Walking briskly up to the now familiar front door, her cell phone still to her ear, Maxi rang the bell. When she saw the doorknob turning, she folded the phone and dropped it into her purse.
The door opened and Sandie Schaeffer stood backlit in the archway, still dressed in the clothes she’d had on for their interview that morning.
“Maxi Poole,” she breathed, and made a quick move to slam the door. Maxi hurled herself over the threshold, pushing Sandie back into the foyer before she had a chance to shut her out.
“Tell me what it is,” Maxi said through clenched teeth, slamming her two hands on Sandie’s shoulders. “Tell me what poison you used.”
“Like your new eye color?” Sandie asked. “It certainly sparked up the news for a few minutes.”
Maxi slapped her face.
“What poison did you use?”
she demanded again. She was six inches taller than Sandie, and strong. Sandie was weakened from surgery, a duration of coma, lack of exercise. She was frail. Unarmed, this woman could not get the better of her, Maxi knew.
“Telling you that might defeat my purpose,” Sandie said, almost tauntingly.
Was this woman deranged? Maxi wondered. Then she flashed on the reality that anyone who did what she now knew Sandie Schaeffer had done couldn’t be entirely sane.
“Even if I told you,” the woman went on, “you don’t have enough time to do anything about it.”
“Where’s your father?” Maxi rasped, nudging Sandie backward into the living room.
“Not home yet. He doesn’t close up till ten.”
And there was no B.J., Maxi knew—she had nights off. Sandie Schaeffer was alone in the house.
She wasn’t afraid of Sandie, but she was terrified that she would run out of time. Giving the woman a mighty shove, she pushed her down into one of the wing chairs in the living room and stood menacingly over her. Hurting her would do no good, Maxi knew; she had to find a way to make her tell what poison she’d used.
Keeping her eyes on Sandie, Maxi reached into the bag on her shoulder and fished out her cell phone. She hadn’t committed the number for Schaeffer Pharmacy to memory—she punched in 411 and asked Information to connect her. William Schaeffer answered.
“Bill,” she said, “it’s Maxi Poole. I’m at your house. Get home immediately. It’s Sandie—she’s in trouble.”
She broke the connection before he could question her. She reasoned that the man would rush home faster having heard that message than if she unleashed the whole unbelievable story on him over the phone. He’d probably think it was a bogus call to the drugstore by some nut who’d seen his daughter on television earlier tonight.
Maxi felt her eyes twitch reflexively, and suddenly half a dozen Sandie Schaeffers wavered in front of her. Behind Sandie, the entire room was out of focus. Images started moving in elliptical circles and melding together. She felt a sudden, sharp catch in her throat and felt her face inflame.
This wasn’t lost on Sandie. “Having trouble seeing? And breathing?” she asked.
“What did you do to me?” Maxi gasped, dizzying, clutching at her throat now, dropping backward onto the nearby couch.
“I slipped a little Botox into your BriteEyes,” Sandie said with a malevolent smile.
“Botox?”
“Yup. Everybody’s favorite wrinkle remover. Even my manicurist is giving Botox shots these days. Every drug salesman in the country carries a supply of it in his case. I ordered a few milligrams through the drugstore, as a backup in case the selenium didn’t work.”
“Your father will know—”
“Nope. I used Benny’s name, had it shipped to my apartment address, and I paid for it in advance with my credit card, so there’ll be no invoice on the store’s account. I even burned the paperwork that came with it. Nobody will know. And,” she added, “I get frequent-flyer miles.” Sandie chuckled at that.
Maxi felt tears forming in her eyes and running down her cheeks. Botulism. The most poisonous natural substance on earth, a toxin that paralyzes by attacking nerve cells. And now so readily available in cosmetics circles. Please hurry, paramedics. Hurry, Bill Schaeffer.
Maxi’s mind flicked back to a short reader she’d had on the show about the development of a new botulism antidote. When the deadly 9/11 terrorist strikes were followed by an attack of anthrax distributed by mail, countering bioterrorism had become a national priority. This highly effective botulism antidote was one of a slate of new therapies that had been developed fast. That’s all she could recall about the story. She couldn’t remember what the antidote was called.
“Why did you do this?” was all she could manage. She was having trouble seeing now, and was barely able to sustain steady breathing, but she was fighting to maintain control. Had to keep the woman talking . . .
