Killer on Call 6 Book Bundle (Books 1-6)

by Gwendolyn Druyor

  “I can still arrest you,” Avi warned him. Then he said, “Oh, and whatever you do, make sure nothing’s recording the back alley.”

  Then he left.

  Twenty-two

  Kissy tried to list the drugs that they’d given to Kevin Koehler as she watched him thrashing on the ground. She gotten the patch back onto his neck and then was pulled away as a crowd had gathered to watch while the mayor dropped to his knees to help. His security men quickly pulled him away from the body when the medical student regular, Davis, got on the ground. Davis held Koehler’s head firmly between his knees.

  Kissy knew she’d served the man three G and Ts, though she was wearing one of them. She’d watched him take a little blue pill. He’d had one sip of the Rohypnal spiked drink. And he was wearing a truth serum patch.

  When the seizure passed, she knelt by the med student and wiped Koehler’s forehead with a bar towel. “What can I do to help?”

  “Do you know what he was drinking? I mean I think it would be helpful if we could make him regurgitate but I’d be worried about inducing another seizure.”

  “Let’s not jump straight to sticking a finger down his throat.” A sharp featured woman with a straight black ponytail hanging halfway down her back set a heavy case on the floor and flipped it open while her partner started a physical exam on Koehler. Both wore the uniforms of the only ambulance service in town.

  The woman gave Kissy a quick up and down. “You’ve been serving him?”

  “G and Ts. He’s had,” Kissy thought about it again, “maybe five since I’ve been here. He may have had more before I got here. I can ask the other bartender.”

  “And he said he took something for motion sickness,” Avi added from right behind Kissy. When she looked up at him he tilted his head as if telling her to clear out. She stood.

  The second EMT pulled the patch from Koehler’s neck. Kissy tried not to enjoy the sound of it ripping off his skin.

  Ponytail was going through the patient’s pockets. She held out one gloved hand to take the patch from her partner. “A Scop patch would be my guess. Okay, so he was mixing alcohol and mild barbiturates.” She pulled a sparkly candy ring from Koehler’s right hand pocket. “And a little Exstabee. Nice. That’s deadly all on its own.”

  Kissy stopped. She recognized the club drug from her first experience with a KC assignment. “I thought that factory got blown up.”

  She should know. She’d been inside it.

  “It didn’t get the rings that had already been distributed. We’re still seeing them all over town. A party drug made with poison.”

  “Poison?”

  “Belladonna is a primary ingredient.”

  “Would that be a downer or an upper?” Kissy asked, trying to keep the score clear in her head.

  The male EMT finally spoke. “That would be stupid.”

  Kissy nodded. She was about to slip away through the crowd but she remembered and turned back. She said, perhaps louder than was necessary, “He also took an erection pill a while ago.”

  Every single one of the people in the small crowd looked at her and then at Kevin Koehler’s crotch. Then all eyes were drawn up to his face as the coach began foaming at the mouth.

  Twenty-three

  “We have to get him to the hospital.” Jen, the ponytailed medic and her partner Curt stood to lower the rolling gurney.

  “No!” Avi shouted.

  The EMTs froze. The crowd murmured. And Kissy whipped her head around to stare at Avi.

  “We can’t let him leave until we’ve found Moira,” he hissed to Kissy alone.

  “Yeah, but--“ He saw her trying to think of any way to make them stay and realized he was on his own.

  He stepped forward, apologizing to the EMTs. “I’m sorry Jen, Curt. But this doesn’t look like simply drugs. If there is some airborne contagion causing the seizures we can’t risk spreading it to the general population by allowing this man to leave.”

  “This is undignified, Officer Kee.” Mayor Sutton defied his security men and came forward to speak with the EMTs. “Go ahead and put him on the gurney.”

  “If we’re dealing with some kind of biological weapon, sir—“ Avi began.

  Before he could finish, they were all riveted by a muffled explosion at the rear of the restaurant. Avi and the mayor began running for the back.

  “Sir!” The mayor’s security detail raced after him. “You can’t do that!”

