Poisoned Justice

by Jeffrey Alan Lockwood

  “It’s not about what I believe. But I figure that you know about people by what they do, not what they say.” She looked utterly defeated.

  “Why don’t you just go and tell Odum’s wife that you’ve solved the case?”

  “Because Morley is like a maggoty dog and his flies are spreading filth.” I paused and considered how much to reveal. “And some of that filth may have poisoned someone important to me.” She looked up quizzically. “Sorry honey, not you. This person made some bad calls too, but he didn’t deserve what he got.”

  A long silence. I could see her struggling, trying to choose between self-pity and courage. When people reach bottom, they can either quit or start clawing their way back up. I’ve seen boxers hit the canvas, and I’ve watched the same struggle in their eyes. It’s easier to stay down. There’s a damn good chance that if they get up, a brutal beating is coming. Not many fighters win a bout after kissing the canvas.

  “What can I do?” She had heart, enough to stay in the ring, and perhaps enough to win.

  “I’ve been working on that. But I need some information before my plan can come together.”

  “This isn’t going to involve another round of better answers through chemistry, is it?”

  I gave her a grim smile. “I much prefer to have beautiful women talk to me without needing alcohol, drugs—or poisons. So, tell me about Morley’s schedule. When does he come and go? What’s his routine?”

  Sarie explained that her boss’s week was unpredictable, except on the days he taught. Morley didn’t like having to deal with students, so he’d reduced his classes to Tuesday and Thursday mornings. He’d arrive in a foul mood at seven thirty, pull out his lecture notes from the files, and teach from eight until ten. Then he’d come back to his office and expect Sarie to have his coffee—cream and two sugars—ready for him. Their offices shared an interior door, so she was to listen for his arrival and serve her master promptly. He liked to schedule meetings for the late mornings on these days, so he’d have the rest of the week available for research, writing, and extracurricular work.

  When she’d finished her account of Morley’s routine, I poured the rest of the coffee into our mugs and headed into the living room. While I worked my way through these details, Sarie cleaned up the dishes. It felt almost domestic, except that the man of the house was plotting a murder while the little lady was shaking off the effects of his having tied her up and poisoned her.

  She came out from the kitchen and settled into an overstuffed chair that looked like it had been upholstered in polar bear skin. The bathrobe tie had loosened, and when she crossed her legs, the silk slid aside to reveal a length of thigh. My plan was simple, which is invariably a virtue in these matters. I had her write a short note to Morley explaining in a clear, simple, dispassionate way that “It’s over between us.” She objected that there wasn’t anything to end in terms of romance, but I explained that it didn’t matter because Morley would never actually see the note. She looked confused, but she did as I asked and handed me the paper. Then I explained the plan—or at least as much as she needed to know.

  “On Monday, I’ll drop off a vial containing a couple tablespoons of a bluish-green liquid. Tuesday morning will be show time.”

  “What’s my role?” Her foot began swinging like an anxious metronome.

  “Simple. You’ll make Morley’s coffee and add the stuff I give you. I’ll be waiting in his office when he returns from class. All you need to do is listen for your cue.”

  “Which is?”

  “When you hear me say, ‘I don’t want to be a pest,’ you knock on the door and deliver his drink. Then leave.”

  “We’re poisoning him, right?”

  “Not just any poison. One that ensures a measure of justice.”

  “I’m not sure I’m up to this.” She sighed, shaking her head. Her foot came to a rest, and the bathrobe ended its sensual migration.

  “You were up to killing Odum. Maybe he wasn’t a saint. Like you, he figured to use the drug money for what he thought was a noble purpose. But on the way, you both ended up with some pretty posh lives.”

  Sarie looked around the room with its stylish furnishings and high-end art. “But …” she began. I could tell she was going to make a last-ditch effort at justifying her duplicity.

  “Hold on sweetheart, I’m not done. There’s a little girl who died a miserable death and a family that will live with that loss.”

  “I didn’t know that would happen. I didn’t know.” Her voice quavered.

