Pinot Noir and Poison Read online

The machine made intervals of sounds like that of an air compressor. But the mechanized breathing was clearly so “common” to the nurse and the respiratory tech that, upon the tech’s departure, they smiled and waved at each other. Another day at the office.

  The nurse checked Max’s vitals. “He’s sedated to reduce anxiety while on ventilation but not knocked out. He can hear you.”

  “Thank you.”

  The nurse brought Joy a chair to sit in. “He’s a police officer, right?”

  “He’s my partner,” said Joy.

  3

  Steele found Joy nestled beside Max with her arm draped over his waist; her other hand clung to his. For a moment, he wondered if she would ever cling to him like that. He knew they’d just met and had already made love, but seeing her holding hands and draped over her partner seemed odd. He stepped over to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

  Joy turned, rose, and wrapped her arms around him, not so much in a loving way as an I’m-clutching-on-to-life way.

  Steele pulled her into his chest and kissed her on the forehead. “He’ll make it. Max is tougher than his hot-guy looks.” Why did he always trip over his words around her? “Not that I think he’s hot, but he gets the looks, you know?”

  Joy smiled.

  To see her eyes light up even for a second lit his eyes up too.

  “He’s not in the clear,” said Joy. “I’m staying.”

  “Will they let you?”

  “Captain Banks told the head nurse he was to have a guard on duty at all times.”

  “In that case, go take a breather. I’ll babysit him until you get back.”

  “I’ll just run to the girls’ room.”

  Steele reached in his pocket and handed her a stack of ones from his money clip. “Grab what you can from the vending machine. I’m a bit of an expert in hospital sitting, except I was the patient.”

  “Good idea. And a coffee.”

  “Only if you plan to stay awake. I’ll be back to relieve you in the morning.”

  “Thanks for taking care of me. I’m a mess.”

  “That’s what we do when we care.”

  The corner of Joy’s mouth turned up. “Be right back.”

  Steele watched her go. Her red and black silk dress clung to her body. He hadn’t noticed until now that she had taken off her heels and donned blue paper booties, like the doctors wore in surgery. They made her look like a little girl in big shoes. Vulnerable. She pushed the button that opened the doors and disappeared.

  Steele stood over Max. He shuddered, remembering his own nightmare of taking a bullet for Abel that ripped his abdomen apart when the bullet ricocheted inside him. The surgeons—he had two—made a midline incision that ran the length of his abdomen. He was lucky to be alive.

  He had moved to Wine Valley because he figured it would be less dangerous than the gang detail he worked in Los Angeles. But looking at Max—who had tubes running through his nose and mouth and elsewhere, and hearing the compressor of the ventilator machine mechanically inhale and exhale for him, and watching the waves and spikes of the heart rate monitor—made him think otherwise.

  “Hang in there, buddy.” Steele put a hand on Max’s shoulder and squeezed it. “You’re not alone. We’re here to get you through this. I know you hear me, Max.”

  Joy returned with a large coffee and a handful of goodies: cheese crackers, nacho chips, and a Snickers bar. Joy handed him the coffee while she settled in her chair and found a spot for her goodies. “Sharing. You could use coffee too.”

  Steele handed it back. “Nah, I’ll go home and sleep, but you call me if anything changes. I mean it. Otherwise, I’ll see you in the morning.” He read desperation her eyes. “He’ll make it.”

  Joy slipped her hand into Max’s. “His hands jerk sometimes. Or tremble.”

  “I’ve been where he is, Joy. His body is fighting back.” Steele kissed her on the forehead and walked to the nurses’ station. He came back with a blanket and a pillow. He put the pillow next to Max’s side, where Joy could put her head down. He draped the blanket over her shoulders and turned to leave.

  “Steele,” Joy called after him, and he turned. Joy let go of Max’s hand. The blanket slipped from her shoulders. She walked toward Steele with small, unsure steps. “You know those scars you said you can see in me. The ones that don’t show.”

  He gave her time. Whatever she had to say, she struggled to say it. Her eyes welled but she stopped short of allowing tears to fall.

  “One of them is Max.”

