“Oh my God! It’s perfect! Tell him that you’ll do it but you need a day before the test to clear out your system or something. I don’t know, just find an excuse to put it off for a day. Then switch the elixir with water and bring the real elixir home with you.”
“Why in the world would I want to do that?”
“Don’t you see? This could solve everybody’s problem. You pretend the elixir is working. You have the chance to show Andrew how you really feel. Then pretend it wears off, forcing him to go back to the drawing board. By the time he’s had a few doses of seduction Bernie-style he’ll forget all about Heidi.”
Bernie frowned. “I can’t do that. He’ll either want to go on forever, until the formula works, or until I have to tell him it was all a hoax. Either way, I lose him.”
Judy pulled back in the driveway and they went inside to the kitchen.
“But wait. That was only half my plan. Bring the elixir home and you can test it out on me.” Judy stretched the moccasin out on the counter and began to gut it. She peeled off the skin so she could tan it for a belt.
“Don’t you see? It’s perfect. Andrew still gets his elixir so you two can be rich, you get to keep Andrew, and I get to keep whatever I catch.” Bernie started chopping the snake meat with a cleaver then dumped the chunks into a stew pot.
“Well I suppose it could work. But what if there are side effects? He’s only tested it on mice so far.” Bernie dumped a box of Zatarain's Gumbo mix in with the snake chunks and started to measure and pour six cups of water.
“Well you said there’s an antidote, right?” Judy got out a hammer and some small nails. They went out to the back porch. Bernie held the one-inch by six-inch board steady as Judy carefully stretched the skin and tacked it down every few inches.
“I don’t know. When he tests me, I’ll have to pretend that it works. I’ll have to seduce him. I can’t do it.”
“Well, it’s that or lose him to Heidi.” Judy drove home the last nail. She rubbed salt all over the skin, working it in little circles.
“I know you’re right. But what about you? There really could be side effects. How can I tell Andrew about them without giving up the whole game?”
“We’ll just have to do his research for him. And any side effects we encounter, you’ll just have to find a way to imitate in the fake tests.” Judy winked knowingly, as she held open the screen door for Bernie as they went back inside.
“I suppose it could work. But, Judy, why on earth would you want to do this?”
“Are you kidding me? You even have to ask. Look at my track record: an ex-con, a dwarf, and a hemophiliac who nearly died in a freak Frisbee accident.”
“Yeah, I guess I see your point. You could use the help as much as I can.”
“So, are we going to do this thing?”
“All right, but we’ll have to do all of our research here at the house.” Bernie began surveying the room. “I have three wireless cameras that we can hide in here. We can conduct the experiments in the living room and I can monitor the whole thing on the computer from my bedroom.”
Judy went into the kitchen to stir the gumbo and grab a bottle of beer from the fridge. “Hey, you want a beer?” Judy hollered.
Bernie was busy foraging around the top shelf of her closet. “Yeah, that sounds good,” she replied.
Bernie returned to the kitchen carrying a small, black-plastic carrying case. Judy popped the top on a beer and handed it to her friend.
Bernie opened the case and got out the three miniature cameras. “Now let’s see, we probably want a view of the couch from three different angles.” Bernie got a kitchen chair and installed the first camera in the fluffy bird’s nest on the perch of her cuckoo clock.
“You know Bernie, the more I think about it the more I realize just how huge this could really be.”
“And how’s that?” Bernie asked, over her shoulder as she fiddled with the fiber optic lens until she was sure it couldn’t be seen.
“Think about it for a minute. I mean, if you had a man completely under your spell it would make life a heck of a lot easier.”
Bernie moved the chair while she listened. She unscrewed the cover to the air-conditioning vent and situated the second camera. Bernie checked the angle to make sure it was catching a full view of the couch.
“You wouldn’t have to shave your legs if you didn’t want to. Hell, for that matter, not even your armpits. You could eat as much chocolate and ice cream as you wanted.”
Bernie climbed down and perched on the edge of the couch peering up at all angles, making sure the camera was invisible, lest the unsuspecting test subject figured out what they were up to.
“Go ahead, I’m still listening,” Bernie said as she stared at the third wall. It was blank. She needed something to disguise the camera so she could hang it from the wall.
“Don’t you see? This could be limitless. We could send men to the store for tampons. We could get them to cancel ESPN. Hell, we could get full control of the remote. My God! It just occurred to me; if we could keep this elixir out of the hands of men, we could rule this planet.”
Bernie pulled the candleholder off the wall in the bathroom and sized it up on the living room wall. “Yeah, but keeping it out of the hands of men would be nearly impossible.” Bernie plopped down on the couch and sipped her beer. She began carving out the inside of the candle to make room for the camera.
“Yeah, you’re right. And you know what the first thing they would do is? Convince us that it tastes like chocolate.”
Bernie spewed a mouthful of beer on the coffee table. “Judy!”
“Am I lying?” Judy grinned.
Bernie turned three shades of red as her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I mean, at the very least they would have us believing that we’re always in the mood.” She clicked the remote to activate the three hidden cameras. The tiny, flashing-red light was invisible on all three.
