The Prodigal Son

Muse winced, patted her huge tummy. “That was rich for a first course. I hope I last—my liver doesn’t like rich food. D’you think the roast veal will be terribly fatty? The way Davina spoke, I see it kind of swimming in fat.”

“No, no fat,” said Millie, smiling. “‘Fatted calf’ is a stock phrase, like—um—‘lean pickings.’ Roast veal isn’t at all fatty, I promise.”

Nor was it. The veal was plain but perfectly cooked, very thin slices of pinkish meat with a gravy rather than a sauce, mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, thin and stringless green beans. Muse, Millie noted, ate with enjoyment, and made no complaints about her sensitive liver.

When Millie overheard Max and John talking about Martita, more of the puzzle fell into place. From her own little speech, Davina must have worked feverishly to disprove John’s story—what was the ring reference all about? So even through their phone conversations, Max must have kept to legal matters, Davina probably literally breathing down his neck. Those two poor men are not going to have an easy time of it …

A glance at Davina revealed a head of living snakes. If she caught their eyes, she’d turn them to stone.

What was with this Emily, the persecutor of John’s mother? Absent because she’d grown off in her own direction rather than because she had offended. Though so many years would soften anything, and she was Val’s wife, Ivan’s mother. Ivan … How did he feel, seeing his share of the family business steadily depleting? Though John had said last night that he had no wish or intention to be a part of the Tunbull business. Maybe the Tunbulls had no idea as yet how rich John was, how little he need depend on anyone after Wendover Hall dowered him. It seemed one of Davina’s ways of amusing herself was to snipe at Ivan—look at her crack about his wife.

Oh, John, John, I feel so sorry for you! Millie cried to herself as the cake came in.

“Uda made this with her own hands!” Davina fluted, the snakes writhing. “Each layer of cake is no more than five millimetres thick, and the butter cream is also five millimetres thick, flavored by Grand Marnier. The top is sugar-and-water boiled to crisp, transparent amber glass. And the entire cake is for the many years John has been away, while the glassy top, which must be broken before the past can be eaten, is tonight. Eat up, my friends, eat up!”

“A minute, Vina, give me a minute first!” Max shouted, surging to his feet. “First of all, I want you to lift your glasses to Dr. Jim Hunter, whose book on nucleic acids and their possible philosophical meaning is shortly to be published by the Chubb University Press, whose printers we have been for over twenty years. Head Scholar Carter assures me that it’s going to be a popular best seller. To Dr. Jim Hunter and his amazing, thought-provoking book, A Helical God!”

Good old Max, thought Millie, letting the most divine cake she had ever tasted dissolve gradually on her tongue. He could not resist showing Jim off for John’s benefit, always assuming that he had no idea we knew each other in the old days. And why would he know that? John’s advent is a shock.

Then the worst fate of all struck Millie; she was herded to the drawing room with Muse Markoff and expected to have coffee apart from the men, all gone to Max’s den. Not fair! What can I talk about, for God’s sake? They wouldn’t know a benzene ring from a curtain ring or an hydroxyl ion from a steam iron!

Luckily Davina and Muse, living across the street from each other, had plenty to talk about; Millie sat back and sipped much better coffee than she was used to, stomach pleasantly full and most of her spare blood supply more concerned with digestion than deep thoughts. Her eyelids drooped; no one noticed.

The door flew open upon a white-faced Max.

“Muse, Al needs his medical bag urgently,” he said.

Good wife, she was gone in under a second for the front door, the tiny maid Uda running at her elbow to steady her.

“What is it?” Davina faltered, all resemblance to Medusa vanished. “Let me see!”

“No!” he barked.

To Millie’s astonishment, Davina sank back into her chair at once. “What is it?” she repeated.

“John’s having some kind of attack. Ambulance!” And he rushed to the phone, gabbled into it that Dr. Al Markoff needed a resuscitation ambulance immediately—uh, yeah, address …

By this time Muse had returned, Uda carrying a seemingly heavy black leather doctor’s bag. Max snatched it.

“Stay here, all of you,” he said.

The minutes ticked by, marked out on a gigantic, fanciful clock sculpted into a wall; the women sat frozen, mute.

An ambulance came very quickly; the vigilant Uda let in two equipment encumbered physician’s assistants and ran them to the den, then returned to take up her station beside Davina, who looked wilted and terrified.

Jim appeared, went straight to Millie.

“John is dead,” he said abruptly, “and Dr. Markoff says it’s suspicious.” The green eyes were stern, level. “I thought of the missing tetrodotoxin.”

