Ed McBain - Poison

A: That's correct, that's my gun.

Q: How did you kill Nelson Riley?

A: I put nicotine in a bottle of scotch I found on a shelf in his loft.

Q: How did you kill Jerome McKennon?

A: Nicotine. I would have used nicotine on Hollander, too, but there was no way I could get to him. So I just went in there with the scalpel.

Q: How'd you get into the apartment?

A: I just walked in.

Q: He let you into the apartment?

A: No, no. I tried the knob, and the door was open ! I couldn't believe it! This city? A man leaves his door unlocked? So I walked in, and he was sitting in the living room, reading, and I stabbed him.

Q: If the door had been locked, what would you have done?

A: Knocked. And stabbed him when he opened it.

Q: Because you were angry with him as well, is that correct?

A: Oh, all of them.

Q: Because Miss Hollis had stopped seeing you…

A: Yes.

Q: And was continuing to see them.

A: I loved her.

Q: Steve?

Q: Dr. Ellsworth, I show you this dental chart prepared by Dr. Paul Blaney of the Medical Examiner's Office. It is a chart of the condition of Jerome McKennon's teeth at the time of autopsy. By looking at this chart, can you tell me whether it appears to be an accurate representation?

A: Well, yes, I would say so. There's the extraction I performed, the number sixteen tooth, and there are the several fillings I did, yes, that's his mouth. The other work had already been done before he came to me.

Q: And the root canal?

A: Yes, on the number thirty tooth. The lower right first molar.

Q: You performed that root canal, did you not?

A:I did.

Q: Removed the nerve, I believe you told me, when Mr. McKennon visited you in February…

A: If that's when it was, yes.

Q: And obtunded the root canal, sealed it…

A: Yes.

Q: And on March eighth, you fitted it with a temporary cap…

A: Yes. A temporary plastic cap.

Q: And when he came back a week later, you took an impression of the tooth for a permanent cap, and—as you also told me—cemented the temporary cap back on.

A: Yes.

Q: Dr. Blaney of the Medical Examiner's Office suggested that you may have done something else during that visit. Did you?

A: Yes.

Q: What did you do, Dr. Ellsworth?

A: I hollowed out the middle of the tooth, down to the floor of the pulp chamber.

Q: Did you do anything else?

A: Yes. I inserted a number five gelatin capsule into the tooth. That's the biggest tooth in the mouth, you know, that molar, and the number five is the smallest capsule there is, only ten millimeters long and four millimeters wide. But even then I had to shave the capsule down a bit—where the two ends slip into each other—to get it inside the tooth.

Q: What did you do then?

A: I cemented the temporary cap back on.

Q: With the capsule inside the tooth?

A: Yes.

Q: And covered by the temporary cap.

A: Yes.

Q: What was in that capsule, Dr. Ellsworth?

A: A fatal dose of nicotine.

Q: Dr. Blaney at the Medical Examiner's Office indicated on the chart—here's the mark, Dr. Ellsworth, this small circle on the number thirty tooth—that there was a cavity in the temporary cap. He had a theory as to how that cavity got there, but I'd like to hear your explanation of it.

A: Well, you see, I had thinned out the underside of the chewing surface. Of the temporary cap. Before I cemented it back into place. And I told Jerry—Mr. McKennon—that he could chew and brush normally until the next visit…

Q: Which would have been on March twenty-ninth, two weeks after the March fifteenth visit.

A: Yes.

Q: What did you expect to happen, Dr. Ellsworth?

A: I expected the normal grinding motion of the upper and lower molars would erode the temporary cap.

Q: And then what?

A: Then the gelatin capsule would dissolve and the poison would be released.

Q: Killing Mr. McKennon within minutes.

A: The number five capsule holds from sixty-five to a hundred and thirty milligrams, depending on the chemical. I didn't need quite that much.

Q: Forty milligrams of nicotine is the fatal dose, isn't that right?

A: Yes.

Q: How did you come by nicotine in toxic strength, Dr. Ellsworth? Did you distill it from tobacco?

A: No. I used an insecticide called Spot Forty. I bought it over the counter in the next state. It has a nicotine content of forty percent.

Q: How did you get nicotine in toxic strength from…

A: I'm a dentist. I had access to laboratory equipment.

Q: In your office?

A: No, at a research lab. I told them I was conducting an experiment on the effectiveness of fluoride in removing nicotine stains from teeth. They even allowed me to use chromatographic instruments.

Q: As I understand it then, you took a can of this insecticide called Spot Forty into the lab…

A: No. It was several cans. And I emptied them first into glass containers.

Q: And kept titrating the solution until you had the purity of nicotine you were looking for.

A: Yes.

Q: How long did it take you to do this?

A: Not long. My college grades in chemistry were very high, straight A's, as I recall. I decided to kill Jerry the day he told me about him and Marilyn. I was ready to kill him by the eighth of March when I did the root canal. I had the poison ready by then.

Q: Hal?

A: Nothing else.

Q: Mr. Liebowitz?

A: Nothing.

Q: Is there anything you'd like to add to what you've said, Dr. Ellsworth? Anything you'd like to change?

A: Nothing. Except…

Q: Yes?

A: You see, I figured she'd come back to me. If the others were gone, I figured there was a chance of getting her back.

Q: I see.

A: Yes. That was it, you see.

Q: Anything else, Dr. Ellsworth?

A: No. Well…

Q: Yes?

A: No, nothing.

Q: Then thank you, Dr. Ellsworth.

A: Just… would you play the tape back for me, please?

They went out of the precinct and into the fenced lot behind it, where they had parked their cars. The night was balmy; spring was truly here.

"I was wrong," Carella said.

"We were both wrong," Willis said. "We were zeroing in on too narrow a range. We should have been looking wider."

"That's not what I meant, Hal." He said it again. "I was wrong."

"Okay," Willis said.

Carella extended his hand. "Good night, huh?" he said.

Willis took the hand. "Good night, Steve."

They got into their cars, and drove out of the parking lot, and then off in opposite directions, Carella to his house in Riverhead, Willis to the house on Harborside Lane.

It was a little before midnight when he got there. She was sitting in the living room, a brandy snifter on the end-table near her chair. She was wearing a white caftan. He did not know if it was the one she'd worn so many years ago, when she was known as the Golden Arab in a prison called the Fortress. She wore no makeup. Her eyes looked puffy and swollen. He went to the bar unit and poured himself a cognac.

He told her about Ellsworth, told her they had a signed confession.

The clock on the mantel chimed midnight.

Twelve soft chimes into the silence of the room.

He went to where she was sitting.

"You've been crying," he said.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I know I've lost you."

"Marilyn…"

"Oh, shit, here it comes."

"Marilyn, I'm a short, little ugly guy…"

"You're beautiful."

"And you're tall and gorgeous…"

"Sure, with my eyes all red and my nose dripping."

"I've been to bed with maybe six girls in my entire life…"

"The rest of the women in the world are missing something."

"And you've known ten thousand men…"