Dante's Poison Read online

  I marveled at how close she had come to hitting the nail on the head. “Great, but you have to swear not to make fun of my skills as a decorator—”

  Right then I detected footsteps coming toward us at a light jog. My heart lifted. Could it be someone with information to share about Mike? I listened in hope as the footfalls drew nearer, beginning to pound the pavement. As the runner came up I half-turned in anticipation, just in time to hear Hallie hiss, “You!” in what sounded like shocked surprise. Then something weighty cracked my skull and the lights went out.

  I awoke to stars. No, a meteor shower. I hadn’t seen anything like it in a while, so at first I just lay back, enjoying the show. Until the meteors flew off and were sucked into a deep, black well. With the spectacle gone, I became aware of a throbbing at the back of my skull and a buzzing in my ears. An alarm clock was going off somewhere, disturbing my well-deserved rest. I covered my ears and tried to get back to sleep, but the damn thing wouldn’t stop ringing. All right, all right, I said. I’ll get up in a minute. Just as soon as this headache goes away.

  “Probably concussed,” I heard someone say from what seemed like a great distance.

  “Sir, can you hear me?” Slowly, I became aware of a latex paw on my cheek, rotating it this way and that.

  Of course I can, I said. Just let me sleep a little longer.

  Someone else placed an evil-smelling thing under my nose. I had a momentary jolt of awareness, which only convinced me I should go back to sleep. But I couldn’t because of the alarm, which was growing louder and louder. Will somebody please turn that fucking thing off?

  “Good. He’s coming around,” came another voice. Male, like the first.

  I opened my eyes to stabbing pain in the vicinity of my left temporal lobe.

  “Eyes wide open now,” said the first voice. “Let’s get a light on them.”

  I tried to protest, but my jaws were stuck together with Silly Putty.

  “Something funny going on there.”

  The light jabbed at my pupils like a tattoo needle. I made another effort to get my lips moving. “Mmmm, mmmm.”

  “Relax, sir. Don’t try to speak just yet. Hold them open for me a bit longer, please. That’s it. Thank you.” He sat back in evident surprise. “Shit, Brian, I don’t think this guy can see!”

  A genius.

  “Maybe we should get something on them right away,” Brian said, sounding worried. “It doesn’t look like an acid attack, but who knows?”

  “Nooo,” I managed to slur, trying to shake my head and succeeding only in making the pain over my ear worse. “Always li’ that.” My voice sounded like I was choking on wet sand.

  “Don’t worry, sir. We’ll have you bandaged up and on your way to the ER in a jiffy.”

  “I don’ need—” I said, forcing my shoulders up to further ice picks in my skull.

  It was only then that I connected the dots.

  In the near distance someone was shouting. “Come on! Come on! Get her into the van! Let’s move it, people! Radio ahead and notify them we have a blunt trauma to the head with possible cerebral edema. Patient is in shock and barely responsive. Tell the ER to get a neurosurgeon scrubbed and ready. She’s going to need all the help we can give her!”

  Hallie? HALLIE?

  Oh, no. Please God, no.

  O’Leary was polite but unconvinced.

  “I talked to the boys about it. The place where you got whomped has seen a lot of recent muggings.”

  I shook my head. “How many muggers do you know who come armed with big clubs? And Hallie knew who our attacker was, I’m sure of it.”

  We were sitting side by side on the couch in my office, where I’d gone to get cleaned up after spending a sleepless night outside the hospital surgery unit. Compared to Hallie, I’d gotten off light. When they dropped me off at the emergency room, the doctor on duty was Tim, the same resident who’d performed triage on me the last time I was set upon by an unidentifiable assailant. Tim made a crack about auditioning for the Boris Karloff role in The Mummy—in the end I hadn’t succeeded in talking the EMT guys out of wrapping yards of gauze around my head—but dropped the gaiety when he saw the look on my face. He cut away the blindfold and sent me upstairs for an MRI before stitching me up and writing me a prescription for painkillers. He also wanted to hold me for observation, but I told him he’d have to chain me to a bed if he wanted to keep me there.

