A Dinner to Die For (23 page)

“Very considerate. His parents could have been in for a nasty surprise if Mitch Biekma had mentioned your name on television.”

“I thought of that,” he said, the hiss more pronounced than before.

“And, of course, the parents would have tracked you down and exposed you eventually.”

“Maybe not. It’s not that uncommon a name.”

“Why did you run, Martin?”

His hazel eyes opened wide; he almost smiled. “You mean you don’t know? You really don’t know?”

“Tell me.”

“The bombing at the Seattle Induction Center.”

“During Vietnam?” I asked, echoing his amazement.

He nodded, his eyes saying that any literate should know that.

The Vietnam protests were twenty years ago. By now he’d be lucky to find anyone who could name the Chicago Seven, much less remember someone connected with the Seattle Induction Center.

“So you bombed the induction center—”

“
I
didn’t.”

“Okay, we’ll deal with that later. What I want to know is why you killed Mitchell Biekma.”

“I didn’t.”

I leaned back in the chair. “You hated Biekma. You told me that.”

“But I didn’t kill him. The world’s jammed with assholes. But you don’t kill them. Look, I was in the peace movement in Seattle. I didn’t set that bomb. I didn’t even know there was a bomb there to go off. I wasn’t into violence. I was there to stop the killing. I could have given myself up and gone to jail. I’m a big guy, an ugly big guy. I’m not the type who gets raped in prison. I would have survived, but I would have had to bash heads to do it. I chose not to.
Chose.
Do you think it’s been easy living on the run all these years. If I’d stood trial, I could be clear by now. But I would have lost my principles.” He stared at me, demanding a sign of belief.

But I wasn’t about to give that. “Go on.”

“You think I’m lying. Dammit. I knew it. You gave me no choice but to run.”

“
Go on!
”

“Okay, but if you’ve decided I’m a killer, it won’t make much sense. I didn’t murder Mitch. Sure, I wanted him to keep quiet about me. But I didn’t have to kill him. I’m a lot bigger than he was; I’m in a lot better shape. I just pointed that out to him.”

“And?”

“He backed off. He wasn’t out to blow my cover. He didn’t care that much. It’s just that I made a good story. And he was the kind of asshole who lived for that moment of glory. When he was on—working the customers in the dining room, or on a talk show—that’s when it was the worst. He’d do anything for a laugh. And if that meant telling the world he had a crooked-nosed giant doing dishes because he was hiding out from a crazed ex-wife, that was fine. Then he could carry on: ‘The guy’s six four, he weighs two fifty, how big is this woman he’s afraid of? Is she an Amazon?’ And on and on. He did it in the dining room once. He had them in stitches. Half the house was peeking around the door into the kitchen before they left. That’s what Adrienne told me. I was gone.” The hiss almost drowned out his last word. “The next day I made things clear to him. And he never mentioned me again.”

“But he could have.”

“I wasn’t kidding. He knew that.”

“But you weren’t worried about an ex-wife. There was no ex-wife. That was just a cover story. You weren’t worried about some sheriff from the Midwest coming across you, you were afraid of the FBI finding you. Even after twenty years a description of your face could ring a bell.” I didn’t have to wait for a reply. Yankowski’s tortured breath told me I was right. “You had a lot to lose, if Mitch got carried away. …”

It was a moment before he controlled his breath enough to say, “Yeah, I did. But with Mitch it was out of sight out of mind. And Adrienne kept him out of the kitchen. He probably forgot I was there.”

“I don’t believe that and neither did you.”

“I still don’t know how Mitch found out about the induction center. Maybe someone here recognized me. Maybe Adrienne let something slip. She denies it, but who knows? Maybe I slipped by telling even her.” He shrugged. “I did what I could to keep Mitch quiet. And even taking Mitch as a factor in the equation, it was safer for me here in Berkeley than it would have been anywhere else. Turning me in would not have been a popular move for Mitch. He didn’t give a shit about me, but he was shrewd enough to know what would hurt him.”

