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Subject: Champagne and the Cyanide Birthday |
The Cacciatore mansion stood on the hills north of Adrano. It overlooked the old town, shadowed by the looming peak of Mount Etna. The white-walled Sicilian house always looked at its most beautiful washed by the setting sun. Champagne sailed from the Italian mainland, borrowing one of the small sailboats that still fished those blue waters. She didn’t want to be spotted by anyone watching the airports. She hired a car in Palermo using a false ID and taken the SS121 up into the foothills. She parked in the shadow of Adrano’s great Norman castle, passed local landmarks like the Conventa de Santa Lucia and the Bellinin Theatre, then hitched and hiked until she got the view she wanted of the high-walled compound where the Cacciatore family lived. It was a simple enough mission. Champagne wanted an account book that would get the crimelord Lucius van Druden off her back. The volume had been sent for safekeeping on the Caribbean Isla Peligro, a high-security high-tech base of the terrorist organization B.A.L.D. Champagne needed a way onto that island, and the best way was to borrow an invitation to the weapons expo due there in just seven days time. Francisco Cacciatore had such an invitation, and Champagne was confident she could bypass his security very effectively. Francisco wasn’t home often, but today was his birthday. He dined with his family and some close friends, and they moved onto the veranda to enjoy the sunset and taste some of the good stuff from the excellent cellars beneath the old house. He wasn’t best pleased when Mr Malfa, his head of security, interrupted the party with news of an intruder. “We found her in the kitchens, sir,” Malfa reported as two black-suited goons led Champagne onto the terrace. “I have no idea how she got that far past our perimeter.” “Because I’m very very good,” Champagne suggested. Gabriella Cacciatore sniffed. “Not so good that you weren’t caught.” “Oh please. Malfa only caught me because I tapped him on the shoulder and asked to be brought here.” The security chief looked a little abashed. “That is true. She wanted to see you sir.” A handsome young man rose from the table, eyeing the intruder hungrily. “Champagne,” he called out. “I wondered if I’d ever see you again.” “Well, now you know the answer, Tom,” the international jewel thief told Thomas Calderone, up-and-coming Mafiosi. She ignored him thereafter. Francisco put down his glass, frowning. “And what did you want to say to me, young lady?” he asked. The other dinner guests looked on, wondering the same thing. Champagne glanced at the guests. Apart from Francisco, his wife Chessene, his daughter Gabriella and his son Lucius she also recognised Thomas Calderone (of course), Don Guttuso who ran the numbers in Palermo, and the mayor of Adramo Pietro Fazello. Quite the gathering. “You’ve been poisoned,” Champagne said to Francisco Cacciatore. “I thought you’d better know.” The gathering erupted into chaos. Malfa pushed Champagne against the wall, interpreting her statement as a threat. Chessene rose from her chair, spilling her own wine. The glass shattered on the stones of the veranda. Francisco took a step forward then tugged at his collar as if feeling ill. Guttuso’s own goons flanked him on either side, their hands inside their jackets in case things turned sour. Everyone was shouting. “Why did you poison father?” demanded Lucius Cacciatore. “Speak!” Champagne smacked away Malfa’s restraining gloved hand. “I didn’t poison him, you idiot! I just said he was poisoned. If I wanted to I could have kept quiet, taken what I wanted, and just slipped away. But then he’d be dead in an hour, which would really spoil his birthday party.” “What do you mean?” demanded Chessene. “What were you here for anyway?” “I mean that while I was passing through the kitchens I found Vito the cat being violently sick. He’d been licking at a plate from dinner. I recognized the poison from his vomit clots – yes, I know how sad it is that I’ve trained myself to spot clues from piles of sick. But sodium cyanide is very distinctive.” Now Gabriella stood up, upset. “Somebody poisoned Vito!” “No, somebody poisoned Francisco,” Champagne said. “Vito just licked the sauce from his plate after it had been taken back to the kitchen. Try to keep up, please.” Don Guttuso looked worried. “But how do you know it was Cacciatore’s plate? It could have belonged to any one of us! I could be poisoned right now!” His bodyguards twitched, which set Malfa’s men twitching too. “I know because I know Francisco’s habits,” Champagne answered. “Who else here smothers their food in cloves? Well? The plate with the poison on it reeked of them. That and bitter almonds, the telltale signature of the cyanides. None of the other dishes had any trace of the smell on them. No, Francisco’s the one who’s been poisoned. I suggest calling for medical aid.” Again the terrace was filled with activity. Malfa shouted into his slimline mobile phone. Chessene and Lucius were demanding to know how Champagne had known about the poison, what were the symptoms, could Francisco be saved. Guttuso was protesting that he had nothing to do with this. Calderone was giving orders that none of the domestic staff should be allowed to leave the mansion. Mayor Fazello was backing away from the group as if poising was contagious. “Cyanide usually kills by stopping the heart or lungs,” Champagne pointed out. “You might want to calm down, Francisco. And sit down.” She emptied the salt cellar into a glass of water and made Cacciatore drink it so that he vomited. “Is he still going to die?” asked Lucius. “He’s brought up the contents of his stomach,” Champagne said. “Don’t clean that evidence away, Malfa. Cover it with a salver.” She looked at Cacciatore. “You’ll possibly pass out sometime in the next few minutes. You probably vomited up the majority of the toxin, but who knows how severe the dose was? You’ll still need treatment in the next hour or so.” That set off a new round of panic. “Quiet, everyone,” said Francisco Cacciatore. “There’s no point acting like children. If Champagne is right then