I waved her in. “The coroner just paged Doug—toxicology, I assume.”
Pierce was already dialing from my desk. A few seconds later, he said, “Yes, Vernon. What have you got?”
Pierce listened, nodding, then said, “Hold on a moment, Vernon. I’d better take notes.” So he sat at my desk, clicked his pen, and began writing on a pad that I kept near the phone.
Lucy and I glanced at each other, antsy for information, while Pierce scribbled, occasionally asking for spellings. His half of the conversation revealed little, though, consisting mainly of mumbled uh-huhs and okays. At last he said, “Thanks for putting a rush on it, Vernon. I’ll see you later this afternoon.” And he hung up the phone.
Lucy and I both stared at him with an expression that asked, Well…?
He looked over his notes briefly, then summarized, “Toxicology tests have revealed the presence of choline and muscarine in Jason’s remains, pointing to poisoning by the mushroom known as”—he squinted at his writing—“fly agaric.”
I tossed my hands in the air. “Frank Gelden was right on the mark. Just last night, he told me that if Jason died from mushrooms, it was probably fly agaric.”
Pierce continued, “Since fatalities from this species are rare, and since the mushrooms themselves were not found in the victim’s stomach, the circumstances are deemed highly suspicious. Vernon will issue his final report later today.”
“Unless I’m mistaken,” said Lucy, “the Jason Thrush case has moved up a notch.”
“Yes, indeed.” Pierce stood. “Jason’s routine postmortem has just launched a murder investigation.”
PART THREE
Midsummer Night
DEADLY MUSHROOMS
Toxicology tests suggest foul play in mysterious death of Jason Thrush
By CHARLES OAKLAND
Staff Reporter, Dumont Daily Register
AUG. 8, DUMONT WI—IN a report issued late yesterday, Dumont County coroner Vernon Formhals concluded that Jason Thrush, 17, died last Friday as the result of mushroom poisoning. Circumstances surrounding the tragic death point to foul play.
Dr. Formhals told the Register, “The mechanism of death was respiratory failure. Toxicology revealed the presence of choline and muscarine in the boy’s body, which produced deadly complications to a common cold.”
The toxins are associated with a species of mushroom known as fly agaric (Amanita muscaria), which is found locally at this time of year. However, a large amount of these mushrooms would have to be ingested to prove deadly, and under analysis, the victim’s stomach contents did not include mushrooms.
“Because these particular toxins act quickly,” explained Formhals, “the mushrooms would still have been in the boy’s stomach had he accidentally eaten them. The presence of these toxins, then, is highly suspicious. As there is no circumstantial evidence suggesting suicide, we can only conclude that the manner of death was homicide.”
Dumont County sheriff Douglas Pierce is leading the police investigation, which is already under way. He told the Register, “Several leads are being actively pursued, but there are currently no firm suspects.”
Pierce cited the perplexing biology of the boy’s death as a formidable hurdle to unraveling the mystery. “We’ve isolated the telltale toxins,” he said, “but they left no sign of the mushrooms themselves. How, then, was Jason Thrush poisoned?”
The victim was a student, athlete, and actor who would have entered his senior year at Unity High this fall. His death on Friday occurred a mere two hours before he was to appear in Teen Play, the current production of the Dumont Players Guild.
Wednesday, August 8
I AWOKE TO A NOISE, not startled, but simply aware that I was no longer sleeping. Though my mind was not fully alert, my brain tried to analyze what I’d heard while assuring me that its source was benign. A flushed toilet? A distant car? A single, light cough or snore from Neil? Then I heard it again, but more distant. Smiling with the satisfaction of a mystery solved, I knew that the morning paper had landed on my porch, then another copy had landed next door. The Dumont Daily Register was peppering the town.
Rolling onto my back, I saw that it was not yet dawn. Beyond the French doors on the far wall of our bedroom, the sunporch was washed with a gentle bluish light, not from the sun, but still from the moon.
Close your eyes, I told myself. Go back to sleep.
