Pinot Noir and Poison

by Sandra Woffington

  “And that’s where we’re at,” said Joy finally. “Max, do you have anything to add?”

  “Just that the perp pool is still extensive, and it’s too soon to declare Todd Baxter’s death a suicide or Kate Wolf as the killer.”

  “Good point,” said Joy. “We are considering all options at this point.”

  “Of course,” reminded Goldsby. “Kate Wolf is still good for it. She had motive, access, and poison mushrooms in a plastic bag with her fingerprints in her home. Luckily, fingerprints hold up well when frozen.”

  Max argued, “But we found belladonna and possibly foxglove at Todd’s. The plastic bag could have been planted in Kate’s freezer by anyone at the dinner party. ”

  The cat’s claws came out, and the chief pounced on Max. “Belladonna grows wild. And Kate is a chef who could find it. She also said she’d kill the victim. She and Elizabeth Wolf could have masterminded this plot. Don’t underestimate female killers. You’re letting your personal feelings interfere with this investigation, King. Godmother nor not, her prints are damning evidence.”

  “Chief.” Max balled his fist. He wanted to lash out, but he kept calm. “With due respect, I am following every lead—and if Kate Wolf is guilty, I’ll be the first in line to help convict her, Lizzy too. But we’re not there yet. So either Todd had something to do with this—he had a lot to gain with Sally dead, or so he thought—or there is more than one person who wanted Sally dead.”

  The chief snapped. His voice contained cynicism. “And multiple perps happened to coordinate poisoning her on the same day? And one of them double-crossed Todd? Why?”

  Captain Banks jumped up from her chair, rotated in a near military turn, and squared off with her boss. “Chief. My officers are following protocol. I have every faith in Detective King and Dr. Burton. You should too, after they solved the last case.” Jayda Banks had a way of using her muscular body to ingress in someone’s space, no doubt, in part, a habit picked up from her Marine husband, who sat framed on her desk wearing his camouflage utility uniform and sitting beside their four-year old daughter. But Captain Banks’ granite voice had also emphasized “the last case,” which was clearly a dig to remind the chief that he should be thankful he wasn’t sitting in a jail cell. “Doubt my officers, and you doubt me.”

  The chief backed down. “Captain Banks, I maintain the highest regard for you. As for your officers—we’ll see, won’t we?”

  “Yes, sir. That we will,” Jayda moved her head and neck side to side, a don’t-mess-with-me-or-my-officers movement that let the chief know the discussion had ended.

  As the chief stepped around the desk to leave, he smiled at Max. “Kate Wolf isn’t going anywhere. She was arraigned yesterday afternoon, and I made sure the judge gave her some jewelry to take home.”

  Joy sounded surprised. “Electronic monitoring?”

  The chief’s smile grew. “No more trips to the zoo.” He waltzed out, light on his feet.

  “Sorry, Max, Kate did make a run for it. At least she’s awaiting trial at home,” offered Captain Banks. “In my opinion, the chief rushed this through the D.A. The only solid piece we have are those fingerprints.”

  Joy stood up to leave. “We’ll find the killer or killers.”

  Captain Banks took her seat. “I’m counting on it, Dr. Burton. I like my new office. So, you two get out there and make me look good.”

  “That’s a promise.” Max added, “And thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  Captain Banks returned to her paperwork. “Don’t make me regret it.”

  “I won’t,” said Max.

  Max and Joy had no sooner returned to their desks than Max’s phone rang. “King.”

  Angelo’s voice filled his ear. “The prints on the wine bottle are Todd’s and Elizabeth Wolf’s. And a botanist confirmed the tea was foxglove and the berries are belladonna.”

  “Thanks, Angelo.”

  Lizzy had gone back to work the day the will had been read, but she hadn’t returned to the laboratory. Instead, she stepped into Sally’s office and usurped her seat. Alice was not at her desk, probably taking a day or two off to regain composure after Todd’s death. A temp told them Ms. Kinsey-Wolf was free to see them.

  When Max and Joy stepped in, they found a decorator and his assistant moving about the room, measuring and annotating and discussing concepts in low tones.

  “Shall I have them step out?” asked Lizzy.

