Bean Soup

"Great soup, Les," someone yelled from the first table.

Les smiled. An observer might have thought that he appreciated the compliment, but Les had another reason as well. He continued to smile as he ladled soup into bowls. The drunk beside him was having trouble sitting up, but
Les filled a bowl for him and set it down, saying, "This is just the thing for you, Joe."

Joe propped himself up and shovelled some in. It was a thick bean soup with tomato juice and a thickener with plenty of vegetables and enough hot peppers to make it tangy without burning. It was the perfect sort of soup for the soup kitchen.

Les started scraping bottom half way through the second table. "Don't worry. This was the overflow pot. The main pot is still on the stove," he said to the others at the table. But he finished the pot and the table at the same time.

Then he pushed the cart toward the kitchen and grabbed the pot and carried that back into the kitchen. He put it under the tap and turned on the water. He carefully washed the ladle and put that next to the stove where the other pot was still simmering. Then he quickly scrubbed the overflow pot and dumped the water. He left it there with the water running, thinking that others would toss small things into it to wash. He took the soup pot off the stove and carried it back into the dining room and served the other four tables. The pot was still half full when he finished, so he went back to the first table and asked, "Anyone want seconds on the soup?"

"Over here," Joe said. "That sure helped my stomach."

"Same here," another unkempt drunk said, holding his bowl out for more.

Twenty minutes later Les tossed his apron into the hamper, picked up his knapsack, and walked out the side door. The meal was coming toward an end. Over the next twenty minutes most of the people from those first two tables would wander away. The panhandlers got back to their places. The idlers loafed in various places. The junkies went off to find another fix, and so on. The poor families, single mothers, disabled, elderly, and so on cleared away their plates and slouched off to better things. The dishes were scraped and run through the dishwasher, and they were followed by the pots and pans. The small amount of leftover was put into plastic containers and given to anyone who asked. There was only a very small amount of the bean soup left, only enough for one container. The dining room was cleared less than an hour and a half after the meal started. The only sign that there had been more than half a hundred people eating there was the lower levels of some raw foods in large containers, beans, flour, etc.

A few hours later the drunks and idlers were keeping busy knocking back cheap vodka and beer. Joe knocked back another nip of cheap vodka and made a face.
"That didn't help my stomach. Ugh," he groaned. Then he stood and said, "Have to take a shit."
“Unggh!" Donny groaned, and he said, "Me too." Then he stood and stuck his arm out to keep from falling down the stairs.
The two made it back to the church basement. It was deserted now. Joe went into the men's room and sat on the throne. He was emptied within seconds. He left, so Donny could use the facilities, and a couple of minutes later Donny was out also. He stood beside Joe, who was staring out the door and said, "My stomach hurts more now. Something must have been rotten."

"Yeah," Joe replied. "Same with me."

Another of the drunks came in and hurried to the john. Donny said, "It looks like Mike has it too."

Joe didn't reply. He went outside and sat on a low, retaining wall. He had a hand on his stomach. Donny tripped on the way to join him on the retaining wall and lay on the concrete for a minute before he slowly and painfully picked himself up.

In a weak voice he said, "I'm losing my strength. I could hardly get up."

Another one of the guys walked past going for the men's room, and Joe leaned back onto the ground behind the retaining wall. He didn't even see the other half dozen people come by on the way to the restrooms.

There was nothing scheduled for the area that night, so they just sat around until they fell asleep. The Sun rose about half past six and it hit Sarah in the eyes and woke her up. She just looked around until she figured out that some of them weren’t breathing. She screamed. The custodian had entered a side door, so he didn’t notice the people cluttering the rear section, but the scream got his attention. He opened the door and looked out. Sarah was panicking; panting; slapping her face, and then shaking Joe.

The custodian walked out and looked at the people. The area stank of vomit and feces. Most of them weren't moving, but he noticed that Joe wasn’t moving, but he was still breathing. The custodian pulled out his cell phone and hit 911.

"I've got no idea what's wrong with them."

"No, I haven't checked pulses. One woman is groaning in pain, and another looks like she's having a nightmare. Just get EMTs here."

Within seconds a single police siren sounded in the lot, but the police were just around the corner.

The custodian stood there with his phone in his hand and watched as the first two police made their ways among the bodies to where he stood.

"What happened?"

"I have no idea," the custodian answered. "I just got here a minute ago. I called immediately."

