A Dinner to Die For (13 page)

“I
would
have told you, if I’d felt—”

“The suspect escaped!”

“The guy was a giant! He tossed the rookie in the backyard aside like an empty sack.”

“Smith, you let the suspect escape twice!”

“I chased him. I caught up with him in the school yard.”

“And you lost him, again!”

“He threw a garbage can at me!”

“You should have been out of his range.”

“That can weighed over a hundred pounds, Inspector. They weigh them down so the kids don’t roll them all over the school yard. I was fifteen feet away from Yankowski. I didn’t figure I was dealing with Atlas.”

Doyle stared, face redder than his hair, cheeks quivering. In the silence I realized we had both been shouting. I didn’t wait for him to continue. “I lost him, Inspector. No one’s angrier about it than me. But dammit, it wasn’t because I’m sick. Or”—I waited till he looked up—“because I’m a woman. Bubba Paris wouldn’t have stopped him!”

He stared at me, the loose flesh on his cheeks still pulsing, his breathing almost as labored as Yankowski’s had been. As always, his expression revealed nothing. I couldn’t tell whether he was convinced by my argument, surprised at its vehemence, or just taken aback by my invoking the name of the 49ers’ offensive tackle. Or, more likely, I had hit on the underlying issue of sex, the issue he wasn’t prepared to raise.

“Inspector, I know his identity, I’ve got the charge”—felonious assault, three counts, one for the rookie in the backyard and two for me—“and we’re in hot pursuit. I’ll get a Ramey warrant as soon as a judge is in this morning. Yankowski’s not going to knock me around and walk off free. You can count on that.”

Leaning back in his chair, he said, “All fine and good, Smith. What about Yankowski? Did Biekma’s wife give you any leads on where he’d go to hide?”

“She said she didn’t know. Whether that’s true or not, I can’t say.”

“You think there was something between the Biekma woman and Yankowski?”

Considering Laura Biekma in that light, I wondered if rather than fighting exhaustion to answer my questions, she could have been drawing out her replies to keep me occupied, to keep me from Yankowski’s trail. “Each one of these people saw Laura as an ally. Rue Driscoll told me Laura understood the importance of her research. Laura made a fuss over Earth Man’s dinners. And Yankowski gave Laura a story about an ex-wife he’s supposed to be hiding out from. According to her, he wasn’t one to confide, but he confided in her. And he was plenty pissed off about Mitch Biekma.”

“More personal than a disgruntled employee?”

“Sounded like it.”

“So maybe Yankowski decided to take matters into his own hands, huh? Or maybe the wife did. What’s your assessment of her, Smith? You think she was playing these people?”

“I don’t know. The impression I get is that she was just balancing Mitch’s self-centeredness.”

“Still, she owns two-thirds of the restaurant now. And she lived right above the kitchen.”

“The thing is, Inspector, the poison was almost certainly in the horseradish. And anyone could have gotten to that.”

“Which leaves us nowhere. And it’s twenty-five to eight,” he said, fingering a sheet of paper on his desk. Quarter-to was Detectives’ Morning Meeting.

I didn’t move. “There’s another odd thing. Rue Driscoll, the woman who led the fight against Paradise’s later hours, says she got food poisoning there.”

“I don’t recall that in the news.”

“It was
after
the hearings.”

“
After?
How does she seem to you? You buy her story, Smith?”

I hesitated. “That part, yes. There’s no reason for her to make it up. Besides, that’s not the oddest thing. There’s been another food poisoning there.”

“Corroborating?” He dropped the paper and grabbed a pencil. “Who’s this?”

“Earth Man.”

“Mother of God, Smith, what is this, a circus? I’m trying to find some redeeming factors in this fiasco, and you’re giving me a crusader, a giant, and a crazy.”

I sighed. “I wish there were better facts to give you.”

He shook his head, and sighed. Fingering the paper, he looked blankly at it, then looked back at me. “I’m leaving you in charge, Smith, for now.”

I stared. I had misjudged the whole conference here. I’d thought we were assessing the case. But he was assessing me!

“But you’re going to get me something fast.”

“My in-box should be clear.”

“And Smith, you’re going to have to handle it with less help.”

“Inspector?”

“Murakawa. He may have a cracked rib.”

As I put my hand on the door handle, Inspector Doyle said, sotto voce, “It’s going to make them a great story.”

