Death hits the fan

by Girdner, Jaqueline

  "But how'd the syringes hit the veins?" I muttered, squirming in my own chair, feeling the syringes piercing my own skin in spite of myself.

  "That's the beauty part," he replied. "Curare doesn't have to hit the vein. Subcutaneous is plenty, honey. Man, the stuff

  is powerful. Paralyzes the lungs, then whammo-kaboomo, respiratory failure."

  Felix was shaking his head admiringly now. I was feeling sick, thinking of Shayla's respiratory failure in front of us all. Suddenly, I couldn't breathe either. Because none of us had helped Shay la when she'd stopped breathing. My cat, C.C., jumped into my lap and dug a tentative claw into my thigh. My thigh popped upwards without permission. Was C.C. offering comfort or a curare-dipped nail? Whatever she was offering, the sting of feline reality jump-started my breathing again. I pulled her paw back and gathered her into my arms, pressing my face into her soft fur. She yowled half-heartedly, but put up with the humiliation of public affection. For the moment.

  "So, who would have access?" I asked through C.C.'s fur. That had to be the important question. I just hoped Felix had the important answer.

  Felix tilted his head and stroked his mustache.

  "Curare used to be a big friggin' wonder drug. Docs used the stuff for surgery. Poor suckers they worked on didn't move at all. But then the hoodoo-men found out it wasn't really a true anesthetic. That it just caused paralysis. Though the slice-and-dice docs still use it sometimes."

  Damn, that made me think of Dean. I didn't want to think of Dean.

  "Who else would have access?" I asked.

  "South American blow-pipe wizards?" Felix hazarded.

  I ran the suspects through a mental line-up. None of them were from South America as far as I could tell.

  "So what else did you dig up?" I asked. Felix was on a roll and I wanted him to keep rolling.

  "Vince Quadrini has more money than God," he answered. "Self-made zillionaire or something. He's a former plumber turned realtor. His wife bit the big one a few years back. He helped her with her homecare medication, if you

  know what I mean." He pantomimed an injection with his hand. "Now the guy's some kind of whoopdee-do philanthropist."

  "Yeah ..." I prompted. Keep his lips moving, I told myself.

  "Phyllis Oberman is super-twink acupuncturist and herbalist. And get this, she used to be an emergency-room nurse." He paused. "And that little gremlin's husband, Lou Cassell, he does his time as an accountant for a chain of hospitals. And he's trained in all kinds of emergency whiz-bang.

  "Then there's Dean Frazier, anesthesiologist extraordinaire." He paused dramatically.

  "Give, Felix," I commanded. I had a feeling we were getting to the sparring part now.

  "Dean was a friggin' paramedic in Vietnam." Felix went wild now, his hand imaginarily injecting a whole roomful of ghosts.

  "And Ted Brown's kid was sick. Big Daddy spent all kinds of time in the hospital with him before he died. And Zoe Ingersoll's sick, too. Some wacko disease."

  "So..."

  "Man, everyone and their friggin' iguana had access to syringes," Felix summarized.

  "But you want to hear the really gonzo part?" he added, smiling his Cheshire Cat grin.

  I nodded nonchalantly.

  Felix just kept smiling.

  I hoped I wouldn't have to beg too much.

  "What, Felix?" I asked softly.

  "The Man himself, Captain Cal Xavier of the Verduras cop shop." He paused again. I made an experimental growling sound in my throat. C.C. leapt off my lap as Felix's smile disappeared. "Holy socks, you're getting weirder than a turtle on amphetamines," he told me.

  I decided not to even try to understand his last sentence and growled a little deeper.

  "Okay, okay. Don't have an exorcism or anything," he said, then smiled again. "Captain Cal is running for mayor of Verduras. It seems that the chief of the Verduras P.D. is planning to be there a long time, so Captain Cal's got no upward friggin' mobility. So the captain's just going to hop right over the chief before the chief caks in the saddle. Mayoralty is Captain Cal's game."

  I nodded calmly and sagely, as my mind danced with the information. It did explain the smiles and the handshakes. Maybe.

  "Does he happen to have a brother named Bob?" I asked Felix, stretching my luck. I just hoped Felix wouldn't stop to ask why I wanted to know. He didn't.