Her skin lost all its color. “Jesus, no! How could it have gotten here, for God’s sake?”

“I don’t know, but if you can help, Millie, then help. Call your father and tell him what’s happened. The symptoms sound as if it was injected. If the pathologist acts quickly enough, there may be a chance he can find tetrodotoxin in the form of its last metabolites. There’s blood drawn, so get a motorcycle cop here to siren it into town. Then your dad’s got a fighting chance. Call Patrick, please.”

She obeyed, pushing Max away from the phone.

“By the time the road cop picks the sample up, Dad, I’ll have drawn a schematic of tetrodotoxin’s molecular structure,” Millie said to Patrick a moment later. “I think Jim’s crazy to suspect it, but what if he’s right? What if whoever stole the stuff is selling it as the undetectable poison? That’s why you have to assay the victim’s blood a.s.a.p.—more chance of a last metabolite or two. Gas chromatography first, then the mass spectrometer. Humor Jim, Dad, please! I mean, it can’t possibly be tetrodotoxin, these people have no connection to me.”

“I’ll send Gus Fennell. I have to recuse myself, Millie,” said her father’s voice, “and I’m guessing Carmine will too. It will probably be Abe Goldberg. Oh, shit!”

“Tell me about it.” She hung up.

Max Tunbull and Al Markoff were arguing.

“You’ve got it all wrong, Al! John’s mom died at about the same age, and John’s her spitting image—it runs in that family!” Max said.

“Crap!” said the doughty doctor. “Bitch all you like, Max, I’m not convinced John died from natural causes. The time span between onset of symptoms and death was nearly lightning. Pity I was too busy to time it.”

“I timed it,” Jim Hunter said. “From his saying the word ‘hot’ to his death, eleven minutes. You’re absolutely right, Al, it’s suspicious. John was a healthy guy.”

Whereupon Davina, eyes distended, uttered a shriek, went rigid, and fell to the floor. Uda knelt beside her.

“I put Miss Vina bed,” she said. “Mr. Max, you phone her doctor now. She get needle.”

“No way,” said Muse Markoff. “The cops will want to see her, Uda—unsedated.”

“Thiss not Iron Curtain!” Uda snarled on yellow teeth. “Big function tomorrow night for Miss Davina, she be ready!”

And, thought Millie, remembering tomorrow night, Davina would go through hell to be ready for it. No matter what the cops might want, Davina’s doctor was going to knock her out until late tomorrow afternoon. “Or,” said Millie to Jim, “I’m a monkey’s uncle.”

He grinned, brushed her cheek with one finger. “That, my love, you are not.” His eyes followed the servant, supporting her mistress to the stairs. “To get to Davina, first get past Uda. If I’ve learned nothing else, I’ve learned that.”

Lieutenant Abe Goldberg appeared a few minutes after the motorcycle cop picked up the test tubes of blood for the M.E.; with him came Dr. Gus Fennell, Deputy Medical Examiner, and his own pair of detectives, Sergeants Liam Connor and Tony Cerutti.

“What do you really think, Millie?” Abe asked, his fair and freckled countenance looking unusually grim. Millie Hunter’s marital history was well known, and she was loved.

“John’s symptoms sound very supicious, but the rapidity of his death suggests injection rather than ingestion. If he’d eaten it, especially given the good meal he consumed, I would have expected considerable vomiting and fecal purging. And it wouldn’t have come on so fast. Tell whoever does the autopsy to look for a puncture mark, and tell Paul the dose might have been as small as a half of one milligram. John was about six feet, but he wouldn’t have weighed more than one-sixty.” Millie kept her voice low, glad Davina Tunbull wasn’t watching. Hysterics, my eye!

“Now’s not the time or place, Dr. Hunter, but I gather you were aware your wife had tetrodotoxin at her laboratory?” Abe asked Jim, his voice courteous.

“Yes, she mentioned it.”

“Were you aware how dangerous it is?”

“In all honesty, no. I’m not a neurochemist, and I would not have recognized it as a toxin if I’d encountered it, at least before I determined its molecular structure. That always gives a lot of things away. But it’s only tonight, after watching John Tunbull die, that I understand how lethal it is, particularly for such a tiny dose. I mean, it’s lethal at the kind of dose you might give yourself by sheer accident!”

“Who suspected the death, Dr. Jim?”

“Dr. Markoff. Said flatly it was a coroner’s case and the police had to be called in. He’s impressive.”