Murder, She Wrote: Prescription for Murder (14 page)

“Doesn’t look much like a place to find good food,” Seth said as we approached the building.

“Looks can be deceiving,” I said. “Time to enjoy real Cuban food.”

“We’ll see,” he said as we came upon what looked like a run-down carport attached to the house. There were a few tables beneath the canopy, and a group of six older men, dressed in colorfully patterned shirts and Cuban guayaberas, sat at a long table smoking cigars and talking.

“Is this the entrance?” I asked Seth.

“Beats me,” he replied.

Conversation stopped when we entered the sheltered space, but we saw that there was a door leading inside.

“Hola!”
one of the men said to us.

I returned his greeting as we passed their table and pulled open the door to a small room where a dozen tables were covered in lacy white cloths with clear plastic sheets over them. A short counter with a few backless stools occupied one side of the restaurant opposite a TV set. The white walls were covered with hundreds of photographs collected inside large black frames, presumably pictures of regular customers. Above the collages were individually framed portraits of those I gathered were especially honored guests. Two waitresses, well familiar with the routine, scurried among the tables, all of which were occupied, pushing carts that were transporting diners’ meals. All in all, there was a sense of controlled frenzy.

Dr. San Martín sat at a table only slightly removed from the next, where five gray-haired men engaged in a loud, friendly argument on the benefits of vitamin supplements. I was surprised to see that the ME was with another man, considerably younger, who looked out of place with his dark suit, shirt, and tie. San Martín saw us and waved.

“Good to see you,” he said as we joined the table. “Welcome to Tampa’s best-kept secret.”

I looked around and laughed. “Judging from the business they’re doing,” I said, “I think the secret’s gotten out.”

“Much to the chagrin of the owners,” said San Martín. “There are so many regular customers, they don’t want to fill the place up with tourists.” He turned to his companion. “Mrs. Jessica Fletcher and Dr. Seth Hazlitt, this is Harry Guterez.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” Guterez said as we shook hands. “I’m certainly aware of your books, Mrs. Fletcher, although I admit I haven’t read one.”

“We’ll have to rectify that,” I said pleasantly.

“Are you with the medical examiner’s office?” Seth asked.

“No,” Guterez replied. “I’m FBI.”

His simple statement had the effect of silencing Seth and me.

“Agent Guterez has something he’d like to discuss with you,” San Martín said, “but I suggest that we enjoy a good Cuban lunch before we get into that conversation.”

I knew that Seth shared my thought at the moment—we’d rather not have to wait to hear what was on his mind. But that wasn’t the way Dr. San Martín had choreographed the meeting. So lunch it was.

“Everything is good here,” San Martín said, “and the portions are large. They make a superb Cuban sandwich, although it’s misnamed. What people today call a Cuban sandwich was actually born in Tampa in the late eighteen hundreds. Cigar workers, who settled here from many parts of the world, brought their own favorite foods, some of which went into the sandwich. The Spaniards contributed the ham, the Italians the Genoa salami, the Cubans
mojo
-marinated pork, and the Germans and Jews added the pickles, mustard, and Swiss cheese. Of course, without good Cuban bread, it falls flat. Cuban bread is the best. When you make the sandwich, you butter the outsides of the bread and brown it up in a pan or press, like a grilled-cheese sandwich, only better.” He pressed his fingertips to his lips and blew a kiss into the air.

“What is
mojo
?” Seth asked.

“It’s a Cuban concoction used to marinate pork. When I make it, I use garlic cloves, salt, black peppercorns, oregano, and sour orange juice.”

“Never heard of sour orange juice,” Seth said.

“Not easy to find,” said San Martín. “There are lots of sour orange trees in Cuba. You can substitute regular orange juice and add a little lemon or lime.”

“Sounds like you know your way around the kitchen,” Seth said.

“I love to cook,” San Martín said. “I did all the cooking when my wife was alive and still find fixing myself supper to be relaxing after spending the day probing dead bodies.”

I made a face and he apologized for inappropriate table talk.

I was willing to order anything as long as it came quickly and allowed us to get to what Agent Guterez wanted to say. After San Martín’s enthusiastic description, we all settled on Cuban sandwiches, and he insisted that I try a mango milk shake.