  He leaned back and laughed instead. "Ah yes, brother Bob. Remember President Carter's brother Billy?"

  "Yeah..."

  "Well, that's brother Bob in a nutshell, or a plastic Baggie, as the legal case may be. The guy whose big brother is running for mayor ... is a lawyer. And just for extras, he's a drug lawyer. You got a little problem with your drug empire, call on Bob Xavier. Captain Cal is going out of his gourd. He'd probably take a hit out on the kid if he could."

  Now that was good news. Maybe angering Bob Xavier wasn't the same as angering Captain Cal Xavier. But you never know. Family loyalty suspends disbelief sometimes.

  "So what's the poop from Scott Green?" Felix asked, leaning forward, eyes gleaming. I knew then that my run of receiving information was over. I was no longer the givee. I was the giver. And Felix was the blunt object to make it all happen.

  Felix Byrne had wrung my brain dry and still wanted more details by the time Wayne came home from La Fete a

  L'Oiel, looking tired. He took one furrowed glance at me and my companion before escorting Felix out of the house.

  I was just feeling my brain come back to life, and mumbling my thanks to Wayne for the rescue, when Ingrid walked in the door.

  I tried to think of it as yin and yang. It was tai chi night after all. A balance in all things. So I didn't resist as Wayne led me gently down the hall toward bed.

  Tuesday morning, at four a.m., we woke to the smell of skunk. The gagging smell of skunk, poisoning the whole bedroom.

  "Arghmrmp!" Wayne roared through the pillow he held over his face.

  "Yemmmyuk," I replied, holding the covers over my own head and coughing.

  Some hours later, we agreed to the skunk broker's terms by telephone. He'd take our striped friends away on Saturday, he assured us. Saturday was five days too late as far as I was concerned, but the skunk broker was booked every evening until then. And as far as ethics went, ethics were gone. I didn't care if the man was just moving the skunks a block away. As long as he moved them.

  "But why can't he come earlier?" Ingrid complained nasally over morning Whol-ios. The nasal part I could sympathize with. The skunk smell was still strong enough to shut down the least sensitive nasal cavities. And Ingrid was nothing if not sensitive.

  "Make him come earlier," she ordered.

  Wayne and I just looked at each other, rose in unison, and took a ride in my Toyota.

  Luckily for Wayne and myself, Vince Quadrini's secretary informed us, Mr. Quadrini was an early riser and at his office when we arrived. She showed us in, over an expanse of plush carpet, where Mr. Quadrini sat behind a leather-

  topped desk big enough for a tennis match. Except that there was no net. Three cats sat in military precision in front of his desk.

  One of the cats stood up as we entered.

  "Down, Stan," he ordered. The cat sat down.

  I looked at Vince Quadrini with new respect. And with suspicion. He had given the cat an order and the cat had obeyed. Now it was our turn.

  "Please, take a seat," he said, standing up from his own throne and gesturing formally toward two deep leather seats that looked like they could swallow us without a trace. His voice was slightly less authoritarian than it had been with Stan. But just slightly. So we took our chances and lowered ourselves into the chairs. I felt like a rabbit in a boa constrictor as the chair slurped me up.

  Once we were consumed by leather, Mr. Quadrini took matters in hand politely, but firmly.

  "I asked you here today because certain information has come to my attention." He paused, narrowing his eyes in our direction. "Information that might prove useful
in your investigations."

  "Yes," Wayne said neutrally, respectfully.

  Mr. Quadrini sat back down in his own executive chair. Was it my imagination, or was his chair at least two feet higher than ours?

  "Ms. Phyllis Oberman went to high school with Shayla Greenfree," he told us. "A fact the police seem to find insignificant, although Ms. Oberman claimed no former connection with Ms. Greenfree."

  I mulled over his words. Phyllis Oberman, acupuncturist, former emergency-room nurse. Why would she have kept the relationship secret?

  "Maybe Phyllis didn't recognize Shayla," I suggested.

  Mr. Quadrini's eyebrows rose fractionally, but he made no comment.

  "I found out why Shayla called out my name," I told him. "And why / didn't recognize her."