  “Max?”

  “We shared the first three and a half years of our lives together. Same foster care. Before our fathers adopted us. I saw Max for the first time since then at his father’s funeral.”

  Steele pulled her into his chest, and this time, she pressed into him. “One day at a time, Joy. We’ll get there one day at a time. I’m not afraid of the dark.”

  Joy kissed his neck and let him go. “I am.”

  Joy intertwined her fingers with Max’s, hoping he’d feel the memory of the night they lay on a single gurney.

  A new memory flashed through her mind. On the way to the hospital, in a single ambulance because no one could rip them apart, the paramedic asked them, “What’s your name?”

  “Joy,” she’d answered. “And this is Pride.”

  He then asked, “Is Pride your brother, Joy?”

  She put her thumb in her mouth, sucked on it, and nodded. But she didn’t really understand the question. When she woke up, he was gone, and she left the hospital with Sam Burton.

  At first, she wondered about Pride, especially when she lay in her bed at night, sucking her thumb. She’d never known any other child but Pride, until she started school the following year. She asked Sam, “Will Pride be there?”

  Sam replied, “He’s with his father, Joy.” At the time, that made sense. She accepted the answer as simple, irrefutable truth, and she moved on. Desperately alone. Only now did she realize she hadn’t moved on at all. Max’s disappearance had left a black hole in her soul. It left her feeling out of place, out of step. School didn’t change that.

  She would have been more comfortable amidst a race of giant ducks that spoke in the language Quack than at school. She spoke in the language Alone. She clammed up. Kind teachers coaxed her to speak, coaxed the ducks to speak to her, coaxed her father to put her in a special needs school.

  But Sam Burton—the former FBI profiler who had turned into a San Diego police detective upon Joy’s adoption—knew his way around psychological battlegrounds. He had a psychiatrist mandate that with Joy’s superior IQ, she would likely find a way out of the tunnel created by childhood trauma—events she didn’t fully understand then or now.

  Joy accepted the disturbing images that flashed through her mind as the norm.

  Sam argued with school staff that Joy needed to socialize, not be further isolated. An individualized education program established by the school dictated that Joy was not required to speak or read aloud. Work became her friend. Books became her friends. She skipped second grade. She spoke by third grade, when she felt like it. She skipped sixth grade altogether. After regular high school classes, Joy took additional classes once a week at an accredited high school that looked more like a tutoring center. It catered to child stars or athletes who had crazy schedules and could not attend regular school. The combination allowed Joy to finish high school at fifteen.

  Mostly, Joy didn’t speak because she had nothing to say to the quacking ducks, who taunted her for being different. She spoke to her father and his friends all the time.

  Max’s hand trembled in hers. She cupped her other hand over his and the trembling stopped.

  “Hold on, Max Pride King. Hold on, bro. DNA or not, you’re the only bro I have.”

  4

  In the morning, Steele entered the ICU and found Joy bent over Max’s inert body and fast asleep on the pillow. One of her elbows was bent, such that their fingers clasped together in an unbreakable loc
k. He let her sleep, but less than a half hour later, she began to stir. She lifted her head and stretched. He handed her a fresh fruit smoothie. “Breakfast is served.”

  Joy yawned. “You’re a life saver.” She sucked on the sweet berry-laden drink.

  Steele filled her in. “None of the others showed any signs of poisoning. We’ve got a murder.”

  Her face darkened. “Whoever killed Sally nearly killed Max too. This case just became personal.”

  A gray-haired heavy-set nurse Joy had never seen before checked on Max’s vitals. She fiddled with his drip line. “The doctor will be here shortly. Max’s muscle spasms have ceased, and his vitals are normal, so we’re going to wean him off the medication to see if we can extubate him.”

  “That sounds good,” said Joy.

  Twenty minutes later, Max opened his eyes. Joy and Steele leaned over him and smiled.

  Joy pushed a lock of blond hair off of his forehead.

  Steele added, “Welcome back.”

  Max blinked to let them know he had heard and understood.

