Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 124, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 757 & 758, September/October 2004

She shook her head. “I worked at Sweetvine, over on Route 414. I knew Mr. Southby, of course, and I even dated Jerry a couple of times. But he wasn’t for me.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, he liked to smoke pot.”

“Anything stronger than pot?”

“Not that I know of. It wasn’t just that. He’s not my type.”

“You told Mark and Sarah you thought he might be stealing something.”

She shrugged. “Well, I saw him putting this big plastic rubbish bag in his trunk. It seemed odd. I wondered if he might be stealing healthy shoots for another winery.”

“Did they question him about it?”

Suzie shrugged. “I suppose that’s one of the reasons they wanted you to visit. That and the helicopter and Wade Southby. All of a sudden there was just too much for them to handle, and at the peak of our season.”

Sarah Calendar, who called to him from the front door, interrupted the conversation. “Sergeant Ambrose is on the phone. Mark and Molly have gone off and he asked to speak with you.”

Leopold took the call and heard the sergeant’s gruff voice on the other end. “It was arsenic,” he confirmed. “The forensic lab ran a flame spectroscopy test. And that vial we found stuck between the stove and the counter had traces of liquid arsenic and white wine.”

“Liquid arsenic?” Leopold dug through his memory. It was a long time since he’d handled a poisoning case. “That’s supposed to be faster acting, isn’t it?”

“Sure, the arsenic powder is already dissolved. Looks like it was put in his wineglass, though we can’t prove that.”

“There was a wine sauce on the fish, too. That may be more likely. It came from the kitchen. The bottled wine was poured at the table in full view.”

“Southby was trying to buy back Dogwatch, wasn’t he?”

“So I heard.”

“Was there a certain enmity between him and Mark Calendar?”

“The man’s my brother-in-law, Sergeant. I saw nothing that might lead to murder.”

Ambrose said he’d be in touch later and hung up. When Molly and Mark returned from town Leopold told them about this latest development. “Do you think they’ll arrest us?” Mark asked. “They might think Sarah and I poisoned him.” He seemed genuinely worried.

“Of course not!” Molly insisted, trying to cheer him up. “Look, let us take you both out to dinner tonight. There must be some good restaurants in Seneca Falls.”

He didn’t resist. “I guess Sarah deserves it after all she’s been through.”

They found a place just outside of town where the food was good. “At least we’re away from that damned helicopter for one night,” Sarah commented.

But they weren’t away from the poisoning of Wade Southby. The conversation drifted back to it, no matter how hard they tried to discuss grape growing and Amish customs and world politics. “One of us killed him,” Molly said, seeming surprised at her own words.

“There were eight of us at dinner,” Mark reminded them. “And people were in and out of the kitchen. Maybe Jerry had a grudge against him from the old days.”

But Sarah shook her head. “I can’t see him as a murderer. Not with poison, at least. He might punch someone, but he’d never poison them.”

Mark smiled at her. “You’re thinking poison is a woman’s weapon? You’ve been reading too many of those old British mysteries.”

They left soon after and headed back toward the Dogwatch. Leopold was driving and as they approached he could see the familiar flashing red lights of state police vehicles. “Something’s wrong,” he told them, increasing his speed a bit.

“Isn’t that...?” Mark pointed. “It’s the helicopter, on the ground beyond the vineyard!”

He was right. The helicopter and three state police cars had converged on a spot near the underbrush at the south end of the property. Leopold pulled up as close as he could and they were out of the car. “It looks like they’ve got a prisoner,” he called to the others, and led the way. Up ahead he could see Sergeant Ambrose and a number of uniformed officers. “What’s going on?”

Ambrose turned to them. “We were at the house looking for you. Sorry I had to keep quiet about the helicopter, but it was a D.E.A. operation.”

“Drugs?” Mark asked, seemingly bewildered.

The sergeant nodded. “They located a large patch of marijuana back in your underbrush a few weeks ago. But they needed to catch someone at the site, harvesting the crop. The helicopter flew over at night, with the crew using night-vision goggles, to try and spot someone. Tonight they did.”

“Who?” Sarah asked, trying to see past the officers to the figure being loaded into a squad car.

“One of your employees, Jerry Wax. He was caught red-handed with a bag full of harvested plants.”

“He must have heard them coming a mile away with that helicopter,” Leopold commented.

“It comes in fast in the dark, with its lights out, and they’ve been checking at a different time each night. We had cars on the alert for when they spotted someone.”

Mark tried to speak with his employee but the troopers kept him away. “I can’t believe this is happening,” Sarah muttered.