by Lois Winston
Could the killer have selected the poison for its meaning? The twisted wit appealed to me, but I couldn’t imagine anyone, except maybe myself, doing something like that in real life.
On a scale of one to six, nerium oleander had a toxicity of six with a reaction time of twenty to forty minutes. A native of Asia, it had been introduced as an ornamental shrub in the United States. All parts were deadly, including the nectar of the flower, smoke from a burning plant, or water in which the flowers had been placed.
The drug stimulated the heart, causing sweating, vomiting, bloody diarrhea, unconsciousness, respiratory paralysis and death.
In Europe, oleander was used as rat poison.
The next line popped my eyes. When bees used oleander pollen for their honey, the honey could be poisonous.
Maybe there was no mystery at all. Victor, the patriarch of the Medina family, felt protective of Delores. He made certain his bees sucked up oleander nectar. Then, he slipped Fortier, the womanizer, the ass, a jar of his special product.
EIGHTEEN
I didn’t want to talk to Eldon. My reluctance had nothing to do with the petit four that made me puke. I doubted Eldon had doctored it. I was curious why he’d claimed it was his work and I wondered if it had a connection to the murder. But I dreaded the conversation. Eldon had no life except Archibald’s. He tended to be officious and long-winded. And he was my boss.
As far as I knew, Eldon didn’t take breaks, and he ate his lunch in the mid-afternoon during the lull in customers. However, he arrived about six and ate breakfast before his shift. Knowing this, the next morning I caught Eldon in the EDR hunched over three pieces of French toast swimming in maple syrup. He had one of my leftover apricot Danishes on the side and a cup of coffee that looked as though it were half cream. I bet it had three or four sugars in it.
I got a cup of coffee and straddled a chair at his table, my elbows on its back. I wanted the little physical barrier between us. The position also made it easier to hop up. “One quick question, Eldon.”
He made a motion for me to turn the chair and patted the table, but I acted ignorant of sign language. He chewed meticulously, swallowed, and dabbed his mouth. “You have fifteen minutes, Carol. Relax.” He saw no irony in his statement. With his fork and knife he cut a perfect, fat wedge of French toast. “I’ve been thinking of organizing a stress management workshop for the employees. I’ve noticed that some of the staff have been very stressed by what happened.”
What happened? Talk about glossing over—no mention of Fortier or death, not even a euphemism like passed away.
“Delores, in particular, although she’s not the only one. Esperanza seems distraught as well. Have you noticed?”
Distraught was too histrionic for the stoic Esperanza. “She’s probably worried about Delores,” I said.
“Buzz, too,” he said, twirling a forkful of cooked bread in the syrup.
Two words. Buzz, too. That was completely unlike Eldon. I looked at him, but he watched back. We both tried to read the other. “Buzz seems distraught?”
“I guess you haven’t noticed....” His voice drifted, but as I opened my mouth to pop my question, he added, “You seem a little hyper yourself, Carol.”
“I’m okay,” I said.
“I know this group from San Jose. They’re very good for up-beat presentations. Professional, but not beyond our budget.”
I waited as he more firmly speared the goo-soaked wedge in preparation to lift it.
“I attended one of their seminars called ‘Stress for Success.’”
“Interesting concept,” I muttered.
That was the wrong thing to say, but I could hardly tell my boss to shut up and listen while I asked him one simple question.
“It is an interesting concept,” he said. “It focused on how to convert stress into motivation and drive, rather than how to get rid of stress.” He drove the wedge of French toast through the brown puddle as though it were a toy boat. “I think I could get Archibald’s to spring for the cost.” The bread went round and round in the brown puddle. He didn’t plan to pop it into his mouth until he finished talking, which could be the next blue moon.
“Eldon,” I said, “excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have to get back to work.”
He glanced at his digital watch. “You still have seven minutes, Carol.” He stuck the French toast into his mouth.
“When and how did Fortier get sick?”
His light brown eyes looked at me as the smooth, pale face moved with his patient, thorough chewing.