The two cops looked at each other. Then an EMT came into sight, then another and another. They bent over the first ones they came to and checked vital signs.

"DOA"

"Same here."

"This one too."

The first EMT, he was a little bigger than the others but unrecognizable in his gear, moved to another motionless body and checked. After a few seconds he said, "This one's alive." And he examined more carefully to try to determine whether to move the person immediately, or what.

The second one moved to another body, and moved to another after a short time. Then he started working on that person.

The third EMT looked a little older than the others. He might have been in charge. He got on his radio and called in.

"We have eight people here; half are incapacitated, and the others are dead." He paused to listen. Then he replied,

"Yes, we should get them to hospital, and yes there is police on site." He paused again and replied, "Fine we'll get them ready to go, and I'll send Stan and Mike with the first one, and we'll go from there. This'll use all of our vehicles."

He signed off and walked over to the police. "it looks like food poisoning, bad food or bad booze. I don't know. We'll have to ones who are alive out of here ASAP."

“Or maybe bad drugs,” the cop replied.

*

"McGillicuddy, I want you to talk to as many of the people who were at that meal as possible. The cause might have been something else. but that's the best we have until we get the reports from the coroner and from the hospital about the ones who are still alive."

"Yes, Sir, I know the staff, so I'll start with them, and they will be able to tell me who was there."

"We have to do something fast. There were four dead behind the church and another two dead elsewhere around town, and there are seven or eight more people in the hospital with whatever it is, and some of them may die."

"Yes, Sir, we'll get right to it. I need to contact a few people, and we'll start interviewing as soon as we can get to them. Ian, you have the numbers, don't you?"

"Of course, let's sit down and contact the site manager and the assistant. They'll know who was working; who cooked what, and so on."

Officer Patricia McGillicuddy started toward the open office and pulled Ian by his sleeve. The lieutenant let them go.

"That's fine Mr. Stone. We'll meet you behind the church," Patricia said to the kitchen manager. Then she hung up and picked up again and started dialing.

"Hello Mrs. Granger, this is Officer Patricia McGillicuddy. I'm calling about... Oh you have heard. Could we get together and talk?"

"That's fine," Patricia replied. "We're going to meet Mr. Stone there, so we could meet you there also. There might be something to see or some evidence that no one noticed."

It was just a walk from the police station, so Ian and Patricia were ready and waiting before either of the people to be interviewed were there. They went inside and walked around the hall but avoided the kitchen, just in case.

"Neat, clean, and quiet now," Ian commented. "A lot different from when they're having the meals."

"Yeah, the noise is deafening," Patricia said.

Stone came in and said, “Hi, what can I do to help?”

“It’s being treated as food poisoning, but whenever someone dies like that there is an investigation, and when six people die there’s even more investigation. The source could have been somewhere else. They were all acquainted, so they may have all had something somewhere else. But we need to know who was here? What was served? Who cooked what? Who served what? And anything else that might seem useful. Mrs. Granger is coming here also, so she may remember different details.”

“She was running the kitchen today. I was doing everything else. I probably can remember most of the people who came. I could map out who sat where.”

That would be amazing,” Patricia said. “And here’s Mrs. Granger. Why don’t you and Ian map out the people, and I’ll talk to Mrs. Granger about the kitchen.”

“I thank you for coming in,” Patricia said to the svelte older woman. “Let’s sit over there.” And she pointed to a round table with a few chairs around it.

“I was appalled to hear about this,” Mrs. Granger said. “We’ve never had problems here before. The cooks are all skilled.”

“That’s the first thing. What was the menu, and who made what? Do you know?”

Mrs. Granger pulled a small planning notebook out of her purse and flipped through until she got to yesterday. Then she read off the list of items and who cooked it.
Salad, various volunteers
Bread and butter, same
broccoli soup, me
Bean soup, Les
Chicken Bolognaise, Mr. Stone
Rice, Alice
Pizza, donated
curried cauliflower and potatoes, Lakshmi
curried squash, Lakshmi


Officer McGillicuddy copied it. Then she asked, “Are there any leftovers that we could test?”

“Let’s take a look. There may be some left in the refrigerator. If not, then we would have to figure out who took home any, and some of the items may have been completely used, but let’s check the refrigerator.” Then she got up and went into the kitchen to a large refrigerator that she opened.

*


The Chief called Patricia and Ian in and began, "You read the preliminary report, didn't you?" Where would they have gotten that much nicotine? They were smokers, but no one could smoke that much. Snoop around and see if you can find a source and a delivery method. The soup kitchen is one possible source, but there must be some other way they could have gotten it."