I didn’t respond. There was nothing to say. It was indeed going to make great reading in the afternoon editions.

“The city’s most flamboyant restaurant owner is impaled on his own brass flower,” he went on. “The suspect gets away, and instead of catching a six-foot-four, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound fugitive, my detective crashes feet first into a patrol officer.”

I pulled the door toward me.

“They’re going to have one word for this.” His hands clutched the armrests.

“What?” I said, holding my breath.

“Keystone.”

D
ETECTIVES’ MORNING MEETING STARTS
at 7:45 promptly. I checked my in-box—the in-box I had so innocently thought would be empty—and my share of the “in custody”s from last night were waiting. Murder or not, the suspects in the holding cells had to be processed, and it was the four of us in Homicide-Felony Assault who did the processing. Monday mornings were the worst, when the whole weekend load was waiting, but today, there were only two “in custody”s. I picked up the sheets and began the tedious process of checking to make sure I had the right names, then getting personal file numbers, county booking numbers, arresting officer numbers, and case numbers. I looked over the paperwork in each folder. The ID technician’s reports were there. The arresting officers’ reports were complete, though one was handwritten and barely legible. There was a typed report from Lieutenant Davis, my watch commander when I had been on beat, in the case he had gone out on. That one had two reports, also typed, from officers called on assist. But in the other folder the assisting officer’s report was missing. “Damn.” I glanced at my watch: 7:40. I headed through the bull pen to the patrol sergeant’s desk.

He looked up, his brow wrinkling when he saw who it was. “Welcome back, Smith, if that doesn’t sound too sarcastic.” He made a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a snort, as if unsure whether his reaction to my losing a suspect should be sympathy or pretense of ignorance. He then moved on to safer ground: “You get yourself all healed up in the Florida sun?”

“Yes. But it seems like a year ago now.” I pointed to his transfer tray. He nodded. And I riffled through. The report wasn’t there.

7:42. I checked the transfer tray for Report Review. It was half full. But luck had thrown me a morsel this time; my case was on top. Grabbing it, I headed back to my office, and shoved it in the folder. These two cases were simple assaults. I needed only to drop them off with the liaison officer. With felony assaults, we hand-carried them to the DA’s and explained the background information the standard phrases on the forms couldn’t relay. Did “serious disfigurement” mean a gash at the hairline that would be almost unnoticeable in a month or two, or did it refer to a slash across the face that could change the victim’s life? Had a perpetrator broken a victim’s cheekbone with only one punch, or had he aimed on smashing it to paste? Was the eighteen-year-old perp a true first offender, or did he have a long juvenile record? It always amazed me how so much paperwork, which took so much time to complete and required so many copies, could leave so many questions unanswered.

At 7:44, I slid into an empty seat at the conference table. Across the table was Grayson. What was he doing here? He wasn’t a detective. It wasn’t customary to have the scene supervisor report. A few seconds later, Clayton Jackson, one of the other homicide detectives, took the seat to my left, proffering a cup of coffee brewed by his son Pernell. Pernell and I had initiated a deal in the spring semester, when he had been dropped from the junior varsity swim team: I would coach him swimming; he would make me a thermos of coffee each morning. Between my accident and my convalescence here and in Florida, Pernell hadn’t benefited much. On the other hand, he hadn’t had to get up early to make coffee either. But now, the deal was back in full swing. Tuesday night he would be in the pool working on flip turns. Jackson rubbed his finger across my tanned arm and grinned. “Lookin’ good. Another couple of weeks and you’d be one of the family.”

“Couple of years is more like it!” Jackson was ebony black.

Howard made it to his chair just as the captain walked in. Howard grinned. I smiled. I hoped he had thought to bring some of the clothes I’d left with him. The turtleneck I had on, which I’d donned yesterday morning in Florida, was streaked with dirt and matted with sweat.

The usual items on the agenda—the hot car report, the “watch-for”s from Night Watch—went quickly. Most of Night Watch had been on the Yankowski search. Givens from Auto Theft gave a recap on the Walnut Square thief. “He, or she, steals a car three days a week, up in the hills. Some days it’s near the Oakland line, others it’s all the way over near El Cerrito. Old cars, new cars, stick shifts, automatics. Looks like he takes whatever’s available.”

“You mean what’s left unlocked.” It was Washington from Crimes Against Property. Unlocked doors drove him crazy.

