He got up, walked back up the hall to the bathroom, and opened the medicine cabinet. “Well, Jacobson was right. Here’s a bottle of Happiness, just like the others. Damn, I’m good.” He took down a large bottle of pills marked Investigational Drug, Happiness, Dose: 200 mg; CureStuff Pharmaceuticals and put it in his pocket before heading back to the red rocket and driving to CureStuff Pharmaceuticals for one last visit.
CHAPTER 21
Jason arrived at CureStuff as planned. On his way up to Dick Littlething’s office, he kept his eyes out for that little black dress. He was thinking, to himself for a change. He hoped to run into Dr. Grayson and was searching for a reason to interview her again. No way in this world could a woman that looks like that be a murderer, but she might have harmed Wendy Thompkins and Joanne Shipley because she was jealous of their relationships with Lance Harden. But why on earth would she want to kill random people like a construction worker, a NASCAR driver, an old lady, or a Starbucks barista? He failed to note that none of his other suspects, including doctors Littlething and Harden, had any obvious motive for killing those random people either, but why sweat the small stuff? They weren’t all that hot and didn’t fit into his midlife fantasies.
As Jason exited the elevator on Littlething’s floor, he thought he glimpsed a set of sleek, sexy legs, entering the adjacent elevator just before the doors closed. “Could that have been the lovely Dr. Grayson?” he mumbled to himself. “Would have been nice to get one more look, but that’s not why I’m here. A good PI would focus on the job, not on the anatomy of a woman that’s not even a suspect. Damn it, Jason, get it together.” Then he couldn’t help but push the elevator button to hold the doors open just in case those sleek legs had just entered. “Sorry,” he mumbled to the impatient, professionally dressed men and women in the elevator.
Dick Littlething’s administrative assistant showed Jason into the CEO’s office as soon as he arrived. Apparently, Littlething was anxious to please. This must be driving old Dick here crazy. He still thinks my visits have something to do with their upcoming drug license application. Oh well. It seems to be working in my favor.
Littlething stood to shake Jason’s hand, and then Jason once again sat down in one of the low guest chairs in front of the president and CEO’s desk. As before, Jason was eye level with Littlething. “Thank you for seeing me again, Dr. Littlething. I just have a couple more questions before I conclude my investigation, so I can eliminate you as a suspect.”
“Best to clear that up as soon as possible. Don’t want the FDA thinking I’m a criminal when we send you guys our application for a license for Happiness, our new antidepressant drug. Go ahead, ask your questions.”
“The last time I was here, you told me that you had bedded Wendy Thompkins and Joanne Shipley, that they had both willingly had affairs with you, and then you dumped them. However, when I spoke with each of them, they categorically denied this to be the case. They both said they refused your advances. And when I spoke with Tanya Grayson, she confirmed what Wendy and Joanne told me and said that you also tried to hit on her and she shut you down too. I want to believe that you’re innocent, but I need to know the truth. Did you or did you not sleep with these women? The answer to this question speaks to whether or not you had a motive to harm them.”
Littlething looked shocked at the bluntness of the question. He took a sip from the cup of coffee and realized that Jason had nothing to drink, and used this to try to deflect the question. “Would you like a cup of coffee, Detective Longfellow? I could have my assistant get you a cup.”
Jason responded, forcefully, “No, thank you. Please, answer the question.”
Littlething paused, then started to get agitated, visibly sweating, his hand shaking as he tried to take another sip of coffee. He looked Jason square in the eye.
“Damn, you’re a good-looking woman. How long’s it been since anyone satisfied you sexually? I’d like to give it a try. How about it? There’s no one here but the two of us.”
“Why, thank you. So, you did sleep with . . . hey . . . what? I’m a good-looking what?”
Littlething climbed down from his chair, walked around his desk to where Jason was sitting, put his hands on Jason’s shoulders and began to massage. “Such beautiful shoulders, and your neck, it looks delicious. I don’t know whether to lick, bite or suck on it. I want you. I want you bad, you sexy thing.”