  “Here’s how it works in my business. You put poison into the world, and it’s your responsibility. Things go wrong, you fix them.” She put her face in her hands, as if she might be able to hide from it all. “Cleaning up the mess is a small price to pay for getting away with murder, doll.”

  “But I don’t see how this is all going to work. It all seems so dodgy.” Eyes glistening with tears, her face was a strained mixture of grief, confusion, and hope.

  “Relax. The less you know before we’re done, the less likely it is that you’ll over-think your role and make a mistake. You have plenty of book smarts. But let’s face it, your criminal smarts aren’t so hot. It wasn’t that hard for me to find you, so trust me on this one.”

  “You’re the fundi tsotsi.” She paused and gave a weary smile, knowing she had me flummoxed with that expression. “You’re the expert on how to be a hoodlum.”

  “I’ve gone up against some of the best. Do as I say and you’ll get out of this.”

  “I’ll never get away from Marissa. That was her name, right? Every time I see a Mexican girl . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “Look, I’m an exterminator, not an exorcist. I’ll take care of pests. You’ll have to deal with your own demons.”

  She took a deep breath, wiped away a tear, and smiled weakly. I wasn’t sure what to make of her vulnerability and grit. All I knew was that Rene Morley was vermin, and Sarie Botha was the most alluring pesticide I’d ever handled. I got up and went to get dressed in the hope of salvaging what was left of the weekend. As I was hanging up the bathrobe, Sarie stood in the doorway and let her robe slide to the floor.

  “Help me forget. Just for a little while,” she pleaded.

  I was tempted. But it would just be her using me for an hour of amnesia and me using her for something that wasn’t even lust but some adrenaline-fueled struggle for control with handcuffs, ropes, and flesh. “Not now, not here,” I said. “Let’s focus on cleaning up a mess before we make another one.”

  She gave a sad smile and slipped back into bed, saying, “I’m here if you change your mind.”

  I showered and dry-shaved with one of those worthless pink plastic razors that women use for their legs. The scraping was worth the sense of being clean-shaven and starting afresh after last night. When I came out of the bathroom, Sarie had fallen asleep. I dressed, gathered my things, and headed through the living room. Then I stopped and went into the kitchen. I left the Kokopelli doll with a note: “It’s your turn to be the trickster.” I hoped that she’d be up to the role when the time came.

  I walked a mile or so back to where I’d parked. I wasn’t dressed for a Sunday morning, which got me a few curious looks, but I managed to clear my head in the crisp September air. On the way back to San Francisco, I caught a sports report on the radio. Notre Dame had throttled Northwestern, 48-0. I had to wonder how much confidence you could derive from beating a weaker team. The announcer shared my concern, suggesting that the Irish might find it a rougher go against Alabama and USC later in the season. I switched to classical music and wondered about my next opponent. Morley was no Northwestern.

  CHAPTER 39

  When I got home, I put on a threadbare sweatshirt and worn-out khakis, then went down to the kitchen and made a ham sandwich (on soda bread, accompanied by an enormous dill pickle and a handful of chips—as it should be). There was nothing I could do about Morley until tomorrow, so I tried to distract myself with my idea of a per
fect Sunday afternoon. I threw open the curtains on the front window and let the sunlight illuminate my worktable. I decided against putting a record on, as I had a ticket for the symphony in the evening. Like a juicy steak, a concert is that much better after fasting. Then I got down to working on my favorite part of my collection.

  Most insect collectors organize their specimens according to taxonomic groupings, and most of my cabinets were arranged that way. But I also had a cabinet that my father had given me when I graduated from the police academy, and the specimens were organized to reflect my own peculiar interests. Most of the drawers held insects that I’d collected from corpses—flies, beetles, and a variety of other species that occasionally show up. And then I had my “criminal collection”—a drawer devoted to insects that were guilty of murder, theft, vice, and fraud. Well, not so much guilty (they didn’t really choose a life of crime) as exemplifying the dark side of nature, including our own.