But my sleep that night had been restless at best. It was now official: Dumont had a murder on its hands. A killer was at large, and due to the timing of an adolescent spat, a number of locals believed that the killer was Thad. When the town awoke today and read my own front-page story detailing the coroner’s report that Jason Thrush had in fact been murdered—and that the bizarre weapon was poisonous mushrooms—fuel would be added to the smoldering suspicion that already whorled around Thad, suspicion that could well ignite into an ugly public outcry.
Close your eyes, I told myself. Such fretting is neither logical nor warranted, at least not yet. Go back to sleep.
But sleep was now impossible. At best, I could simply try to rest, to store a bit of energy for a day that promised to be difficult. And there was no point in disturbing Neil. Glancing to my side, I saw him in the dim, ambient moonlight, sprawled under the sheet, one leg fetchingly exposed. I stifled the tremor of a gentle, silent laugh, recalling his performance the night before, out on the sunporch. Making good on his promise to surprise me with a gift of ecstasy, my “fantasy masseur” had done that and more—he had reminded me that everything I wanted, I already had.
These pleasant thoughts, I knew, could not erase the vexing Jason-and-Thad issue, but they did provide a respite from my worries, and I must have dozed. Minutes escaped me, and my head rolled on the pillow. A lazy eye drifted open, aimed at the doors to the sunporch. Still no daylight. Still only moonlight. Still, it seemed, a midsummer night. Somewhere in that netherworld between waking and sleeping, between thinking and dreaming, I relived the pleasures of the previous night, when mushrooms had danced.
Neil appeared—buffed and ready and crisply dressed in white. Announcing his payback, he said no more. With a gesture, he invited me to the sunporch, where he’d arranged a bench like an altar for the purpose of physical, manual worship. Oiling his hands, he touched my body, starting with my head, exploring every inch. He both lulled and excited me. Relaxed and stimulated, I rode waves of emotion that stemmed as much from the mind as from the groin. Ultimately, though, it was indeed the groin that was the focus of his attentions, the focus of my waning consciousness. The orgasm, when at last it came, was both eerie and wonderful—eerie because it seemed to draw life itself from me, yet wonderful because I surrendered it so fully and willingly to Neil. He watched with a woozy smile as I thrashed beneath his hands. A moment later, he thrilled me with the sight of his own ejaculation. Then we kissed. It seemed like hours. But finally, my erotic massage was over.
And the cleanup began. Neil was drenched with sweat, my entire body was an oily mess, and we were both splattered with semen so thick, it was gummy. We laughed at ourselves; Neil even apologized for my unctuous condition as we both attempted to towel me off, but with little success. I needed a shower, but even that left a slippery sheen on my skin—oil and water don’t mix. While Neil had acquitted himself superbly at mimicking the ministrations of a professional masseur, this last detail, in truth, fell short.
“What’s so funny?”
I blinked. The ceiling reflected the soft glow of early daylight. Neil’s whisper had cut through my dream.
“You were laughing in your sleep,” he told me through his own quiet laugh.
I rolled my head on the pillow to look at him. “Morning, gorgeous. Sorry I woke you.”
He propped himself on one elbow. “You sounded happy.”
“Ecstatic. I was reliving one of the best nights of my life.”
He grinned. “Was I there?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What was I doing?”
He stretched to look at the clock radio over my shoulder. “Officially, we don’t wake up for another twenty minutes.”
I rolled toward him and burrowed into him. “Twenty minutes ought to do it.”
“In a pinch.”
And together, we made a bit of spontaneous, free-form magic.
Once again, mushrooms danced.
Once again, Neil and I were a few minutes late for breakfast, arriving in the kitchen together, still enjoying some afterglow.
Once again, Pierce had already arrived and was arranging things on the table in our absence. Barb puttered at the sink.
“Morning,” I announced brightly, hanging my sport coat on the back of my usual chair.
“Yeah,” said Barb—she was running water, perhaps scrubbing vegetables.
“Well now,” said Pierce, looking up from the bagged kringle he was ripping open. “Did you guys have another late night?”