"Yes, sir," Patricia said. "We got samples of what was served at the meal, and the lab reports should be back soon. If something had nicotine in it, then will know what to do. If not, I don't know what to do. There are tons of tobacco available, and it shouldn't be hard to extract nicotine, and the vaping things have nearly pure nicotine in them."

"Patricia is right," Ian said. "If the lab reports are negative, then we'll just have to snoop around. That's all."

"I understand," the Chief said. "But the other way to do the investigation is to figure out who might go to the trouble of killing them. Lot's of people wouldn't mind them dying, but who would go to the trouble of hurrying things along?"

"I was thinking," Ian said, "that someone wanted to kill one or two and got the rest by mistake or to cover the real targets."

The Chief and Patricia nodded in agreement to that idea.

"Yes, but we still have to figure out who," Patricia said. "There were a couple of them who might have been that well liked."

"Well. you two can figure it out. Get back to me in a few days, whether there is progress or not," the Chief said.

On their way out of the building Patricia said, "Let's see what we can figure out."

"I know I hate the smell of the stuff," Ian replied.

"But you can smell it. It's just part of the background to me. I'm wondering if someone put some into something that hid the smell to people who ate or drank it. I remember that there was a while when bars served drinks that had tobacco, and there was something to hide the flavor."

"If you didn't want people to taste it, there'd have to be a strong flavor. I think tomato might work, but I'd still smell it.
What was on the menu?"

Patricia pulled out her notes with the list of menu items that Mrs. Granger had given her. The curried cauliflower and potatoes could have hidden almost any flavor, and the same for the curried squash. The bean soup might have, depending on how it was made.

"That's an idea," Ian said, "but we should wait for the lab reports for the food. If that isn't the source, then we'll have to talk to a lot of people and find another source."

"Or hope that something else comes up."

"Hey, we're not doing anything else, so let's see if we can find Joanne," Patricia said. "I know she's one of the most bring people around, but she seems to find out everything."

"Whatever."

They drove by where the drunks congregated, but no one was there, so Ian slowly drove down Main Street to see who was panhandling, and there she was in her regular place. He pulled in to a parking space, and they got out.

"Why don't you talk to her?" Ian asked.

"O.K.," Patricia replied, knowing how much Joanne got on his nerves.

"How's it going, Joanne?"

She had been reading a magazine with a sign asking for money in front of her.

She looked up from her perch on a milk crate and said, "Hi Patricia, it's a little better now. I'm better now, but it's too bad about the others."

"Who do you think caused it?" Patricia asked.

"I don't know. I thought it was something at the meal, but I don't know what. Nothing tasted bad, except the curry, but I didn't eat much of that, just enough to know that I didn't want it."

"Does anyone else have any idea?” Patricia asked.

“Bad drugs or too much,” she replied. “Seizures then panting and then heart stopping could be from too much speed or coke or something. Are there lab reports?”

“The Toxicology reports say they died from nicotine, but we need to figure out how that much tobacco got into them. Say, did the ones who died eat the curry? That might have covered the flavor.”

“I don’t think so. It was horrible.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Patricia said. “We have to push on.”

“Later.” Joanne said, then she went back to reading.

Ian and Patricia walked down the street in silence for a minute. Then Ian said, “We should talk to the rest of the survivors.”

“I’ve talked to a few others, but you’re right. Let’s use the day doing that.”

The next morning, they were looking through notes, when the Chief came in with a thick manila envelope. “Detailed lab reports,” Was all he said. Then he opened the envelope, grabbed a report, and started reading. Ian and Patricia did the same.

An hour later they were finished.

The five who died succumbed to cardiac arrest after seizures. All of them had some level of blood alcohol and some cannabinols and Heroin and high levels of nicotine. The nicotine levels indicated more than 13 mg/kg. In addition to the five people who died, ten others became sick, and those people all had nicotine levels of between five and ten mg/kg; they must have consumed close to half a gram, and the ones who died must have consumed about a gram.

“We know for sure to look for nicotine now, but the reports on the food samples weren’t helpful, no nicotine in any.”

“Which means they got it some other way,” the Chief said.

"They all smoked like chimneys," Ian said. "Did someone pass around cigars? Some cigars have amazing amounts of nicotine."

