Dying for a Taste

by Leslie Karst

  Javier nodded. He didn’t seem too interested in the restaurant this morning, so I changed the subject. “How was it here last night?”

  He shrugged. “My cellmate snores.”

  “That’s no fun. I don’t think I’m allowed to bring you anything like earplugs, but you could try wadding up some toilet paper.”

  “Yeah.” He shifted in his chair. “What I’d really love is a cigarette, but there’s no smoking in the jail.”

  “Any news on when you’ll get arraigned?”

  “Tomorrow morning, they said. Probably.”

  I wasn’t sure why he was acting so different from yesterday, why he was so taciturn. Maybe it had just taken a day for it all to really sink in. That and shame, perhaps. The fact that he didn’t want anyone to know he was here suggested deep embarrassment about his plight. I guess I couldn’t blame him. I tried to keep the conversation going for a while longer, but after about ten minutes of me talking and Javier giving one-syllable responses, I gave up.

  “Look, I gotta get to work. But I’ll try to make it to your arraignment tomorrow.” I stood up and pushed the call button.

  “Hey, Sally, can you do me a favor?”

  “Yeah, sure. Of course.”

  “I forgot about it yesterday when I saw you, but I’m supposed to be feeding my next-door neighbor’s cat while she’s gone. She gets back tomorrow, but since the cat didn’t get any food yesterday, it’s probably pretty hungry.”

  I smiled. Depressed as he was about his own plight, Javier was still concerned about a neighbor’s cat. “I can feed it. No problem.”

  He told me where his apartment was and that a bin of dry food was sitting right outside his neighbor’s door. A pair of sheriffs came in and waited until he’d finished. Then one took Javier away and the other escorted me back out to the lobby.

  ***

  I pulled up in front of Solari’s and stripped off my wool blazer as soon as I got out of the car. These hot flashes were becoming truly annoying. As I tossed the jacket onto the back seat, I saw sitting there the letter and surveyor’s report my dad had given me the other night. What with the chaos of yesterday, I’d forgotten all about them. Better take a look now, before he asked if I’d read them yet. I grabbed the papers and, after securing a much-needed cup of coffee, got myself settled in the office and pulled out the letter from Wanda’s attorney:

  Dear Mr. Solari,

  Please be informed that this letter hereby serves as notice to you that the plants along the fence between your property and that of my client, Wanda Eldridge, are on the property of my client, as shown by the enclosed report performed by Hanson, Reilly & Assoc., Land Surveyors . . .

  Blah, blah, blah. Typical overblown legalese. I was about to turn to the copy of the surveyor’s report, but then my eye was caught by the word “toxic” in the letter. I read this paragraph:

  As for the Brugmansia, a.k.a. Angel’s Trumpet, this plant presents a serious hazard to the family of Ms. Eldridge, in particular, her young grandchildren. For notwithstanding that the flowers have a sweet perfume, they are in fact highly toxic. If only a small amount is ingested, it can be dangerous, even fatal. Because the flowers in fact look like small trumpets, there have been numerous cases of children being poisoned after putting them to their lips. Some municipalities in the US have actually banned the plant because of this danger.

  I hadn’t paid any attention to this when I’d first skimmed the letter at my dad’s house, but now that the toxicology report on Letta had come back, it had a whole new resonance. That drug they found in her blood—what if it also came from a plant in someone’s garden?

  I grabbed my bag and pulled out the toxicology report I’d stuffed inside the day before. Unfolding the paper and smoothing it out, I scanned the page for the name of the toxin. There it was: gelsemine. I turned to the office computer and pulled the drug up again on the net.

  Yep, I was right. The alkaloid was derived from Gelsemium sempervirens. Common name, “yellow jasmine.” How could I have missed that before? I typed “yellow jasmine” into the browser search box and learned that it was a climbing vine with prolific, bright-yellow flowers and dark-green leaves. It bloomed in early spring. That would be now.