“Wow. You should work for the CIA.” Judy turned off the heat on the gumbo and got two bowls out of the cupboard.
“Hey, come and check this out before we eat.” Bernie called from her bedroom.
Judy popped in and sat on the corner of the bed while Bernie typed away furiously at the keyboard for a few minutes.
“Viola!” she announced, as three separate boxes appeared on her computer screen. Each contained a different view angle of the couch.
“Wow, you’ll be able to see the whole thing.” Judy giggled and nudged Bernie’s shoulder.
“Hey! This is for the advancement of science.” Bernie’s lips curled up into a devilish smile at the corners of her mouth.
“Oh wait! One last thing.” Judy dashed out into the backyard and returned with a catchpole and a roll of electrical tape.
“Just for a worst-case scenario.” Judy leaned the pole against the edge of Bernie’s computer desk.
“So who did you have in mind as our first test subject?”
Chapter 4
Manning put the top down again as soon as the brief storm blew itself out. The sun cooked off the raindrops on the asphalt like a frying pan. Rain barely hit the ground before turning to muggy humidity. Debra pulled into her spot in the two-level garage below police headquarters. She caught the elevator and headed straight to Frazier’s office. “Captain.” Debra said, and took a seat in front of the desk.
Frazier let out one long significant sigh to let everyone know he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. It was garbage, of course. The only weight he carried was an extra forty pounds around his middle. The source of his angst was the prospect of being a fat, angry, balding police captain on the losing-end of divorce number three. He was estranged from his children and his career had hit a glass ceiling. Only the crushing weight of alimony kept
him from hanging up his badge.
“So where are we at on the bombing?” he finally asked.
“Right now we have virtually nothing. The M.E. can only speculate that we have three dead, two lab techs and a neighbor lady across the street. There is nothing but ash and bone fragments for him to examine. He found a molar with the root intact so we may have one viable DNA sample. All of the tooth and jaw fragments have been taken to Oscar for a forensic profile, but he already called and told me it’s not enough for a reconstruction. He’s comparing the fragments to the records of Andrew McGee and Bernadette O’Malley, the chemists named on the lease. I’m heading over to the O’Malley residence as soon as we’re through here.” Debra glanced down at her notes.
Frazier could barely disguise the contempt in his eyes. He knew Manning was twice the cop he ever dreamed of being and he despised her for it.
“So what about the explosive?” he demanded gruffly.
“I was coming to that. So far, it has our boys at the lab stumped. They ran it through the mass spectrometer and got some strange results that came back with two chemicals they can’t identify. They still aren’t sure if this is just an accidental lab explosion or some sort of attack. I’m taking a sample of the residue to the FBI lab on my way to the O’Malley’s. We’ll see what they can make of it.”
Frazier snorted with contempt. Any mention of the FBI got his ire up and brought down his derision. Twenty years ago, he had applied to the FBI and they politely but dismissively told him that he wasn’t what they were looking for. Frazier had hated the FBI ever since. He balked at cooperating with them, but he knew that on a case of this magnitude he had no choice. Not working well with others was what got his file flagged at the FBI in the first place, and it was the primary reason he would never rise to a rank higher than captain in the police force.
“I’ve got calls in to everybody: FBI, CIA, NSA, and DOD. Somebody must have a clue what this stuff is and where it came from. If it was terrorism, the target seems unusual. They killed two chemists, a retired English teacher, and destroyed a thirty-year-old building.” Frazier stroked his chin back and forth, letting out a noxious “hmmm,” as if he was considering something deep and profound. “So what’s your take?” What is your gut telling you?” He needed an intelligent opinion to kick upstairs and he couldn’t produce one himself.
“Right now I’m leaning toward a simple lab accident. I think somebody’s top-secret research blew up in their faces. I seriously doubt that whoever it belonged to is going to cop to it.”
Frazier frowned and nodded knowingly. Another “hmmm” then he asked, “What brought you to that conclusion?”
Debra drew a deep breath. She found Frazier tedious. This was a waste of her valuable time. He just wanted something for which he could take credit, and Debra knew it.
“Well two things. First, this explosion was unlike anything anyone has ever seen. That sort of research takes big funding. Second, is the location, it was such a nondescript little lab and well off the beaten path. It just strikes me as odd. It had to be top secret. If the city had any inkling someone was toying with something that dangerous, they would never have permitted it near a residential neighborhood.”
Frazier nodded with his usual asinine smug approval. “Okay, it sounds like you’ve got a solid handle on this. Oh, by the way, I need you to run the Doc Robber case-file down to Detective Kane in Robbery. Let Kane and Meacham take another run at it. I’m going to need you to give your full attention to this bombing deal.”
As she expected, the ass-holes in robbery would get their case back, and Frazier telling her to take the file down to them was just another dig at her.
Manning left the Captain’s office and went to her desk. She pulled open the bottom drawer and barely caught herself before she shrieked. Inside the drawer, lying on top of a dinner napkin was a dead, stiff rat. It’s cold, lifeless eyes stared up at her.