  The security reached the mayor and stopped him just as Dick Dave ran out of the kitchen and collided with Avi. One of the two muscled men turned and grabbed Dick. In the scuffle, only Avi saw Tim burst out of the Big Brother room, bounce off the flour, and make a beeline for the back door.

  He stood and made sure everyone’s attention stayed away from the back hallway. “Dick! What’s going on? Are you trying to sabotage the future governor?”

  The larger of the security men had Dick’s arm jammed up behind his back. Dick just bowed forward over his Santa Claus stomach. He didn’t struggle. The other guard walked the mayor back to the front of the restaurant and his buddy followed, pushing the owner of The Freckled Dog awkwardly in front of him. Avi worried about the kid he’d left in the back alley, but joined them at the front to protect Dick who was protesting his ignorance even as he tried to walk while bent double.

  “I don’t know what that was. I was coming out to see that the mayor was safe.”

  “Let him go, Doug. He’s a good man.” The mayor called off his overeager gorilla.

  The mayor himself didn’t wait to see his orders followed. He headed back to where Koehler still lay on the floor. But just as he knelt beside the medics, everyone was startled again by what sounded like a hundred mattresses being dropped behind the building, followed by a clattering as though a cat were running through a precarious mountain of garbage cans. The building rocked on its foundation and customers and waiters alike dove to the ground as white smoke billowed from the back hallway.

  Avi found he had leaped forward and grabbed Kissy, tucking her safely under him as he hit the ground. Only the security guards had anything close to a similar reaction and they too stared around in awe from where they had landed on either side of Mayor Sutton.

  Such a spell had fallen over the small crowd in the restaurant, first with the mayor’s visit followed by Coach Koehler’s collapse and then the quiet explosion that they didn’t immediately start screaming in a panic and fleeing to the street. Most everyone was already at the front of the restaurant near the open garage doors where Koehler had collapsed. And practically all of them dropped to the ground, covering their heads. But that was it.

  Avi saw a few people crawling through the doors to the front patio seating area though the female security guard wasn’t letting anyone out there leave. Jen slipped a gas mask on faster than you can say smallpox. Meanwhile the mayor had thrown himself over Koehler’s body and seemed to be checking him for injuries. One sad old woman stayed on her stool at the bar staring into her wine.

  Twenty-four

  Tim watched Avi leave and immediately turned to look for any screen showing the back alley or hallway. All he saw were views of inside the restaurant, the front patio, and the valet stand. An ambulance pulled up as he watched and two EMTs rolled a gurney through the couches and fire pits on the patio to the open garage doors. He watched Avi talking to patrons as he made his way up to Kissy and Koehler’s too still body. The cop wasn’t carrying a portable defib even though Tim knew he’d spotted one in the kitchen. But then maybe he’d heard the EMTs arrival on his radio. Tim chuckled to himself. He’d never imagined he’d be working with a goody two-shoes cop. A crooked cop, sure. That he could fathom. But as he thought about it, Tim realized that he’d forgotten his own code. He was a good guy. Of course anyone he let in on his gigs would have to be a good guy too.

  “Tim!” Julia’s hiss brought him back to the present job. “I’m outside the yellow building off Lake.”

  “Well done. Can you get i
nside?” he asked, pulling the keyboard out and setting it on the console in front of himself.

  “Working on it. The store is closed,” she said.

  Tim heard Julia’s walking cast crunching through rubble as she looked around the building.

  “Windows barred up and everything. Really nice graffiti,” she reported as he typed, pulling up rows and rows of time coded digital video files. “Oh! I can break a window in the side door and reach the knob.”

  “Don’t hurt yourself. Find a rock or—” Before he could finish his sentence, Tim heard the sound of breaking glass and then his sister cheered quietly.

  “I’m in.”

  Tim regretted getting his sister involved. He could handle putting himself in danger. He’d been suicidal when he started this gig after all. But Julia shouldn’t be breaking into abandoned buildings in a druggie neighborhood. Although, the fact that she’d had to break in was a good sign that there were no squatters or addicts inside.