I need to get to a hospital. But while the ambulance is on its way we also need to determine who poisoned me and why.” “I bet it was Champagne,” Gabriella contributed. “And she poisoned my poor cat!” “You don’t suspect one of us, do you?” said the Mayor. “Sir, how could you possibly think…” “Of course it could be one of us,” Calderone said. “We all ate at the same table. We all took food from the same dishes. Yet somehow Signor Cacciatore was poisoned and we are not – or so it seems. We are the most likely suspects.” “Why not the waiters?” asked Lucius. “They brought the food.” “Was it the cloves?” asked Chessene. “Was that what was poisoned?” “No,” answered Champagne. “The cat wouldn’t eat cloves. He was licking the sauce for the chicken. The sauce was poisoned.” “But we all had the sauce,” wailed Gabrielle. “Except for Mayor Fazello!” “I have allergies!” gasped the Mayor, backing away again with his hands up as everyone glared at him. Champagne took charge. With a few precise questions she was able to get some useful information. “So it was a family-style intimate dinner. The food was brought in but the waiters didn’t serve it.” “Mother served it,” Lucius said accusingly. “Everyone but Mayor Fazello had the chicken and the sauce,” Champagne went on. “But nobody else feels the slightest bit ill, and none of the other plates had any trace of cyanide on them.” It was a good job that cyanide has such a distinctive smell – except when stifled with cloves. Only about half the population can actually detect its odor anyway. Some genetic thing. “I think I feel a little ill,” Gabrielle said. “Shut up. What about the plates? Were they already laid out on the table, so that the poison could have been coating one of them already?” “The waiters brought in a trolley with the dinner on it, and a stack of plates,” Chessene remembered. “Any one of us could have had any plate. Same with the cutlery.” “You handed the plates round when they’d been filled,” Lucius accused Gabrielle. “But you handed round the cutlery,” his sister said. “This constant accusation isn’t helping,” said Calderone, his handsome face furrowed with thought. “The fact is that almost any one of us had motive enough to want Signor Cacciatore dead. For inheritance,” he nodded to the family, “For business rivalry,” he gestured to Don Guttuso, “Because of debt,” he indicated the Mayor, “For all kinds of reasons. But there’s no point just trying to guess who did this. The mystery’s insolvable.” Francisco Cacciatore looked to Champagne. “Is it?” he asked her. He was starting to look pale and he was sweating a bit and breathing shallowly as the cyanide did its work. “No,” Champagne said. “I think now I know how it was done, and therefore who did it.” “How, then?” demanded Lucius. “There’s just no way that poison could have got into that sauce – only that sauce – in front of all of us. None whatsoever!” “Exactly,” said Champagne. She moved around the room, weaving between the suspects, smiling at them as she passed. “And that means that Francisco was poisoned some other way at some other time.” “What?” objected Gabrielle. “But Vito and the plate…!” “The plate was supposed to fool us,” said Champagne. “When the poison was found in that sauce it would point the finger at somebody in the room during dinner. But by happy chance the way the food was served up made it impossible for the poison to actually be given that way. I’d guess the poison was administered after dinner, when the wine was handed round. The poison could have been smeared at the bottom of the wine glass, because it was already on the table at Francisco’s place setting.” “I’d have tasted the poison in wine!” objected Cacciatore. “You have no palate whatsoever,” said his wife scornfully. “But the sauce was poisoned!” objected the Mayor. “And that tells us who did the job,” Champagne said. “Nobody round the table left the room, so nobody round the table could have contaminated that sauce before it got to the kitchen.” “One of the servants, then,” cried Fransisco. “Malfa, round up everybody on the premises!” “No need,” said Champagne. “Signor Malfa, why are you wearing gloves indoors? You don’t usually, do you?” Malfa froze. “Why do you ask?” “Is it perhaps to hide scratches from Gabrielle’s horrid cat when you dragged it to the kitchen so it could find the poisoned plate and point everyone to the wrong conclusion about how the cyanide was given?” Malfa reached into his jacket with lightning dexterity to draw his gun on the assembly. It wasn’t there. “Happy birthday, Francisco,” Champagne said, laying the pickpocketed magnum in front of the poisoned man. “Like I wouldn’t relieve Malfa of his weapon while he was holding me against the wall!” Lucius and Calderone moved to restrain the security chief. “Guttuso paid me!” Malfa shouted desperately as he was surrounded. “It was him! He paid me to poison you!” Francisco Cacciatore turned to his fellow mobster. “Is this true?” he asked him. “It is true,” Don Guttuso admitted. “Only business.” “Business we’ll pursue tomorrow, then,” Francisco promised darkly. “Leave my house now, while you can.” “The ambulance is here,” Chessene reported. “Lucius, see our guests out.” Once again there was bustle and chaos. Malfa tried to make an escape but Calderone cut his knees from under him and dragged him away at gunpoint. Gabriella went into hysterics over her cat and was led away by her mother. For one brief moment Champagne found herself alone with the poisoned man. “Calderone’s a useful man to have around in a crisis,” said Francisco. “He’s a Mafia killer and I don’t like him,” Champagne replied. “I thought I’d made that clear.” “He could take good care of you.” “I can take good care of myself.” “What did you really come here for, Champagne?” Francisco asked her. Champagne held up the invitation to Isla Peligro’s weapons expo. “That’s all?” Champagne relented for one tiny moment. “Very well then.” She gave Cacciatore a kiss on the cheek. “Happy birthday, father.” Then she leaped over the balcony and was gone. |
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champagne Wed Aug 01, 2007 at 08:17:42 pm EDT |
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