  I’d begun with the murderers, after reading about insects that killed members of their own species. That tray included a very fine series of female mantids, who were well known for consuming their mates. Perhaps the most spectacular specimens were the female black widows, one of which was nearly the size of a marble with a blood-red hourglass set against a velvety black. I had to keep the spiders in vials of alcohol because their bodies shriveled into ugly raisins when they dried. I fully realized that they weren’t insects, but their murderous tendencies were too fascinating to overlook.

  It took more careful reading to figure out which insects were thieves. I’d put together several stunning rows of cuckoo bees and wasps, shimmering in metallic blues and greens. These little jewels are notorious for sneaking into the nests of other bees and wasps, and laying eggs so their offspring can poach their victim’s food and shelter. I was particularly proud of two rather blandly colored flies. I’d gotten these from one of my father’s army buddies who’d been in the mosquito control unit and collected insects along with my father. After the war, he’d stayed behind to become an embassy guard in New Delhi. I’d traded him a few common but beautiful Californian butterflies for these uncommon and ugly flies, which make their living by hanging out along ant trails and mugging the unsuspecting workers returning to their nests with bits of food.

  My trays devoted to vice crimes held a particularly strange assortment of insects. Scott Fortier at the entomology museum put me onto some books about reproduction that were perfect for filling out this part of the collection. I had a fine series of bed bugs, in which the male inseminates the female by violently puncturing her body wall rather than using her genital opening. This approach qualified as sexual assault in my estimation. When I was in Mexico, I caught some tropical butterflies that are pedophiles—the males mate with females before they even emerge from the cocoon. I also figured that insects conspicuously copulating in public qualified as exhibitionists or pornographers, so I included a series of March flies, stink bugs, dragonflies, and grasshoppers all caught and preserved in flagrante delicto, as the prosecutor’s office liked to say. And finally, I had my prostitutes—insects that paid for sex. These included dance flies that wouldn’t turn a trick unless the male provided a meal, and crickets that paid for services by allowing females to consume the john’s wings. (I had several males with chewed-up wings as evidence of payment.)

  My favorite section was the frauds, grifters, and con artists. It had been easy to nab some toxic monarch butterflies but more of a challenge to collect a nice series of queens and viceroys—the harmless mimics that defraud birds into thinking they are also dangerous. Likewise, there were sets of swallowtails and tropical butterflies with both the genuinely nasty species and its fraudulent copycat. In midsummer, I’d received a package from one of my father’s old pals who was a county extension agent in Iowa. In exchange for some Californian pests of various plants, he’d sent me two species to fill out my con artist series. For the last couple of weeks, I’d been keeping the specimens in a cigar humidor to slowly moisten their tissues so they wouldn’t crumble when I pinned them.

  He had carefully laid a couple dozen fireflies between layers of the cotton. These were a species in which females flash signals to dupe males of a different species into thinking that they are prospective mates. When the males show up hoping for a little action, the females attack and eat them. There was also a very nice set of ash borers—a kind of moth that is the spitting image of a wasp. I had some beetles and flies that resembled bees, but these moths were such incredible counterfeits that I had to look closely to be sure he hadn’t sent me actual wasps. The moths required extremely careful handling to avoid tearing the delicate wings. I’m always amazed that such easily damaged creatures can survive the rigors of the world while alive.

  After an intense hour, I leaned back and admired my work. Next to the smaller males, I’d pinned some of the female fireflies on their backs. This unconventional orientation highlighted the greenish-yellow patch underneath the abdomen—the source of the light which the femme fatale uses to entice her victim. And I’d mounted a few of the waspy moths with their wings in a natural position, rather than spread out as usual. This made their deceptive appearance all the more authentic and convincing.

  I wondered where Sarie Botha would fit. On the one hand, she belonged among the fireflies, deceiving with the promise of sex, only to prove lethal. But on the other hand she was much like the ash borers, vulnerable despite her appearance of danger.