Jason was still struggling with the turn that this interrogation had taken.
“Wow, that feels really good. You have strong hands. Wait, what the hell? Get your pervy hands off me.” Then it hit him. “You’ve been drugged! Someone slipped you the drug, and you’re hallucinating. I’m not a woman, you idiot. I’m Detective Jason Longfellow. Get off me!”
But Littlething was clearly under the influence of the same drug that must have been given to Thompkins, Shipley, and the others. The effects had kicked in big-time. Littlething began to stroke Jason’s hair while whispering sweet nothings in his ear. Jason stood up, hoping that his superior height would put a stop to this insane assault. He faced Littlething and said, “Doc, get a grip. You’re under the influence of a drug. Someone must have slipped it into your coffee. I’m not a woman, and I’m definitely not going to have sex with you. Back off, or I’m going to hit you in the head with one of these stupid little chairs of yours.” Jason gave Littlething a shove, but the little guy turned out to be stronger than Jason anticipated.
Littlething kept saying, “I want you. I want you bad. You are soooo hot.” He lunged at Jason, grabbed his right leg and began to hump it.
Jason, totally shocked by this, looked down at his leg. “Hey, that doesn’t feel half bad . . . I mean, get the hell off of me. You look like my neighbor’s full-sized poodle, Ralph. That little bastard humps everything in sight. He got that same leg once, so it’s not exactly virgin territory.” Jason lifted his leg and shook it, trying to get Littlething off of him, but the man clung for dear life.
Littlething kept humping away, saying, “Oh man, that’s good. Baby, you’re so hot. I’m gonna take you to heaven, and me along with you.” He humped faster and faster.
Jason finally reached over the top of Littlething’s desk, grabbed his cordless keyboard and beat the humping man over the head with it. Littlething just kept humping.
“Damn, man, your head must be hard as hell. I thought for sure that would stop you.”
Jason dropped the keyboard, shook his leg as hard as he could, gave Littlething a huge shove, and was finally able to dislodge him. Littlething fell down, never taking his eyes off of Jason’s leg. He sprung back up, quick as a cat, and headed for Jason again, saying, “Oh baby. Don’t be that way. I want to pleasure you so bad!”
At the last moment, Jason grabbed one of the chairs, jumped onto Littlething’s giant wooden desk, and used the chair to fend him off. Jason said, “Did you just growl at me? I could have sworn you just growled at me.” Then he yelled, “Help! Help! There’s a mad man in here, attacking my leg like a horny pit bull.”
Littlething’s administrative assistant dashed into the room. She saw Jason standing on Littlething’s desk, using a chair to fend off her boss. Littlething was saying, “Oh babe. Please, let me have it. I need it, bad. Please. Please. Give it to me!” She turned and ran back out of the office.
Jason yelled after her, “Call security! Dial 911.”
A few minutes later, security arrived, and one of the officers tasered Littlething. The police and the EMTs showed up about the same time, and they took Littlething away in an ambulance.
“Damn. Dr. Littlething really lost it,” one of the security guards told a policeman. “I never seen anything like that. He wanted that guy’s leg bad. Once we got here and restrained Dr. Littlething, the guy got down from the desk, and Littlething went nuts, broke away from us, and started humping his leg all over again. It took three of us to pull him off. I’m thinking the doctor had some sort of mental breakdown—either that or that tall guy had one hell of a good leg
for humping. Craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Jason still didn’t want to reveal his theory regarding the murders and the CureStuff drug until he was absolutely sure, so he told the police, “I don’t know what happened. I went into Littlething’s office, sat down, started asking him questions, and next thing I knew he ran around his desk and started humping my leg. Best I could tell, he thought he was a dog, and my leg was handy so he went after it. I’ve seen a dog go after a person’s leg, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen a people go after a person’s leg. Maybe he went off his meds. His company is apparently in danger of going bankrupt if their latest drug fails, so maybe he just cracked under the pressure. Studies have shown that when a company goes bankrupt, the president and CEO often goes off his rocker and starts humping someone’s leg. If there’s no more questions, I’ve got to drive home to Northern Virginia this evening, where my wife is probably going to kill me.”