  “Tim, this place is a mess and it’s dark. I’m gonna kill myself trying to find her.”

  In the distance through the phone, Tim heard sirens. In his heart, he cheered. “Then get out. The fire department’s on their way.”

  “Moira!” Julia ignored him. “Moira!”

  “Julia! Get out of there,” he repeated. “Rescue teams are coming.”

  “That’s a good thing, dickhead. I’m not a criminal,” she pointed out. “Hold on. I hear something. Moira!”

  Tim gave up trying to figure out how to erase the footage of he and Kissy’s exchange with the scopolamine patch. Listening intently to his sister banging her way through the abandoned store, he rolled the kill switch out of its little cubbyhole and fiddled with the plastic cover. On the screens in front of him, he watched diners leaving their meals to crowd around the drama at the front of the restaurant. Koehler had started foaming at the mouth.

  “Moira!” Julia screamed with excitement. “She’s here Tim! She’s here! Are you okay, Moira?”

  Tim leaped from his seat and punched the air, careful not to hit the kill switch. “Is she okay, Julia?”

  “There’s another door. I have to find something—”

  Tim missed the end of her sentence. He was suddenly thrown forward as the floor rumbled from a dull concussion nearby. It took him a moment to realize the sound had been on his end of the line. In that same moment, all of the monitors in the array before him flickered and blinked. Then one by one the each blanked out and came back to life displaying static. Tim looked down at the kill switch he’d been playing with. It had been flipped.

  Distantly he heard Julia’s voice yelling, “Moira says she’s tied to the stairs. I’ve put you in my bra so I can find something to break this door with.”

  The sirens were so loud they were drowning out his sister’s voice.

  Tim slipped the plastic cover over the switch and slammed it back into its cubbyhole. Then he screamed into the phone as he dashed out of the room, “The fire department’s there, Julia! Wait for them! They’ll have tools.”

  “Tim!” Julia was out of breath but clearly holding the phone again. “The fire brigade is here. They have tools.” There was a long pause while Julia talked to the firemen.

  Tim burst out of the Big Brother room, bouncing off the sacks of flour stacked along the walls of the hallway. He found his footing and dashed out the back door where he found a tall skinny teenager dripping from head to toe in garbage. He was standing stunned beside a stack of round metal garbage cans backed by a couple dumpsters. One dumpster had been flung away and was resting beside the building, plaster and brick still falling around it. By the time the kid realized he was there and leaned into a run, Tim had him by the arm.

  “What the hell, kid?”

  The boy started apologizing, saying he was just messing around. “My chem teacher gave me some homemade thermite. I just added a little copper powder.”

  Tim ignored him, trying to hear what was going on at Julia’s end of the line. Finally he heard her yell, “I’m not going anywhere. Just get her out of there.” When she came back on the line she spoke in a whisper. “Cops are here too. They want to know what I’m doing here.”

  “You heard a noise,” he told her.

  “Behind two locked doors in a building five blocks from my circus school?”

  The scarecrow looking boy kept blubbering about not meaning to hurt anything, he didn’t know it was dangerous and so on. Tim shook him. “And you accidentally stacked all the garbage you could find to use as shrapnel? No one’s gonna buy it, kid.”

  “Tim,” Julia implored. “Why am I here?”

  “You went for a walk,” he insisted.

  “In a cast?”

  “Avi will be fired if you tell them we sent you there.” He recalled Avi telling him to keep the cameras from recording the back alley and saw the kid and his accidental bomb in a whole new light. “You’re with Avi.”

  “I’m Conner,” the kid said, desperate. “He thought I could help. I didn’t mean for—“

  Julia’s voice dropped to the tone she used when talking to him like he was slow. “Big brother, they think I’m a drug addict.”

  “Shut up,” Tim said to the kid so he could think. To his sister he said, “They can’t arrest you for liking chocolate, pot, and red wine.”

  “They can arrest me for liking pot,” she pointed out.

  “You don’t have any on you, do you?” he asked his sister. Then he asked Conner, “Have you ever been fingerprinted?”

