Outfoxed, a short story in four parts,
©Mary Ann Ronconi
Part 3
A knock at the door interrupted Paula’s recollection of the tumultuous events of the previous night, her return home, the disastrous dinner and its aftermath.
“Mrs. Downey, are you alright? You look…” Paula knew her nice young neighbor was about to say she looked dreadful but caught herself in time. “Are you alright? We were coming home from the symphony last night when we passed an ambulance going the other way. I apologize for bothering you so early, but I was worried. Are you two okay?”
Paula’s voice came out cracked and hoarse. “No. My husband was in it. He had a…a heart attack.” She couldn’t yet bring herself to say more.
“Oh, no. Not nice Professor Downey. How awful. Can I do anything to help? Will he be okay?”
“No.” she answered dully wishing she had not opened the door.
“I am so sorry.” The young woman was almost crying. Her voice choked up as she explained that her husband knew CPR. “The other day Brad was telling the professor he was going to volunteer for the ambulance squad. He might have helped. Your husband was so nice. He gave us and the Whipples next door your tickets to the symphony. He said you all couldn’t use them because you would not be here.”
Tickets to the symphony. Since when? They hadn’t had a subscription in years.
The woman left begging Paula to call her. “Please. For anything. Just give us a call. I am so, so sorry.”
Feeling physically drained, but wide awake, Paula drifted into the dining room.
Absently she picked up the overturned chair. The table was as they had left it. Beside Gil’s plate was a torn leaf of salad that had made a greenish, oily stain on the white cloth. She picked it up. Not lettuce. An herb? She put it to her nose. No special smell. She poked in her untouched dish and saw none of it there. She went into the kitchen realizing the night before she had not paid attention to anything except finding a phone. The plastic cartons from the curry and the pilaf were strewn on the counter by the microwave. Nearby were three wine bottles, two empty, the third half gone. Next to the sink lay the remains of a bag of pre-washed mixed greens and a cutting board with the mysterious leaves on it. She picked them up and looked at them closely.
“Bloody hell. Are you kidding me?” she said to herself. Taking the leaves, she headed out the door. When she came back in, she stumbled up the stairs, undressed and got into the shower. She stayed under the spray of hot water a long time adding it all up: no aspirins, dead house phones, missing cell phone, neighbors absent for the evening—one CPR trained, the curry so fiery hot it would mask the taste of no matter what.
Finally, she got out of the shower, dried off and headed for her bed. She reached for the phone but put it back. Probably wasn’t charged up enough yet. She had called Blaise and Solange from the hospital courtesy phone. For this call it would be wiser to use her cell phone anyway, but she had only just found it–Gil had to have taken it out of her purse and dropped it in the coat closet. She put it on the charger in the kitchen. Plugged in, it would work if she wanted to stand up at the counter to talk.
Not for this call. It’s going to take much too long. I need to sleep first.
She awoke several hours later and padded down the stairs. She took her revived phone into the living room, sank onto the down pillows of the couch and pushed a speed dial number.
“Hello. London Wine Merchants at your service.”
“Simon, it’s me.”
“Yes, darling, I know. But you sound awful.”
“I sound like a widow, Simon. Gil died last night.” She paused a second to let her words sink in. “Simon, he must have watched that movie. He was trying to kill me, but he killed himself.”
“No. You’re making this up! Gil dead! What movie?”
“Les Diaboliques. The one you and I watched in Corsica at that little hotel on the water. I gave the DVD to him one night before I left. Simon, the stupid fool tried to kill me almost just like in that movie. He thought he could make me have an apparently natural heart attack.”
“But why? How? Do you think he knew about us?”
“Absolutely not. He’s been drinking a lot. Maybe the lazy bastard looked forward to emptying my wine cellar all by himself – not to mention my bank account --after I died of ‘natural causes.’ Lately he’s been fixated on our ‘mariage forcé’ and how my leaving academia behind ‘betrayed’ our relationship.”
“Bloody hell!”
“Simon, he was going to do me in with digitalis. I grow it! It’s in the film. The idiot never had an original thought in his life. He got it all from that movie. Lovely noxious foxglove that does strange things to the heart. He picked it right out in my garden, for crying out loud.”
Anger almost choking her, she told him she knew their family doctor, looking for her, had gotten Gil on the phone. He was supposed to tell her to call the office ASAP. He didn’t. Wondering why she hadn’t heard anything, she called herself the day before she left. An office error: a clerk had put her name on someone else’s test results. Her numbers would never have backed up a heart attack. Had Gil ever gone for any routine tests, his certainly would have.
“Our doctor told me he regretted alarming Gil when he called. That’s how I know why Gil had the idea I would be easy to bump off. Instead of death by fright like in the movie, he went straight for herbal murder. Brilliant, no?”
“Right.” He paused a moment. “How long will it take you to get through all the obsequies, love, and grieve a bit with your offspring?”
“Give me a month.”
“It’s a deal. I’ll book the tickets. Where would you like to mourn?”
“How about Corsica? Our little hotel by the water.”
End of Part 3 Short, but the place to leave you hanging. Not for long.
Part 4 with end of story coming Sunday.