My Son Drank Poison To Save My Life And Trap His Evil Wife. He Knew It Was Lethal But Did It To Get Evidence. Now She’s Facing 8 Years And I’m Left With The Heartbreaking Truth.

My name was printed in black ink: Christopher Sullivan Warfaren 5 mg take one tablet daily. I unscrewed the cap and poured the pills onto the counter. Then I counted: 1, 2, 3… 10… 15… 20, 21, 22.

I counted again slower this time, lining them up in rows of five. 22. The prescription had been refilled 2 weeks ago on May 26th.

I took one pill every morning with breakfast with no exceptions. That meant I should have 28 pills left but I only had 22. Six pills were missing.

I opened the drawer beneath the sink and pulled out my medication log. It was a small notebook where I tracked every dose. Eleanor had taught me to do it after I’d accidentally double dosed once years ago.

There was one check mark per day with every single day accounted for. I flipped to May 26th. Every day since then had a check mark with no missed doses, no double doses, and no mistakes.

Someone had taken those pills. I sat down on the edge of the bathtub, the bottle still in my hand, and forced myself to think clearly. Who had been in this house in the last 2 weeks?

Matthew and Oilia had come over for dinner once. Grace had used the guest bathroom but I’d been with them the whole time. James Fletcher had stopped by to drop off some plans but he’d stayed in the living room.

Then the memory hit me like a punch to the chest. Three days before the party Oilia had come by. She’d said she wanted to help set up decorations early and get a head start on things.

I’d been in the garage organizing tools. She’d been inside alone for maybe 20 minutes. She’d had access to this bathroom, this cabinet, and this bottle.

I stood up, walked back to the kitchen, and opened my laptop. I searched for Warfaren therapeutic dose versus toxic dose. The results loaded as I scanned the numbers and did the math.

The therapeutic dose was 5 mg per day. Six pills equaled 30 mg total. Crushed into a drink and combined with alcohol, it was enough to cause dangerous bleeding in someone who wasn’t on the medication regularly.

It was enough to cause serious harm or worse. I closed the laptop and stared at the whiskey bottle in the Ziploc bag. I needed confirmation and I needed lab results.

I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my contacts until I found the name I was looking for: Michael Torres. We’d worked together 20 years ago on a bridge project in Seattle. He’d gone into forensic engineering, analyzing structural failures and testifying in court cases; he’d know someone.

The phone rang three times before he picked up. “chris Sullivan it’s been a while” “hey Michael i need a favor”

There was a pause. “what kind of favor” “i need something tested privately discreetly no official channels”

Another pause longer this time. “chris what’s going on” “i can’t explain yet but I need to know if there’s warfare in this bottle of whiskey and I need to know soon”

Michael exhaled slowly. “jesus Chris can you help me or not” “yeah yeah I know someone private lab in Southeast Portland they do contract work for law firms insurance cases no questions asked i’ll text you the address”

“thanks Michael i owe you” “chris” he hesitated “be careful okay”

I ended the call. A minute later my phone buzzed with the address. That afternoon I drove to the lab Michael had recommended.

It was a non-descript building near the industrial district tucked between a warehouse and a tire shop. There was no sign out front, just a number on the door. I walked in carrying the Ziploc bag with the whiskey bottle inside.

A woman in a white coat met me at the front desk. She didn’t ask my name or why I needed the test. She just took the bag, wrote down my phone number, and spoke.

“Three to five business days” “i’ll pay extra for faster results.” She looked up. “two days but it’ll cost you”

“that’s fine” She nodded. “we’ll call you”

Pacific Northwest Forensics

I drove home as the sun started to sink behind the hills. The house was empty. Matthew was still in the ICU and Oilia was at the hospital with him while Grace was staying with Oilia’s sister.

I sat alone in my living room with the medication log open on my lap. The math played out in my head over and over: six pills. I’d spent 30 years calculating loadbearing capacities and stress points, specifically the exact moment when a structure would fail under too much weight.

This was no different. Six pills crushed into a cocktail glass were enough to cause internal bleeding until it was too late. And Oilia had been alone in this house 3 days ago.

She’d had access to this exact cabinet. That evening I’d driven to the private lab Michael had recommended and handed over the whiskey bottle. “call me as soon as you have results,” I’d said. “now all I could do was wait”

The lab results came 3 days later. I was sitting in my car outside a Safeway with the engine off and my grocery list forgotten on the dashboard. The email notification lit up my phone with no subject line, just a sender: Pacific Northwest forensics.

I should have waited, driven home, sat down, and prepared myself, but I couldn’t. I opened it right there in the parking lot. The first line made my stomach drop: analysis complete warfare and detected.

I had to read it twice or three times. The concentration they listed was in milligrams per serving. I didn’t understand the number at first: 450.

450 milligrams in a single drink. I stared at that number until my eyes blurred. Then I opened a browser on my phone with shaking hands and typed: warfare and safe dose.

The results came up immediately. The normal therapeutic dose was 2 to 10 milligrams daily. It was not meant to be taken all at once and certainly not in a glass of whiskey.

450 mg. I did the math in my head by force of habit, using my architect’s brain to always be calculating. The answer hit me like a freight train.

That wasn’t a mistake. That wasn’t someone accidentally crushing a pill into the wrong glass. That was lethal when combined with alcohol, and there had been plenty of alcohol that night.

450 mg of warerin was enough to cause internal bleeding so severe that by the time anyone realized what was happening it would be too late. I sat there for I don’t know how long, maybe 10 minutes or 20. People walked past my car with shopping carts.