  “What’s your rush?” Tim asked. “She’s still in surgery. I just checked for you. You might as well stay here where the beds are comfortable.”

  “I know, but I have to make some phone calls. Speaking of which, do you see my cell anywhere around here?”

  Tim handed me a plastic bag with my personal belongings. My cane wasn’t among them, but I was relieved to find the bottle with my pills. I remembered that I hadn’t fulfilled my quota for the day and asked Tim for some water.

  “Are you sure you shouldn’t be sticking around? I mean, you took quite a blow to the head,” he said, handing me a paper cup.

  “There was nothing on the scan, right? And I’m not dizzy anymore.” My head still felt like it had been used to sink pilings, but the discomfort paled in comparison to the recriminations I was heaping on myself. I swallowed the pill and angrily crumpled the cup into a ball.

  “True,” Tim said. “But you know the symptoms of a concussion can be delayed for hours or even days. You should be getting rest.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not resting until I know Hallie’s OK.”

  “All right, but do me a favor. You know the signs, so watch out for them. Excessive sleepiness, for one. And disorientation. You start experiencing the slightest bit of confusion, I want you on the phone to me or 911 immediately. No stalling.”

  I was feeling too wretched to argue with him.

  “And Mark?” Tim said.

  “Yes?”

  “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

  Responding to my frantic messages, O’Leary had gone to view the crime scene at first light, before swinging around a little before 7:00 a.m. to where I was waiting in my office. He brought a bottle of Jameson’s and two steaming cups of coffee, into which he poured each of us a shot. I accepted it with gratitude, even though a drink wasn’t the smartest idea for someone in my condition.

  “How’s the girl doing, anyway?” O’Leary asked.

  “Still in critical condition. Her surgeon thought the procedure went well, but it will be a while before they know more. They’ve put her in an induced coma.”

  Post-op, I hadn’t even tried to see her. I knew physical contact would be forbidden, and my imagination was more than enough to supply an image of her lying in an ICU bed, deathly pale and swathed in bandages, with a wall of beeping machines keeping track of her vital signs. Then, too, there was the risk of running into someone from her family.

  “How long will they keep her that way?”

  I remembered the surgeon’s words, calculated to soothe while not pinning him down to anything. “It depends on how quickly the swelling goes down. If it starts to recede, they may cut back a bit on the coma to see how she’s doing. Even then, it’s doubtful she’ll remember much.” As reported by her doctor, Hallie had taken most of the hit on the lower back of her head, near the area of the brain that processes memory.

  “Which means she won’t be able to identify the assailant for some time, if at all,” O’Leary said thoughtfully. “Was she awake at all before the surgery, do you know?”

  “Only briefly. Her doctor said she was muttering something about being ill and needing to use an app, of all things, plus some numbers. It may have just been confusion, but it could mean that her phone holds some kind of clue.”

  “That’s not going to get us very far. Her handbag wasn’t found anywhere on the scene. Which, if you don’t mind my pointing it out, strongly suggests robbery as a motive.”

  “Then why didn’t he take my wallet, too?”

  “Lack of time, no doubt. W
hen you’re in a hurry it’s a lot easier to grab a woman’s purse than to sift through a fellow’s pants pockets, especially when he’s lying on his back on the ground. Tell me one more time what you heard.”

  I went through the whole story again.

  “What do you think hit you?”

  “Not sure, but it came from a few feet off. A baseball bat, maybe.”

  “And the footsteps—male or female?”

  “I don’t know. It could have been a man or a very tall woman, I wasn’t paying close attention. All I know is that the shoes didn’t make much noise and that he or she was moving quickly. I assume there weren’t any footprints.”

  “On a city sidewalk? You assume correctly.” O’Leary sighed. “That’s the trouble with this kind of incident. Unless we can get a description from the victim there’s almost nothing to go on. They’re putting a GPS trace on your friend’s phone, but unless the perp has the brains of a termite he’s either removed the SIM card or thrown the thing in the river.”