“Or open windows. I figure he just cruises along till he finds his mark. There’s no consistency in his pickings. If we have to nab him in the hills, we’ll be looking till every car above sea level is parked at Walnut Square. That’s where he leaves them.”

“Dude must have better luck parking there than I do,” Jackson muttered.

“If s not so hard parking there if you’re willing to leave your car in a twenty-minute spot or a red zone.”

“No quarter in the meter, huh?” Jackson asked.

Givens shook his head. “Too smug. And why shouldn’t he be? By the time we get out there, he’s sitting on the bus to San Francisco.”

“But why Walnut Square?” Washington asked.

“Peet’s coffee,” came the chorus.

Givens nodded in disgust. “I can just see the smug bastard stealing a car, driving it down the hill, buying a cup of Garuda Blend, and a
Chronicle,
and waiting for the bus to the city.”

“A gourmet car thief!”

“So, Givens, you looking for volunteers to stake out Peet’s?” Jackson asked, laughing.

“Yeah, Clay, but you’re a big shot now, too important for stakeouts. I’ve got a patrol officer who’ll do undercover nicely.”

The captain broke up the laughter. “Smith, the Biekma murder.”

I glanced at Inspector Doyle, but he shook his head—nothing worth passing on. I recounted the case. “Mitchell Biekma, the owner of Paradise, was poisoned last night,” I began. Another time, with a case that hadn’t embarrassed the department, someone would have said, “I thought only the prices were poison.” But the humor in the room had vanished as totally as Yankowski. I described the scene in the kitchen when Mitchell Biekma got his soup and screamed at Earth Man. I told them of Earth Man’s claim that he had been poisoned, and of Rue Driscoll’s.

“And now Biekma?” Washington asked. “Same poison?”

I glanced at Raksen, who, like Grayson, was doing a “guest shot” at the meeting. Raksen, edgy any time he wasn’t discussing camera angles or processing chemicals, looked small and wiry, like a mustachioed miniature schnauzer set on a chair he’s not allowed on, desperately wanting to jump off but afraid to disobey the command to stay. Next to him Howard looked like the family golden retriever who settles wherever he chooses and waits for a scratch behind the ears.

“The lab reports aren’t in yet, of course. They won’t be back till next week at the earliest,” Raksen said.

I nodded. Everyone knew that. “Can you give us an educated guess?”

“Better than that. It’s aconite. No doubt about it. I don’t know how I missed it last night. The guy was eating horseradish! It’s not in the soup, but the jar; it’s full of it—straight aconite. Stupid! I can’t—”

“Aconite,” the inspector prompted before Raksen slipped into prolixity.

Raksen swallowed. He recognized his tendency to get carried away. He knew the rest of us did too. “Aconite is the root of monkshood,
Aconitum napellus,
” he said stiffly. “But the whole plant is poisonous. The leaves look like parsley, and the tuber—the root—is often mistaken for … horseradish!”

“Bingo!” Jackson said.

Raksen shook his head. “How could I have missed it? It’s an alkaloid. Tincture of aconite is a skin irritant in liniments. Initially it stimulates the myocardium, then it depresses the central nervous system. The tinctures and liniments have been used for relieving toothache, neuralgia, and rheumatism. But it’s toxic enough to be poisonous when absorbed through the skin. Aconite has a long history; one of the Roman emperors made it illegal for citizens to grow it, and the Greeks called it ‘stepmother poison.’ ” Gone was the wary miniature schnauzer look. Engrossed in the explication of one of his favorite topics, Raksen balanced on the edge of his chair, eyes glowing, mouth tensed—now like a full-grown standard schnauzer about to pounce on a fat rabbit.

“Raksen, what are the symptoms of aconite poisoning?”

“Nausea, vomiting—”

“Like Biekma,” Grayson put in.

“Numbness and tingling of the mouth, throat, and hands, blurred vision—”

“That would cause him to run into that metal bird of paradise in the garden,” Grayson summed up proprietarily.

But Raksen wasn’t through. “Fall of blood pressure, convulsions, and respiratory failure. And, here’s the clincher.” He paused, glancing around the table. “With a dose of one to two milligrams, death can come in eight minutes.”

“Pay now, go now!” Howard said.

“Raksen,” I said. “Did you, by any chance, check on the poison in Earth Man’s food?”