“I’m surprised the incident has agitated you so much, Carol. I mean, certainly, it was a shock for everyone, but I didn’t think you and Fortier were friendly, actually the opposite. I frankly don’t believe the police’s insinuations, but if I had to choose someone, to well, ehm,....” He cleared his throat.
I restrained from clutching my forehead and moaning. Usually I escaped these “conversations” by leaving, but now I needed information. “When did Fortier get sick?” I persisted.
“Right after his break,” Eldon said. “He and Delores were in the cooler, fooling around.” He smacked his lips, furrowed his brow, and shook his head at their behavior.
I was stunned to hear Eldon make such a personal remark. “Didn’t you mind?”
He shrugged. “They both punched out. If a guy’s going through a mid-life crisis and needs to act like a teenager, as long as he does it on his time, that’s his problem.”
“And how did he get sick?”
“Well, in spite of the police’s insinuations, I never thought for a moment, Carol, that it was caused by our kitchen or your lebkuchen. I don’t think he got sick from something he ate. Their suggestions have been bad for our kitchen’s morale. That’s why I think this workshop—”
“Eldon,” I interrupted.
His smooth forehead puckered, and, almost as a reflex, he checked his watch.
“Eldon,” I said again, feeling frantic. “I meant how was Fortier sick. Did he vomit or what?”
Eldon wrinkled his nose. “He was sweating and his breathing was ragged. He said he felt sick and needed to go home. I offered to call a taxi. I really didn’t think he should try to drive, but then he rushed off. I assumed to the restroom and I assumed to vomit. I didn’t see him after that. Until, of course, Patsy found him.”
He checked his watch.
“Thanks,” I said. “Oh, yeah, Eldon, would you tell the cooks to keep their use-first stuff off my shelf?” Before he could reply, I bailed.
NINETEEN
“Ah shit,” I said aloud, as I went out the EDR door. I was the world’s worst investigator. I hadn’t managed to ask him a thing about the petit four and I’d forgotten to ask Eldon about his Kris Kringle. I knew he’d exchanged with Delores to get Suzanne’s name, but who’d drawn his name?
If I could determine who’d given Fortier the present, I’d be a step closer to solving the mystery. Delores thought the honey was her Uncle Victor’s, but she may have jumped to that conclusion simply because he kept bees. Or did the jar have distinguishing characteristics? Even so, the murderer could have used Victor’s honey to point suspicion at Victor.
Eldon’s description of Fortier’s symptoms fit my reference book’s descriptions of oleander poisoning. My guess was that the killer had put oleander in the honey, possibly via bees, and Fortier had been murdered with sweetness. He’d licked the ambrosia from the horns of plenty and was very sick by the time he walked to the kitchen.
In the cold hallway, I shivered. Killing someone with a Christmas gift seemed cold-blooded, even to me. The aroma of my garlic/rosemary bread wafted down the tiled corridor. Under the pungent bouquet, the basic smell of baking bread comforted me. Breathing it in, I felt calmer.
I contemplated the phone in the hall. I wanted to make my anonymous tip now, before I lost my nerve. I went into the restroom, yanked down a paper towel, and returned to the phone. I pulled up the unwieldy directory by its chain, balanced it
on a raised knee, and looked up the number for the tip line. The book said “anonymous crime information,” but I wasn’t taking any chances. Feeling like a gangster, I covered the mouthpiece with the paper towel. I scanned the hallway as I listened to the recorded message in English and then in Spanish. When I heard the beep, I blurted that the police should have the pathologist working on the Fortier case check for oleander poisoning.
I slammed down the receiver and wiped my sweaty palm on my hound’s-tooth pants. I didn’t like talking on the phone in the best of circumstances, which this wasn’t.
When I pushed through the door into the kitchen, Abundio and Victor had arrived and were busy cleaning bowls and plates and doughy vats from the bakery. A short conveyor belt ran a rubber rack into a dishwasher, more for sterilizing than cleaning. Abundio and Victor rinsed everything first, and they grappled with the big pots and bowls by hand. They turned from their clatter and steam to greet me.
I didn’t even say hola. “Did you guys participate in the Kris Kringle?”