  I’d figured as much, and it only made things worse. Not only hadn’t I been able to protect Hallie, I couldn’t even give the police a lead on who had done this to her. “So that’s it then, there’s nothing else you can do?”

  “I didn’t say that,” O’Leary said. “Just that we may have to go at it from a different angle.”

  My expression must have revealed my state of mind.

  O’Leary put his hand on my shoulder. “You’re sweet on this girl, aren’t you?”

  I nodded glumly. “Some.”

  “All right, I’ll see what I can do. But only if you’ll promise to get some sleep. And I hope I don’t need to remind you once more of the obvious.”

  “That I’m the biggest jackass who ever walked the face of the planet?”

  “I was planning on deferring that observation until you were feeling better. But since you bring it up, do something smart for a change. Remember you’re a civilian. And for the love of Jesus, don’t go walking down any more dark alleys.”

  By the time O’Leary left, I was close to collapse. Even in a cab I didn’t think I was in any shape to get home, so I locked my office door and curled up on the couch under an old overcoat. I was out as soon as my cheek touched the cushion. When I woke again, it was past noon and my bladder was sending out urgent distress signals. I staggered out into the hallway and to the men’s room, stopping on the way back at Yelena’s desk.

  “I canceled all your appointments for you,” she said.

  “That was considerate of you,” I said, meaning it for a change. “How did you . . . ?”

  “I found you when I unlocked the door to bring in the mail. You were really out of it, so I asked Dr. Goldman what to do. He said we should wake you up if you slept more than a few hours. Your things are here.”

  While I was waiting to talk to Hallie’s surgeon, I’d called Josh from a pay phone in the hospital, asking him to stop by my apartment and pick up a clean shirt and my folding cane in case I didn’t make it home that night. Yelena handed the bundle to me.

  “Where is Dr. Goldman now?”

  “He’s with a patient. I’ll buzz him when he’s through and tell him you’re up. Can I get you anything to drink?” Yelena asked.

  I wondered what had prompted this outpouring of solicitude from her. “Some water. And if you would, a bite from the cafeteria.” I hadn’t eaten in more than twenty-four hours, and my empty stomach was doing cartwheels under my rib cage. I would have liked a shower too, but it could wait. Hallie’s surgeon had promised to call me midday with an update. “Are there any messages for me?”

  “Just this. Danielle found it lying on the reception desk when she came back from lunch. It doesn’t say who it’s from.” She handed me a letter-sized envelope. “Would you like me to read it to you?”

  If this kept up much longer we’d be announcing our engagement. “You’re in a swell mood today,” I said, handing the envelope back. “Is there something I’m missing out on?”

  “It’s a secret,” Yelena said, almost purring. “I promised I wouldn’t tell you until it’s been announced.”

  “OK, then. What’s behind Door Number Two?”

  Yelena removed the envelope’s contents and shook out a sheet of paper. “This is weird,” she said immediately.

  “What is?”

  “It’s like something you read about in spy novels—letters from the newspaper all cut up and pasted together.”

  “Go on,” I said, thinking it was just an office prank. “What’s it say?”

  Yelena began reading:

  TWO PLUS TWO USUALLY EQUALS FOUR.

  IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO BRAINED YOUR GIRLFRIEND,

  THINK BACK TO WHAT SHE DID THIS WEEK.

  BUT SSSSHH! DON’T TELL THE POLICE.

  IF YOU DO, WORSE THINGS COULD BE AROUND THE CORNER.

  “Who do you think sent it?” Josh said.

  “I haven’t a clue.” We were in our suite’s coffee room, where I was fortifying myself with chicken soup and crackers. “But someone out there isn’t too happy about us getting Jane released.”

  “So you think they went after Hallie to get her off the case?”

  “Possibly. But why? It’s not like Jane can’t afford another lawyer. And there are plenty of them out there who’d be thrilled to take on such a high-profile matter.” I picked up one of the crackers and nibbled on the end. It tasted like sawdust, and I put it back on the wrapper.