“No,” Neil answered innocently, “just a little slow this morning.” As he sat at the table, he caught my eye, and we both grinned, telegraphing the cause of our tardiness.
Pierce shook his head, suppressing a laugh. “You guys…”
Moving to the counter to get the coffeepot, I glanced over to the sink. Barb was indeed cleaning vegetables—a pile of them—potatoes and green beans, plus the raw beginnings of an extravagant salad. This struck me as an odd sort of kitchen duty for seven-something in the morning. With a laugh, I asked, “What’s all that?”
“Just working ahead,” she told me without looking at me. “You’ve got a dinner guest tomorrow night.”
I shrugged. “I appreciate the effort, Barb, but don’t knock yourself out. It’s just a casual family meal, plus one.”
She nodded. “That’s what your note said. Who is it, if I might ask?”
I’d been rushed yesterday morning, and my note, I realized, lacked detail. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be mysterious. Frank Gelden is coming over.”
She shut off the water and turned to me. “Frank?”
“Yes, Frank.” I crossed to the table and began pouring coffee. Over my shoulder, I asked, “Why, do you mind?”
“No, of course not.” She primped her hair, tucked in her polo shirt—you’d have thought Frank was arriving in thirty-six seconds, not thirty-six hours. “Where’s wifey-poo?”
Neil reminded Barb, “Her name’s Cynthia. She often works in Green Bay during the middle of the week. Frank’s Thursday was open, so we asked him over.”
I sat down next to Pierce, telling him, “The invitation’s still open, Doug, if you’d like to join us.”
He shook his head. “Thanks, but I can’t. That committee meeting—public safety. It starts early and always runs late.”
Barb said, “Then come for dessert. We’ll save you a spot.” This implied, of course, that she’d be dining with us that night, as was her habit. She went to the refrigerator, popped a can of diet cola, and joined us at the breakfast table.
“We’ll see.” Pierce’s reticent tone signaled other things—more important things—on his mind. That morning’s Register lay there on the table, folded to my page-one article about the coroner’s report.
I said what we were all thinking: “By now, the whole town knows that Jason was actually murdered. Before, we were working with theories, but now, we’re faced with the elusive realities of a vexing crime. The pressure’s on.”
“Tell me,” said Pierce. “Harley Kaiser, our esteemed district attorney, was already feeling pressure from Burton Thrush to push the coroner for his report. Now Kaiser is pressuring me for an arrest—he phoned me at home last night. Jeez, the official murder investigation is less than a day old.” Pierce slurped some coffee, pushing away his Danish, having apparently lost taste for it.
Neil asked him, “Where do you start?”
“Back at the Thrush residence. When in doubt, start with the family. Both Burton and Mica had the most to gain from Jason’s death. They’re also the two people who can give us the most intimate background on the victim, if they’re willing. All of our other leads are highly speculative at this point.” Pierce turned to me. “But that’s where you could do some effective digging, Mark.”
“I’ll be at it all day.” Reaching behind me to the jacket I’d hung on my chair, I fished my notebook from a pocket, opened it, and reviewed my plans aloud. “First thing this morning, Denny Diggins is coming down to the office for that ‘features interview’ with Glee. Depending on what he says, I may need to explore other leads. In any event, I want to meet with Dr. Formhals and try to get a better handle on the biology involved. It’s also time for a heart-to-heart with Nancy Sanderson at First Avenue Grill; I need to explore the history of bad blood between her and the Thrushes. By the way”—I looked up from my notes with a wry smile—“I wish you’d told me that the restaurant trashed by Jason and his pals was the Grill. I’ve found Nancy’s behavior suspicious since Saturday night, but I couldn’t imagine what might have motivated her apparent antagonism toward Jason.”
Grinning, Pierce countered, “If you’d clued me that you’d found Nancy suspicious, I’d have supplied you with a motive.”
Neil suppressed a laugh.
With a shrug, I conceded the point. Uncapping my pen, I made a new note, telling Pierce, “Even though you’ve already questioned the entire cast of the play, I’m beginning to think I should have a talk with Nicole Winkler, the girl Jason dumped last year. Ditto for Tommy Morales—if there’s time.”
