Poisoned Justice

by Jeffrey Alan Lockwood

  The waiting area consisted of a couple of chairs next to a low table, all arranged in front of a counter. The walls on the public side of the counter featured George Caitlin prints of Indian life in the 1800s, or so I gathered from the little brass labels. Behind the counter, the room was lined with bookcases packed with leather-bound volumes and rows of rather uniformly sized documents which I took to be students’ theses. A massive wooden table surrounded by elegantly carved captain’s chairs gave the room an air of dignity. Along the left wall were two closed doors, the painted signs on their frosted windows indicating that one was the department head’s office and the other was the mail room.

  A doorway to the right of the counter opened into a room with at least four secretaries, from what I could make out from the voices. From what I’d read about the size of the department, I figured there’d be a stable of secretaries. In fact, I was relying on it.

  Between the clatter of typewriters, the ringing of a phone, and the chatter of women, nobody noticed me. Resting on the counter was an ornate brass bell, which I took to be the signal to announce one’s presence. I gave it a ring. A stern older woman with her hair in a tortuously tight bun strode from the office. She reminded me of Sister Mary Leon in elementary school—the only teacher capable of instilling terror in a smartass kid like me.

  “May I help you?” she asked. Glancing through the doorway, I could see a couple of very pretty women at the other desks. Too bad one of them wasn’t the departmental receptionist, as my story wasn’t all that brilliant and this biddy didn’t look like she’d be easily snowed.

  “I’m looking for Dr. Rene Morley.”

  “He’s in a curriculum committee meeting until noon today,” she replied curtly. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “I’m Cedric O’Toole. I’m from Santa Barbara, but I had some business in the area so I thought I’d stop by your fine university. As a private collector of pre-Columbian art, I’m quite familiar with the Hearst Museum. I am also very much impressed with the quality of Dr. Morley’s research.”

  “Yes?” she said with a hint of impatience.

  “And I am considering a sizable donation of Mayan ceramics and jade carvings which I’d like to discuss with him.”

  “Oh, I see, Mr. O’Toole. I’m sure that Dr. Morley will be delighted to speak with you.” Her voice was suddenly chummy, and she introduced herself as “Miss Betty Hoshor, the administrative assistant to the chairman,” which I took to mean that she was his secretary. Nothing like the possibility of some treasure to endear oneself to an institution of higher education. “I’m sorry that he’s not available. Dr. Sylvester, our department head, will be in shortly, but he has a nine thirty meeting. Perhaps you can come back later this morning?”

  “That might work. But you know, I’d also be delighted to discuss this matter with Dr. Botha.” The secretary’s eyebrows lifted just a moment, then she regained her composure. As if on cue, the typing in the next room also slowed to a few tentative taps. I’d evidently struck a nerve.

  “I’m afraid that Miss Botha will not be in until later.” She emphasized the “Miss” to correct my intentional error. “And I’m not sure that she’s really in a position to be of much assistance in such a matter.”

  “Well, I understand that she’s currently Dr. Morley’s research associate. My mother has a close friend on the university’s board of regents.” I leaned forward and dropped my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “And I gather that Miss Botha’s archaeological research and academic reputation are impressive enough for serious discussion of offering her a faculty position.” At this, I saw a pretty secretary in the other room put her hand to her mouth in surprise. She turned to the girl next to her, who opened her gorgeous brown eyes as wide as they’d go and bit her lip. My fabrication was working, so I continued.

  “She’d be the first female professor in the archaeology program, as I understand it. I suppose that this is all pretty hush-hush, so maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.” My matronly confidant pursed her lips, evidently torn between politeness and outrage. But before she could formulate a response, a short serious fellow in a tweed coat—with leather elbow patches, of course—strode into the office. He was trying hard to look like an Ivy League professor in the slovenly informality of Berkeley.

  “Miss Hoshor, can you pull the file on faculty teaching loads for the central committee meeting? We need to be there in fifteen minutes.” He didn’t seem to see me at all, either singularly focused on his administrative duties or wholly lacking in social skills. Probably both.

