into a blizzard, where he promptly contracted a fatal case of pneumonia. His experiment proved only that even a smart man sometimes lacks enough sense to come in from the cold.
And Monica Munch, a Millsferry homemaker known for making artful, award-winning cakes, pastries and pies, died one day from eating rhubarb.
On the Friday morning that the toxicology report came out, Bruno and Al were each busy with other assignments, so I volunteered to meet with Scarlet Peebles in her office to review her findings. Officially, Ms. Munch died of cardiovascular collapse. But the tox analysis revealed the underlying reason. She had high concentrations of oxalic acid, a nephrotoxin found in several common plant foods.
I’d heard of it before. My Uncle Oz—short for Osvaldo—got kidney stones several times in his adult life. His doctor was one of those fine modern clinicians who’ve been seduced by the pharmaceutical industry into treating every illness by throwing different pills at the symptoms without bothering to look for underlying causes. Consequently, the good doctor never troubled himself with discovering the source of my uncle’s chronic ailment. Uncle Oz’s wife, however, was too pragmatic to stop at palliative remedies. She did a little research and found that her husband’s favorite snack was causing his kidney stones. Oz overindulged on a common Florida fruit called “carambola,” better known as “starfruit” because its slices resembled five-point stars. My aunt and uncle had several starfruit trees in their backyard, and Oz would eat one or two every day straight off the tree, waxy skin and all. The problem was that Oz had bad kidneys, making it harder for his system to handle the high concentrations of oxalic acid in his beloved starfruit. His wife eventually got him to vary his diet and cut back on the starfruit and other culprits, including black pepper, parsley and spinach.
“Did the victim have any preexisting kidney issues?” I asked.
“Not in the one she had,” Doc replied.
“Why would she have only one kidney?”
“Well, I didn’t find any signs of renal disease. Maybe she donated one.”
“Hmm. She has a twin,” I said.
“Well, that’s the first place I’d look for the other kidney.”
“Did having only one kidney contribute to her death?” I asked.
“Very likely,” Dr. Peebles replied.
“Okay, so how’d she get all that oxalic acid in her system?”
“I rechecked my notes on the stomach contents and on what she spit up that morning,” Doc replied. “The only thing she ate was a tart with rhubarb in it. Oxalates exist in all parts of the rhubarb plant. Unsurprisingly, that’s where we found the oxalic acid, in the rhubarb. But here’s the funny part. Normally, the highest concentration is in the leaves, not in the edible stalk. The lethal dose for most people, moreover, is about 7.5% of their body weig
ht. Even if Munch’s body tolerated only half that because of her missing kidney, she still would have needed to consume over 2.3 kilograms of rhubarb leaf salad to get a lethal dose of oxalic acid. That’s 5 pounds of greens.”
“Did you find any greens in that pastry?” I asked.
“Nope,” she said, reading off her file. “Just rhubarb stalk, peaches, oats, sugar, molasses, flour, butter, and various spices.”
I considered what Doc was saying. “Is it possible to make a concentrate of oxalic acid?”
“Absolutely,” she said.
“Could someone have added oxalic acid concentrate to the rhubarb?”
“That’s the likeliest scenario. But I couldn’t entirely rule out the possibility that the rhubarb itself naturally contained abnormally high concentrations of oxalates. A unique strain, frostbite, or cross-contamination from the leaves could all account for that.”
“So the evidence is inconclusive,” I said.
Dr. Peebles nodded. “Yes, that’s why I’m ruling the manner of her death as undetermined.”
Great! We either had a killer out there, or killer rhubarb!
*****
Randall Kirkland was a lucky man. Given his recent history, he could have disputed the point. According to the background research we’d done on him, he had been forced into early retirement when robotics made him redundant at the manufacturing plant where he had worked for over thirty years. By then, he had already invested in a home in Millsferry thinking it was still an old mill town. He was shocked to discover that in the couple of decades that had passed since his purchase, the town had transformed itself into a paragon of technological living. Add to that the unfortunate circumstance of getting poisoned within months of his arrival in this newfangled town, and one could certainly see why the man might consider himself cursed.
But he was lucky his neighbor was watching him when he slumped over. Lucky the usual morning fog was light enough for his neighbor to actually see him. Lucky, too, that the town’s main hospital, Park General, was one of the best healthcare facilities in the country. Kirkland awoke from his coma after thirteen days. That particular fact could go either way in assessing his luck. Was it unlucky to be in a coma for thirteen days if you wake up from it?
Mr. Kirkland himself decided it was a good thing. He declared as much when Bruno and I interviewed him the following day. After our introductions and our sincere inquiries into his health, he disclosed that the prognosis was good for a full recovery, and said, “I guess thirteen is my new lucky number.”
“Can you tell us what you remember about the day you got sick?” Bruno asked.
“When I let the dog out, I noticed that the weather was nice and decided to do a little fishing. Do you know who has Waldo, by the way? My dog? Nobody here knew anything.”
“Your neighbor, Mr. Exley, is watching him,” I said.
“That’s good. Waldo likes Felix. Anyway, I only got a little way out when my throat started burning. And then I felt a sharp pain in my stomach that doubled me over. I guess that’s when I passed out because I don’t remember anything after that. Until I woke up here yesterday.”
“You don’t remember talking to me that day?” Bruno asked.
“We’ve met before?” Kirkland asked.
“On the day of your accident. You regained consciousness briefly and told me you had just had breakfast.”
“I don’t remember telling you that. But yeah, I did eat before going out on the boat.”
“What did you eat?” Bruno prompted.
