San Diego Noir

There were some comic moments working with the cyanide gelcaps and the truffles, and I was glad I’d bought three times as many as I thought I’d need. I wore gloves, of course, both to protect me from the poison and to avoid fingerprints, though I was fairly certain mine were in no database that could come back to haunt me. And because on one level it was all rather silly, I did wear one of the poison rings, a clunky silver number, for dramatic effect.

It’s harder to inject poison into dense chocolate than you might think, a matter of physics, really, and I had to do some experimenting with truffle reconstruction to make it work. At one point a failed venture rolled clear across the floor, dangerously close to the bathroom door where Gwendolyn was howling her displeasure at being locked away for her own safety.

The ones I botched went down the toilet, since I’d determined that entry into the sewage stream would diffuse the poison and render it harmless. In fact, I was a little dismayed to find out just how much terrible stuff was already in our local sewage stream, though too tired to care.

When I was finished, I repackaged everything, boxed it, wrapped it, tucked the card among the packing peanuts, and sealed the white carton. I changed my appearance a bit and took it to a shipping store in a business park facility during a busy spell. I kept my nerves mostly under control, though I did drop my purse and have to gather its contents at one point.

Then I went home to take a nap. There was no reason yet to monitor the Internet, and I was increasingly tired anyway, sometimes sleeping sixteen or eighteen hours a day. I even kept my phone turned off much of the time because there wasn’t anybody I wanted to hear from.

I’d paid for next-day delivery and it was Wednesday, so the present would arrive tomorrow. On Thursday mornings, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Laverne always attended a business breakfast, so she’d be gone before it was delivered. If she paid attention to packages that came to her house, as women tend to, she’d open it tomorrow night and be unable to resist taking a bite out of a succulent chocolate morsel.

Her last succulent chocolate morsel.

I slept well and soundly, setting an alarm to wake me for my eight a.m. meds and returning to bed, then sleeping clear past noon. I spent the afternoon reading newspapers from around the world online, pretending I wasn’t aware of every minute that passed. Then I was tired again, so I took another nap after my four p.m. meds. When I awoke, it was nearly dark.

I went to the computer and found the story third on the headline list of my favorite news service: Western Health Executive Dies Under Suspicious Circumstances. It was breaking news with few details, just that Leonard Patterson had called 911 when his wife suddenly collapsed and that homicide detectives were investigating and had no comment.

I’d expected to feel some kind of satisfaction and relief, vindication for those who had suffered at Laverne Patterson’s hands and would be saved from her future attempts to mold health care. But I didn’t feel much of anything, really.

In a corner, Gwendolyn batted her favorite pink ball and I remembered running across the room to grab the cyanide-treated truffle that was rolling toward the bathroom door. I remembered reaching down and picking it up with the gloved hand that wore the heavy silver poison ring. I wondered if Molly knew what I had done.

Then I checked my e-mail and found a message marked Urgent from my doctor’s office.

I had been approved for the clinical trial, he told me, after somebody dropped out at the last minute. They’d been unable to reach me by phone but time was an issue, and I needed to get to Philadelphia for pretesting as soon as possible. There were no guarantees of the new orphan drug being tested, but it had proven promising in animal studies. Like most clinical trials, there was no way to know if I’d receive the actual drug or a placebo, but they were certain I would be as pleased by this surprising development as they were.

Somebody had “dropped out” of the study. Had dropped dead, more likely, but that hardly mattered.

I had a chance again. I might be cured. I might live and cheat those charities out of their speedy inheritance. Of course, I might also get the sugar pills, but then I was no worse off than I’d been to start with, except that I’d be in a hospital in Philadelphia.

It was all terribly confusing, and I was getting tired again. I wished Molly were here, or somebody else I could talk to.

If I joined the study and lived, I’d get a double pass, from both death and the criminal justice system.