  “Dr. Sylvester,” she said, “this is Mr. O’Toole, a private collector who is considering a donation to our collection. He was hoping to meet with Dr. Morley this morning, and I explained that you’d be happy to talk with him except that you’re meeting with the central committee.” Her mentioning my generosity had the same effect on him that it had on her. He was suddenly interested in me.

  “A donation, Mr. O’Toole?” He reached to shake my hand. “I’d love to visit with you, but this meeting will take up my whole morning. If I weren’t the chairman of the committee, I could duck out. It’s mostly academic politics, but one never knows when the dean will come up with some new and inane idea for allocating faculty positions or teaching responsibilities.”

  “Oh, it’s no problem. I’m sure Dr. Morley will fill you in on my offer. I suspect that a jade death mask and a ceramic figurine from Jaina Island would complement your museum holdings nicely.” I was relieved that Sylvester was pressed for time, as I’d read just enough at the library for an initial bluff that would fall apart with much further conversation.

  “Sounds remarkable. I am truly sorry to miss chatting with you.” He called into the secretaries’ office, where his assistant was sorting through an open filing cabinet drawer. “Miss Hoshor, do you have that file? We need to be there a few minutes early if you’re going to be taking the minutes.” He turned back to me. “Is there anything we can get you? There’s coffee behind the counter and even a couple of clean cups.”

  “Thanks so much, Dr. Sylvester. I’ll help myself and perhaps peruse some of your students’ theses while I wait for Dr. Morley, if that’s all right with you.” I wanted to get closer to the inner office, and the chairs in front of the counter were not a great place to eavesdrop.

  “By all means, make yourself comfortable.” Sylvester and his assistant hurried out the door and down the stairs. I went around the counter, poured myself a cup of coffee, pulled a bound volume off the shelf at random, and sat down at the table. I chose a chair that was out of view of the secretaries but close enough to overhear the gossip I had catalyzed.

  “Can you believe that?” one of the women whispered to the others, evidently unsure of whether I was within earshot but unable to contain herself.

  “Sarie Botha, a faculty member? That’d put the department into chaos,” another answered. I lost track of who was speaking, but there was no confusion as to what these ladies thought.

  “She’s such a bitch.”

  “Ellen!”

  “Well, she is.”

  “Yes, but that sounds so crude.”

  “She acts like she’s better than everyone. Driving that fancy convertible.”

  “Did you see what she wore yesterday? An Yves Saint Laurent peasant dress.”

  “That’d cost me a month’s salary.”

  “At least.”

  “And the way she was showing off her naked shoulders was just slutty.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a prude, Clayleen.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Well it was better than that micromini she had on last week.”

  “That look is fine for students, but it’s hardly professional.”

  “Speaking of which, can you imagine having to do her typing?”

  “I’d quit if she was assigned to me.”

  “Me too, or at least I’d make enough mistakes to get her assigned to one of you.”

  “Y
ou wouldn’t!”

  “I couldn’t stand being told what to do by her in that accent.”

  “She’s no more obnoxious than her boss.”

  “I suppose you’re right. Dr. Morley is no easy man to work for.”

  “He was in a good mood last term.”

  “And he’s been a monster this fall. When he’s in one of his funks it’s awful.”

  “He’s nice enough to me.”

  “Sure, because he thinks you’re a slave. He’s such a chauvinist pig.”

  “And a prima donna. When he needs something typed, nothing else matters.”

  “Maybe that’s why Sarie had that makeover. She’s trying to please Dr. Morley.”

  “I suspect she already does. If you know what I mean.”

  “Oh, now who’s being crude?”

  “Well, I bet it’s true. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, you know.”

  “I’ll bet she’s trying to impress some guy at the Savoy.”

  “She goes there?”

  “Every weekend from what I’ve heard.”

  “I heard they only let certain people in, and the drinks are like five dollars apiece.”

  “It’s not the drinks that people go for.”

  “What then, the glamour?”

  “I’ve heard there’s a back room with orgies.”

  “That can’t be true. How do you know?”

  “A friend of a girl who used to waitress there told me. That place is wild.”

