the phone call about Himself’s death (p. 251)

The gift-wrapped bottle beside the microwave. Among the forensic details Hal and Orin trade about the death scene is this one: a half-full bottle of Wild Turkey on the counter near the microwave, with "a large red decorative giftwrappish bow on the neck." A bottle of the father's own poison, dressed up as a present, left within reach of the man who put his head in the oven. It is the physical seed of the suspicion Molly Notkin will later voice (159) — that the widow-to-be planted the fatal temptation beside the dying king, enraged that he'd gone dry "for" Madame Psychosis and never "for her." Here it is just an object logged in the reconstruction, a giftwrapped bottle nobody explains, sitting on the counter with its cheerful red bow.