CHAPTER 22
Jason got home late Monday night. He was as quiet as possible, so he didn’t wake Chelsea or the kids. He didn’t want to interrupt Chelsea’s sleep because she had to go to work in the morning, so he slept on the couch.
“Who am I kidding?” he mumbled very quietly. “I want to put off getting my ass handed to me until tomorrow, and if I go to work before she gets up, maybe she’ll forget she’s pissed at me by tomorrow night.”
So Jason, macho man that he was, took the brave way out. He set his alarm for four, got up well before Chelsea and the girls, and left for work. He told himself as he fired up the red rocket for his commute, “I know she’s mad at me, but I have the right to do what I want, and I really want to be a private eye. If she gives me any crap tonight, I’ll just have to put her in her place.” He knew this was just false bravado, but it made him feel better for the moment.
When he got to work, he waited until nine and called Joanne Shipley on her office phone. “Hi, Joanne. Jason here. How are you? I hope you’re doing better.”
She answered, “Hello, Jason. Thanks. I’m doing much better, although I’m not ready to start carpooling with you. I don’t know what happened to me that morning, and I’m not ready to trust anyone yet. Have you had any luck with the case? My husband is disappointed that we haven’t heard anything from you.”
They were talking on a government phone, so Jason figured it was most likely being tapped by at least twelve different government agencies. He wanted to be discreet, so he said, “I have a favor to ask. I’ve made progress in solving the case, and I need to meet with you. How about we have lunch together so we can talk. Say noon at Ruby Tuesday?”
She sounded suspicious and embarrassed. “Why do you want to have lunch with me, alone? Can’t we just talk on the phone? I’m not ready to talk to you face-to-face.”
“Please, Joanne. I’ve got something that I need to show you, so we have to meet in person. You might have to smell, touch, and taste it in order for you to give me what I need. Besides, I’ve forgotten all about your sexual escapades on our way to work a while back; you know, where you went crazy, unbuttoned your blouse and started rubbing my junk.” Jason still had some work to do on his people skills, but he really needed for her to identify the pills that he had collected from the victims to make sure they were the investigational drug Happiness.
Joanne almost hung up on him, but she was intrigued that he had made some progress on the case. Besides, what can he possibly do to me in the middle of a busy restaurant?
“Okay. If you insist. But I get to pick the seats. I’ll see you at Ruby Tuesday at noon.”
• • •
Jason walked to the restaurant since it was only three blocks from his office. It was a warm spring day, in the low 80s, and he was sweating by the time he got there. Joanne was already seated at a table in the center of the room. She was wearing a dark-blue head scarf, dark glasses and a long trench coat, presumably to prevent anyone from recognizing her.
“Hello, Joanne. Good to almost see you.”
“I know I’m a little overdressed, but I’m still not comfortable out in public. I don’t know what happened to me in your car that morning, but my shrink tells me it gave me PTSD, post-traumatic sexual dysfunction. I freak out every time a man looks at me, and my sex life with my husband is in the tank. So, what do you need?”
“Well, first of all, too much information. Second, I’m sorry you’re having problems, but you were the one that attacked me that morning. I should be the one with PTSD. And third, I’m one of the good guys, trying to figure out what happened to you, so please chill.”
She raised her eyes and looked at him sheepishly. “Sorry. I’m pretty sure you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just so scared and frustrated. Since I have no idea what happened to me, I’m terrified that it might happen again, and in public would be horrible. Please tell me you have some answers.”
“It’s a long story, but I’ll cut to the chase. I think that somehow, someone slipped you pills that caused that . . . well . . . hypersexual reaction. And I think there’s a connection to your previous employer, CureStuff Pharmaceuticals.”