  “Well, she won’t be there tonight.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m typing a grant proposal that she and Dr. Morley need to have by five p.m.”

  “So?”

  “So, they’re planning to work on revisions tonight.”

  “How do you know? Maybe they’re going to work over the weekend.”

  “I know because I have to come in Saturday morning to make the final changes.”

  “Can’t it wait until Monday?”

  “No, it has to be in the mail first thing Monday morning.”

  “So you have to work for Botha and Morley on your Saturday?”

  “Dr. Sylvester told me I could take off a day next week to make up for it.”

  “I’d ask for two days to make up for working for those two.”

  “Yeah, the manic-depressive egomaniac and his rich, slutty mistress.”

  “Now you don’t know that.”

  “No, but I know we’d better get to work.”

  “You’re right, or else Miss Hoshor will read us the riot act when she gets back.”

  The sound of typewriters replaced the chatter of the women, but I’d heard plenty to give me a sense of how to proceed. First, I wanted to see Miss Botha for myself, so I quietly slipped out of the office and headed back upstairs. Even bankers get to work by ten o’clock. Her door was open, so I slowed and glanced in as I passed. I was stunned.

  Sarie Botha was not a blonde. In fact, she looked remarkably like the brunette on Charlie’s Angels played by Kate Jackson. I couldn’t remember the character’s name, but then I’d only seen the silly program a couple of times when I was too tired to work on my collection in the evening. The secretaries were right about Miss Botha. She was pulling a book off a shelf, and in profile her skirt and sweater were plenty tight to reveal a supple, athletic body, very nicely proportioned. I kept moving so she wouldn’t notice me in the otherwise empty hallway.

  I’d imagined a Farrah Fawcett from Howard’s description of his temptress. The secretaries had mentioned a makeover, and I wondered if the dark-haired Sarie in Berkeley had been the blond Sarah in Los Angeles. Maybe she’d changed her name in LA and changed her hair upon returning, so that Howard wouldn’t recognize her if their paths crossed on campus. If Sarie Botha was Paul Odum’s killer, she was no professional assassin, but neither was she stupid. She’d either tried to cover her tracks—or I had the wrong woman. I considered asking Howard to identify her. It would only be a five-minute walk from Hilgard Hall. If she’d dyed her hair, he could surely still recognize her, but I couldn’t risk drawing him further into this. The kid was already at the ragged edge of anxiety and there was no telling what he’d do. I was on my own.

  On the way back to the city, I began to formulate a plan. With a week to go, I had to make my move if I was going to hit it big for Tommy. Sarie Botha was my best—okay, my only—suspect. I had to figure out how to extract the truth from her, and there wasn’t time for lots of nuance. As I ruminated, KDFC played a set of Samuel Barber’s compositions. By the time they got to his dark and disturbing Adagio for Strings, Op. 11, I had the outline of a plan. My approach had a kind of grim justice, if not elegant subtlety, going for it. And my mood matched Barber’s composition.

  CHAPTER 33

  At the office, Carol had taped to my door pink “While You Were Out” slips with the high-priority calls. She suggested that my “project” had better be over soon or we were going to have some grumpy customers. I promised her I’d take the afternoon to make the most urgent contacts. I closed the door, sat down heavily at my desk, and leaned back. A high-pitched squeal came from either the aging springs in my chair or the muscles in my lower back. I breathed in deeply and rubbed my temples, shifting gears from a murder investigation to the Housing Authority, which topped Carol’s list. The jangling of the phone undid my moment of tranquility.

  “A Mr. Mancini is on the phone,” Carol said. “It sounds important.”

  “Thanks, I’ll take it.” There were a couple of sharp clicks.

  “Riley, Bino here.”

  “Hey, thanks again for getting together. That Wild Turkey sure hit the spot.”

  “Anything for an old pal, even a wily bastard like you. Speakin’ of which, the boys in residue analysis identified your sample.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Not really. Turns out that yer fellow exterminator is using a very high concentration of parathion in a petroleum-based carrier.”

  “And that’s bad?”

