Secret Prey

At nine oclock, she was out of the house.

THE GOLD BUG WAS A CUSTOM JEWELRY BOUTIQUE ON the south side of Mi

She hadnt bought any gold, but shed found the tour interesting.

A tall, bony redheaded woman was working at the desk, looked up and said a cheery Hello as Audrey tentatively poked her nose through the door.

Hello. Are the shops open?

Sure. Go on down. Do you know…?

Yes. Ive been here before.

Audrey scuttled away down the wing, walked past the open fire door that led to the smelting area, slowed, looked inside. A sign beside the door said, Please come in and watch; but please be quiet.

One man was working at an exhaust hood; three other hoods were vacant. He looked up, focused on her.

Im sorry, she said. Is it… okay?

Sure. Come on in. Im just smelting a little gold, here. She walked in with her purse clutched in front of her, an old lady. Shed have to work on this image, a little, she thought. If she got in the newspapers, perhaps she should look younger…

The goldsmith had gone back to his work, a small crucible that he worked with a torch; she couldnt see exactly what he was doing, but didnt particularly care. She wasnt interested in goldwork. With her eyes fixed on the torch, she drifted to another one of the exhaust hoods. The table beside it was empty. Goddamnit. She passed behind him, now looking around at the equipment, then turned so she could watch him from the other side. He was vaguely aware of her, she thought, but he was used to being watched, and paid no real attention.

She moved up to the next exhaust hood, and saw the bottle.

That was it. She stood next to the table, and when he momentarily turned away, his back more toward her, shereached carefully out, picked it up, and slipped it into her coat pocket. It was small, no bigger than a shotgun shell or an old iodine bottle. With the bottle in her hand, she moved closer to him.

Very interesting, she said finally, as he finished a small pour into what looked like a lump of plaster.

Simple enough, after youve done it awhile, he said.

She had no idea of what was going on, said, Thank you, and still looking carefully around the smelting room, drifted out the door. She stopped at two of the shops, looking at their small display cases. Then, glancing at her watchit was already past ten oclockshe headed for the door.

Have a nice day, the redhead said, as she left.

You betcha.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, AFTER A QUICK STOP AT A drugstore to buy a pack of razor blades, she fixed the pill in the parking lot of a Burger King. First, she took one of the Prozac capsules shed gotten from Helen, carefully pulled the cap apart, spilled the drug into the palm of her hand and flicked it out the car window. Then she took out the bottle shed stolen from the Gold Bug and looked at it. The simple label said, CAUTION, and below that, in small letters, Sodium Cyanide. And below that, Poison: If ingested, get physicians help immediately. For industrial use only.

When the club ladies had visited the gold workshop, one of the goldsmiths had joked about using the cyanide to purify recycled gold. The same stuff Hitlers boys had used to kill themselves, hed said. She hadnt known exactly what he was talking aboutpurifying the goldbut she remembered what hed said about Hitlers boys.

The cyanide was an off-white powder, i

She wrapped the pill in a napkin and put it on the car seat; the sandwich box she carried to a trash can and pushed it inside. A pay phone hung on the wall just inside the Burger King door, and she went in and dialed Helens number. Helen should be working, Co

Helens house was no more than ten minutes away. If she tried to do something subtle, to sneak in, shed probably draw more attention in the neighborhood than if she barged right in. She parked on the street, waited until she could see no one on the sidewalk, then hurried up the walk, through the outer porch, and rang the doorbell. No answer. She leaned on it the next time, ringing for a solid minute. Nothing.

Good.

She took her keys from her purse, found the key for Helens house, opened the door and went inside. The house was deathly quiet. She went straight through to Helens bedroom, to the corner where she kept her computer. Switched it on, took the floppy disk from her pocket, went to theMy Documentsfolder. Helen had written a note to herself two months earlier, but the computer would update the time to show the last entry. Audrey slipped the floppy in the drive, brought up the text shed written that morning, pasted it into the earlier note. Then she cut the text of the note itself, and checked her work.

If I die… the note began.

Im sorry about everything! I killed those people, not Audrey! But Audrey was my only support, and I had to do something if Wilson was going to move up at the bank! If Wilson had lost his job all those years ago, what would have happened to Co

And at the bottom of the note, shed left all the fragments of sentences that shed pushed while editing: I fearedilling heraaacidentkill treeting Wil; slonMisterKresgeWithout money I got from Audrey.

It would, she hoped, look like a practice note; she was especially proud of all the exclamation points. Helen used them everywhere, as though they were periods.

She closed the file, shut down the machine, put the disk in her purse, and headed for the bedroom. Helen carried a pill case with a chiming clock to remind her to take the pills; she took one at noon every day. The Prozac bottle itself she kept in the bedroom, in her bureau drawer. Audrey found the bottle, unscrewed the top, looked inside. A dozen pills. Carefully unwrapping the cyanide pill in the napkin, she let it drop on top of the pills in the bottle, and replaced the bottle, shut the drawer.

Out of the house: shed been inside no more than ten minutes, she thought. As she drove away, she moved in the car seat and felt the cyanide bottle in her pocket. She should ditch it somewhere, she thought. But she liked the idea of it. A bottle of death. She thought about it for a while, then stopped in a park, where a thin shell of woods surrounded a small drainage lake. She stepped just inside the tree line, picked out a good-sized oak, walked over to it and sat down. Probed the ground with her car key: Damn. Frozen.

She looked around, spotted a culvert protruding from the edge of an embankment. She walked over to it, pushed the bottle well under the culvert. The bottle should be safe for years, she thought. Did cold weather affect cyanide? She had no idea.