“What? How can that be? The company’s in North Carolina, and I’m here.”
“I realize that. All I can tell you is that I interrogated several people at CureStuff and found there’s a clinical trial going on for a new drug called Happiness, for treatment of depression. I also discovered that there’ve been several deaths in North Carolina attributed to strange symptoms, ranging from those similar to yours to extreme sexual hallucinations. I visited families and friends of several of those victims, searched their homes, and in all cases I found bottles of pills that were marked as an investigational drug called Happiness with CureStuff Pharmaceutical’s name and logo on the label. I also discovered that you and Wendy Thompkins, the other CureStuff employee who experienced perpetual happy endings, both worked on that project at some point.”
Joanne looked surprised. “Of course I worked on the Happiness project. Half of the company was assigned to that drug. It’s supposed to be the savior of the company, worth millions. I don’t know about Wendy, but I was never a patient in those clinical trials. Until our infamous carpool ride, I have never been depressed a day in my life. And, to my knowledge, Happiness may have some side effects, but are you suggesting that unending spontaneous orgasms is one of them? I doubt any drug company would want that on the label or in a TV commercial, at least not when it’s uncontrollable and can lead to death. What would the warning say? If you experience orgasms for more than four hours, go to your doctor? Oh my God.”
“Calm down,” Jason said. “I don’t know about any side effects with Happiness, but someone at the company did tell me about an earlier antidepressant drug called Pleasuria that failed. One of the lab techs told me about a side effect of that drug in the rat studies—she called it hyper-humping—that was only found at the high dose and conveniently left out of the licensing application. I may be way off track here, but I brought with me a bottle of the pills labeled Happiness that I found at the home of one of the murder victims, and I was hoping you could confirm that they are actually the right pills. Would you be able to tell?”
“Yes, I think so. They were small, red, triangular pills with a large H stamped on the front and the CureStuff logo stamped on the back.”
Jason took the bottle of pills out of his pants pocket and handed it to Joanne.
“So, based on your description, these are not Happiness pills in this bottle.”
“These pills are round, blue, and the only identifying mark is the 200 imprinted on the front. Jason, these are definitely not Happiness pills. I think these pills are actually Pleasuria. The P is missing from the front, and the CureStuff logo should be imprinted on the back along with the dose, in this case 200 mg, but Pleasuria was a round, blue pill of this size. Dear God. If this is the high dose, 200 mg, it’s no wonder bad things have happened to anyone exposed to them. You’re right. I worked on the Pleasuria project, and the high dose in that study caused
rats to hump themselves to death. That’s why Wendy Thompkins refused to give the high dose to the patients in the clinical studies. It was CureStuff’s darkest secret. But how the hell did the Happiness meds get replaced by the old Pleasuria pills? More to the point, why did all of these victims have access to the pills in the first place? Happiness is an investigational drug, and only people participating in the clinical trial should have access.”
A light suddenly went on in Jason’s head, and it was so bright that his eyes crossed for a moment. “Holy shit! Maybe that’s what these victims have in common. They were all depressed, and they signed up for the Happiness clinical trial. If that’s the case, I wonder how they all found out about it.”
“CureStuff would have listed the clinical trial on a government website, and they may have run an ad campaign to announce the clinical trial to the public,” Joanne said. “That’s how they usually get patients for these trials, that and talking to a series of doctors that they have on their payroll as clinical trial consultants. So, theoretically the patients would have either contacted the company through the information provided on the website, in the advertisement, or been referred by one of the consulting docs.”
“Okay, but why would someone want to kill the patients in this clinical trial, and how the hell would they have managed to switch the pills? Also, since you weren’t part of the clinical trial and presumably Wendy Thompkins wasn’t either, how and why were you slipped Pleasuria pills? Have you been back to CureStuff since you left several months ago? Did anyone from your old company give you any pills recently?”
Pleasuria Page 17