  As for Morley, I considered him more of a parasite than a criminal. I could admire the work of a good assassin, a skilled thief, a talented prostitute, or a clever grifter. I remember a hit man who, after the district attorney promised to leave his family alone, came clean about having been the gun behind more than a dozen contract killings on the West Coast and as many in Chicago and New York. He didn’t so much confess as take credit for his work. The man didn’t brag, but his pride showed—all the way to the gas chamber at San Quentin. He’d screwed up on the hit that I investigated and he knew the deal. There were no weaseling lawyers or last-minute pleas for forgiveness. He deserved his punishment, but I felt no sense of satisfaction when he was executed.

  Morley was a different case. If he had an insect equivalent, it was the screwworm fly. My father had a half-dozen of these in his collection. He’d gotten them from the Texas hill country when he was stationed at Fort Hood after returning from the Pacific. He told me that one day they’d be valuable because the Department of Agriculture was going to drive them to extinction. They are such vile creatures that even the eco nuts haven’t come up with any reason to object to the government’s wholesale extermination program. Nobody’s going to miss them. The maggots infest the wounds of animals, expanding the opening into a gory mess that causes horrible suffering until the poor beast dies of an infection—or gets put out of its misery. My father told me about a cow with an open sore the size of a dinner plate filled with writhing maggots. But even these awful insects can’t be blamed for inflicting such pain on the world. Yes, Morley was another matter—a vermin that knew what it was doing.

  As evening settled in, I changed into my best—actually my only real—suit, a conservative dark gray number with a blue silk tie that had been my father’s favorite. I was overdressed for driving my rust bucket, and the old truck didn’t blend into the parking lot at the War Memorial Opera House. I arrived almost an hour early to take in the setting. The Opera House is a grand building featuring Roman columns and a gorgeous entrance hall with one of those vaulted ceilings that belongs in the Vatican. I wasn’t in the class of the tuxedoed and gowned patrons, but at least I had something in common with those who were there to hear the concert rather than to be seen by the others.

  I found my way to the side of the balcony—the almost affordable seating. I couldn’t imagine that the music sounded all that much better in the premium orchestra section on the floor. The warm glow from the gilded arches, the enormous chandelier, and the soft lighting reflecting off the blue vaulted ceiling su
cceeded in taking me far away from the ugliness of the last two days. At least until Edo de Waart lifted his baton.

  The San Francisco Symphony was playing Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique, perhaps the most tragic of all classical works. He composed it as a kind of rebuttal to the uplifting feeling of Beethoven’s Ninth. I think I know how the Russian felt—the world isn’t always or mostly a place of joy. The opening movement began with a despairing bassoon solo accompanied by the low strings, all of which drew me in and set the tone for the evening. The rest of the strings provided a lighter response, but this time I could feel a sort of free-floating anxiety, as if Tchaikovsky had been following me for the last few days. By the time the orchestra had built to a dark crescendo, courtesy of the brass section, I couldn’t tell whether the music was coming from the stage or from inside my head.

  At least the second and third movements provided a bit of relief. They were upbeat, but even so, the work had a kind of jittery feeling that is lost in many recordings. Actually the undertone is missed in plenty of live performances as well, but it came through thanks to my mood and de Waart’s conducting. He didn’t have Ozawa’s flamboyance, which my father disliked almost as much as his being Japanese. (After a performance, my father grumbled that “The job should speak for itself. A concert is about the music, not the man. I don’t prance around when I’m spraying a house.”) But for his part, the young Dutchman had a demanding precision that worked especially well for less exuberant symphonies.

  Lots of people hearing Pathétique for the first time think it’s over after the chorus. But I knew better. The finale is dark and brooding, and the orchestra was in fine form. The ending was more eerie, even nightmarish, than I’d remembered. Maybe it was because the previous movement had been so manic—or because I knew the concert was coming to a close and thoughts of tomorrow were creeping in. The symphony closed with the sense of desolation and despair that Tchaikovsky sought—and found—so powerfully.