Pinot Noir and Poison

by Sandra Woffington

  Joy put on her emergency flashers, braked hard enough to give Max a jolt, and drove off the road and onto the dirt shoulder. The tires kicked up dirt, like a brewing storm, as the vehicle stopped. “Okay, Inca warrior. Talk to me or I’m taking you home.”

  Max could hear the clicking of the flashers. They created a harsh tick, tick, tick—the discordant rhythm of a ticking time bomb. The red triangle on the dash flashed too—a warning signal of unparalleled danger.

  But it was too late for warnings.

  He couldn’t jump out of the car. He couldn’t run away—not because his feet still didn’t work right, but because he had remembered. And once that happens, a person can’t go back. He can’t forget.

  And it changed everything.

  Max opened his mouth, knowing that saying it aloud would do no good. “This morning, when the nurse dropped off the breakfast tray, I was determined to eat it all—be a good boy—show them that I was ready to leave. I picked up my spoon and dug into the oatmeal, and I…”

  Max banged his head—a traitor for remembering—against the window and left it next to the glass. “It took a long time to grip the spoon. I did it. I got the spoon. I brought the oatmeal to my mouth. I remember thinking that Dad had never made oatmeal for me. My hand shook. I threw the spoon across the room. I remembered.”

  Joy hung her head, letting it fall against her hands, which rested on the steering wheel. A weighty sigh escaped from her lips. “Oh, God, Max. I’m sorry.”

  “We hid under the bed. She called for us, but we wouldn’t come out. ‘Pride, Joy, I’ve got a treat for you.’ Then your kitten meowed.”

  “I remember too. It’s all come flooding back it bits and pieces since the day I saw you on the hill at David’s funeral. I kept my mouth shut, because you didn’t remember. It wasn’t my kitten. I found the kitten.”

  Joy flung her head back against the headrest. Her fingers gripped the wheel tighter. “Her mother was a stray cat. She’d given birth somewhere on the land where we lived. I found the mother cat and her kittens dead. Poisoned with oatmeal. The bowl was still there. Only the runt survived, probably because he was pushed aside by the others, who gobbled up the food and left none for him. I brought him inside, thinking I could keep him. I wanted to protect him.”

  “The kitten meowed,” said Max. “The woman dragged us out from under the bed. She sat us at the wooden table in the kitchen, and she put bowls of blueberry oatmeal before us. She asked for the kitten, but you wouldn’t give it to her.”

  “She wrapped her arms around me and said, ‘Want it? Then love it to death.’ She wrapped her arms around me and she pressed my arms tighter and tighter against the kitten. The kitten wriggled in my arms and…” Joy looked out the window, as if to find an anchor. “It let out little meows of panic. I felt it squirm. The woman squeezed tighter. I couldn’t stop her. She was too strong. The kitten stopped moving. But I wouldn’t give it to her. I wanted to give it a decent burial. I think she wanted me to hold death. I think she wanted me to feel what it felt like to squeeze the life out of something living.”

  “She told us to eat. Your eyes tried to warn me. I remember the way your lips parted. Your brows furrowed. When she turned her back, your eyes shot to my oatmeal and you shook your head. But she turned around. She saw you. She sat beside me. She picked up the spoon. She scooped up the blueberry oatmeal and put it in my mouth. She said, ‘Now that’s a good boy, Pride. Eat up. We are going away, and you must have a full stomach.’”

  “She looked right at me and smiled as she fed you. She said, ‘Eat, Joy, or I’ll love you to death too.’ So I ate, but I swallowed the blueberries whole. I don’t know why. I didn’t even know if it mattered. I didn’t know if the poison was in the oatmeal or the berries. I just knew it would kill us. I was trying to outsmart her.”

  “Then it’s a blur for me,” said Max. “Our fathers burst in. Sirens shattered the day. We rode in an ambulance to the hospital.”

  “And the gurney raced down the corridor and the ceiling lights flashed as we rushed by them.”

  “And when I woke up, I never saw you again.”

  “She’s alive, Max. She’s in prison. Belladonna, our fathers’ most famous criminal. She fed us the oatmeal.”

  Max slammed both wrists into the dash.

  Joy jumped, startled by Max’s outburst.