  The kid said, “Yes.” And went on to explain how the police had come in one day to fingerprint all the kids in case they ever got lost.

  But Tim didn’t hear it over his sister admitting, “Just a small joint.”

  “Oh my god, Julia! You knew we called the fire department and they were coming! What kind of idiot—“ He stopped shouting when he heard her laughing. Then he had to pull the phone from his ear when she squealed.

  “Moira!”

  Tim winced. How would she explain knowing the girl’s name to the cops? His sister was totally gonna be arrested.

  “Thermite?” He asked Conner letting go of his arm.

  “Yeah.” Conner stayed where he was, glancing over the remains of the chaos that could have been a seriously awesome display of teenage angst.

  Tim looked around along the back wall of the building until he found a water spigot with a hose attached. He twisted the knob to start the water flowing but kinked the end so that pressure built up inside the hose

  Suddenly Julia was back on the phone. “Thanks for hanging with me Dad. It’s all good now. The noise was a girl. Moira, from one of my intro circus classes. She doesn’t remember me right now but she looks kinda banged up.” She started speaking more quickly. “The cops want to talk to me now. Maybe I’ll see you later at the station?”

  Tim held the hose up and hissed at Conner, “Run.”

  The kid hesitated only a second before he took off down the alley.

  And then a gruff male voice was on the line. “Who is this?”

  Tim hung up. He tossed the phone into the garbage can and sprayed it with water. Then he threw himself through the back door of The Freckled Dog. The force of the steam explosion burst past him and hit the stacks of flour bags in the hall. The bags exploded and Tim abandoned any hope of closing the backdoor. He dove for the men’s room and, coughing out a lungful of flour, climbed on the toilet to reach the small window high on that wall.

  Twenty-five

  Even as the air cleared, frightened speculation rippled through the crowd of lightly dusted guests.

  The wife of the smart phone couple wailed, “oh god, is it anthrax?” but didn’t move from where she lay.

  “Ricin?” asked an older man who’d taken his martini with him to the floor. He lifted the coaster he’d held over the rim and took a sip.

  A younger man suggested, “I’ll bet it’s that new weaponized Botox.”

  And an obligatory whiney voice called out, �
��I want to speak with the manager.”

  “Is everyone safe?” Mayor Sutton sat up from under the two security personnel who’d pulled guns and protected him while he’d been covering Koehler’s body. Jen helped the mayor up and checked him over while Curt, also wearing a gas mask, returned to treating Koehler.

  The mayor wiped his eyes with a pristine handkerchief and slipped it back into his pocket. He stood against the advice of his security detail, brushed off his pants, and looked around until he located Avi helping Kissy to her feet.

  “Officer Kee. Don’t go investigate,” the mayor ordered. “Stay and guard Mr. Koehler. If there was a biological attack we need to keep eyes on the first victim.”

  Avi nodded and squeezed Kissy’s arm reassuringly before he stepped over to where Jen and Curt were lifting Koehler onto the lowered gurney. She wondered why he’d stayed to protect her. It would have been more in character for him to race into the face of the explosion to catch the criminals. The she realized he must have known there was going to be an explosion. As a distraction? To get everyone away from Koehler so they could question him privately? Kissy decided the most helpful thing she could do was get all these people away from the teacher in case he started talking again.

  “We can’t leave, but let’s all head out to the front patio,” she shouted to the crowd. “The air looks clear out there.”

  The smart phone husband argued, “The air looked clear when Coach Koehler fell over. What guarantee is that?”

  “It’s okay!” Tim, wearing a chef’s smock and thick glasses, covered from head to toe in white powder, pat the husband on the back as he came around the bar to the crowd backing away from Koehler’s gurney. “There’s nothing here to be frightened of,” he reassured them all with a strange accent. “This is a damping agent to counteract most possibly airborne bacillus agents, as harmless as flour.”

  “Because it’s flour?” Kissy could barely hear Avi ask privately.

  “Because it is,” Tim confirmed in a whisper, “flour.”