They both looked startled, eyes wide and bodies quiet. To make sure he’d correctly interpreted the English, Abundio looked to Victor who repeated the question to him in Spanish. They looked quizzically at each other, and then back at me.
“Yes,” Victor said, narrowing his dark eyes at me. “I had Ray’s name.”
That didn’t, I thought, preclude him from giving Fortier a jar of honey. A sinister image of Victor formed: he lounged on a Watsonville stoop, wearing a tee shirt and baggies with a butterfly knife in the pocket. A blue bandanna wrapped his forehead, and guns filled the trunk of his lowered burgundy Impala.
I shook away the silly stereotype. This was Victor, a man with whom I’d worked for two years. The guy who told me stupid jokes.
“Who drew your name?”
He jerked a meaty thumb at Abundio. “The Kid.”
Abundio grinned. A square Band-Aid covered his freckled wrist.
“What happened there?” I asked.
“Steam burn.”
“Just a sec, guys.” I turned the corner to check the bread. It needed about five minutes. I didn’t wear a watch, for the same reason I didn’t wear my wedding ring, and Eldon insisted there be no clock in the kitchen. He didn’t want employees watching it. He made a point of hanging one in clear sight in the break room, though. My internal clock told me I should be mixing the dough for raspberry brioche. Instead, I broke off a piece of my aloe vera plant for Abundio.
I returned to the dishwashers. “Just one more thing.” God, I sounded like Columbo. I adored the rumpled sleuth, so no wonder. I handed Abundio the oozing piece of succulent, which he accepted matter-of-factly. Everyone in the kitchen humored my belief in aloe vera juice; some even swore by it. “Who drew your name, Abundio?”
His green eyes lit up. “Suzanne.”
Victor reached up and playfully throttled the thin neck. “The Kid he has all the luck.”
I felt a nanosecond of annoyance at the unanimous adoration of Suzanne. Surely the woman had a flaw. Perhaps she was a murderess.
I took the dozen steps back to the bakery, my head swimming with information. I needed to write it down. I flipped through my notebook, looking for an unfashionable recipe to use as scratch paper. Maybe something fried. People would rather clog their arteries with cheesecake.
Eldon caught me in the act. “The bread smells great, Carol.” He sniffed elaborately. “But I don’t smell any brioche.”
“I was contemplating something different.”
He rounded the worktable and looked over my shoulder. “Peanut butter finger crunches,” he said. “Those are too much work, Carol. People love your brioche.” He glanced at his watch. “But you need to get on those if we’re going to have them for the breakfast bunch.”
He was bouncing away when I forced myself to say, “Eldon, who drew your name for the Kris Kringle?”
The big man turned as gracefully as a ballerina. “Todd,” he said. His mouth puckered as though he’d sucked a lemon. “Carol, I don’t know what you’re up to, but your job here is to bake, not to investigate.”
“Yes, boss,” I said without even a wee bit of sarcasm.
Eldon loomed in the entrance for several seconds, inspecting me. “I saw you make that call in the hall.”
My heart slid to the neighborhood of my big toes, and heat squirted through my body. “I was on break.”
“You went five minutes over.”
I didn’t know how he’d seen me, but fortunately he seemed not to have heard the call. At worst, he’d write me up. I wanted to say, “Hey, Eldon, write me up and leave me alone,” but that would have left him no choice but to do it. Most of the time, like now, he only flexed his muscles. He pursed his lips and didn’t say anything. The silence was disconcerting.
When he left, I pulled the recipe from its plastic sheath, but decided it would be safer if I waited until my next break to make the chart.
Later, on my second break, I used the blank side of the recipe to list the morning kitchen employees at the time of the murder. Next to their names I wrote the person to whom they’d given Kris Kringle gifts:
Carol — Esperanza
Delores — Patsy
Patsy —?
Eldon — Suzanne
Buzz — Carol
Suzanne — Abundio
Esperanza — ?
Abundio — Victor
Victor — Ray
Ray — Delores
Todd — Eldon
Fortier — ?
Big Red (then in EDR) — ?