  “My fingers don’t work, Joy! For God’s sake, let sleeping dogs lie. I’m begging you. Before we’re both dead.” Max’s face twisted with torment. His life was shattered. He didn’t know if he could ever put the pieces back together again. Maybe he always knew he was different, and not just because of his name, Pride. Maybe a part of him pushed people away, because he knew what was buried in the dark lake of his mind.

  Silence filled the gap. The empty blue sky left them miles apart.

  “Our dogs aren’t asleep, Max. They’re awake; growling, snarling, and ready to rip our throats out. I think that’s why David and Sam separated us. They needed to protect you from me.” Joy shot her coal-brown tormented eyes at Max.

  “That’s ridiculous, Joy! We are what we choose to be. I buried this once, I can do it again. And we move on.”

  “Someone, maybe her, named us Pride and Joy, but your father added the name Max. From Maximus ‘greatest,’ I presume. Sam named me Beatrice. Beatrice Joy Burton.” Her voice rumbled with anger.

  “Then why the hell do you still go by Joy? Forget Joy! Forget all about her.”

  “I can’t forget who I am, Max. I found a short story mixed in with Sam’s papers. Sam knew I’d find it and piece his clues together. He annotated it! Do you believe that? My name, ‘Beatrice Joy Burton,’ was scribbled at the top of the page, like he was testing the sound of it. Sam got the name Beatrice from a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter.’”

  Joy drifted into a space Max had not seen before. Her resolute voice had a knowing peace, like when someone accepts a horrific outcome. Like when someone dies, and the loved one who survived stares down at the bloody body and matter-of-factly says, “Well, that’s that, I guess.”

  “Beatrice is Rappaccini’s daughter,” said Joy. “Her father delves into the evil sciences. He creates a poison garden. By tending her father’s garden, Beatrice becomes toxic to others. Her breath kills insects; her touch could kill a man. But Giovanni, a student attending the University of Padua, sees Beatrice from a window. She’s as beautiful as the garden. He falls in love. He sneaks into the garden and visits her, and he too becomes poison. His breath kills a spider. A rival of Beatrice’s father gives Giovanni an antidote. He says it will cure them both and they can be together. Giovanni visits Beatrice to give her the antidote, saying they will both take it. But he becomes angry. He blames her for his poisonous state, thinking it was her plan all along. She assures him that she too is a victim of her father, for she would never wish this on anyone. Beatrice drinks the vial but tells Giovanni that his evil nature and distrust of her has far exceeded her poisonous nature. Her father enters the garden. Beatrice confronts him and chastises him for making her poisonous, but Rappaccini defends what he’s done. He says he has made her strong—he asks her if she would prefer to be a ‘weak woman, exposed to all evil, and capable of none?’ Beatrice says she just wanted to be loved, not feared. She dies. So you see, Max—I know what I am. Sam knew it too. Poison. I’m poison to you. Poison to everyone I touch. I’ll take you home and leave Wine Valley. That way, you can forget me, and your dog can get back to sleep.”

  Joy turned in earnest submission. “Max, I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t remember either, not fully, not until you lay on the floor poisoned and I gripped your hand and in the ambulance. But I couldn’t tell you. You had ignorant bliss. I hoped it would last for the rest of your life. I mean that.”

  Joy reached for the key, but Max put his hand over hers and stopped her from turning it.

  “If you’re poison, Joy, so am I, especially if we’re cut from the same genes, as you seem to think. And i
f we’re not, then that’s okay too. We survived Belladonna. And hell, I survived hemlock too.” He held up his fingers and moved them slightly. “Sort of. If anyone is impervious to poison—it’s us. Know what I remember most?”

  “What?” Joy’s voice slipped into the vulnerable little-girl tone.

  “I remember that you tried to protect me. You shushed me, told me to look away—I still don’t know from what—and you told me not to eat the oatmeal.”

  “What are you saying? Are you saying you want to know the DNA test results when they come in?”

  “I don’t know about that. I do know that I don’t want you to go.” Max rolled down the window. “Look at that sky, Joy. It’s the lid to our box.”

  “What? I think the hemlock is making you delusional.”

  “I mean, I was bound to remember at some point. I had my first flash of memory before I saw you at my dad’s funeral. Once Pandora opened the box, stuff got out that she couldn’t put back inside.”