  “It is for puppies, kittens, and any little brats who get this stuff on ’em. Parathion’s about as hot as organophosphates get. The Rachel Carsons of the world couldn’t find a better chemical to motivate their call for bannin’ insecticides.”

  “Any more reasons to worry?”

  “Yeah, the industry has been takin’ heat for the deaths of some cotton workers in Egypt and sugarcane cutters in Brazil. They entered fields too soon after parathion treatments and managed to off themselves. If some moron runs into a burnin’ building and roasts hisself, I suppose we should ban fire.”

  “Sounds like a couple of isolated incidents. Not enough to get the environmentalists in a tizzy.”

  “It doesn’t take much, and we’re catchin’ wind of some pretty nasty stuff that might really push things along for the tree huggers. The European press is reportin’ that right-wing fanatics have used parathion to assassinate anti-apartheid activists in South Africa. I don’t have the details, but if somebody’s usin’ insecticides to kill blacks it’s not gonna help our image.”

  “Does AmeriChem manufacture parathion?”

  “No, but people don’t know one chemical from another. The earth muffins are only too happy to encourage the confusion so that folks are scared of everything from DDT to the preservatives in their breakfast cereal. Goddamn political radicals in Africa are fuelin’ the environmental radicals in America. It’s a nutjob cluster fuck out there.”

  We commiserated about the state of the world for a while, and then Bino had a meeting. I imagined him wearing a coat and tie, explaining security to a bunch of middle managers in a conference room, which convinced me that there were worse ways for an ex-cop to make a living than owning an extermination business. After I hung up, I pushed aside the pile of phone messages and headed back to the warehouse. I needed to digest Bino’s news and fold it into my plan.

  Sarie Botha had to be Howard’s seductress—and Paul Odum’s killer. This all made sense in terms of how, but it made no
sense with respect to why. What reason did a beautiful archaeologist have to poison a radical ecologist at the same university? There was no connection, and without a reason for such an elaborate scheme, my theory elegantly connected a bunch of dots to form an incoherent picture. I couldn’t go to Laurie Odum and claim that this woman had intentionally poisoned her husband, and incidentally killed her maid’s daughter, without offering a motive. So I was back to the question: How to get Miss Botha to talk?

  I wandered back between the shelves in the warehouse, scanning the products and contemplating an approach that I just couldn’t bring myself to seriously consider. It was too close to home. These chemicals were supposed to make the world less ugly. I knew how Isaac felt.

  As I passed by the lockers and dilapidated chairs next to the rickety coffee table, the sulfurous odor of the insecticides was suddenly replaced by a pleasant earthy smell. The guys hung out here after work, and on Fridays they had a tradition of smoking a cigar before calling it a week. The thick, sweet scent of tobacco wafted up from the box on the table, and with it came the solution to my problem.

  I nabbed a couple of cigars, filled a beaker with water, and headed to my office. There, I pulled out the binder of notes we’d been given at the meeting in Los Angeles. Some extension agent from UC Davis had given a presentation about home gardeners accidentally poisoning themselves with “nicotine tea.” Seems that these suburban hippies decided to control their hornworms by soaking cigarettes in a pail of water and sprinkling the concoction on infested tomato plants. Like all hippies they imagined that Mother Nature provided safe solutions to the world’s problems. They didn’t figure that nicotine was absorbed by the skin and carried to the nervous system, where it was every bit as dangerous as those nasty, synthetic chemicals. The symptoms were most unpleasant, but the modern wonders of an emergency room kept the back-to-nature gardeners from becoming compost.

  After reviewing the details of the cases and guessing how many cigarettes would equal a cigar, I broke up one of the stogies and part of a second, and dropped the mess into the water. I pulled out a heating pad that I kept around for days when my back was hurting. Then I set the beaker on the pad and turned it to its lowest setting. The antidote used by the ER doctors had rung a bell and provided me with a Plan B, in case my solution generated its own problem. I went back into the warehouse and opened the refrigerator, where we kept various chemicals but mostly beer. Shoved toward the back behind a six-pack I found a thick glass vial.