“Gillian ripped off my father’s glaucoma formula just to distill out its eye-color properties, purely for its cosmetic potential. Dad had agreed to sell because she said she wanted to market it for glaucoma relief. She never paid him—said she couldn’t yet, for business reasons. But she had other plans for his formula,
big
plans. And she stood to make millions.”
“So you wanted the formula for yourself—”
“And for my father. Gillian was so secretive about this project that nobody knew what she was really up to. Not even Dad. But I figured out what her lab was doing. I could read the equations. I’m the only one who knew.”
“Goodman Penthe knew. He was going to be her partner.”
“Too late for him. His plan died with Gillian.”
“Carter Rose must have it by now. . . .”
“Carter’s looking at prison time. He won’t be developing anything.”
Maxi’s head was spinning and a gurgling rattle came from her throat.
“Can’t breathe?” Sandie asked. “That’s what one milligram of Botox will do—cause respiratory failure. Complete pulmonary collapse. I didn’t know when you were going to use your eyedrops next, but when I saw your eyes turn pink on the news, I knew you had.”
My eyedrops!
Sandie must have added the poisoned formula to the small container of Visine she kept in her purse. She always put in drops before she went on the air, to ease the harshness of the bright studio lights on her eyes. But where would Sandie have kept a vial of poison in her father’s house? Then she flashed on a mental picture of the leopard-skin makeup bag on the table next to Sandie’s hospital bed. Perfect hiding place, among a woman’s usual jumble of bottles and jars and pots of beauty products.
“When did you—?” she started, but the words again caught in her throat.
“This morning. I had a vial in my pocket. I saw you use your eyedrops just before we went on camera. Then, when the interview was over, you left your purse on the couch while you used the powder room. When your cameraman went out to his truck to get a new battery, I asked Dad to go to the kitchen for some water. Nobody was around. That’s when I went in your purse and spiked your Visine.”
Using sheer force of will, Maxi straightened up in the chair. The movement helped her rally.
“Why?”
she asked.
“Because I’ve been watching the news. I’ve seen you all over the story from the day Gillian died, except while I was hazy for a couple of days after surgery. I knew you weren’t about to stop nosing around.”
“H-hazy?” Maxi forced herself to squeak. “You … weren’t in a deep coma? You never had amnesia?”
“Of course not. I was in and out of consciousness at first, but I understood you perfectly in the ICU that Sunday morning you barged in. I knew you were just trying to get a story out of me. And then all those visits. You’re all heart, aren’t you—that’s what you had my father thinking.”
“But … you were asking for me—”
“Sure. You gave me the idea to ask for you the first time you popped in that Sunday morning and tried to grill me. I figured you’d put whatever I babbled to you on the news. I could hand-feed you my own version of events, hint that Carter shot me, and you’d buy it.”
Maxi groaned. Reporting the ongoing story, she
had
put Sandie Schaeffer’s “babblings” on the news.
“And I knew when the police saw your reports they’d take a good, hard look at Carter Rose. If he was the one who shot me, maybe he murdered his wife.”
“But … the break-in at the hospital. Somebody tampered with your IV bottles—”
“
I
did that. I just reached up and ripped them out. I did the phone messages, too. All while you people thought I was blitzed.”
“You were supposed to be out cold—how could you get to a phone in the ICU without being seen?”
“Dad spent hours in the hospital with me. And he would leave his cell phone on top of his book on the bedside table when he’d go down for coffee. I made a couple of quick calls.”
“And blocked them, and whispered, so we’d think someone wanted to silence you. Like Carter,” Maxi gasped, putting it together.
“Like Carter. Or Kendyl,” Sandie went on. “As long as everybody thought I was in danger, no one would ever suspect that I was the one who killed Gillian.”
“But … the police must have found the poisoned vials in her office that day. . . .”
“I got rid of them as soon as I discovered Gillian’s body, before I screamed and supposedly fainted. I knew where she kept the box of vials; she was always playing with them. When I saw that they’d served my purpose just fine, thank you, I wrapped them up in a plastic bag and tossed them down the waste chute. Down into the furnace with the rest of the crap that oozes out of that place. Nobody ever looked there.”
“But if you tossed all the vials—”
“All except one. In case I needed it. Smart, huh? Only problem was, I couldn’t find the formula that day.”