  “Your analogy is closer than you think. Pandora wasn’t evil. Just curious. But Zeus punished everyone for Pandora’s curiosity. I guess, in a way, she poisoned all of mankind.”

  “Nah, she was totally set up. So were we. The gods hand you a box, tell you it’s full of gifts, and then say, ‘Don’t open it.’ But they know Pandora is curious. They know she’s gonna do it.”

  “Hope was left in the box.”

  “Then there’s hope for us.”

  “I’m trying to arrange a visit to see Belladonna. I’m not asking you to come. I’m just letting you know,” said Joy.

  “I can’t cross that bridge yet. But thanks for telling me. Right now, I need to focus on something else, like our case.”

  “Fair enough, Max.” Joy turned off the emergency flashers. She signaled and pulled onto the highway.

  “Let’s start with Elliot,” said Max.

  “After you eat something besides donuts. Where to?”

  “I don’t really care, as long as it isn’t oatmeal.”

  9

  Elliot’s house was a mansion in the exclusive gate-guarded Champagne Estates community, which sat high on the rolling hills off of Via Vendage, on the opposite side of the freeway from the wineries. The hilltop estates remained cooler in summers and warmer in winters, as they caught the ocean breezes sweeping inland from the Pacific Ocean.

  The gates opened, and Joy parked on the terracotta paver driveway, before the enormous white Italian villa with a terracotta roof.

  Max asked Joy to pull out the walker. He felt strong enough to give it a try. He could just grip the aluminum frame, scooch it forward with his core muscles, and step forward. Each step felt like a mini-triumph. It was one more step down the road to recovery.

  Elliot opened the door and showed Max and Joy to the living room. Elliot turned off a football game. “I was trying to distract myself. It wasn’t working.”

  Five arched leaded-glass windows framed the distant hills. Wrought-iron and mirrored tables gave the room an eclectic feel of new world meets old world. Free-standing wrought-iron candle holders filled the spaces between the arched windows. Other wrought-iron fixtures hug overhead from the beamed ceiling. Furniture the color of sweet cream sat on a travertine floor. A marble fireplace rose two stories high. Only the enormous black screen of the television brought the room into the twenty-first century.

  Luckily, the house had no stairs between the entryway and the living room, so Max had no trouble maneuvering the walker.

  Max and Joy settled into the armchairs opposite Elliot.

  Elliot seemed exceedingly calm. Maybe tired. “How are you feeling, Max? Or should I call you ‘detective’ now that you’re on official business and not a party guest?”

  “I’m better, thank you. Let’s go with ‘Detective King’ for today. We have some rather indelicate questions.”

  “Understood,” said Elliot. “I can only imagine.”

  Max began, “You’re aware that Sally had affairs, right?”

  Elliot didn’t flinch. “I knew. What did I expect? Sally lured me away from Lizzy, as I’m sure you already know. What a fool I was. The one and only time I confronted Sally—we’d been married just over a year, and she was playing footsy with Todd—she laughed in my face. She reminded me that I had cheated on Lizzy with her. And being the kind-hearted soul she is, she then proceeded to tell me that ours was a marriage of convenience. That I should be happy with the arrangement, which gave me a prominent position in a major pharmaceutical company. She informed me that her father Harold had stipulated that she had to be married to take over as CEO. I doubt that was binding. I think her bigger motivation was to sink a dagger into Lizzy’s heart. According to Lizzy, Harold thought marriage would soften Sally’s, and I quote, ‘impervious exo-skeleton.’ His nickname for her was ‘hell on heels.’ But, in truth, she was a chip off of the old block.”

  Joy asked, “And you were fine with the affair?”

  Elliot’s shoulders slumped forward. “Affairs, plural. She cheated on Todd too. I deserved what I got. I’m just happy that Lizzy met Danny and that she has enjoyed her life.”

  “Who inherits?” asked Max.

  “Sally never shared those details with me. But I got a call from Todd. He’s our corporate attorney. He says he has a copy of Sally’s will, and that Sally left her shares to him. It will have to be approved by the board, but it probably won’t be a problem. He wanted me to know that Sally left me the house. He didn’t want me to worry.”