When I looked over the chart, I felt sick. I couldn’t believe any of these people had murdered Fortier, but worse than that, everyone in the kitchen had been put at risk. Anyone could have tasted the honey and died. Well, maybe not. While Fortier had cruised the kitchen, sampling everything, he’d never shared. His tightness, not his digit in my dough, had pissed me off. Yet, his niece claimed he was generous, and the insurance policy showed a financial generosity toward his wife, and he was generous with the time and attention he gave Concepción in Human Resources. People were complicated.
I sipped some water and crunched my pencil, savoring the slightly bitter flavor of wood and graphite. After working around sweets all morning, I didn’t relish the snacks in the Employees Dining Room. I had the place to myself, except for the new, knock-out EDR cook. Suzanne’s cousin was a blonder, bustier, brassier version of Suzanne and had already caused many minor cases of whiplash. She was busy setting up the steam table for lunch. The noisy rattle of the steam table trays soothed me, but the squeak of her soles on the black and white tiles annoyed me, the way a paper cut would, the way this whole damn business did.
TWENTY
I had to give the police credit. They reacted promptly to my tip. The next day, the last day of the year, the homicide detectives returned to the kitchen. The woman wore a London Fog raincoat and Detective Carman wore a black windbreaker. Both were sprinkled with rain. Eldon fluttered around them.
The large female, Detective Peters, stood by her partner with legs apart, her arms crossed over her chest, and her weight rocked back in her solid shoes. The kitchen employees circled the two.
“This is a holiday,” Eldon protested. “We’re booked by Apple Computers.” He stalked the perimeter of the gathering. “We have seven hundred for dinner.”
He was more agitated than usual.
“Poison,” Detective Peters said.
“Poison?” Eldon echoed.
I noticed she wasn’t saying what type of poison. I felt a chill. They probably considered the type of poison one of those niggly details only the murderer would know. I gulped as though trying to swallow a hard-boiled egg. What if the poison had been oleander? What if they figured out that I’d made the call?
Eldon waved a pudgy hand to dismiss the ludicrous idea of poison. “Not in this kitchen.”
I was amazed at his innocence. Then I realized it was an act. Eldon knew everything about the restaurant, and we di
d, indeed, have poison in the kitchen—rodent killer, that we put on the loading dock.
The female partner, Detective Peters, gave me a long, curious look, a full ten seconds of undivided perusal. I stared back, as is my style. She had freckled skin, hazel eyes and short sandy hair. I felt my friends and colleagues regarding me, as the idea of murder settled in. They were taking their cues from this woman, but no doubt some of them were considering my love of murder mysteries and true crime books. I had freely talked about my reference book Deadly Doses. Uneasiness surrounded me like a fence. Unfortunately, I could stare down only one person at a time.
As Eldon swished his hand to wave us back to work, Detective Peters raised hers in the gesture for STOP.
In spite of the authoritative signal, Eldon mouthed to Buzz, “The soufflés.” Buzz discretely peeled from the group, followed by Ray. Buzz had replaced Fortier and Ray had been promoted from the back line to take Buzz’s place.
Detective Peters noticed, but didn’t object. After all, they were in sight and could hear from the station. Probably she appreciated a light soufflé as much as anyone. The male detective moved through the circle of bodies, apparently to poke around the kitchen for a cache of poison.
“To get back to your point, Mr. Dunn, we don’t think Mr. Fortier intentionally or accidentally ate poison in the kitchen. We’re investigating his death as a homicide.”
Delores gasped. Those who hadn’t already pinned me as a prime suspect glanced around the room as if to spot the maniacal face of a killer. Eldon stopped fidgeting and quieted, as though already composing the most vague possible press release.
“Mr. Fortier had purged his stomach, so the autopsy didn’t reveal much besides the poison,” Detective Peters said.
“Purged his stomach?” I asked. Terms like “threw up” might not be pretty, but they were a lot clearer than “purged.”
“He vomited,” Detective Peters said. “In spite of this, the coroner did find traces of honey.”
Detective Peters turned her suspicious eyes my way. Again the small mob took its cues from her and a dozen pairs of vigilante eyes targeted me.
