A Deadly Inside Scoop

by Abby Collette

  “He better be glad he’s leaving,” Riya said.

  “We’re all glad he’s leaving,” I muttered.

  “What?” she said, and turned to look at me, her eyes red, her nostrils flaring.

  “Nothing,” I said. Maisie pushed a bottle of apple juice between the seats. “Here.” I cracked open the top and pushed the juice toward her. “Drink this and let’s follow Glynis. Look.” I pushed her head to the side. “She’s leaving.”

  “Okay,” Riya said. “Okay.”

  “Okay?” I said.

  “Yes. I’m okay,” she said. “I’m good. As long as he’s gone and I don’t have to see him.”

  “He’s going,” Maisie and I said at the same time.

  “Don’t worry, he’s going,” I said. “Everything is going to be okay.”

  But I feared for that man the next time she saw him. I knew Riya didn’t know how to do calm.

  chapter

  THIRTY-FOUR

  But Mr. Noah Bean didn’t get in his car and drive away. Oh no. The fates weren’t with us that night.

  He walked over to it, sure enough, but then with a look as if he’d forgotten something, he turned around and headed back toward the door of the nursing home.

  Why would he do that?

  “There he goes again!” Riya said, her hand swooping down to grab the car handle. I had to grab the bottle of juice from her, otherwise it would have been all over the seat and floor of her pretty red car. “He just doesn’t know what’s good for him, does he?” She watched him through the windshield, the ends of her mouth curling under, her almond-shaped brown eyes getting narrower and narrower. I expected to see daggers shooting out at any minute.

  “Riya,” I said. “Calm down. This isn’t how you are going to get information from him.”

  She turned and looked at me, and I could almost see the smoke coming from her nose. “You should want me to get him. You can talk to him.”

  “About what?” I said. “I don’t have anything to talk to him about.”

  “Maybe he stole succinylcholine out of the cabinet and gave it to Glynis,” she said. “Didn’t you say she was there the night of the murder?”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “Well, there was succinylcholine in that pharmacy cabinet that he forged a requisition for.”

  “There was?” I asked. But before I could get an answer from her, she had one foot out the door. She turned back and hissed, “I’ll make sure you’ll get the information you need.”

  “Oh no!” I tried to grab her arm, but she was out of the car and on the move in one fleeting moment. “I don’t need any information,” I tried to say, but it was too late.

  I reached for my door handle, getting ready to chase her down and stop her, but noticed Maisie hadn’t moved.

  “What are you doing?” I looked back at her. “We have to go get Riya.”

  “I don’t think we can,” Maisie said matter-of-factly. She didn’t move and no fear showed on her face. I couldn’t understand that, since she knew as well as I did what Riya Amacarelli could do to a body.

  “What do you mean, we can’t?”

  I saw a smile cross Maisie’s face. “Look,” she said. Her arm outstretched, she pointed through the windshield. “He thinks he can get away from her.”

  I followed her arm, and there was Riya chasing Noah through the parking lot. He was running around cars, darting and dashing back and forth, ducking down between rows. Head in the air, arms and legs pumping, but no matter which way he went, Riya was right behind him.

  No one could get away from Riya. Noah’s sudden high-pitched, fright-laced squeal that came with a thud was evidence of that.

  Riya had caught him. She did some karate/tae kwon do/judo foot sweep on him and he went down. He landed with his face in the concrete, and she was on top of him like she was at a rodeo event. He was squirming around yelping, but that wasn’t going to help.

  “We have to help him,” I said, and bounded out the door. “C’mon!”

  “Kindergarten all over again,” Maisie said, shaking her head and following behind me.

  “Riya, we don’t want him maimed and tortured,” I said, trying to get her off him after we got over to her.

  She was sitting on top of him, her hand twisting his arm back, her legs splayed over him, her face filled with determination. She wasn’t letting him go. “I thought you wanted to question him,” she said.

  “That was your idea,” I screeched. “But even if I did, I don’t want to do it through a séance. We need him alive to talk to him.”

  “He stood me up!” She took the side of her fist and came down on his back like she was hitting a tabletop. “He stole my pharmacy code!” She punctuated that the same way. “And he ki—”

  “Whoa!” I said, and grabbed her arm. I had to stop her. It sounded like she was getting ready to say he killed someone. She was jumping to huge conclusions.

  “Riya. Sweetie.” I took to rubbing her arm. “Let him up.”

  “Hmpf.”

  “We can’t talk to him like this.” I turned my head to the side so that it was nearly at the same angle as his. He was breathing heavily and his eyes looked wild.

  “Please?”

  * * *

  - - - - -

  “Okay, question him,” Riya said.

  We’d gotten Noah stuffed into the back seat of the car with Maisie. I was terrified that the police would come barreling up at any moment. I didn’t doubt that Riya’s whole assault thingy had been captured on security cameras.

  “Question him? Me?” I said.

  “Yes. About your mystery you’re trying to solve.”

  “We came to question Glynis,” I said.

  “Well, Glynis is not here,” Riya said. “So question him.”

  “He might not know anything about it,” I said, my voice shaky. It couldn’t be a good idea to get information from anyone when they’re under duress.