“So later when you went back in to search, Carter and Kendyl nailed you . . .”
Maxi was down to a raspy whisper now, but she needed to keep Sandie talking. Her chest and throat were on fire. Images swirled in front of her, the lights from lamps magnifying, multiplying, and half-blinding her. She was too weak to get up off the couch, and she knew that Sandie knew it.
“I realized it right away when I slipped up about the crystal bowl,” Sandie said with a smirk. “That big windbag Nagataki broke it, swinging his arms around, showing his underjerks how important he is. I saw him do it. But I forgot that it was never on the news. Of course they’d never let the big cheese’s stupid mistake get out to the press. They had someone sweep it up fast.”
The
coroner!
When Maxi had left the crime scene he was still there. It would have happened after she and Harbaugh were gone. Sandie was right—the broken crystal bowl had never got on tape and had never been reported, on television, radio, in print, anywhere.
“You were beginning to get on to me then,” Sandie droned on. “I changed my story in the interview today, but I knew you weren’t totally buying it. I knew you’d go digging and figure everything out. You’re too smart for your own good, Maxi. You’re going to die here. I’ll say that you showed up to visit, and you keeled over. Just like Gillian. I’ll be heartbroken, horrified. I might even stage a little relapse. They never suspected that I poisoned Gillian, and they’ll never suspect that I poisoned you. A heart defect—”
“But … my boss saw my eyes,” Maxi forced with guttural breaths. “The ER docs saw … A million
viewers
saw my eyes. … The nine-one-one dispatcher has … the story on tape. They’ll … put it together—”
Maxi stopped, realizing that she was arguing with an insane person. Sandie wasn’t hearing. Head tilted, the woman sat fixated on her with hollow eyes and a thin, determined smile.
“Why Botox, Sandie? Why not just use the selenium?” Useless question, Maxi knew, but she was buying time.
“Gillian applied a whole vial of the formula with each use. I knew you’d only use a drop or two of your eyedrops, and there wouldn’t be enough selenium to hurt you.”
“How … how much time do I have—”
“With Botox? Oh, you don’t get twelve hours like Gillian got, Maxi Poole. Maybe twelve
minutes
left before you strangle.
“In fact, let’s get this over with now,” she said then, getting up from her chair and picking up a throw pillow. Quickly, she closed the distance between them, pushed Maxi’s head back on the couch, and smashed the pillow into her face.
With a burst of strength coming from pure adrenaline, Maxi reared up and grabbed Sandie by the throat. Thrown off guard, Sandie dropped the pillow and clutched at Maxi’s hands around her neck. One woman frail, the other barely breathing, the two went at each other with everything they had left.
Through the still open front door, Maxi heard a car pulling up. It wouldn’t be Bill Schaeffer, she knew. He had to maneuver in a wheelchair—it would take him much longer than this to get home from his drugstore in Westwood.
Sandie heard it too. With Maxi distracted for an instant by the car, she pulled out of her grip and lunged at her. Eyes scratchy, vision distorted, Maxi miscalculated the body coming at her. Sandie landed on top of her on the couch and pulled her down to the floor, and ground the pillow into her face again.
With literally the last reserve of breath she could muster, Maxi curled her knees up to her chest, and with a hardy two-legged kick, hurled Sandie off her body and several feet across the room. That’s when she became aware of the team of L.A. County paramedics bursting into the room. There were three of them, but to her dystopian vision it looked like twenty responding to the shouts and thuds of the two women in a fight for their lives.
Maxi’s head fell back to the floor. All she managed to utter was, “Botulism … toxin.”
F
itting for a January funeral in Southern California, the sky was gray and heavy with drizzle; the mourners were in basic black. A great outpouring from the City of Angels was on hand to bid farewell to Rob Reordan, L.A.’s premier news anchor for most of their lives.
Maxi stood with Wendy and Pete Capra at the edge of the throng at the legendary Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, archetypal burial place of the region’s famous. They’d positioned themselves on the perimeter of the crowd so they could make an inconspicuous getaway back to work if the ceremony went too long. And it probably would. There had been no church service prior to the interment—Rob had professed to no religious affiliation. So eulogies were being spoken here, and the number of friends, colleagues, family, and celebrities scattered through the crowd portended that there would be many.