Have Your Cake and Kill Him Too (27 page)

“But first you want me to help with this story,” I said as everything became clear. “You're using me to get it, aren't you?”

Richard sat very still. “Of course not.”

Unsteadily, I put my napkin on the tablecloth. “I need to be alone.”

“Nora?”

“I'm going to the ladies' room,” I said. “I'll be back.”

But in the bathroom, I discovered the pain I'd felt wasn't my heart at all. There was a spot of blood in my underwear.

I phoned the doctor immediately from the telephone in the bar, but ended up speaking with her on-call associate. He asked me questions and listened politely to my answers. In the end, he tried to assure me that light spotting wasn't unexpected, but if it got worse I should get to the emergency room.

“Go home and relax,” he said kindly. “Avoid sexual activity for a few days.”

No problem, I thought. I planned to swear off sexual activity for the rest of my life.

I hung up, not feeling any less terrified than before, and turned around to find Richard standing at the bar, leaning on his cane. He stared at me, white-faced with anger.

“You called him, didn't you? Abruzzo?”

Coldly, I said, “I'm finished fighting, Richard.”

“You did,” he said, sounding amazed as well as furious. “I can't believe it.”

“I did not call Michael,” I said. “I'm not feeling well. I want to go home.”

For an instant, I could see he didn't believe me. Then he looked away, defeated, and said wearily, “I'll drive you.”

“No. I'll take the train. Libby will pick me up at the station.”

“That's ridiculous. I'll drive—”

“If we stay together any longer tonight, Richard, one of us is going to say something we can't take back. Will you get my coat? I'm going to call my sister.”

In silence, he walked me to Suburban Station and bought my ticket. We barely spoke until the R5 arrived.

“Nora,” he said, “I'm sorry—”

“So am I.”

“This isn't the way I thought the evening would go.”

He kissed my cheek as I stepped on the train.

Libby picked me up at the Doylestown stop to drive me to the farm over back roads. I thanked her profusely. Fortunately, she was too wrapped up in herself to ask about me.

“I couldn't help it,” she said in her minivan. “I'm weak! I've always given in to my most basic needs. It's part of my character—the insatiable hunger for satisfaction.”

“You went off your diet,” I guessed.

“Those damn cupcakes!” she cried.

The box from Verbena's bakery was on the floor between the front seats of her minivan. I noticed the string had been broken and the lid savagely torn open.

“I only ate half while I waited for your train,” she confessed. “I couldn't stand it any longer! They were just too scrumptious looking!”

She showed me the demolished half of a cupcake, now unappetizingly squished into a Kleenex.

“It's all right,” I said. “You can get back on your diet tomorrow. A little slip once in a while is natural.”

She shoved the cupcake remains into her coat pocket. “I could kick myself! I was going to try the Chocolate-Cake Diet tomorrow, and now I can't.” She burped and belatedly clapped her hand over her mouth. “Where did that come from?”

“Are you okay?” I noticed she was sweating. “You look kind of feverish.”

Libby put the back of her hand against her damp face and frowned. “I don't know. Maybe I don't feel so good.”

“No wonder. After a week of watching your diet, even half a cupcake could wreak havoc.”

“You think?” she asked, sounding doubtful. “I don't know. . . .”

Suddenly, she braked and pulled over. The instant the minivan stopped moving, she threw herself out the door. I heard retching.

She climbed back into her seat a moment later, shaking.

“Are you okay?” I passed her a handful of fresh tissues.

“N-no,” she whimpered. “I feel really sick.”

“Let's call Rawlins. He can pick us up. You shouldn't be driving.”

“I think I can make it,” she said uncertainly.

We stopped twice more before arriving at Blackbird Farm. Libby left the van running as she bolted for my downstairs powder room. I shut off the engine, gathered up our handbags and the box of cupcakes and followed her into the house. From the sounds Libby made behind the closed powder room door, it was clear we'd barely arrived in time.

I knocked. “Lib? Can I do anything?”