“Maybe,” Patricia said, “but there was something someone said yesterday about the pot of soup.” She flipped through her notebook. Then she read: “There was a small pot of soup for the first two tables only.”

“Yeah, and a few people said something about the soup having a strong flavor,” Ian added.

“What did the lab report say?”

“Chief, from what I heard it was a little pot that was finished before the first two tables were served. It was separate from the pot that the sample was from.”

Patricia was flipping through her notebook again. “Here it is. Les cooked that. You know him, a tall, skinny guy with red hair, wears a grey cowboy hat. Let’s talk to him.”

“Do it,” the Chief said. “I can’t think of any other ideas.”

“Why would he do something like that?” Patricia asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe he was just trying for one person and the rest were collateral damage,” Ian said.

Les lived in an end unit of a one story apartment building. Ian parked in front, and Patricia got out.

"Do you think he did it?" Ian asked.

"I don't know, but the two pots were kind of suspicious. Do you know him? He's a nice guy most of the time, but he gets really strange sometimes. Let's talk and see if we can find anything out."

Les opened the door after a few knocks and a short wait.

"So what do you want?" He asked. "I didn't do anything." He said in a pleasant tone. "Is it about the people OD'ing?"

"If that's what it was. The lab report say they died from nicotine poisoning," Patricia said. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of some kind of cleaning solution. "What are you washing?"

"Oh, the smell," Les said. "I was washing this room to repaint it. I never noticed how dirty it was getting until a few days ago. I was smoking in here for years. I got an air purifier, so it won't happen again, and the walls are pretty clean, but I still need to do the ceiling again. Take a look. Ceilings are not easy to wash."

Les moved back into the room and waved for them to enter, so Patricia did. The walls were pretty clean, and all the furniture was pulled away from the walls. It was a mess, but it was easy to see what he meant about the ceiling. Along the walls there were dark stains in the carpet, where the dirt and water had dripped, and there was a bucket with dark brown water.

Ian stuck his head in and looked. Then he made a disgusted sound and backed away.

"Anyway, Les," I said, "We wanted to ask a few questions about the meal at the Laden Table. We heard that you had two separate pots of soup. Is that true, and if so why?"

"Well, yeah, I did. I didn't get to use the really big soup pot, so I used a smaller one, but that wasn't big enough after I added everything, so about a quarter of the soup went into a small pot. That was smaller, so it cooked faster, so I served it first. It was only enough for the first two tables. Then I took out the larger pot and that took care of the rest."

"Did the first one have different ingredients?"

"No, it was the same stuff. It was just that I added too much vegetable and tomato, so it was overflowing. The only thing I added after I split it was the hot pepper, so the smaller one might have been hotter, or not."

"You don't have any of it?"

"Nah, I had some there before I left, but I didn't take any."

"O.K., that explains it. Ian, was there anything you wanted to ask?"

He looked into space for a few seconds, then he shook his head and said, "No, I think that covers it. See you around, Les."

On the ride back, Ian said, "He sure had a lot of nicotine in what he was washing off the walls. The stench was unbearable."

"So was the smell of the cleaning solution, and there was no nicotine in the sample of soup. Where else could it have come from?"

"Yeah, that's the question. That's what happens when an extreme poison is sold in every convenience store."

"Wasn't there a while when people were drinking Bloody Marys with tobacco added?"

"I don't remember that, but it wouldn't have interested me. Was anyone drinking Bloody Marys?"

"Let's ask."


"Well Chief, that was another dead end. Are there any poison experts who might be able to figure out how fourteen people got doses of nicotine that killed some of them?"

"I asked the State Police to look at things and see if they could figure anything out. They'll have someone here tomorrow. You and Ian can go over everything. I wish I could think of another angle, but I can't."

"Well, trooper," Patricia summed up, "that's about it. There are plenty of sources of nicotine, but we couldn't find evidence of any being given to the people who were poisoned, except what they smoked up. Do you have any ideas?"

"I'm going to be suspicious of Bloody Marys in the future. If there'd been a bowl of punch that someone tossed some cigars into, that would have explained it, but there was no such thing. I'll take a walk around town and see if I can see anything, and I'll chat with a panhandler or two and see if they have any ideas. But the report looks good and complete."

The three stood and shook hands.

"We're not going to let this slide," Ian said.

"That's for sure," Patricia agreed.

A few weeks later, Les took the filter out of his new air purifier and put it into a bottle of plain water. Then he installed a new filter and sat down to watch a movie.

The End