Debra quickly scanned the room. The five or six people milling around wouldn’t look at her. They just snickered under their breath. Debra scooped up the rat with the napkin and threw both in the trash with a disgusted shake of her head.
This had been going on for weeks. A case Debra had disintegrated when two kilos of coke went missing from the evidence room before going to trial. Ever since, she placed tracking devices inside each cache of dope or drug money that now went to the evidence room.
It took about three weeks to track a fresh bundle of hundred dollar bills to the home of vice-squad’s Detective Loman. Debra put him under surveillance and caught Detective Marcel and Sergeant Sandoval with their hands in the cookie jar as well. Loman and Marcel were in county lock-up awaiting trial. Sandoval took the easy way out. He went home and ate his gun, leaving a splash of brain spray for his wife and kids to clean up.
Detective Debra Janine Manning was now persona-non-grata with her fellow boys in blue. Roberts, her partner, had applied for a transfer a week earlier, and it was granted. So now, Debra worked alone. That was all right with her. Roberts was always more of a dead weight hanging around her neck than a partner anyway.
Still, Debra was rapidly concluding that it was time for her to move on. Now, whenever she responded to a call that might involve gunplay, she kept her fellow officers in front of her where she could see them. It was her way to keep from accidentally taking a slug in the back of the head, in a friendly-fire mishap.
Debra grabbed the file on the Doc Robber case and walked downstairs to dispatch. Jasmine, or Jazz to her friends, was one of the few people in the building still on Debra’s good side.
“Hey, Jazz, I need you to do me a solid.”
The chunky, black woman with kind eyes and an infectious laugh looked up. “Debra. How you doin’, girl?”
“I’m okay. Hey, listen, can you burn a copy of this for me and tuck it in the center drawer of my desk and then give the original to Kane in Robbery?” Debra handed her the key to her desk drawer. She removed a Post-it-Note from the first page of the file and jammed it in her pocket. She passed the folder over.
Jazz winked at her as she took it. “No problem, sugar.” She knew what was up.
Debra had the time and address of a swanky high-society charity ball written on the Post-it-Note. It was just a hunch, but her gut was telling her, that this was the way the Doc Robber found his victims.
His information was too precise. He had to be rubbing elbows with the high-society types he robbed. He must be one of them or somebody passing as one. He was someone these people felt comfortable opening up to. They revealed personal information to him that he then used against them. He must be beyond reproach. Even after the robberies, the victims couldn’t or wouldn’t come up with a name or a face of anyone who aroused their suspicions.
“Thanks, Jazz.” Debra went out to her car and made the short drive over to the FBI Miami field office. She pulled open the thick, glass door. The cold air-conditioned breeze stunned her system after being out in the blazing sunshine.
“Jen, I need to see Franklin. Is he in?” Debra asked the receptionist.
“Sure, Detective Manning. Let me see if he’s available.” “Go on back, Detective,” she said, after seeing that Franklin was off the phone.
“Thanks.” Debra stepped into Franklin’s office and quietly took a seat.
“Detective Manning. How the hell are you?” Franklin gushed.
“I’m good, Franklin.”
He looked knowingly into her eyes. He knew things were anything but good. He hoped that was the reason she was here.
“I caught the bombing case over on Citrus. And I’m hoping your boys can tell us a little more than our lab did.” Debra slid the small, clear cellophane sample bag across the desk. Franklin picked it up and examined it. “Sure, no problem.”
Franklin was performing his role as FBI liaison to the MDPD. But his thoughts
were following the sub-text conversation.
Debra read him like a book and responded. “I haven’t made up my mind yet. I’m definitely leaving the force. There’s no question about that. But I’m just not sure what I want to do next.”
The restlessness Franklin always saw in her eyes was now more intense. The feeling that there was something wild, something primal, something too powerful to unleash in her, sent a shiver down Franklin’s spine. He saw her tightly controlled passion. A fire burned in Debra. A fire hot enough to consume whoever it touched. He imagined she could crush his head like a walnut, in the heat of passion, if she ever really let go. My God . . . what a fine way to die.
“Franklin, did you hear me?” Debra pulled him back to reality. She knew what he was thinking. It tickled her. She liked Franklin. He lusted after her, but was secure enough not to try knocking her down the way a lot of guys did.
“I’ll put a rush on it with the lab. Now about the other thing. I ran your file by the chief. He liked it. We want you here Debra. You’re exactly the caliber person the FBI needs. You just say the word and the job is yours.”
Debra smiled at the news. It felt good to feel respected again. The constant harassment she was enduring was beginning to take its toll. She might be ‘super cop’, but she was still a human being. Having her colleagues turn on her, for doing the right thing, ended up being more difficult to deal with than Debra had imagined. But she didn’t really think about it. It had been the right and honorable thing to do. So, she did it. There was nothing to think about, and she would do it again, regardless of the fallout. Her father may have been a borderline lunatic, but he instilled in his daughter, a code of honor and an unswerving commitment to duty, respect, and honesty.
Good Chemistry Page 3