  “What do you know about the murder on Bell Street?” Riya said, turning to look at him between the two bucket seats. “Did you have something to do with that?”

  She didn’t know how to be calm or subtle.

  “I’ll ask him questions,” I said. I glanced over at Maisie and pushed myself up to look over the seat. I really didn’t know what to ask. But I knew I’d do better than Riya. “Do you know Glynis Vale?” I had to come up with something.

  “Of course he does,” Riya said. “He stood me up to go out with her.”

  “What is she talking about?” Noah said his first words.

  “Why did you stand me up?” Riya asked. “To go out with that woman?”

  Noah looked from me to Riya and back to me. “Help me,” he mouthed.

  “I thought you were going to let me ask the questions,” I said to Riya.

  “Go ahead.” She gestured with her hand for me to continue. I opened my mouth to speak, but didn’t get the chance to. “Why did you sign my name to get access to our pharmacy cabinet?” She jumped up in her seat to face him.

  “Can she do this?” Noah looked at me.

  “Riya,” I said.

  “I’m helping you,” she said, turning to look at me as if she were possessed.

  “No, you’re not,” I said.

  “Okay, well I’m helping me,” she said. “I could lose my job over this.”

  “I didn’t sign it,” he said.

  “Yes, you did,” she hissed. “Tell the truth.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked him. I noticed he had put emphasis on the word “sign.”

  “I just put her name on it,” he said.

  “Why?” Riya asked. She was on her knees peering over the top of the seat.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I just got it in my head that I could do it, and I couldn’t lose the thought. It just stuck in my b
rain that I could, so”—he shrugged—“I did it.”

  “I’ve got something to stick in your brain,” Riya said, and held up a fist.

  His eyes got bigger.

  “But she won’t,” I assured him.

  “And how is that not forging my name?” Riya asked, her eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets.

  “Because I didn’t sign it,” he said. “It wasn’t your signature. Then it worked and I thought, I wonder what’s in there.”

  “Narcotics, dummy,” Riya said, and smacked him on top of his head. Her reflexes from all her years training in martial arts were too quick for me to try to stop her or for Noah to duck out of the way. “Duh.”

  “Did you take anything out of it?” I asked. I remembered that Riya had explained that succinylcholine wouldn’t be in every area of the hospital, only places where surgery was going to be performed.

  If he knew Glynis and he was inside of a pharmacy cabinet that belonged to the emergency department, then there was a good chance that he might have been the one to give it to her.

  Maybe Riya tackling him was a good thing. Maybe we could find out if the drug used to kill Stephen Bayard was in that cabinet.

  “How do you know Glynis?” I said, getting back to my original question. Riya started to ask one of her questions. “Uh-uh.” I shook my head and put up a finger. “Don’t say anything, Riya.”

  “Glynis works here,” Noah answered my question, probably relieved I had stopped Riya from asking one of hers.

  “We know she works here,” Riya said, sliding back into her seat. “What? Are you dating her, too?”

  Okay, maybe I wasn’t any good at getting Riya not to talk.

  “Dating her?” He scrunched up his nose. “I don’t date people. I’m trying to work on my career.”

  “You don’t date people?” Riya squealed. She popped up out of her seat and was trying to worm her way into the back. “What were you doing with me?”

  “Oh my God! Maisie, can you help me?” She’d been sitting in the back listening the whole time, not contributing to the interrogation or helping me control Riya.

  “Bad, Riya,” I scolded, pulling on her legs. Noah had scooted back into a corner and was trying to defend himself from Riya’s barrage of hand flapping. “B-A-D!”

  “What is wrong with her?” Noah asked, his face red and puffy.

  “She’s working through some issues,” Maisie said.

  “You’re telling me,” Noah said.

  “Why are you here?” I asked. I wedged myself between the two front bucket seats to keep Riya from going through them.

  “I work here,” he said.

  “You work at the hospital,” Riya interjected, talking around me. “At least you do until I tell the board you stole my code by looking over my shoulder.”

  “You can’t prove that,” he said, the only courage he’d shown throughout Riya’s handling of him.

  Riya tried nudging me aside, but she could only get me over enough to put her face between the seats. “Look,” she said, gritting her teeth, “I can make you talk.”

  “Did you give drugs from that cabinet to Glynis?” I asked. I knew I needed to get my questions in because I didn’t know how long I could keep Riya off him. Who knew if he’d still be able to speak when she finished with him?

  “Drugs?” His eyes got big, and he let them float to each of our faces. “What are you trying to say?” I saw the blood drain out of his face. “I’m not saying anything else. Not until I talk to my lawyer.”

  “You don’t have a lawyer,” Riya said, rolling her eyes. She plopped back down in her seat. “And that wouldn’t work with us anyway.”

  “That wouldn’t work with her,” Maisie said, and pointed a finger at the back of Riya’s seat. “Win and I are good with you getting a lawyer.”

  chapter

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Maisie probably thought that the only way Noah could keep safe was if he got himself a lawyer. Or a police escort.