  Josh said, “Here, pass those to me. If you’re not going to enjoy your food you might as well give it to someone who will. So what’s your theory then?”

  “For one thing, whoever wrote that note knows something about Gallagher’s death that no one else does. Something they’re anxious to see unearthed, if you’ll excuse the poor pun.”

  “Fair enough. But then why haven’t they just come forward and told the police?”

  “That’s the part I don’t get. Unless the note writer has some reason to fear being identified.”

  “Or is in fact the murderer,” Josh said, munching. “The note could be a taunt—come and get me if you can—like the ones sent by the Zodiac killer or the Unabomber. Has it occurred to you there could be a psychopath at work here?”

  I forced myself to take another spoonful of the soup. “It’s certainly a possibility. But there haven’t been any other poisonings like Gallagher’s reported in the press. Usually serial killers don’t limit themselves to one victim.”

  “True. But Gallagher’s death wouldn’t have been discovered except for the exhumation order. For all you know, the killer’s already knocked off dozens of folks and is getting frustrated that no one’s noticed.”

  “Then why pick a substance that’s so hard to identify? Even the Tylenol killer was smart enough to use cyanide, which can be smelled on the victim’s lips. Excuse me a sec.” It was time for another of my pills. I went over to the water dispenser and poured myself a cup, downing the tablet before returning to my seat.

  “How’s that going, by the way?” Josh asked, full of concern. “You notice any changes?”

  I shook my head. “But Melissa said it would take time for the drug to build up in my system.”

  “Didn’t she also say you should be getting plenty of rest?”

  “Hey, I didn’t ask to get bludgeoned into unconsciousness, did I?”

  “Which raises another point. You shouldn’t be by yourself for the next twenty-four hours. Why don’t you spend the night at my place? Debbie can make up the spare room, and I can drive you back here in the morning. In the meantime, the police can start tearing that note apart.”

  My face must have betrayed my intentions.

  “Don’t tell me,” Josh groaned. “You’re planning on keeping this to yourself.”

  “I have to. I can’t run the risk of anything else happening to Hallie.”

  “She’s in the ICU, man. What could possibly happen to her there?”

  “I don’t know. But after last night I’m not taking an
y chances. Besides, how seriously are the police going to take it anyway? They already think they have Gallagher’s killer. If I know them, they’ll say the note’s just a prank.”

  “So that’s it, then?” Josh said in exasperation. “You’re going to go out there and play Daredevil again? God help me for saying this, but you’re a forty-eight-year-old desk jockey who can’t see past his nose, is probably concussed, and doesn’t weigh much more than your average long-distance runner, none of which is likely to present a material challenge to the next thug who comes after you with a club—or, heaven forbid, a gun.”

  “Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “Present appearances to the contrary, I’m not that stupid. I know I need help, and I have someone in mind for it.”

  “So you’ll take this to O’Leary?”

  “No, but how would you feel about James Bond?”

  When I left Josh, the back of my head was throbbing again, but after checking in with Hallie’s surgeon—there was no change—I forced myself downstairs and into a cab, stopping only long enough to look up an address and make a photocopy of the note. I put the original inside an old textbook from my shelf, stuck the book inside a manila envelope, and placed both at the back of a drawer full of files, which I then locked with a key. The key went across the room, underneath a flowerpot on the windowsill with a cast iron plant that had long since died. I’d selected it because the variety was supposed to be impervious to neglect, but even the hardiest species needs to be watered from time to time.

  Twenty minutes later, the cab dropped me off on West Randolph Street at the offices of Jane Barrett and Associates, LLP. Her ground-floor suite was guarded by a male receptionist of indeterminate age who lifted my business card from my fingers as though it were carrying a nasty strain of bird flu. Ms. Barrett, he informed me in a highborn tone, did not entertain visitors without an appointment.

  “Does that policy extend to matters of life and death?” I inquired.

  “All of Ms. Barrett’s cases are matters of life and death,” he sniffed. “Especially to her valued clients.”