“I made myself a few links and a couple of fried eggs. And some coffee. Oh, and I grabbed a slice of bread with butter and jam before heading out the door. Ate that on the short walk to the dock.”
“Was that your usual breakfast?” I asked.
“I mix it up. Sometimes I do oatmeal or pancakes, but I do eggs and sausage a lot.”
“What we really want to know, Mr. Kirkland,” I explained, “is whether you ate something that day you don’t normally eat. Or whether you opened a new package of one of those foods just that morning.”
“No, eggs and sausages and bread were all from stuff I had already eaten from. Oh, except the jam. That was new.”
Bruno and I looked at each other. We had confiscated several food items on the day Kirkland was poisoned, among them a jar of homemade peach-rhubarb jam. After Friday’s tox report, moreover, Bruno had sent the jar in for testing. We had learned just that morning, before our meeting with Kirkland, that the jam was loaded with oxalic acid and very likely the source of his poisoning.
“What kind of jam, Mr. Kirkland?” Bruno asked, wanting to get his confirmation.
“It was peach-rhubarb, with a touch of ginger. Wasn’t expecting that. Nice touch. It was a gift from a lady I met on the beach a couple of weeks ago.”
I felt a strange kind of anticipation as Bruno continued.
“Do you know this lady’s name?” he asked.
“Chloe Owens,” Kirkland said.
That anticipation just as suddenly became a sinking feeling. I glanced at Bruno and wondered if I had the same grim expression on my face. I imagined it was worse for him because he was friends with Chloe. I continued the conversation while Bruno processed.
“Can you tell us how you met Ms. Owens?” I asked.
“Waldo introduced us.”
“Your dog?”
“Yeah, you know, he likes running up to strangers. I chase after him, so I wind up running up to strangers, too. He introduces us. Like that, see? Anyway, I was walking along the shore with Waldo, like we usually do on the weekends, and saw this woman looking at a piece of driftwood. Really pretty. The woman, not the wood. She looked up and saw us coming, and then she got this bright smile on her face. A look like that from a gorgeous woman. Made me feel ten feet taller, know what I mean?” he asked Bruno.
Bruno just smiled and shrugged, but I felt my head bob in understanding.
“Anyway, Waldo ran ahead, and she greeted him like a long lost buddy, scratching and petting him in all his favorite places. When I reached them, we exchanged names and got to talking. She said she was scavenging driftwood for an art project and showed me this curled piece she had found. She wondered if it would take stain, and I suggested she bleach it. We walked back to my house, and I gave her something she could use for the wood.”
“Is that when she gave you the jam?” Bruno asked.
“No, that was the following week. The Sunday before my accident. Chloe dropped by the house in the morning and gave me the jam as a thanks for the oxalic acid I gave her. To bleach the wood.”
Bruno and I again exchanged looks.
“You gave her oxalic acid to bleach the driftwood?” he asked for clarification.
“Yeah. It’s a pretty good wood bleach. I told her she could check the library on how to use it, and she said she would search something called ‘U-tube.’ I just told her to be careful when she mixes it since even the fumes can be dangerous. I gave her a small bottle of it. As I said, she came by a week later to say thanks. And that’s when she gave me the jam. She said the bleaching worked out well for her.”
“And why is it you have oxalic acid on hand?” I asked.
“It’s for my apiary. I mix oxalic acid crystals in a sugar syrup solution to kill mites. I had some crystals left over from the stock I set aside for last winter.”
“You’re a beekeeper?” I asked. “But I thought you just moved here a few months ago.”
“I did. Moved here in March. Me and the bees. And Waldo, too, of course. The bees and the dog settled in okay. I’m still getting used to this place. I hate all this high-tech stuff. Even the barbershop has Internet! Makes my scalp itch. Anyway, why all the questions about Chloe?”
“Mr. Kirkland, do you know what happened to you?” Bruno asked.
“I heard I was poisoned, but the nurses didn’t say how. The doctor is supposed to be in later to explain everything.”
“You ingested toxic levels of oxalic acid, M
r. Kirkland.”
“Ah, crap! Did I mix up my jars? I’m usually pretty good about labeling things. I don’t see how I could make a mistake like that,” he said pensively.
“We don’t think you did this to yourself,” Bruno continued. “We tested the jam Chloe Owens gave you and found an abnormally high concentration of oxalic acid in there.”
“You mean Chloe mixed up her jars?”
I couldn’t help liking Randall Kirkland. Despite his neo-Luddite views about Millsferry, he seemed fairly friendly with and trusting of its citizens, even to the point of assuming Chloe’s poisoning of him was accidental rather than deliberate. I figured Bruno liked his reaction, too. He smiled at him and said, “We’re going to look into this some more to figure out what happened, Mr. Kirkland. In the meantime, we’d better let you get some rest.”
“Thanks, Sheriff.”
“Feel better soon, Mr. Kirkland,” I added.
He gave me a smile and a little wink before we stepped out.
*****
Bruno and I were alone in the elevator. He punched the button for the ground floor and then turned toward me.
“It’s not looking good for Chloe,” I said.
“No,” he replied.
“She doesn’t seem careless,” I continued. “Do you think she could accidentally poison two people?”
“I doubt it.”
We both thought about that as the elevator stopped on our floor, and we headed outside to his prowler.
I watched him as he opened the passenger door for me and waited for him to make his way around the car and get in. “Do you think a case could be made that she had a motive to poison Kirkland?” I asked.
“Yes, I do,” he said, starting the engine and heading back downtown. “The prosecution would simply have to look for a tie-in to Monica Munch’s death.”