  But did it grow in this area? Perusing several articles noting that yellow jasmine thrives in “temperate to tropical climes,” I finally found one saying that it did fine in coastal California as long as it got good sun and received plenty of moisture. I took a good look at pictures of the plant on various websites in the hope that I’d be able to recognize it if I saw one.

  A soft knock at the partly opened door startled me. “Sally, could I talk to you for a minute?” Giulia stuck her head into the office.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said and forced myself to pay attention as she explained about a scheduling conflict the following week.

  Once the Solari’s lunch crowd had finally thinned out, I headed over to Gauguin. Reuben had found us a new cook, which thankfully relieved me of further responsibility, but I needed to make sure he’d actually shown up and that all was going smoothly.

  The new guy turned out to be a gal, Kris. She was already in the kitchen when I got there, being shown around by Reuben. They’d cooked together at another place some years back, and he was confident she’d fit in well with the Gauguin crew. My regard for Reuben bumped up a notch.

  I left them to it and went upstairs to the office. I’d spaced out organizing the bills and invoices for Shanti the day before, and she’d be coming by for them in a few hours. Sitting down at the desk, I was about to open the receipts file Javier had left out for me when my eye was caught by a letter sitting at the top of today’s mail pile on the desk.

  It was a plain, white envelope with my name and “c/o Gauguin” typed on the front. There was no return address, but it did have a San Francisco postmark. I got a tingling sensation on my skin. Sure enough, inside was a sheet of paper with printed text that looked disturbingly familiar:

  Sally—

  So you’ve taken over Gauguin after the tragic demise of its previous owner. I suggest that this is a good opportunity to make some changes to the restaurant, which has sadly, up until now, been a pawn of corporate agriculture.

  Not only are you supporting factory farming—in other words, the torture of innocent animals—by serving industrial meat, but when you have farmed salmon and imported shrimp on the menu, you are a part of the systematic decimation of our ocean life.

  It is time for you to switch to humanely raised meat and sustainable seafood! Do it NOW. I won’t go away. Remember what happened to Letta.

  Noah

  I set the letter down and got up to yank open the window. A feeling of claustrophobia had overtaken me. My forehead was hot, and I was starting to sweat. It could have been a hot flash, and the lingering hangover also no doubt didn’t help. But I knew those weren’t the real causes.

  That look in Ted’s eyes as he’d raged at the charcuterie woman after dinner had come back to me, reading the last sentence of his letter. And now I was on his list.

  I picked up the phone and called Eric.

  “I’m scared,” I said.

  ***

  Eric advised me to take the letter straight down to the police station and talk with Detective Vargas. He became even more adamant after I told him about the blue car. “I may have my issues with the guy, but you should let the cops do their job. That’s what they’re there for.”

  “You sound like my dad,” I said. But I knew he was right.

  I couldn’t leave Gauguin, however, until I’d organized the bills for Shanti. And then once that was finished, I remembered the cat. Better stop and feed the poor, starving thing on my way over to the police station.

  Javier’s apartment was downtown, a couple blocks from Neary Lagoon. I found a spot in his parking garage and climbed the stairs to the second floor. Following the walkway around the side of the building, I located his number. Sure enough, outside the next door down were two bowls and a
Tupperware container of cat food. At the sound of the tub being opened, a large gray-and-white tabby came trotting down the walkway and brushed up against my legs. It started to eat as soon as I poured out the kibble.

  Seeing that the water was also low, I picked up the other bowl and went in search of a hose or outdoor spigot. I finally found a faucet at the back of the building next to the garage. As I crouched down to fill the bowl, I noticed some yellow flowers scattered over the cement and looked up. There, climbing all the way up to the third story, was a magnificent vine covered in blooms.

  I wasn’t positive, but it sure looked like a yellow jasmine. Shaking my head in defeat, I picked a couple flowers and a sprig of leaves and tucked them into my jacket pocket.

  It can’t be. Please, no.