She groaned and didn't answer.

Behind me, Emma said, “What's going on?”

I turned to discover my little sister in full Dungeon regalia. She wore a black leather bodysuit and tall patent leather boots that reached her midthigh. The heels looked sharp enough to impale anyone who dared get within range.

“Good grief,” I said. “You could scare the Hell's Angels in that getup.”

“They visited last week. If you ask me, they're a bunch of sissies.”

Libby interrupted us with another volley of vomiting.

Emma said, “Wow, that's pretty impressive puking. And in rehab, I heard some pros.”

I wasn't in a joking mood. “She's really sick, Em.”

Emma joined me listening at the door. “Does she have the flu?”

“She ate half a cupcake, that's all.”

Emma frowned. “This sounds a little extreme.”

I took a closer look at her outfit. It actually covered up Em pretty well, and the leather was very good quality. But I said, “Are you going to be late for work?”

“I was just leaving.” She noted my disapproval. “You want to come along? You might see something interesting.”

“No, thanks.”

“For instance,” said Em, “you might see Boykin Fitch.”

“What?”

Emma grinned. She leaned against the bathroom door. “Surprised you, huh? I remembered where I'd seen him before. He's a regular at the Dungeon. He's one of the guys who wears a mask, but—”

I forgot about Boy Fitch. “People wear masks? Oh, Emma!”

“Only the ones who want to keep their identities a secret from the voting public. Your pal Boykin has a kink that might startle his constituents. Most people don't want a senator who likes to be spanked on a regular basis.”

“It certainly puts his campaign in a different light, doesn't it?”

Emma nodded. “Yeah, but does it make him guilty of murdering Zell Orcutt?”

“Good detective work, Em.”

“Just call me Watson.”

Libby retched again, and we both winced.

I said, “Maybe Libby fibbed. Maybe she ate more than just half a cupcake.”

“Sounds like she ate a dozen.”

“She was feeling fine one minute, then this.” A lightbulb went off in my head. “You don't suppose . . . ?”

“What?”

“The cupcakes came from Verbena.” I told Emma the short version of what I'd seen at Cupcakes. “Do you think those cupcakes were tainted?”

“You mean deliberately poisoned?” Emma asked.

“Oh, my God.” My knees wobbled, and I sat down on the bench in the hallway. “The police were going to question ChaCha this afternoon. Verbena must have hoped to prevent her from telling them something about Zell's murder.”

“Did you eat any cake?”

“No.”

A new siege of sickness reverberated in the bathroom.

Emma said, “That's it. We're going to the hospital.” She pounded on the bathroom door. “Libby! Come on, we're going to the emergency room.”

“I can't move,” Libby croaked. “Just leave me here to die!”

Emma barged into the bathroom, mopped Libby's face with a towel and then bullied our sister to her feet. Libby looked even worse than before—white-faced and perspiring so heavily that her hair hung in damp strands. She was almost too weak to stand. Emma grabbed her around the waist, and the two of them staggered out the back door. I grabbed coats for everyone and brought up the rear, armed with plastic bags and paper towels.

Emma stuffed Libby into the backseat of her own minivan and made sure I fastened my seat belt before she set off at high speed. In the backseat, Libby kept her head in a plastic bag.

We arrived at the Doylestown hospital in record time and found the emergency room blessedly empty but for an elderly gentleman who appeared to be sleeping in front of CNN. The emergency room staff remained calm except for a few suspicious glances at Emma's choice of wardrobe. Beneath our father's Burberry raincoat, her stiletto boots and dog collar were plain to see.

Then Libby upchucked in the middle of the waiting room, and everyone forgot about Emma. Libby got priority status as they whisked her away.

“Now,” Emma said to me, “let's get you taken care of.”

As luck would have it, my own doctor was in the hospital delivering a baby. Between contractions, she came down to the emergency room to see me, looking younger in blue scrubs than when she wore the more formal white coat in her office. Somehow, it was more reassuring to see her ready for action.