That made sense. If he had betrayed Yankowski, liberals would have derided him. If, somehow, he had managed to picture himself as Yankowski’s protector, he would have courted the wrath of conservatives in the wider TV market. Still, for publicity-seeking Mitch Biekma, the temptation to find a middle ground and still expose Yankowski must have been nearly overwhelming. And Yankowski was too bright not to have figured that out. I said, “Mitch was poisoned with aconite. Customers got sick from it. Someone put it in their food, eight different times. The only people who were there all those times were Mitch and Adrienne. But you were there seven.”

He stared at me. “Why would I poison people? I told you I wasn’t into violence. Besides, something like that, it would just bring the cops out, and reporters. Listen, that’s the last thing I’d want.”

“Then who was the poisoner?”

“It wasn’t me and it wasn’t Adrienne.”

“Then who?”

“I don’t know who killed Mitch. But if you want the guy who dosed the food those other times, you’ve got him. In the morgue.”

I
STARED AT FRANK
Yankowski–Martin Goodpastor. “Do you really expect me to believe that Mitch Biekma was poisoning his own customers?”

“Believe it or not. It’s true.”

“Martin, you are in far too much trouble to play around here.”

He shook his head. “I knew there was no point in telling you the truth. I knew you’d never believe it.”

Ignoring that, I said, “How could Mitch poison the food? He wasn’t even allowed in the kitchen.”

“He came in far as the warm table. That’s where the food was waiting. All he had to do was pour on a drop of poison.”

“What makes you think he did?”

“I saw him.”

I stared at him, but he had neither the agitated look of an unaccustomed liar nor the defensive mien of one whose normal reaction is to lie. He looked nearly relaxed. And, for once, his breath was almost silent. “Okay, Martin, give me the whole story. From the beginning. How did you come to suspect him?”

“Then you believe me?”

“I didn’t say that. I’m just giving you a chance to convince me.”

He nodded. Outside in the hallway a high-pitched male voice was insisting he was not a burglar, but had been hired by an absent friend to help a guy move.

“Moving out his TV at two
A.M.
, eh?” an officer demanded.

“Yeah, man, he wanted it in his new place for the morning news.”

A door slammed. To Yankowski I said, “So convince me Mitch poisoned the food.”

He took a breath. The hiss was back. “Look, I told you what Mitch was like. Well, you can imagine the big stink he made about the supposed poisoner. He was slamming around ‘investigating,’ making a big to-do, firing everybody in sight. So no one there could help but be aware of the poisonings.”

“Go on.”

“Well, a couple of months ago he had one of his colds. We were short-staffed because he’d fired the salad chef. Adrienne was in a temper. And about ten o’clock Mitch came in fussing for his horseradish. Suddenly he had to have a cup of soup with the horseradish. The
sous
-chef’s got to drop everything and run for his horseradish jar. Mitch makes this big production about how he needs his horseradish and he can’t even get in his own kitchen for it. Then he stands over the warm table, pours the horseradish in his soup, and stands there and eats it. Of course, he set Adrienne off, which was what he intended. By the time the last meal was out, everyone was snapping at everyone else. It wasn’t a night you’d forget. And then the next day I got there early and I heard Mitch on the phone with a customer saying he was sorry the customer had gotten sick last night.”

“Are you saying the poison was in his horseradish jar then?” I asked, amazed.

“Of course not. He poured the horseradish into his own soup and he didn’t get sick. He could have had the poison in any small container. It wouldn’t have taken much, would it?”

“No.” Even diluted, a drop or two could have been ample.

“He was just using the fuss about the horseradish for a reason to hang around the warm table.”

“Did you
see
him pouring poison?”

“Not then. Then, I just coupled the events in my mind. But the next time Mitch had a cold, he was in the kitchen mixing up his horseradish and putting it in his jar before Adrienne started to work. And the jar reminded me of that awful night. I told Adrienne not to let him get to her, that he’d be at his worst that night because he had a cold. I told her to watch out.”

“And was Mitch at his worst?”

“Oh yeah. He kept coming in to the warm table making comments. This wasn’t done enough. That sauce was too thick. I made a bet with Adrienne on the number of times he’d be in, you know, to try to make a joke of it as much as I could. Adrienne has a pretty short fuse. But you probably know that by now, right?”

I didn’t respond.

