The Case of the Lovable Labs

by B R Snow

  “I have a question,” Henrietta said.

  “Only one?” Chief Abrams said, glancing over at me.

  I made a face at him then looked back across the desk at Henrietta.

  “How will the killer, assuming for a moment that this person does actually show up, know you’re going to be in the east wing?”

  “Good question,” the Chief said, glancing over at Detective Williams. “Is that one on your list, too?”

  “It is,” the detective said.

  “I sort of let it slip on the ride back today that Bill was going to be there,” I said. “We were chatting about his condition, and I just tossed it out.”

  “Well, since this whole thing is basically a fishing expedition, why stop now, right?” the Chief said.

  “But that whole area is shut down,” Henrietta said. “Won’t the killer be suspicious?”

  “Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “I seriously doubt it. The killer’s not a local and wouldn’t know the difference. And if you just leave a few lights on in the hallway, I doubt if she’ll give it a second thought.”

  Henrietta began to gently rock back and forth in her chair deep in thought. Then she glanced back and forth at the two cops.

  “And you guys are comfortable with this?” she said.

  “Define comfortable,” Chief Abrams said.

  “You’re really not funny, Chief,” I said, brushing my hair back from my face, annoyed.

  “Relax, Suzy,” he said softly. “We’ve gone back and forth dozens of times about it, Henrietta. And while it’s definitely odd, in all honesty, we haven’t been able to come up with anything better.”

  “Thank you,” I said, pouting.

  “Not that we think it’s going to pay off,” the Chief said. “But I’m sure we’ll be able to keep Suzy safe.”

  “No one from my staff will be within two hundred feet of the east wing,” she said. “You do know that, right?”

  “I do,” the Chief said.

  Henrietta nodded then focused on Detective Williams.

  “And you’re okay going ahead with this plan as well?” she said.

  “Oh, I’m getting overtime, so I’m totally cool with it,” the detective deadpanned.

  I did a slow burn as I waited out the laughter.

  “If this person does show up, what are your plans to apprehend her?” Henrietta said, glancing down at what I assumed was a list of questions she had jotted down.

  “The Chief and I will be in the room with Suzy the entire time. And we’ll have six undercover state cops stationed at various exits outside,” Detective Williams said. “And don’t worry, they’ll be under strict orders not to shoot unless it’s to return fire.”

  “That won’t be a problem,” I said, shaking my head. “She’s not a shooter.”

  “She’s not? You’re saying you know who the killer is?” Henrietta said, staring at me.

  “Yeah, I think I do,” I said, nodding.

  “Then why don’t you just arrest her now and save us all the headache?”

  “We can’t do that,” Detective Williams said. “We don’t have any proof.”

  “You don’t have any proof, but you’re sure you know who it is?” Henrietta said, leaning forward and placing her elbows on her desk.

  “Yes, we are,” I said.

  Both Chief Abrams and the detective cleared their throats.

  “Well, I’m sure,” I said. “These two aren’t convinced yet.”

  “I see,” she said, leaning back and resuming her rocking. “And you’re convinced it has to happen tonight?”

  “Yes, she believes that Bill is going be able to start talking in the morning. And that’s something she can’t let happen.”

  “I see.” Henrietta stared off deep in thought. Then she slowly nodded. “Okay, I’ll play. But just for tonight. That’s it. And if this blows up in my face, Suzy, I’m going to hunt you down.”

  “I have no doubt about it, Henrietta,” I said, flashing her a smile.

  “But promise me you won’t do anything stupid and get yourself hurt,” she said.

  “Well, if I do, I’ll be in the perfect place to deal with it, huh?”

  “That’s not funny,” she said, giving me a blank stare.

  “Really? I kinda liked it,” I said, shrugging. I glanced back and forth between the Chief and Detective Williams. “Okay, I think we’re all set.”

  “There’s just one more thing,” Henrietta said, completely focused on me.

  “What’s that?” I said, frowning as I returned her stare.

  “What size gown do you need?” she deadpanned. “Personally, I’d go with the large for maximum coverage.”

  “Forget it,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not wearing one of-” I stopped and glared at her. “Josie called you, didn’t she?”

  “No,” Henrietta said, laughing. “It was your mother. But I think Josie put her up to it.”

  Chapter 20

  Henrietta escorted us out of her office, and we followed her down a long hallway, made a right, then another, and we were soon standing outside a closed door with a nameplate that read E1 in the deserted east wing. She flipped a light switch, and the overhead fluorescents flickered along the length of the hallway then held. The lighting was dim, but I could easily make out the expression on Chief Abrams and Detective William’s faces. It was pretty much the standard cop stare, but I thought I noticed a touch of mild amusement mixed in. I glanced around and nodded my approval at what I thought was an accurate depiction of how a hospital patient area should look like in the middle of the night.

  “I think this works just fine,” the Chief said.

  “It should,” Henrietta said. “It’s the lighting we’ve had in this wing for the past twenty years.”

  “Thanks so much for your help, Henrietta,” I said, giving her a hug.

  “Oh, I sure hope you know what you’re doing, Suzy,” she said, squeezing me tight, then glancing back and forth at both cops. “Call me. Either way, as soon as anything happens.”

