Brainy-BOOM!

by Wally Duff

  “Molly?” I said, nodding toward Diane.

  “Oscar de la Renta. The shoes are Manolo Blahniks. The bag is a Birkin from Hermes.”

  One of the men stood next to Diane. He was Peter Warren’s brother, William. He’s an attorney, and his main client is Diane and her hospital. He wore a black suit with a white pocket square, a starched white shirt with French cuffs, and a silk rep tie.

  Crap!

  Suddenly, I remembered more about him. He also invested and managed the money in the hospital’s foundation for a sizable fee. That would be a significant incentive for him to cover up any illegal activities Diane might be doing with the foundation’s funds. We would have to find another way to trap her.

  She was engaged in a conversation with the other man, the mayor, and didn’t see Marcia approach. We were a few steps behind her.

  Marcia tapped the mayor on the shoulder. “Honey, let me borrow Diane. There are people here I want her to meet.”

  The mayor moved on. Diane turned around with a radiant smile on her face. It vanished when she saw the Irregulars standing about five steps behind our hostess.

  Diane reconfigured her tight facial muscles into a snarling smile. “A lovely party, as always, Marcia,” she said, through clenched teeth. “The food was delightful.” She turned and began to move away. “I’m sorry William and I have to leave, but we have another event we must attend.”

  Marcia grabbed Diane’s arm and yanked her to a standstill. “Not so fast, sweetie.” She pulled Diane around to face us. “I want you to know that these are my new best friends, and I am now part of their group.”

  “I can’t imagine why you would ever want to associate with people like this,” Diane said.

  I thought I heard Marcia growl, but it was difficult to tell with all the background noise of the party.

  “Associating with vacuous, overdressed people like you is exactly why I want to hang around with them.”

  “Marcia, I cannot believe you said that,” she replied.

  “Believe it, and if you ever want me to support any of your idiotic charities again, you better remember that anything you do to them you do to me. Got it, sweetie?”

  Diane whirled around on her Manolo Blahniks and stomped off.

  “God, was that fun,” Marcia said. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.” She put her hand to her mouth and coughed heavily. “She will have to think twice before she comes after you. Now we have some time to kick her skinny little butt before she figures out how to pay you back. What do we do?”

  90

  Sunday morning, Carter and Eddie took Kerry to Ann Sather for breakfast. It’s our favorite brunch restaurant in Chicago. Macy had a fussy night, so I volunteered to stay home with her. I also wanted to check my home for listening devices.

  This had happened to me before. Then, I thought they were hidden by the FBI. I was wrong. It had been my neighbors who turned out to be bad guys. After they were disposed of, I thought the devices were no longer active.

  But I was wrong again.

  Dr. Mike Doyle was another criminal I wrote a story about, which resulted in him being sent to prison. When he got out, he had used an apartment behind our home to spy on me, and he had activated the devices again. Before he was killed, he watched and listened to all the events that happened to me and everyone who was in our home.

  The devices had never been removed, and now I was afraid the FBI might have taken over the bugs and were using them to discover what I knew about Zhukov.

  I had a scanning device to detect listening bugs. I found the small, oblong black box in a kitchen drawer. I took it out and flipped the switch. Nothing happened. Several more clicks, and the green light still didn’t come on. There was a small Phillips-head screw securing the battery box lid, but I couldn’t find the right screwdriver.

  After twenty minutes, I found it in my sewing kit. I unscrewed the back of the box and removed four AA batteries. Rummaging around in a different kitchen drawer, I found each type of battery but the ones I needed. Hokey Pokey Elmo came to the rescue. I stole four from him and put them in the device.

  This time when I flipped the switch, the green light came on. I went around the house, but the light remained green. Linda knew how to check my computer for a keystroke logger, which I would have her do the next time she came over, but if there were no bugs, my bet was the machine was clean.

  The FBI was interested in the Zhukov case, but they had a limited budget and they weren’t going to use more expensive resources to continuously monitor my home. I would check my house daily for bugs. If I found any, then I would be certain that the feds were after me and the rest of the Hamlin Park Irregulars.

  91

  Eddie walked into the kitchen as I was putting the bug detector back in the kitchen drawer. Carter stuck his head in the door, waved, and went into the family room with Kerry.

  “Ann Sather is great,” Eddie said. “I wish we had one in Omaha.”

  “Maybe they’ll sell you a franchise,” I said.

  “Another great doctor investment. I would totally screw it up. I don’t know anything about restaurants.”

  “It seems easy enough.”