  “No,” said Joy, turning to Max for confirmation.

  “It’s fine. We just have a question or two,” added Max.

  “Chocolate?” Lizzy pointed to a small gold box on her desk. “A gift from Sally’s attorney.”

  “She didn’t seem like the chocolate-giving type. But no, thank you.”

  “I didn’t think so either,” said Lizzy. “But they were on my desk with a card this morning. Elliot’s too. I don’t eat the stuff. I’ll give it to the boys.”

  Max jumped to their reason for being there. “I’m sure you heard about Todd.”

  “Yes,” said Lizzy. “Alice let us know. We insisted that she take some time off, paid of course. Alice thought it might have been suicide.”

  “We don’t know yet,” said Max. “That’s on the list. But your prints were found on the wine bottle—a reserve bottle from Raedwald Estate Winery.”

  “It could have been the bottle I gave him on Saturday. He’d called Elliot about the will, and Elliot called me. I went to congratulate him. We had a sip from it. I opened it, but I drank the contents too. Todd’s prints must have been on it, I presume.”

  “They were,” said Joy. “Hemlock had been added. Stems were placed in the wine. It will take a while for the toxicology to come back.”

  “If you’re thinking that I killed him—I didn’t.”

  Max pressed her. “But he was becoming your partner.”

  Lizzy nodded. “A welcome addition compared to Sally. Why do you think I worked in the lab all of these years? No way did I want to sit across from Sally in a boardroom.”

  Joy pressed too. “What she did to you—the picture—that must have been difficult.”

  Lizzy’s shoulders slumped. “What’s one more deep cut from my sister? There have been so many over the years that I have nothing left but scars. But scars heal over.”

  “Sure,” said Max. “If someone lashes at you—but Sally lashed at your son, at Rio.”

  Lizzy’s voice rose a notch in assurance. “And I shall never forgive her for that. As long as I live. But I didn’t kill her.”

  “Would you take a polygraph test?” asked Joy. “If asked to?”

  “Absolutely. For Sally and for Todd. You should offer one to Kate too. She didn’t do it.” Lizzy became borderline angry. “She’s wearing an ankle bracelet like a common criminal! She’s being charged for a crime she didn’t commit! I’m sure of it. I know my mother-in-law. So do you, Max. That plastic bag…someone must have planted it in her freezer. Todd maybe.”

  Joy interceded before Max could respond. “We’re doing our job, Lizzy. We have to follow the leads, even if they prove wrong later. Max didn’t issue the warrant.”

  Lizzy crossed her arms over her chest. “I know, but you’ve got to get her out of this! You’ve got to. Sally ripped my heart out from the grave—you can’t let her do it again! Kate is innocent.”

  Max did his best to assure her. “Lizzy, we want the right person convicted. Trust us—that’s our goal.”

  Lizzy’s forehead creased with worry.

  Max wondered how she’d kept it all together: first, dealing with Sally over the years, her husband’s death, and now her mother-in-law’s arrest for murder.

  “She’s innocent. That’s all,” said Lizzy. “She didn’t…she wouldn’t…”

  Joy broke through the appeal by changing the subject. “Lizzy, I’m sure you’re busy, but I’d love to show Max the garden. Is that possible? Alice showed it to me the day our team was here. She mentioned you’d given her a tour.”

&nbs
p; “I’ve given many tours. To be honest, I thought it was one of my father’s best ideas. It’s a fascinating place. I could use a break. Let’s go.”

  Lizzy led them down the elevators, across the lobby, and used her card key to access the doors to the poison garden.

  Max could not believe his eyes. “How can something so beautiful be so deadly? This makes me appreciate my burgers and shakes—not much you can do to taint them.”

  “Even shakes can be tainted, Max, if made with poison milk,” said Lizzy. “Abraham Lincoln’s mother died of ‘milk sickness’ after tending to an ill family who lived near their home in Indiana. If a cow eats this plant, white snakeroot, the meat and milk become contaminated. Lincoln’s mother passed away a couple of weeks later. People plant it in gardens because of the dark green leaves. Many of these exist in gardens throughout the United States. As you said, they’re beautiful.”