  “You and Todd worked together all these years. Wasn’t that hard?” asked Joy.

  Elliot leaned back and put a relaxed arm on the back of the sofa. “Look around. I had the better of it. I love my work and my home. I love Wine Valley. And Todd—he did me a favor. Sally appreciated my docility. I accepted her…thirsts…and, believe it or not, that meant we worked well together.”

  Max leaned forward. “You gave Sally death cap mushrooms for her garden.”

  Elliot nodded. “You’ve seen the garden? Harold started it, but it was Linus’s idea, his chief chemist. When they built the new facility, they planned space for it. MuscleToxA was about to be released, and it had already put Kinsey on an upward trajectory. Sally loved the garden. She knew every plant, how it killed, and especially when they bloomed. I think she liked those plants more than she liked people. I foraged for the death caps on a trip to the Bay Area. You should have seen her glee. I don’t think she’s ever been happier with me than when I gave her those mushrooms.”

  “When was that?” asked Joy.

  “December of last year. The Bay Area is a haven to four of the most poisonous mushrooms: the death cap, the western destroying angel, the galerina, and the lepiota. As soon as heavy rains hit, the little darlings spring up.”

  “We think Sally was poisoned at lunchtime,” said Joy. “Did you see anything unusual?”

  Elliot leaned forward in dismay. “Good heavens! It wasn’t the hemlock, as you thought?”

  Max said, “We’re waiting for lab results, but we suspect she ate poison mushrooms and possibly even belladonna earlier.”

  Elliot jumped to his feet and paced behind the back of the sofa. “Poor, dear Sally! Believe me, I know how she can piss people off, but dear God.” He leaned his hands on the sofa back. “She didn’t feel well a couple of hours after lunch. She had some diarrhea, and she threw up shortly before we had to leave for the dinner party. I suggested that she cancel and stay home, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She said she wouldn’t miss Lizzy’s birthday for the world. But believe me, that was sarcastic.”

  “Sibling rivalry?” asked Joy.

  “Of the worst kind,” said Elliot. “Harold doted on his brilliant Lizzy, product of a second marriage. Sally’s mother died when she was twelve. Harold remarried half a dozen years later, and Lizzy was born. Lizzy’s mother died during Lizzy’s first year in college—aneurism. No warning.” Elliot straightened up, as if he had a sudden thought. “I do remember Sally using her inhaler before we left.
She has allergies. That’s a random thought. Not sure if it means anything.”

  “I saw that on the list of items the evidence team removed from your house,” said Joy. “If memory serves me, antihistamines and belladonna don’t mix well. We’ll check with the ME.”

  Elliot came back around the sofa, his knees buckled, and he sank down as if his legs could not hold his weight. “This will sound crazy, but I miss Sally. She was a fireball. A constant embarrassment for me around the company, but that’s just who she was. I can honestly say that life was never dull around her.”

  “But you threatened to leave her recently. Alice overheard the argument the day she interviewed,” said Joy.

  “I did. Sally crossed a line even I could not imagine.” Elliot let out a heavy sigh and shook his head. “When Danny became sick, I spent time visiting when I could. Danny was a good, good man. I told him at his wedding that I was happy Lizzy had found him. I meant it. What I did to Lizzy was inexcusable. Sally tried to get her hooks into Danny more than once, but she failed every time.”

  Elliot rubbed his face. “I was in Sally’s office the morning Lizzy stormed in. As sick as he was, Danny had seen a change in Rio. Rio had become withdrawn. Danny finally got him to confess that Sally had seduced him. Lizzy and Danny adopted Rio—so he’s not their blood kin. And Rio had had a kid’s crush on Sally while growing up.”

  “Did Lizzy threaten Sally?” asked Joy.

  “What do you think? She swore that if Sally ever came near her family again, she’d kill her.”

  “How did Sally take the threat?”

  Elliot shot them a woeful smile. “People threatened Sally on a regular basis. She gloated at the victory. I still remember her face—I haven’t seen Sally that happy, even in her poison garden. She’d done it. She’d driven a stake right through her sister’s heart. I told Sally she’d crossed the line, laid down the last straw. I told her I’d file for divorce. And she reminded me that I’d be out on the sidewalk: no house, no job, no life.”