  “Will do,” the Chief said. “Thanks, Henrietta. I know you’re going way out on a limb here for us.”

  “Oh, I’ll be fine,” she said, chuckling. “Mrs. C. is the board chairperson. She’ll be the one who’ll have to do all the explaining. Suzy’s her daughter. I just work here.”

  For some reason, she found her comment funny, and her laughter echoed as she waved goodbye and headed back down the hall toward her office. I slowly opened the door and turned on the lights. One hospital bed, stripped down, dominated the room, and I noticed the bathroom on the other side of the room. I headed for the closet and found a stack of sheets and pillowcases.

  “Either one of you know how to make a hospital corner?” I said, holding out the sheets.

  “Nice try,” Chief Abrams said, laughing. “You can make your own bed.”

  “Add a young lady, and you know who you’d sound like, right?”

  “I do,” the Chief said. “And I’m sure your mother would agree with me.”

  Detective Williams and Chief Abrams sat down and watched me make the bed. When I finished, it looked a lot like my bed did at home right after I’d made it. Which is to say, pretty much like a collection of dirty laundry with a sheet draped over it. But I decided it wouldn’t make any difference after the lights were out, and I shrugged it off. I walked into the bathroom, motioned for both of them to follow me and bring their chairs with them. They positioned the chairs just inside the bathroom near the open door, and I turned the bathroom light off.

  “How’s that?” I said.

  “Dark,” the Chief said.

  I flipped the light back on and made a face at him.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll be able to follow all the action from here,” he said, then glanced at his watch. “Okay, it’s going to be dark soon, so let’s turn the lights off and get you into bed.” He draped a leg over his knee. “How the heck did you figure out the stuff about the girl?”

  “It jus
t came to me on the boat,” I said. “Jessie was telling me the story about how her parents had died in a plane crash and then said she spent several years bouncing around foster homes. At first, I didn’t give it a second thought. But then I started wondering why the daughter of a successful aircraft designer would end up the foster care system. Her parents must have had a boatload of money.”

  “They did,” Chief Abrams said. “And huge insurance policies on both of them.”

  “And since money wasn’t an issue, even if Jessie didn’t have any family, it shouldn’t have been that hard to find a family friend or somebody who worked for her dad’s company to take care of her. I don’t understand why she felt the need to concoct the foster kid story.”

  “Maybe she felt abandoned and imagining herself as a foster kid fit the narrative,” Detective Williams said.

  “Well, she certainly had a lot of time to work up her story,” Chief Abrams said, then looked at me. “How did you know she’d been institutionalized the whole time?”

  “I didn’t,” I said, shaking my head. “I sort of took a flyer on that one. But it kind of made sense once I landed on the idea. If she had grown up in another family, by now, she’d be calling them mom and dad, and probably telling all sorts of stories about her childhood. Since she doesn’t, and once you rule out foster kid, her being institutionalized is one of the few remaining options. I can’t believe you tracked all that down in a couple of hours.”

  “If she didn’t have a record, we’d still be looking,” Detective Williams said.

  “What did she do?” I said.

  “On her sixteenth birthday, she took off and stole a car,” he said. “The guy who runs the institution said they’d just started talking about the prospect of releasing her. He thinks she did it because she was afraid of being out in society all by herself and panicked. I can see that.”

  “Sort of like a long-term prisoner who finally makes parole,” Chief Abrams said. “A lot of times those guys just can’t handle it, and they’ll do something to get themselves put right back in.”

  “Yeah,” Detective Williams said, nodding. “After she got caught with the car, apparently, she settled down and was the model kid.”

  “And they let her out when she turned eighteen?” I said, still trying to fit all the pieces together.

  “They did,” Detective Williams said. “Her doctors felt she was well enough to handle it, and she had her sponsor on the outside who promised to keep a close eye on her.”

  “Some sponsor,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Detective Williams said. “But since she had a big trust fund and been accepted into college, the guy said they’d pretty much run out of reasons to keep her there.”

  “Being nuts isn’t enough of a reason these days?” the Chief said, frowning.

  “The doctor says she isn’t crazy,” Detective Williams said. “Present evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.”

  “Then she decides to spend the summer here and gets caught up in this mess,” I said, shaking my head. “I kind of feel sorry for her.”

  “Yeah, the whole thing makes me sad,” the Chief said. “But I guess watching your parents fall out of the sky when you’re six-years-old might make your wires cross.”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “So, what’s your excuse?” the Chief said, grinning at me.

  “Funny.”

  “This is definitely one of the weirder ones,” the Chief said, then he glanced at Detective Williams. “Have you ever done a stakeout like this before?”

  “Hiding in the bathroom of a deserted hospital room waiting for someone to show up and kill a woman who’s pretending to be a guy who’s already dead? No, Chief, I gotta say that this is a first.”

  “Yeah, me too,” the Chief said. “The things we do for the job, right?”

  “You got that right,” Detective Williams deadpanned. “The least she could have done was wear the gown.”

  “I know. That might have almost made it worthwhile missing the hockey game tonight.”