  Max approached the hemlock plant. He stared down at it, and his palms began to sweat. “I know all too well exactly what Todd felt as he lay there, fully aware that he could no longer breathe.” His hands started to tremble with the memory. He rushed through the door, stormed across the lobby, and pushed through the front entrance doors, until he stood outside in the warm sunlight. He sucked in a breath, appreciating what most people took for granted in their daily lives. He bent over, feeling dizzy. Then his anger welled up. He would find Sally’s killer—and the person who fed him hemlock. Most of all, what surged forward was a need to know Ursula and why she’d fed him poison oatmeal as a kid. He’d never wanted to know before.

  Joy stepped out of the building. “Max, I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

  Max stood up. “I needed to see it, Joy. It’s part of the crime scene. No different than a grisly corpse.”

  “Except that a corpse can’t reach up and kill you.”

  “You’d be surprised what the dead can do. A few reach up from the grave, like Sally.”

  “Spoken like a true detective.” Joy’s phone rang. She picked it up. “Burton here.”

  Steele was on the other end. “Hey, Joy. If you’re free tonight, I’d like to take you out on the town. It’s a little town, but a pretty cool one.”

  Joy grew quiet. She hadn’t been on a date since Yale, where in her last year, she’d gotten involved with the wrong man—Professor Draven Blackmoor. A man who taught criminal psychology and who had infiltrated her psyche and led her down a dark path. “Sure. I’m up for that.” She didn’t want to say more in front of Max.

  “I’ll pick you up at six. No need to dress up. In fact, western boots would fit right in but are not required.”

  “See you later.” Joy disconnected.

  Max grinned. “Things going well, I see?”

  “That just means I haven’t made a mess of it yet.”

  “Hey, at least you have a date. I’m the mess here. You’re trying to form relationships. I’m not sure I ever have. I think the reasons why are just beginning to surface. Let’s get back to the office. It’s time to review the facts and see what we’re missing.” Max had compiled a detailed binder of every clue, every note, every forensic report. Some detectives called it their “murder book.”

  When they jumped into the car, Max put his hands on the steering wheel and stared at Joy. “It’s a new day. Want to play open-hold-burn?”

  Joy stared through the windshield at her new hometown. “Not today. It wouldn’t be fair to Steele if my mind is a million miles away. Right now, that envelope is sitting and waiting. How ‘bout tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow it is.”

  Max’s phone rang. “King.”

  Angelo said, “The soup had hemlock. Enough to make everyone sick, but it probably would have tipped the scale for Sally, who’d already been poisoned.”

  “Thanks, Angelo.” Max filled Joy in. “The soup was poisoned.”

  “Who was angry enough to poison an entire family to get at Sally? Or was it an act of desperation when Kate decided to serve salads instead? The killer had to act fast.”

  “And when the soup wasn’t served, the perp had to poison the salad, which Sally handed to me.”

  19

  Back at the station, Max and Joy sat across from one another.

  Max had the big binder open on his desk, but he tipped back in his chair and pondered the facts etched in his brain first. “Let’s start at the top. Of all of the people at the dinner party, Maria, Rosa, Kate and Alice spent the most time in the kitchen.”

  “But a ton of others came and went. It wouldn’t take long for someone to mix hemlock in the soup. Although it had to be chopped fine, like an herb.”

  “But they already had Queen Anne’s Lace in a bowl for decorating the salads. So chopping herbs would have gone unnoticed. Logan and Matteo helped in the kitchen too, with the appetizers.”

  “Kate switched to salad from soup. A good attorney would make the case she couldn’t go through with poisoning her own family to kill Sally.”

  “But it had originally been on the menu. So the soup had to be poisoned before everyone sat down, because no one left the table during the meal, except for Kate.”

  “Who else had access to Sally’s office where we found the foxglove tea?” asked Joy.

  “Lizzy, Elliot, Alice, Rio, Todd, any number of folks. But not Rosa or Maria, perhaps. And not the Wolf children or Kate or Red.”

  “Rosa and Maria could have had excuses for stopping by the company office, but they have no motive—other than the money Maria received.”