Pierce nodded, impressed with my plans. “You’ll be busy today.”
“I have to be, Doug. There are already enough people convinced that Thad killed Jason, making good on the very public threat he made last Wednesday night. Now that the word is out that Jason was indeed murdered—with mushrooms, no less—it won’t take long for word to spread that Thad is an apt, avid student of mycology.” I wasn’t about to mention the jar of fly agaric I’d found in his bedroom, so I concluded, “Thad’s interest in mushrooms is just another nail in his coffin.”
Barb choked on her soda. “That’s a morbid metaphor.”
I laughed lamely. “Sorry.”
Pierce laughed with me. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Though I appreciated his sentiments, I’d have been all the more grateful if he’d said, It won’t come to that.
Neil brought the discussion back to basics. “The surest way to clear Thad is to expose the actual killer.”
“You make it sound so simple,” Pierce joshed. Then he pushed back his chair and stood, telling me, “I’ve got work to do, and the sooner the better. Call me if you learn anything, okay, Mark?”
“Absolutely.”
I made a move to get up, but Pierce gestured that we should all stay seated. We exchanged a round of good-byes and good-lucks; then Pierce left the kitchen through the back door.
Neil, Barb, and I continued discussing the past day’s developments on the case, but it soon became apparent that the answer to the central question—whodunit?—was simply beyond our grasp.
Barb stifled a belch, picked up her soda can and a plate bearing the remains of a bagel, and carried them to the sink. Pitching her trash in a waste bin under the counter, she turned over her shoulder, musing, “So Frank’s coming to dinner…”
I grinned at Neil, then told Barb, “That was an unusual segue; we were talking about murder. It seems tomorrow night’s dinner has captured your imagination.”
“Obviously.” She smirked. “So Frank’s coming to dinner… without Cindy.” She turned on the water, then ran the garbage disposal, which roared as it ground up something. At a subliminal level, was Barb watching Cynthia Dunne-Gelden swirl down the drain, feet first, screaming?
Neil ventured, “It seems you still carry something of a torch for the guy.”
Barb shut off the disposal and turned to us with a blank look. “Excuse me?”
I laughed. “God, Ba
rb, could you be more transparent?”
She stepped halfway to the table, hands on hips. “What are you talking about?” She looked me in the eye, then Neil, then me again.
I explained, “You’ve perked up every time we’ve mentioned Frank’s name. When we first talked about him last Thursday morning, you remembered him from high school as a nerd, and you were intrigued by Doug’s statement that he’d matured into an attractive man. Then when you met Frank at Saturday night’s party, your eyes nearly sprang out of your head.”
“I admit,” she said, crossing the remaining steps to the table, standing between Neil and me, “Frank is a much better-looking man than the kid I knew in school.”
“Uh-huh.” Neil nodded knowingly. “But then Cynthia arrived in the kitchen, and when you learned she was Frank’s wife, you seemed stunned. Face it, Barb, you’ve got the hots for Frank.” Under his breath, he added, “Not that I blame you.”
“Listen, smart-ass.” Barb sat in the chair between us, leaning toward Neil. “If I seemed stunned when I met wifey-poo, it was not ’cause I used to think Frank was a dweeb—which he was. No, the wife blew me away ’cause I used to think Frank was gay. We all did.”
Her words came as a jolt to both Neil and me. I recalled meeting Frank the previous Wednesday night—my gaydar had gone on full alert. But then I saw his wedding ring, which spoke volumes more than our housekeeper’s high school gossip. Neil lectured Barb, “Just goes to show how wrong you were.”
She shook her head, clucking, then singsonged, “I’m not so su-uure.”
“Barb,” I said, leaning forward on the table, “why not just admit you were wrong and give Frank the benefit of the doubt. He’s married.”
Neil added, “Eight happy years.”
“You guys.” Barb rolled her eyes, laughing. “Haven’t you ever heard of a marriage of convenience?”
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