  “That’s the problem and the reason doctors invest in crazy stuff like that. I’ll stick to picking noses.” He sat down at the kitchen table. “Before I pack, we need to discuss what Dr. Peebler said at the dinner party.”

  “He said several things, some of which I’m sure are accurate, but with him it’s hard to tell. Why?”

  “I’ve been puzzling over his statement about cancer therapies being as poisonous to healthy cells as they are to cancer cells.”

  “That isn’t exactly a startling revelation. I know several people that became extremely sick on chemotherapy.”

  “He also said that a treatment that is able to distinguish between healthy and cancerous cells would be less toxic and less difficult to tolerate for those with cancer.”

  “I do remember him saying that.”

  “Put those statements in the context of the conversation we were having.”

  I sat down beside him. “We were discussing Diane Warren and the hospital losing money.”

  “But we were actually talking about Fertig.”

  “We were?”

  “We were. You said he cured every breast cancer patient he operated on.”

  “Supposedly, but I was never convinced of it. Right after Fertig killed himself, I suggested to Carter that I needed to investigate the breast cancer cure issue further. It was a loose end, but I became pregnant and didn’t pursue it.”

  “I think that’s what Peebler was talking about, and that might have been a mistake for you to stop working on that story.”

  “It was?”

  “You told me that, post-op, Fertig made each patient take supplements.”

  “After Janet was seen by Fertig, his nurse told her and me that he found herbs somewhere in the Amazon rain forest that natives ingested and lived to be well over one hundred years old.”

  “What if Fertig discovered those herbs were not a treatment for aging but, rather, a cure for breast cancer?”

  What?!

  “Do you think that’s possible?”

  “How else do you explain his cure rates?”

  “I can’t, but it sounds like a science fiction movie.”

  He laughed. “Have you ever heard of Sir Alexander Fleming?”

  “No, who is he?”

  “The researcher who discovered penicillin. He was in his lab doing experiments on staphylococci bacteria. He left a Petri dish containing the bacteria near an open window. Mold spores blew through the window onto the dish. He found the mold killed the bacteria.”

  “You’re telling me Fleming discovered penicillin by accident?”

  “I am, and I think maybe that’s what Fertig did, too, only he took it one step further. He didn’t share his discovery with anyone.”

  “Why would a doctor do such a heinous thing?”

&nb
sp; “He had the cure for breast cancer, so everyone had to come to him. He became rich and famous. Why would he share it?”

  “How about to keep millions of people from dying of breast cancer?”

  “Maybe he would do that in the movies, or on TV, but not in real life. It was his discovery and not his surgical skills that led to him being considered the best of the best. No one could match his results anywhere in the world. That would be the ultimate ego trip.”

  “Do you think he killed himself without sharing this?”

  “I do, and it’s easy to check. Find out if the surgeon who replaced him is obtaining the same results.”

  “You mean curing each new breast cancer patient.”

  “That and maintaining Fertig’s cure rates with his existing patients. That’s even more important. If I’m right, those patients will begin to have a recurrence of their cancers without the supplements.”

  “Then Diane Warren better find another batch from South America before that happens.”

  “If Fertig’s nurse told their patients about his discovery in South America, Diane had to have known about it too. Bet me that she’s already doing everything she can to find it.”

  Part 4

  92

  It was a snowy Monday morning. Kerry was in preschool. I felt compelled to finish these stories, so although reluctantly, I took Macy to Alicia’s. The only good part was that at least most of my daughter’s time there would be during her morning nap.

  David Scott sat in the passenger seat of my van. “What time did Sullivan say he would be at your house?” I asked, as I pulled out of my driveway.

  David glanced at his watch. “He should be there by now. Let’s hope he’s working.”

  Rick had to take care of Marcia and her standing hair appointment, so he was with her at their salon. The boys wanted me to question Sullivan to see if we could figure out what was going on with the missing subs.

  There was one available parking place in front of their home when we arrived. I didn’t see Sullivan’s truck.

  “Looks like he isn’t here yet,” I said.

  “He usually parks in the alley behind the house, so hopefully he’s already inside,” David said.

  The snow continued to fall as we walked up the planks to the front door. David opened the front door with his key to the lock box. Several thunks of what sounded like compressed air from a machine came from somewhere inside the house. The noise stopped when we stepped into the entryway and shut the door.

  “What is that annoying sound?” David asked.

  “I think it’s a nail gun,” I said. “Carter used one when he worked on our patio. Maybe Sullivan is here, after all, and he’s working.”

  “I can only hope.”