  And then I poured out the story, the story I hadn't even told the police yet, under Vince Quadrini's stern gaze. It wasn't until I was at the end of the story that I thought to wonder how Mr. Quadrini had found out about Phyllis Ober-man's former association with Shayla Greenfree.

  "Excuse me, sir," Wayne said politely. "But may 1 ask the source of your information?"

  Vince Quadrini smiled then. He really was handsome in his statesmanlike way, with strong solid features and a magnificent head of wavy gray hair.

  "You may certainly ask," the realtor replied just as politely. "But I'm afraid I can't answer."

  He rose from his seat again. All three cats rose with him. I had a feeling we were about to leave. If we could get out of the chairs.

  "Did you give your wife injections when she was . . . um . .. sick?" I stammered out.

  "No," he answered simply, his voice trembling, whether with anger or sadness I couldn't tell. "A visiting nurse gave her the necessary injections."

  He drew up his shoulders and smiled again.

  "It's been good talking to you both," he said. "Thank you for coming."

  "But—" I began.

  But what? I didn't even know what to ask this man.

  He walked around his desk and his cats triangulated themselves to surround him like a miniature honor guard. Or the Secret Service. I wondered for a moment if they carried weapons as they moved in lockstep with their master. And then we struggled out of the leather chairs and left Vince Quadrini's office.

  "Well, at least he told us something," I said to Wayne a few minutes later in the Toyota.

  "But why?" Wayne asked.

  That was a question neither of us could answer over our brunch at the Dancing Carrot Cafe. Not to mention who'd killed S.X. Greenfree. So we satisfied ourselves with blue tortilla, tempeh enchiladas with a habanero sauce that could blow a person's head off. But it didn't seem to clear our minds, though it did clear the skunk right out of our sinuses. Ivan Nakagawa, Marcia Armeson, Ted Brown, Yvette Cas-sell, Lou Cassell, Zoe Ingersoll, Dean Frazier, Winona Eads, Vince Quadrini, and the unforthcoming Phyllis Oberman. Wayne and I could make a case for each and every one of them. Envy, blackmail, spurned friendship . . . The possibilities were endless. Well, maybe not endless, but at least they lasted until we finished our final bites of spicy rice and beans.

  Then we went home to the smell of skunk and the artillery of Ingrid's voice.

  Wayne lasted less than ten minutes before leaving for work. Early. Very early.

  I decided to go to the library for the rest of the day. I wanted to study poisons, and the library still had books. Despite tax cuts. They even had phones, at least at the county library in the Frank Lloyd Wright Civic Center. Usually I avoided the Civic Center because it was too easy to get lost there. But skunks and Ingrid were enough. Lost in the Civic Center was better than found in our skunk habitat.

  I located the phones in the Civic Center lobby by the elevators. The Marin County Superior Court was located in the same building, so I had to wait my turn behind a line of briefcases. But then I was on the phone, dialing the number of the emergency-room nurse whose name Ann Rivera had given me.

  I took a big breath, ready to ask questions. And ended up talking to her answering machine. Right, she was probably working, like any sane person would be doing in the middle

  of a Tuesday. Any sane person without skunks and Ingrid to contend with.

  I dialed again, this time the local emergency poison-control center.

  "So, how would someone get hold of curare?" I dived right in, not wanting to waste an emergency person's time.

  "Why do you want to know?" she asked reasonably enough.

  "Well.. . there's been a murder and—"

  "Do the police know about this murder?" she demanded, her voice growing louder.

  "Well, yes—"

  "I want you to know we're tracing this call," the woman told me. There was a new tone in her voice now, anger. Anger flavored with anxiety.

  "Oh, well, thank you anyway," I said politely. I reminded myself that working with the public could be wearing.

  Then I relinquished the telephone booth to the next briefcase in line, hoping his fingerprints would obliterate mine.

  After that, I headed for the library. Quickly. But something funny happened on the way. I got lost. Now, there are those who swear that there are two parts of the Civic Center that don't match up, each set of floors being on a different level than the other set of floors. And then there are those who say that it's not a physical phenomenon at all, but a space/time warp that is only applicable to certain human beings. And some people just tell me I'm directionally challenged.

  Like the Marin County Sheriff's Department where I ended up.