  Water bowl in hand, I headed back upstairs, trying to decide what to do with this new evidence. Should I tell Detective Vargas about the flowers? On the one hand, it seemed wrong to volunteer information that could harm Javier when I had no proof at this point that it was even pertinent. For all I knew, the plant could be totally unrelated to yellow jasmine. And how could I even be completely sure that yellow jasmine was what had been given to Letta in any case?

  But on the other hand, as a member of the bar, I knew I was considered to be “an officer of the court,” which mandated the legal and ethical obligation to come forward with any possibly relevant evidence. Too bad I’d had to go active again, or I wouldn’t be facing this moral dilemma.

  The gunning of a car engine interrupted my musing, and I nearly spilled water all down my front. Turning at the sound, I was just in time to catch a flash of blue as a car entered the parking garage.

  Was that the muscle car?

  I set the bowl down and took several deep breaths, unsure whether this was paranoia or whether my ramped-up heartbeat was a rational response to the situation. I stood there on the walkway for a couple minutes, hoping that whoever was in the car would simply emerge from the garage and go into their apartment.

  No such luck. Damn.

  Removing Letta’s can of pepper spray from my bag, I transferred it to my right jacket pocket and made my way back down the stairs.

  At the door to the parking garage, I stopped and listened. All was quiet. I let my eyes get used to the dark and then scanned the place, searching for the metallic-blue muscle car. At this hour, when most folks were probably still at work, there were only a few cars in the building, and the only blue one I could see was a dinged-up Toyota Corolla—definitely not the muscle car that had followed me before.

  I exhaled and released the grip I’d had on the can of pepper spray. The T-Bird was against the far wall, and as I crossed toward it, I could feel my shoulders begin to relax. After stopping by the police station, I was going to go home and pour myself a hefty Jim Beam on the rocks.

  Once at the driver’s side door, I set my bag on the hood and searched for my car keys. I rummaged around, cursing the propensity of keys to always sink to the very bottom of whatever clutter one might possess. And then a hand clapped over my mouth.

  A second one immediately grabbed me around the waist.

  I tried to yell, but the sound was muffled by the large hand pressing down more firmly.

  “Don’t struggle if you don’t want to be hurt,” a low male voice said.

  I stood still. I’m tall for a woman and no weakling. But I could tell from the way he was bending over me that this guy was way bigger than me.

  “I’ve been watching you,” he went on, “and I’m gonna keep on watching.”

  So he must be the mystery man in the blue muscle car. But if so, where was the car? Why hadn’t I seen it?

  But mostly I was thinking, Please let someone come into the garage—right now!

  “I seen you poking your nose where it don’t belong, and I don’t like it one bit.” The man’s voice was raspy, like he had phlegm in his throat that needed clearing. “But all you gotta do is lay off, and everything will be fine.”

  As he said this last bit, he squeezed even harder, pinning my left arm against my body. Painful as it was, however, it gave me an idea. With the way he was holding me, maybe I could get my right hand free.

  He leaned down farther to whisper into my ear. “You understand what I mean?”

  I nodded, using the opportunity for movement as cover to slip my right hand into my jacket pocket.

  “Good. Because—”

  My arm shot up, and a blast of pepper spray hit him square in the eyes. Doubling over, he released his grip and fell to the ground, hands over his face. A string of obscenities spewed from his mouth, all directed at me.

  I grabbed my bag and dumped its contents onto the ground; snatched up my phone, wallet, and keys; and let myself into the T-Bird. He was still writhing about on the parking garage floor when I sped off.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It was only a few blocks to the police station, but I didn’t want to waste any time, so I dialed 9-1-1 as I drove there, my shaking hands making it difficult to complete the call. The woman at Dispatch assured me they’d send an officer to the parking garage ASAP and then kept me on the line until I arrived at the station.

  “It’s okay,” I told her as I pulled up in front of the building. “I’m here now.” Grabbing the pile of papers sitting on the passenger seat, I jumped out of the car and ran up the steps to the double glass doors.