  The only other sound was a flapping noise that came from the north wind blowing the protective plastic tarps covering the walls to our left. David took a step forward, and the flooring boards creaked under his foot.

  “Charlie?” he called out.

  We waited.

  “Charlie, it’s David,” he said with more gusto. “I’m here with Tina Thomas.”

  Three more thunks from the nail gun came from the back of the house. We walked toward the sound.

  From the hallway we saw Sullivan sitting thirty feet away at the makeshift table in the great room. His back was toward us. His hands rested on architectural plans open in front of him.

  “Charlie?” David said again.

  Sullivan didn’t move.

  David began to step forward. I stopped him with my hand.

  “Something doesn’t seem right,” I whispered to him.

  David raised his eyebrows.

  “I don’t see a nail gun,” I said.

  I reached for my backpack, but I’d left it in the van along with my gun. Clearing my throat, I took a step into the great room. David remained in the hallway. He wrapped his arms across his chest and hugged himself.

  “Charlie?” I asked. “It’s Tina Thomas and David Scott. We’re here for our meeting.”

  He didn’t move. His hands remained on the house plans in front of him.

  Walking forward, I didn’t see a McDonald’s wrapper on the floor. When I stepped on it, the unexpected crunching noise made me jump.

  I tapped Sullivan on the shoulder. He didn’t move. I walked around to face him. There were three nails in his face, one in each eye and one in the middle of his forehead.

  93

  I knew I should run and take David with me, but as scared as I was, this was turning into a terrific story. I was going to stay.

  Fresh blood trickled out of his eyes and ran down his cheeks like he was crying red tears. I sniffed and detected a copper odor. A watery, pink fluid oozed out of the nail between his eyes and dripped off the end of his nose.

  I looked down. His hands were nailed to the plywood in front of him and his feet were nailed to the floor. As I stooped down for a better look, I heard a thunk. A nail whistled over my head and stuck in the wall behind me.

  Uh-oh!

  “David, run!” I screamed. “Get out of here!”

  He sprinted down the hall. He was shrieking when he yanked open the door and disappeared outside.

  Crouching down behind Sullivan’s body, my heart began racing as I tried to figure out what to do. My immediate problem was that I had to traverse about thirty feet of open space before I could get to the front door.

  I should have run when I had the chance.

  Two more thunks and two more nails slammed into the wall behind me.

  Call 911!

  A great idea but my phone was in my backpack with my gun.

  Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk. I felt Sullivan’s body jerk as the nails hit his torso. The floors creaked in the kitchen area to my right, which was followed by a metallic sound, like the killer was reloading the nail gun.

  My only chance!

  I sprinted in a zigzag fashion toward the hallway. Rapid-fire thunk sounds preceded several nails that flew around me, but I made it to the hallway without being hit. As I ducked to my left, three more nails hit the wall behind me.

  Running out the front door, I jumped off the stoop, and landed awkwardly in the ice and snow in the front yard. I tried to maintain my balance but couldn’t get any traction and did a frontal, four-point landing in the snow.

  The front yard is on an incline, and I slid on my chest and stomach all the way to the sidewalk before I skidded to a stop. I tried to get up, but I slipped and fell again, this time on my back.

  After rolling over, I crawled to the van and got behind it. I peeked over the fender. No one followed me out of the house. I checked in the van’s windows, but David was missing too. The only sound came from the north wind blowing against the plastic tarps.

  Keeping the van between me and the house, I opened the driver’s door. David was bent over, cowering in the passenger seat, his hands over his head.

  Expecting another round of flying nails at any second, I hunched over the steering wheel and started the van. I tromped on the accelerator, but the front wheels spun in the snow before they gained traction and we finally roared away.

  Four blocks later, I pulled into my driveway and slammed on the brakes. I had misevaluated this entire story. I pounded my hands on the steering wheel. How could I have been so stupid? The subs were disappearing right and left, and I had thought it was kind of funny. I was wrong.

  I felt a tug on the sleeve of my ski jacket.

  “Thank you for saving me,” David said.

  He hugged me. I hugged him back.

  “I should have had my gun with me,” I said. “But I’m an idiot and left my backpack in the van. I’m so sorry.”

  “How could you know?” he said. “I mean to tell you, we never took a gun to a meeting with Sullivan before. Why would this time be any different?”

  “The subs have been disappearing. I should have realized something serious was going on.” I leaned back and took out my cell phone to call Janet. “At least this time
I have a body.” I pictured Sullivan nailed to the table and floor. “And he isn’t going anywhere.”