Dr. Stengler studied the notes already prepared by the resident who had thoroughly interviewed me, then gave me a quick exam before helping me sit up again. “No cramps, right?”

“Just an ache, really,” I said.

“You haven't been eating much since I saw you last week.”

“Not much,” I admitted.

“Not good.” She closed the file and slid closer to me on the wheeled stool.

I liked Rachel Stengler very much. She had a no-nonsense bedside manner, but a sense of humor I appreciated. Tonight, however, the humor was subdued.

She put her hand over mine. “We've talked about this, Nora. Sometimes we can't stop nature.”

I felt my heart lurch.

“This pregnancy has been delicate from the start. I wasn't happy with your hormone levels at last week's appointment. And now this. With your history, we knew there was a chance things weren't going to turn out well.”

“Am I losing this baby?” I whispered.

“Let's not talk like that yet.” She squeezed my hand. “We need to take care of you, though. I want to admit you to the hospital, get some fluids into your body, make you relax for a couple of days. We'll watch your hormone levels.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Why don't you go home tonight, pack a few things, get your life organized? Come back tomorrow afternoon, and we'll find you a bed upstairs.”

“Okay.”

“Get a decent night's sleep tonight.” She summoned a smile. “My patients tell me they don't get much rest in the hospital.”

“Thanks, Rachel,” I said.

Her beeper began to squeak, but she held my hand a little longer. “Try not to worry, Nora. We'll do what we can, I promise.”

Rachel went upstairs to her other, luckier patient, and I got myself dressed. It took another half hour to go through the discharge procedure, after which I felt as if I'd run a marathon in high heels. I longed for my bed. I found Emma pacing in the hall.

“Bad news?” she asked upon seeing my face.

I told her what my doctor had said and that I was to return the following day.

“That's good, right? I mean, that you haven't lost the kid yet.”

“That's as good as it gets.”

But Emma wasn't really listening. She nodded, but said, “Tell me about the cupcakes Libby ate.”

“Why? Is she okay?”

“She's going to be fine.” Emma pulled me to some seats in the waiting room. “The doctors are pumping her stomach. They think she was poisoned, all right.”

“Oh, God. By the cupcakes?”

“Either that or the four cans of Diet Coke she drank or the nine rice cakes she ate this afternoon, but somehow I don't think those did it. What about you? You're sure you didn't eat any of the cake?”

“Heavens, no.”

“Are there any left somewhere?”

“Yes, they're in a box on my kitchen table.”

Emma jerked her head in the direction of the exam rooms. “The docs want to test them. I'll go back to the farm and—”

My brain began to function again. “Wait, I think there's part of a cupcake in Libby's coat pocket. It's in the back of the minivan.”

While Emma went out to the parking lot to retrieve Libby's coat, I sat in the waiting room and thought about Verbena. Had she deliberately taken poisoned cupcakes to ChaCha to stop her from revealing something to the police? And if so, how did she imagine she could get away with such a crime?

Emma came back with a wadded-up tissue wrapped around an oozing chunk of uneaten cupcake. We looked at the lumpy mess, and Emma said, “Sit tight. I'll take this to the docs.”

When she returned ten minutes later, she had a young resident in tow—the same young man who'd asked me questions about my pregnancy. He wore a long white coat with a latex glove dangling from the breast pocket and a stethoscope draped around his neck. He had introduced himself as “Tad,” but his name tag read DR. SINGH. He carefully avoided looking at Emma's patent leather boots.

“Your sister has certainly suffered a mild poisoning,” he told us as if he dealt with tainted cupcakes on a daily basis. “She has experienced a digestive disturbance that's annoying and a little scary, but not life threatening.”

“What's the cause?”

“If I had to guess by the quick onset and amount of vomiting along with her current state of lethargy, I'd say it was probably something as simple as a small amount of ipecac syrup. To tell the truth, I recognize the signs because we see it a lot in bulimic teenagers.”