  “Yeah, Bruins-Canadiens. It’s been a heck of a series,” the detective said.

  “Are you two done?” I said, staring at them, then had a thought. “Hey, what do you mean, almost?”

  “It’s game seven,” the Chief said, shrugging.

  Detective Williams snorted.

  “I’m going to bed,” I said, walking away, then stopping to look back over my shoulder. “Fully clothed in case you were wondering.”

  “The thought never crossed my mind,” Detective Williams said.

  I climbed into bed then pulled the blanket up to my chin with my arms underneath the covers.

  “What do you think?” I said, glancing at them sitting in the bathroom.

  “It’s a very sexy look,” the Chief said. “Colonial Amish, right?”

  “Everybody’s a comedian,” I snapped. “Just turn the lights off.”

  I was soon cocooned in complete darkness, and the reality of what I was doing struck me like a bolt of lightning. My neurons were on fire, and I felt the unmistakable surge of fear flow through my entire body. I focused on my breathing, felt a bit better, but decided I was going to need additional help to get through my self-imposed encounter with insanity.

  The killer’s, not my own.

  There’d be plenty of time to worry about my own issues later on. Assuming I managed to survive.

  I fumbled underneath the covers and located what I was searching for. A few moments later, I heard Detective Williams’ voice come from the bathroom.

  “I think I heard something,” he whispered.

  “Shhhh,” the Chief whispered. “Let’s give it a second…Okay, got it. I know what that is.”

  Then he spoke a bit louder, and I couldn’t miss the fatherly tone in his voice.

  “Suzy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Please put the bag of bite-sized away.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s a little late for that wouldn’t you say?”

  Chapter 21

  In the darkness, my neurons continued to fire and wander off in several different directions. But after I forced myself to focus, I eventually landed on three possible outcomes that could play themselves out tonight. The worst, of course, was the possibility that I might die of cyanide poisoning. But I put the probability of that happening no higher than five percent; ten tops. Two experienced cops were sitting ten feet away, and Chief Abrams knew for a fact that if anything bad happened to me, my mother would make his life miserable. Which made perfect sense since she’d need someone to take her anger and frustration out on, and I wouldn’t be around to bear the brunt of what was sure to be an endless, brutal harangue.

  The second outcome was the very real possibility that the murderer wouldn’t show up thereby leaving me completely vulnerable to the taunts and laughter of all my friends and acquaintances. The story of me in a hospital bed waiting to catch a killer would be evoked, embellished, and retold at every Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas, not to mention every other time someone just happened to remember it. By the time the story was being retold for the tenth time, I was sure I’d be wearing a low-cut, micro-gown and fire-red lipstick with a come-hither look. As I laid there dreaming up possible story elements, option one began to look better by the minute.

  The final possible outcome was that the killer would actually show up and Chief Abrams and Detective Williams would quickly and efficiently subdue her. And I would be carried off on their shoulders as the conquering hero. But before I could even start working on my victory speech, I got sleepy and nodded off.

  When I woke up, at first, I had no idea where I was or how long I’d been asleep. But that was least of my problems. I heard the door open partway, and a stream of dim light from the hallway spilled into the room. I froze in bed with my eyes wide open staring up at the ceiling. Then the door clicked shut, and I was again surrounded by darkness. Soft footstep
s approached the bed, and I had to force myself to keep breathing. The footsteps stopped, and I sensed her presence only a few feet away.

  “What am I gonna do with you, Bill?” she whispered. “Leave it to you to screw up a perfectly good murder.”

  I was glad I was under the covers in the dark. I was shaking like a leaf and positive the bed was doing the same.

  “How you managed to spit that gumdrop out I’ll never know. I was sure I’d shoved it all the way down,” she said. “But let’s see if we can get it right this time, shall we?”

  I felt the chill the cold night air had left on her as she leaned closer, and I couldn’t miss the minty smell of her breath. Then she crunched and swallowed what was left of the mint. I heard the soft rustle of what I assumed was her rummaging through her pockets.

  “I suppose I could just stuff this down your throat with my fingers,” she whispered with a slight mumble. “But since you always loved the way I kissed you, how about one more for old-time sake? Pucker up, Billy boy.”

  “I’m sorry, Missy, but you’re really not my type.”

  Missy screamed loud enough to pop an eardrum, and the lights came on. Missy stared down at me, wild-eyed, then glanced behind her and saw Chief Abrams and Detective Williams standing in the bathroom doorway, their guns drawn.

  “Suzy?” she said, staring down at me.

  “Nothing gets past you.”

  Missy gagged briefly, then spat out whatever she had in her mouth and bolted for the door just as both cops came out of the bathroom. At least they would have if they hadn’t tried to exit through the door at exactly the same time. Their shoulders got wedged in the doorway for a few seconds, and Missy raced out of the room, and I heard her footsteps until they faded.

  “Really?” I said, glaring at the two cops when they finally made their way out of the bathroom. “Nice work. You guys only had to do one simple thing.”

  “Shut it,” Chief Abrams said on his way out of the room.

  “Just stay here,” Detective Williams said as he followed the Chief out the door and down the hall.