  A new woman arrived, wearing blue scrubs. She looked too young to be offering life-giving aid to others. The blue scrubs did not hide her girlish figure, and long blond wavy tresses didn’t help. But her manner remained professional and authoritative. “Hi, I’m Jean, Max’s respiratory therapist. Good morning, Max. I know you can’t answer me.”

  Moments later, the doctor arrived and introduced himself to Max, ignoring Joy and Steele. They weren’t his patient. “I’m Dr. Roberts, Max. Blink if you understand me.”

  Max blinked.

  Dr. Roberts said to Jean. “Let’s put him on CPAP.” Dr. Roberts had curly gray hair, a slight bulge at the waist, glasses, and the usual white coat over beige slacks and a dress shirt.

  “If you’ll stand back a minute, we need to run him through a few tests.” Jean changed his respirator setting to spontaneous mode. For a time, they both watched Max respond. Jean asked Max to complete various tasks. He completed each one, not necessarily on the first try and with the coordination of two-year-old. But he did them.

  Steele leaned over to Joy and whispered. “Our baby boy is passing his test.”

  Joy kept her eyes on Max. She gave Steele a thumbs up.

  “What are his numbers?” asked Dr. Roberts.

  Jean called out one number after the other.

  “Extubate him,” said Dr. Roberts.

  At this, Jean unfastened straps to free the tubing, and she deftly withdrew the tubes from Max’s airway. Dr. Roberts jumped in with his stethoscope and listened to Max’s chest. “Deep breath.” Max did his best, but to Joy, it didn’t look very deep.

  The doctor turned to the visitors. “He’s made it through the worst of it. He is breathing on his own. Hemlock paralyzes the muscles—including the diaphragm, which is needed to breathe. He’ll still have muscle weakness. He may have trouble talking too. We’ll move him to the Post Critical Care Unit and keep him for a day, maybe two, depending on how fast he recovers.”

  “Any permanent damage?” asked Joy.

  “In this case, I suspect not. The time span from when he ingested the hemlock to his time of treatment was relatively short. I’ll check on him later.” With that, the doctor stepped over to another patient.

  Joy let out a huge sigh of relief.

  Steele insisted, “Go home, shower, sleep. I’ll stay with Max.”

  Joy stepped over to Max. “Get some sleep. You look like crap. I’ll be back.”

  Max’s blue eyes registered the joking insult. His lips parted, the best he could do to smile.

  Joy grabbed the corner of his sheet and wiped away the drool running from the corner of his mouth. “I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

  The moment Joy reached home, she sucked down the last of the smoothie. Her entire body felt stiff and sore. As she crossed through her bedroom, she said hello to Monty, her twenty-one year old female ball python who lived in an elaborate black cabinet enclosure. The cabinet stood half a dozen feet tall and ran the length of the wall, next to the French doors to the patio. Monty’s custom-built home contained terraced rock walls, logs and branches, green leafy plants, and a shallow pool. Monty had climbed the thickest branch. A lamp shone down on her thick coils of scaly mahogany-brown skin with light brown splotches rimmed in cream.

  Joy stripped out of her silk dress. She’d worn it for so long, it was like peeling off a layer of skin. She stepped into the shower and turned on the water, extra hot. She let the water beat down on her head and back. Steam swirled up. She inhaled it, as if it could clear her head or make sense of the recent events. Thoughts came in fragments. She replayed the scene of the evening before like a slow-motion movie, and she searched for clues.

  Sally. What an insufferable woman! But Joy’s mind always jumped to profiling: “What made you that way?” A series of other questions followed:

  What evidence is at the scene?

  Why did someone want you dead?

  Who had the means, the motive, and the will?

  She wasn’t going to solve the case standing in the shower. She scrubbed with soap, lathered shampoo into her hair, rinsed, and clambered out. She didn’t have time to sleep. She’d caught a couple of hours, she guessed, at the hospital. The warm heat and whine of the hair dryer set her nerves on edge. She put on minimal makeup and dressed in dark brown slacks and a purple shirt.

  Before leaving the house, she reached into the freezer and pulled out a plastic bag containing a frozen rat for Monty. She set it in the sink to defrost and raced out the door.