  “And Kate and Red could have visited Lizzy or maybe stopped by to take her to lunch. We should ask them that question.” Max jotted a note. “Sally had asked Maria to work for her after her father died, and she left her a large gift in her will—so Maria might have had a motive to kill Sally, except for what Sally said in her will—any humanity she had came from Maria.”

  “Rio had reasons to go after Sally, and if he perceived she posed a threat to his mother, maybe he killed Sally and Todd. But Rio wasn’t at the winery during the lunch meeting.”

  “Not that we know of. But we didn’t ask that question.” Max added, “Jack had good reason, and he has a temper.”

  “But poisoning Sally took forethought, not impulse. Who wanted Todd dead?” asked Joy. “Do any of the Wolfs have a connection to Todd?”

  “Just Lizzy, but that’s weak.”

  “I would have said Lizzy or Elliot would have wanted Todd dead, when they stood to lose Sally’s shares, but without that, what was their motive?”

  “We’re back to suicide,” said Max. “If it was murder, wouldn’t the bottle have had to be poisoned before the reading of the will?”

  “Not necessarily. Todd lost it all. He had every reason to drink hemlock,” Joy put a finger in the air to signal a new idea. “Or someone switched out the wine in the bottle for tainted wine.”

  “Maybe. It just seems like Todd had put up with far worse for a long, long time. He’s a corporate attorney for a large firm. He could have landed another job.”

  Joy frowned. “He’d be starting over—and he wouldn’t have the boss taking him on trips or otherwise spoiling him like Sally did, like writing a will giving him her shares. And Sally cheated on him. He might have reached his threshold.”

  Max agreed. “True. And Sally’s promises are not necessarily honored.”

  “That could have led to a revenge killing.”

  “Or we have multiple murderers. Someone killed Sally. Someone else killed Todd.”

  Joy reminded him, “But they all used poison. Is there a hemlock connection? The killer went to extremes to feed it to Sally—but you got it.”

  “Good point. That does make it seem coordinated in some way. And coordinated means premeditated.”

  “Let’s take a break, Max.” Joy seemed suddenly distracted. Like she had somewhere to be. “Can I buy you lunch at Belle’s?”

  Max tipped forward in his chair and closed the binder. “I’m always up for that, but what’s wrong? I hear it in you
r voice.”

  Joy grabbed her small black shoulder bag and stood up. “Not here. I’ll tell you over lunch.”

  They strolled down Civic Center Drive, across Stagecoach Street, turned, and walked north.

  Belle had taken the day off, so another waitress took their order. Max ordered a root beer float and a pulled pork BBQ sandwich with fries. Joy had green salad and bottled water.

  “So what’s up?” asked Max.

  “I’ve wanted to tell you something for a while, but there never seemed to be the right time, and now, well, now I’m out of time. I scheduled an appointment to meet with Belladonna.” Joy paused as if to let that sink in before she continued. “I did it before I came to Wine Valley. I mentioned this to you. It’s taken this long to get approved. You don’t have to come. I just wanted you to know about it.”

  “Did Belladonna agree to see you?”

  Joy nodded. “I used the pretense of research for a book on women who kill by poison.”

  “When’s the meeting?”

  “Tomorrow at one. A private plane is flying me to Chowchilla at ten from Wine Valley Airport. Someone from the prison is meeting me and driving me—or us—in.”

  “Tomorrow? And I’m hearing about this the day before?”

  “I’m sorry, Max. I was going to tell you a hundred times, but at first, you weren’t in the picture, so I’d concluded I was going alone. Then Goldsby pulled me in to work with you. Then you were dying. And then you remembered being poisoned with oatmeal. I figured I’d done enough damage. Look, you can come with me, if you want. And I understand if you don’t. I just felt you needed to know. I’m not making a request.”

  The waitress arrived. She set the drinks before them.

  Max sucked half of his root beer through the straw, enjoying the creamy vanilla that melded with it. “I’ll go, Joy. She poisoned us. You seem to need to confront her, because you think she’s our mother, and that makes you vulnerable and non-objective. I need to confront her too, but I don’t give a damn who she is. This is just another case to solve.”

  Joy sucked back a large swig of water.