He straightened up. “The thing was,” he said, the hiss becoming louder, “that we were watching for him. I was watching more than she; my work doesn’t take much thought. I saw him pour a drop of something white on one of the dinners. The sauce was white. I almost said something to him, but I just caught myself in time. I was thinking if Adrienne knew he’d put horseradish in her sauce all hell would break loose.”

“But he didn’t have the horseradish then, did he?”

“No. That’s my point. He poured something else. I was thinking about the horseradish because of the last time he’d been in a temper. So my reaction was to think it was horseradish he had poured. But, of course, it wasn’t. The horseradish was still in the pantry, where it always was when he had a cold. Whatever he poured just looked like horseradish.”

“Then what?”

“When I heard that a customer had been poisoned that night, I put two and two together.”

“And you just planned to let him go on poisoning people? You didn’t report him?”

“Come on, would you have believed me?” The hiss almost drowned his words.

“No more than I believe you now! What about Rue Driscoll, how could he have poisoned her?”

“Easy, he carried her food to the table.”

“And Earth Man?”

“Easy again, if dumb. Laura wasn’t there. Adrienne can’t be bothered with Earth Man. She was doing a chicken dish that night and she had a few pieces too scrappy to serve the customers, so she plunked them on the warm table and plopped some soup on them as a sauce. The dish must have sat there an hour. It was probably too big a temptation for Mitch to resist.”

I sat back, fingering the edge of the table. “Suppose what you say is true, just suppose. You know what that makes me think?”

“What?”

“That someone who had seen Mitch poisoning the customers’ food with a substance that looked like horseradish would be curious enough to check on poisons and find out that aconite can be mistaken for horseradish. And then, he would find it a great temptation to put aconite in his horseradish jar. That would appeal to the same type of person who found it amusing to arrange for Earth Man’s free dinners.”

He slammed his fist onto the table. The tape recorder jumped. “The truth means nothing to you. What do I have to say to convince you?”

“Mitch drove you crazy. He drove your girlfriend crazy. He was in a position to send you to prison. It’s hard to beat that for a motive. But, for incriminating evidence, add the fact that you assaulted two police officers and ran to avoid having your identity discovered.”

He shook his head. “I ran, but not because of that. Because of this. I knew if I had to tell you this you’d suspect us.”

“You had a great motive for killing Mitch. Maybe you poisoned the other people to camouflage his death. I can believe that a lot more easily than to think Mitch Biekma capriciously poisoned his customers. Why would he do that? Rue Driscoll and Earth Man were the two people most likely to cause trouble. Why would Mitch go out of his way to poison them? It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Of course it doesn’t make sense. It only makes sense if you remember that Mitch was an asshole. He did it out of spite. I’m sure he never considered the consequences. When he’d lost, all he could think about was getting even. Emotionally the guy was a three-year-old spoiled brat. He didn’t care who got hurt; he didn’t even restrain himself when he was in danger of screwing up his own plan.”

“And what was his plan?”

Yankowski’s breath caught. He gasped for air. Staring down at the table, he drew his breath in through his mouth. Finally, he said, “To poison the customers. To keep Adrienne from taking over.”

That, of course, was a variation of what Adrienne herself had told me. She had said Mitch poisoned the customers to destroy her reputation. Yankowski’s version couched it in more practical terms.

“You’re telling me he cut off his nose to spite his face. It was
his
restaurant.”

He shook his head. When he got enough air to speak, he said, “Adrienne hadn’t let Mitch in the kitchen for three months. That was common knowledge. Anyone who heard him kicking up a fuss at the warm table knew it. Everyone in the business knew it. Three months.”

I nodded. “About the same length of time the food poisonings were going on.”

“Yeah,” he squeaked out.

“Do you believe him?” Inspector Doyle demanded.

I had called him from my office. I had woken him up, again.

“I don’t know. He could have poisoned Mitch. He had both motive and opportunity.”

“They all had the opportunity, Smith. They had all day to get to that jar and fill it with poison.”

“I don’t want to believe Yankowski. But I just can’t see him killing someone, even Mitch.”

“You got some basis for that, Smith, or is it just a feeling?”

It was more than a feeling, but you learn to trust your feelings after a while in police work. But I was not about to tell that to Inspector Doyle now. At least he hadn’t called it intuition.