Guterez didn’t have much to add to the conversation, and once the food came, we all stopped talking anyway. I found myself, as I often do, studying the scene in the restaurant, a habit I imagine a lot of writers—and probably just as many nonwriters—have. Frequent people watching gives me insights into human behavior—at least I hope it does—and many an unwary diner has ended up as a character in one of my novels.

At the neighboring table, the group’s loud discussion about a variety of health topics paused for a moment while one man told a joke: “So I went to the VA hospital and this nurse at the desk says to me, ‘I already called your name. Didn’t you hear me?’ And I said to her, ‘If I could hear you, I wouldn’t be here.’” The story brought forth hearty laughs from his companions and made me smile, too.

The men were momentarily distracted by a shapely young blonde who sashayed through the room wearing tight jeans and a low-cut sweater. At the table next to ours, a middle-aged woman with jet-black hair also eyed the new arrival and registered her opinion of the blonde to her tablemate by pushing out her lower lip and rolling her eyes.

While all of this captured my interest, my main thought was that I wanted lunch to end so we could get to the reason for having gotten together. The sandwich was good, the mango shake sweet, but the combination was too filling. The waitress asked if I’d like to take home the other half of my sandwich and I declined.

Finally, Dr. San Martín paid the bill and suggested that we leave. Seth and I looked at each other in surprise.

San Martín caught our exchange and said, “It’s a little too crowded in here for privacy.”

Once outside, Agent Guterez led us to the church’s parking lot, where a black limousine stood, engine running. A man dressed like Guterez got out on the driver’s side when he saw us approach, and opened the rear door.

“I thought a little ride after lunch might be in order,” said Guterez.

“A ride?” Seth said. “We have our car parked a coupla blocks from here.”

“We’ll bring you back, Dr. Hazlitt; just a short drive for us to talk.”

Seth and I climbed into the rear of the car and sat on the bench seat. There were two fold-down seats, which Guterez and San Martín took, allowing them to face us. The driver exited the parking lot and drove slowly down North Armenia Avenue, destination unknown to us. Dr. San Martín provided nonstop conversation during the trip, commenting on his love of cooking, the political situation in Tampa and its relationship to what was happening in his native Cuba, and his love of the city’s own national league football team, the Buccaneers. It was almost as though he was attempting to head off any questions we might have about where we were going and why.

Twenty frustrating minutes later we arrived in a suburban area, its sign announcing that we were in Citrus Park. The driver parked beneath a tree, turned off the ignition, and got out of the car. San Martín and Guterez made no move to leave their seats.

“Are we getting out and taking a stroll?” Seth asked, not bothering to mask the annoyance in his voice.

Guterez smiled as he said, “No, Dr. Hazlitt, but we will have a chat if it’s okay with you and Mrs. Fletcher.”

“Do we have a choice?” I asked.

“Probably not,” Guterez said. “Why don’t you begin, Dr. San Martín.”

San Martín came forward on his seat and said, “I know this is confusing, and I must admit that I was against hijacking you this way. But Agent Guterez and his colleagues decided that making it a bit of a social event would be more conducive to accomplishing what it is they
wish
to accomplish. The truth is that the two of you have placed yourselves in an awkward situation.”

“Really?” I said. “How so?”

San Martín crossed his legs and thought before continuing. “Let me start by congratulating you, Mrs. Fletcher, for being astute. I suppose that writing murder mysteries has sharpened your powers of observation.”

I cocked my head. “I appreciate your kind words, Dr. San Martín, but I have no idea what you’re referring to.”

“Cigars,” he said.

“Cigars?”

“Yes, the one you picked up on the day that Dr. Vasquez died.”

“I’d forgotten about that,” I said, not entirely truthfully. It simply hadn’t been on my mind that day.

“I almost did, too,” he said. “You left it in my office and I ignored it for a few days. I’m surprised I didn’t toss it away. At any rate, I was looking at it one day and got to thinking about whether it might shed any light on Vasquez’s death. It had been beaten up a bit and was still a little soggy since I’d left it in the plastic bag, but I ran it through some preliminary tests to see what it contained. The usual chemicals were present; a cigar contains thousands of poisons, like nitrosamines, ammonia, cadmium, hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide, and, of course, nicotine. I expected to find those elements along with others, and I did.”