  They all had a good laugh.

  "Whenever we get a missing persons report, the first place we look is the library," a pleasant woman in uniform told me.

  "And then we check the spaceships," a much less pleas-

  ant person in street clothes added, fah-hahhing and slapping his leg.

  At least they told me how to get back to my car.

  I came home sniffing for skunk. And Ingrid.

  "You stoooo-pid bitch!" someone shouted before I even got to the front stairs. "Keep your nose out of my business or you're gonna be real sorry, do you hear!"

  It wasn't Ingrid. It wasn't even a skunk.

 
  7 raised my eyes quickly. The woman on my deck was Marcia Armeson, Ivan Nakagawa's bookstore manager. And she was angry. More than angry.

  Her delicate features looked tight and skeletal, her thin lips nearly invisible as she screamed. And she was screaming, not just raising her voice or straining her lungs. The volume and pitch that emerged from her slender, designer-jeaned body seemed to pound the whole deck, not to mention my eardrums.

  I stopped at the bottom of the stairs as she screamed on.

  "... and what right do you have to be sticking your nose into my business!? I have sensibilities, you get it? Sensibilities . . ."

  As I took each stair carefully, one by one, I wondered if she might be physically dangerous, this woman of sensibilities. Does a bear relieve itself in the woods? Was Felix Byrne a reporter?

  I reminded myself to be relaxed and soft, suddenly sorry

  I'd missed tai chi class the night before. And alert, don't forget alert. Lessons of tai chi past reverberated in my head— be so relaxed and soft that there will be nothing for an opponent to hit —as I finally stepped onto the landing, my eyes on Marcia.

  "You just don't understand!" Marcia shouted as she lunged at me.

  And by the Tao, I was soft and relaxed. Just as Marcia would have hit me, I made a deep right turn from my waist and stepped back, so that she just brushed my hands and feet in passing.

  "You bitch!" she shrieked as she came to ground in the geraniums at the other end of the deck.

  Whoa, this stuff does work, I congratulated myself. Too soon. Marcia pulled herself out of the geraniums and came running at me from the other direction.

  I reversed engines and turned to my left quickly, stepping back again and giving Marcia a light helping hand to encourage her forward motion as she sped to the
opposite side of the deck, finally hitting the railing with a thump to her midsection.

  Unfortunately, the thump didn't knock all the air out of her. Though it did seem to knock some sense into her. She didn't run at me again. Instead she screamed from the railing.

  "How did you do that!?"

  "Marcia," I suggested, keeping my voice psychiatrically soothing with an effort. "Maybe if you calmed down, you could tell me what's upsetting you."

  "Upsetting me!? You just keep out of my business, that's all! Or you'll be sorry, I swear!"

  Then she crab-walked around me and skittered down the stairs.

  I waited until I heard Marcia's car start up and accelerate away before I collapsed onto the deck. I was no longer the

  energetic softness of tai chi. Now I was the pudding softness of postponed fear. Or maybe Jell-O, quivering and covered in a sheen of moisture.

  My ears were full of the sound of my own pulse. So full, I didn't hear Ingrid at first.

  "Psst." The sound finally filtered into my consciousness.

  "Psst, is she gone?"

  I looked up. Ingrid's eyes were wide as she peeked through four inches of doorway.

  "Were you there the whole time?" I asked her.

  "Yeah," she whispered. "That woman was really scary."

  "Did you call the police?" I demanded.

  "No," she answered. "I thought I'd wait and see what happened."

  I got up from the deck, dusting the remnants of fear from my pants, galvanized by new anger.

  "Did it ever occur to you to help?" I asked Ingrid as I made my way to the door.

  She began to close the four-inch gap in the doorway.

  "Ingrid!" I shouted. "You can't shut the door on me. This is my house. I have keys!"

  "Oh," she said and opened the door again.

  "Are you gonna call the cops now?" she probed as I pushed my way past her into my own home.

  "I certainly ..." I stopped. If I called the local police, I wasn't sure what good it would do. And if I called Captain Cal... I shook my head. I didn't even want to think about it. And then there was Wayne to consider. If Ingrid kept her mouth shut, hopefully, he'd never hear about Marcia. "Probably not," I finished up.