  Dispatch had apparently already informed Detective Vargas of the situation, because he was waiting for me in the lobby. “Come on in,” he said, and I followed his beefy figure once more upstairs to the investigation area.

  After offering me a cup of coffee, which I declined, he motioned for me to take a seat on the same couch as before. “So why don’t you tell me exactly what happened.”

  Unlike the last time we’d met, the detective seemed to be doing his best to put me at ease. He leaned forward as he spoke, and his brows were creased in a show of concern.

  I thought back to all that had happened over the last couple weeks and decided to start by telling him about Letta’s buying the pepper spray. “It was because of those letters she got, I’m sure, and that guy who was harassing her at the restaurant, the one in the photo Ruth Kallenbach sent you.”

  “Right,” he said. “But we didn’t know about the pepper spray.”

  I then recounted what Kate had said about a man in a muscle car coming up to her farm and told him how I’d seen a metallic-blue muscle car behind me twice the other day. “I’m thinking the car I saw might be the same one that guy—the one who came up to Kate’s farm—was driving,” I said, “and that he’s been following me for some reason.”

  We were interrupted at this point by a call for Vargas. He listened for a minute; said, “Okay, thanks”; and then switched off the phone and returned it to his pocket.

  “That was Dispatch. The officer who was sent to the parking garage saw no sign of the man who attacked you, but he did find your purse with all its contents spilled on the ground.”

  I nodded and then swallowed, trying to hold it together. So he was still out there.

  “Why don’t you go on with your story.”

  I picked up the papers I’d set down next to me and extracted the threatening letter I’d received earlier in the day. As he read through it, I explained how I’d met “Noah” and what his real name was. “It turns out he used to be involved with my Aunt Letta back in the eighties, so now there’s way more of a connection between them than anyone thought before. And here, check this out.”

  I handed him the two articles I’d printed out about Noah’s letters to Bay Area restaurants and the food contamination incident. “So it looks like he doesn’t just stop at writing threatening letters. And I’ve got to say, having seen the guy in action, I’m not sure just how far he’d go.”

  The detective looked up from the articles he’d been skimming. “As far as murder, you mean?”

  “Well, somebody stabbed my aunt in the chest multiple times, and now we’ve got seve
ral clear links between this guy, who’s proven himself to be on the far edge of fanatical, and Letta. Not only that, but now he’s turned his sights on me. Thank God he doesn’t know that I know who he is . . .”

  But as I said this, it occurred to me that maybe he did know. The thought was chilling, and I pushed it away. “So all I’m getting at is, I was wondering if you could look into him a bit—at least do a background check on the guy now that you know his real name.”

  Vargas gathered up the papers and secured them with a paper clip. “Sure, we can do that. But you wanna tell me about what just happened in that parking garage?”

  “Okay . . .” I explained about going to Javier’s apartment building to feed his neighbor’s cat and was about to do my ethical duty as an “officer of the court” and tell him about the flowers. But then I realized that the only way I could possibly know of their relevance would be if I’d seen the toxicology report. Which would bust Eric big time.

  “So on my way back upstairs with the water,” I went on, omitting any mention of the yellow vine, “I hear this gunning of an engine, and I turn just in time to see a blue car go into the parking garage.”

  “Was it the same one you saw before?”

  “I’m not sure. All I saw was a glimpse of the blue color. And when I got back down to the garage, there were only a few cars there, and none of them looked at all like the one that had been following me. The only blue one was an old Corolla, definitely not the muscle car. Anyway, so I was looking for my keys when it happened, when he grabbed me from behind.”

  I recounted what the man had said and then described how I’d managed to get free, at which point I kind of lost it and started shaking like crazy.

  The detective started out of his chair, but I waved him off, so he just sat back down and waited till I composed myself. After a minute, he asked, “Can you describe your assailant? Or this muscle car that’s been following you?”