  But after the Riya/Noah incident, I didn’t think I’d be able to get any kind of information out of him. And if he told Glynis I was asking questions about her, she might panic and get rid of evidence, or even leave town.

  If she even had anything to do with it.

  Now I was at the shop. It was four thirty in the morning and I was supposed to be making ice cream. Instead, I sat at my makeshift desk staring at the monitor, elbows on desk, chin cradled in palm of hands, legs crossed, the one foot kicking out a measured beat.

  I was trying to figure out what I could look up that would give me answers. But I was coming up with nothing even with all my snooping, googling and stalking, as Riya put it. I had yet to find out one single thing that could help. At least not enough to set Detective Beverly straight about my father as my initial plan had entailed.

  I uncrossed my legs and let my arm fall onto the desk.

  I began to think that at this point, I had probably lost the right to carry an amateur sleuthing ID card, if there was such a thing, and if I had ever deserved to have one in the first place.

  I got up from the stool and blew out a breath. I was here to make ice cream and I figured I’d better get started.

  Not bothering to turn off the computer, I went to the sink, washed my hands, then went over to the refrigerator. I grabbed a dozen eggs, heavy cream and milk. I placed them on the long aluminum prep table, then pulled down two bowls from the floating wooden shelf and plucked a whisk out of the drawer.

  I cracked an egg, starting the crème anglaise for the base of my ice cream. But I realized I’d need to take on a more taxing task than separating eggs if I wanted to keep my mind from wandering back to the murder.

  I thought about our suspects.

  My conversation with Ari confirmed Maisie’s and my suspicion of a motive. He didn’t want to deal with Stephen Bayard anymore. Through blackmail or any other illegal enterprise. And with him not being at work, even if he really was sick, he had opportunity.

  But using those same assumptions, so did my father. Daddy, I was sad to admit, had the motive, the opportunity and the means.

  Making him still the best suspect out of the two.

  I had nothing on Glynis other than the fact that she and her son were on the scene and she worked in a nursing home, and even though she knew Noah Bean, he didn’t seem to be her connection to the drug. And I just didn’t get how she could think it was okay to have her son lie and keep him from coming forward with what he knew. He had to know something. Have seen something. He was right there.

  I hit the last egg on the side of the bowl.

  So were you, Win, and you didn’t see anything . . .

  With Riya’s info on where the drug could and couldn’t be found, I’d probably have to cross Glynis Vale off my list.

  I sprinkled sugar over the eggs, held the bowl in my arm and started to whisk.

  Unless Glynis had help, I thought. Help from someone like Noah Bean. He seemed like a better accomplice for her than Danny, seeing as how he, with Riya’s code, could potentially get his hands on the drug. But from what I knew, which, granted, wasn’t much, Danny Clawson was the only one of the three who had a motive to kill him.

  Well, in my mind at least. Who knows? Maybe Stephen Bayard was a good father to him. Maybe Danny just felt bad about what Stephen did to the other shop owners in the village, and that’s why he helped them out. But he bore no ill will toward his stepfather.

  And if the detective was right, and people were usually murdered by people they knew, then I was sure it could be just about anyone Stephen Bayard had ever run into. It seemed he was always doing wrong to people.

  He’d wronged just about every shop owner in our little village.

  This was all too complicated.

  I put the bowl on the table and set the whisk down next to it. I picked up the eggshells
and walked over to the trash can. Putting my foot on the lever to open the lid, I realized that I could see why the police would give up and just choose the person most likely to have done it. I was starting to understand what O had told me about how police detectives just leave it to the prosecutors and jurors to sort things out.

  But with my father being a surgeon, if they just decided he was the “most likely,” there wouldn’t be anything for them to sort out. He was the only one out of all the people I suspected that I was sure could have gotten ahold of that drug.

  But, I thought as I absentmindedly poured the milk and cream into a saucepan and placed it over a low flame on the stove, Riya had said that a hospital or surgical facility wouldn’t be the only place to get it. There was always the illegal route.

  What am I supposed to do with that information?

  I got a wooden spoon and stirred the mixture as it heated up.

  I should probably trust Riya. That’s what I should do.

  When it came to the deadly drug succinylcholine, it seemed that Riya had the inside scoop.

  And Stephen Bayard certainly indulged in the illegal . . .

  I drew in a sharp breath.

  Ari had said that Stephen had come to town because he wanted him to do a job. What if the job was stealing drugs? What if one of the drugs they stole was succinylcholine, which Ari then used to kill him? Then the murder weapon, as Detective Beverly referred to it, wouldn’t have come from a place that did surgeries, like where my father worked.

  Something like that, another way that someone could get access to succinylcholine, might help my father get off the hook. Give those pesky prosecutors and jurors some other circumstantial evidence.

  I hurried over to my computer, sat down, but had to pop right back up. I’d forgotten to turn the eye off under my pot.

  I turned off the burner, set the saucepan on another eye, then went back to the laptop. I plopped down on the stool and grabbed the mouse.

  I decided to see if I couldn’t find something about succinylcholine being part of a robbery. Or something. If it had, it would have made the news. It would surely be on the internet. And maybe, fingers and ice cream scoops crossed, the theft would have happened a few days ago and right here in Ohio.