  She put on the pair of sunglasses she kept in her black Chevy Tahoe and drove down the road toward the entry gate.

  On the way back to the hospital, she called Captain Banks.

  “Hi, Joy. Steele gave me an update on Max. How are you holding up?” Jayda Banks, recently promoted from lieutenant to captain, showed true concern for her officers.

  “I’m doing a lot better than Max.”

  “Right. Well, here’s what we know. Angelo found mushrooms in Sally’s intestinal tract. The team found a plastic bag in the freezer of the Wolfs’ home. It contains mushrooms. Lunch at the winery evidently consisted of mushroom soup, a wild-greens salad, a lobster roll sandwich, and for dessert, chocolate mousse topped with blueberries and whipped cream. Angelo thinks, given Sally’s symptoms of being sick prior to dinner, that she’d been poisoned earlier, say at lunch time. Given the blueberries, Angelo will also rule out belladonna.”

  “So it’s possible Sally consumed poison before the hemlock?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “We interviewed Sally’s husband, Elliot. He said Sally was nauseous a couple of hours after lunch. She vomited too. And other guests said she was tipsy, but Elliot confirmed she was unsteady on her feet by the time they arrived for dinner. A short time later, she was slurring her speech.”

  “Belladonna sometimes gets mistaken for wild blueberries. They look alike. As for death cap mushrooms—it only takes one of those to kill a human. People eat them every year. Some that live require a liver transplant. The combination of mushrooms and belladonna and hemlock seems like overkill. Pun intended.”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  Joy wasn’t proud of her knowledge of poisons. Her fascination with dead animals as a child and of ways to die in her macabre teen years had led her to research various natural poisons with the idea of possibly consuming them and ending her life. “Anything else?”

  Captain Banks added, “We sent a collection team to Sally and Elliot’s home. Besides lunch, Sally could have been poisoned there. We need to rule that out.”

  “What about work?”

  “When the team is finished at the home, they’ll go to Kinsey Pharmaceuticals. Alice Worth will meet you there and let you in. Estimated time is two this afternoon.”

  “Got it.”

  Captain Banks’ voice relaxed. “I stopped in to check on Max last night. You were asleep. I couldn’t believe my eyes. We’ll get whoever
did this, Joy.”

  “That we will, Captain.” Joy hung up. She could not stop her mind from going to the dark side and running scenarios of all of the ways she’d hurt the killer. Sam Burton’s voice of moderation filled her head. “What you do is who you are.”

  “Sorry, Sam,” she said aloud. “I still want to annihilate whoever hurt Max.”

  5

  Todd picked up his phone and dialed Elliot.

  “Hello, Todd.”

  “Hi, Elliot. I’m so sorry for your loss.” Todd sensed abrasiveness. They both knew Todd had been sleeping with Sally for years. He got to the point of his call. “This is a courtesy call, Elliot. I’m sure you’re wondering about Sally’s will. I have a copy, and she left her shares to me.”

  Elliot sighed. “Well, Todd. I never expected that she’d leave them to me. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you. We can go over the details on Monday morning. And, Elliot, she left you the house.”

  “All business, Todd?”

  “I loved her, Elliot. For a long time, I loved her.”

  “Me too, Todd. Me too.” The line went dead.

  Joy found Max’s new room on the Post Critical Care floor. A petite black nurse with curly gray hair set a tray of broth and green gelatin before Max.

  “Food. That’s a good sign.” Joy stepped over to Max.

  Steele stepped back to give Joy room. “He can’t walk yet.”

  Max mumbled, “Cannnn suuu.”

  The nurse rolled her eyes. “Walks like a rubber chicken.”

  Steele added, “And he talks like one too.”

  The nurse checked his IV drip. “Try to feed yourself, Max. We can’t release you if you can’t eat or use the toilet on your own. Those are the rules. Simple. Non-negotiable.”

  “Go… hum,” pleaded Max.

  The nurse smiled. “That’s good, Max. I understood that one. ET wants to go home.”

  Joy grabbed the gelatin and ripped off the foil top. “I’m a show-me girl, Max. Can you feed yourself?”