“Are you suggesting that one of those poisons found in cigars killed Dr. Vasquez?” I asked.

He smiled like a kindly uncle correcting an honest misunderstanding. “No,” he said, “none of those are capable of killing someone, at least not from one cigar. A lifetime of smoking them might do you in, but none of those poisons are found in sufficient quantity in one cigar to be lethal.”

“So did you find something else that might have contributed to Dr. Vasquez’s death?” Seth asked.

“I certainly did,” said San Martín. “The neurotoxin botulin.”

“Is that related to botulism caused by spoiled foods?” I asked.

“That’s correct, Mrs. Fletcher. One and the same.”

“Is it possible he’d eaten something that contained that toxin?”

“No. As I said, I found it in that cigar you left at my office.”

“I take it that botulin isn’t usually found in cigars,” Seth said.

“Not in my experience,” San Martín replied.

“Now, wait a minute,” Seth said, holding up his hand. “I’ve treated my share of patients who ended up with botulism either through something they ate or an infected wound. I’ve had a few babies who came down with botulism poisoning because of honey their mothers gave them during their first year. I tell every new mother to not give their babies honey until they’re older.”

“I’m aware of the problem with honey and newborns, too,” San Martín said.

“But I’ve never lost a patient who had botulism poisoning,” Seth said. “I had one young fella who waited too long to come in to see me and ended up in the hospital on a breathing machine for a few weeks, and I had another patient who worked for a dermatologist who breathed in too much Botox. But as you know, it takes a few days for the symptoms to show up. With Al Vasquez, his death was pretty darn fast, almost instantaneous. Doesn’t figure that inhaling smoke from a single cigar would do him in like that.”

“You’re right,” San Martín said, “provided that what he’d inhaled was common, run-of-the-mill botulin. It wasn’t!”

He had our full attention. Alvaro Vasquez had offered his cigar to Seth that night, and when Seth declined, he’d offered it to me. If either of us had accepted—I shuddered at the mental picture it brought up—Seth or I could be dead right now.

Next to me, I felt Seth stiffen, and I was certain his line of thinking followed mine. Both of us had suspected Vasquez had been murdered, but we never realized how close to our own deaths we might have come.

San Martín spoke, breaking into my horrified thoughts. “I took it upon myself to personally deliver that soggy cigar to the lab at the Institutes of Health in Washington, D.C., and waited until they’d analyzed it. Didn’t take long. That cigar was full of
C. botulinum
, one of the most powerful known bacteria to secrete toxins. A single microgram is lethal to humans. It acts by blocking nerve function and leads to respiratory and musculoskeletal paralysis. Still, it would not have killed Dr. Vasquez that quickly.”

“Then what?” I asked.

“It had been chemically enhanced, no easy trick. It would take a highly sophisticated lab to accomplish that.”

Agent Guterez, who’d said nothing during San Martín’s explanation, now entered the conversation.

“You might wonder why the FBI is now involved,” he said. “Initially this was considered a local matter, something for the Tampa police to handle. But what Dr. San Martín has uncovered changes the landscape. Obviously, someone injected the botulin into the cigar that Alvaro Vasquez was smoking when he died. We believe Dr. Vasquez was the intended victim. Because the toxic substance is, as Dr. San Martín has explained, highly sophisticated, we’re going on the assumption that a government could be involved.”

Seth and I said in unison, “The Cuban government?”

“Or someone in our own,” Guterez said grimly.

Dr. San Martín spent the next ten minutes further explaining what he’d found in the cigar, and the nature of the chemical enhancement that had turned Dr. Vasquez’s favorite pastime into a lethal weapon. When the ME was finished, Seth asked, “This is all fascinating, but what does it have to do with us?”

“A good question, Doctor,” said Guterez. “The fact is that we feel it would be better if you and Mrs. Fletcher returned to your home in Maine.”

“Do you mind if I ask why?” I said.

“I can’t be too specific,” said Guterez. “National security. Just let me say that Dr. Vasquez’s murder and the missing results of his research have spawned a budding problem between our government and that of Cuba. It has the makings of an international incident.”