Рита Браун - Hiss Of Death

“In our country—in other countries, too. Sometimes a single man is at a bar and a pretty woman baits him, so the stories go. Mr. Gullible goes to her hotel room, is knocked over the head, anesthetized, and operated on—usually, it’s taking one kidney; they don’t kill these people. Then they place them in the tub, ice pack on the incision. When the guy awakens, there’s a note on the ice pack telling him what has happened and to call nine-one-one. It’s big, big business, and still some horny men are dumb enough to walk off with a woman they don’t know. Can you imagine a woman doing that?” Coop threw up her hands.

“Yes, but not to the numbers that men do it.”

“Well, as far as I know, there is not one report of a woman being robbed of her kidney. Who knows? Now, there might be one today, but so far it’s men. Imagine getting out of a tub, a fresh incision, one organ removed, no painkiller, and finding the phone in the hotel room.”

Harry grimaced. “Awful.”

They sat there thinking about these things. “I even thought there could be a scheme involving stealing drugs from the hospital—Percodan, OxyContin—packing them in the cylinders, and sending them out again. But there are much easier ways to distribute stolen prescription drugs.”

“Figure out what goes in those cylinders, and I expect you’ll find the killer.”

Coop leaned forward. “You’re so observant, and you’re at the hospital every week for your support group. Keep your eyes open.”

“I will.”

“That means we have to figure out how to get into the hospital,” Mrs. Murphy worried.

“Not so easy,” Tucker said, stating the obvious.

“If you were a teacup dog, you could hide in Harry’s handbag. But with your bubble butt, you couldn’t even hide in a potato sack.” Pewter peered over the countertop to harass the dog.

“Zat so? Well, they’d need a gurney just for you, Miss Tubby.”

The gray cat launched off the counter, right onto the sturdy dog. The two rolled across the floor amid furious yowling and growling.

Harry stood up. “That’s enough.”

This had no effect, so she ran over to the sink, pulled out the sprayer, and shot water at the animals. The dog and cat ran in opposite directions.

“I don’t know what gets into those two,” Harry said as she knelt down to wipe up the floor.

Coop knelt down to help, but she couldn’t stop laughing. She didn’t know which was funnier, the dog and cat or Harry with the sprayer.

B ack down and reverse arms,” Noddy commanded. “You’re going to do ten of these for each arm.”

“Noddy, you can be hateful.”

“That’s right.” Noddy crossed her arms over her chest as she carefully monitored Harry.

After ten, the end of a long workout, Harry sat on the gym’s floor. “I am so glad that’s over.”

“You’re doing good. I think these exercises and the one balancing on the large ball are especially difficult. You’re forced to use a lot of muscles, whereas in the weight room, you isolate one muscle, like your quads, and you work it to exhaustion. These exercises strengthen your entire body, especially your core, and they create better balance. Mind you, down the road, once the effects of the treatments are vanishing, if you want to add bulk, I’m glad to help. The biggest mistake women make is not developing their upper body. From the waist down leg power.” She paused. “Men, women, doesn’t matter. It’s the upper body where most women are afraid to look muscular. Obviously, that was never my problem.”

“I never thought about it.”

“You’re fit and strong. Farmwork is its own kind of workout. But look in magazines, the photos of models. No muscle tone. No muscle. Why don’t they paint a big red V on their head for victim?”

“Never thought about that, either.”

“Think about it this way. You’re a drug addict desperate for a fix. No money. You’ve blown everything you have, lost jobs, you get the picture. You need to steal. Grabbing a purse and running is safer than robbing a grocery store. Two women are walking down the street, and you know these streets, so you know you can get away. One woman is well dressed, wearing a bit of heel, very pretty and slender. The other woman isn’t bad-looking, but you can see she has some muscles in her arms. Who are you going to push and grab their purse?”

“The weak one.”

“I rest my case. All right, hit the bike.”

Harry, having caught her breath while listening to Noddy, walked into the narrow room with the bikes and stationary walkers. A large TV, tilted down, was tuned to CNN.

Harry was not much for TV unless it was The Weather Channel. She put on her earphones, tucked the player into her shorts’ waistband, and listened to Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel on tape.

She never listened to music or books when she was outside working. The conversation of all living things fascinated her far more than the work of humans. But once out of the fields and forest, she liked to learn. Fair had had a CD player installed in the old Ford F-150, since it was built before that technology existed. She could ride around and listen to a book. She tried to read before bedtime but usually fell asleep, the book on her chest. Fair would come in, gently lift up the book, and tell her to go to bed. If she was in bed, he’d take the book, put it on the nightstand, and cut the reading light. While he wasn’t a night owl, he could still last longer than she could. When twilight faded into night, Harry started to fade with it.

But here, at 6:30 A.M., her workout finished except for the part with the stationary bike, she was wide awake.

Twenty minutes later, finished, she clicked off the portable player, dismounted, snatched her towel off the seat. She couldn’t ride that bike, or any bike, without a towel. The seats were so uncomfortable. How men did it, she couldn’t imagine.

Just as she dismounted, so did the man next to her. He was in his mid-thirties and was unfamiliar to her. She didn’t know as many city people as she did country people. His body was a work of art and discipline.

He, however, knew of her. He’d asked around, because he found her very attractive. As she was married, he didn’t pursue her, but he kept his eye on her if she was around.

“Good workout?” he asked.

“Was. What about you?”

“Good. I’m Dawson English.”

She held out her hand. “Harry Haristeen. Well, actually, my name is Mary Minor Haristeen, but everyone has called me Harry since I was little because my clothes were always covered in cat and dog hair. I hope you don’t have allergies.”

“No, ma’am.” He shook her hand.

He smiled, releasing her hand, much as he enjoyed holding it. “You’re in good shape.”

“Well, thank you. You, too. You must have a lot of motivation to create a body like that.”

“I sit a lot on the job. I get to walk the floor a little, but I was putting on weight. Hated it, so five years ago I made up my mind to really work for the best body I could have.”

“Staring at a computer?”

“No. I work at Flow Automotive. Sales. I like it. Well, when you have a good product, the cars sell themselves.” He grinned. “Don’t suppose you need a VW or a Porsche? Now, you would look spectacular in a Nine-eleven C-four.”

“Zero to fifty in four-point-four seconds, and the Turbo is even faster.” Harry looked up at him. “But you know, the new Cadillac CTS-V hits zero to sixty in, I think, three-point-nine seconds, which is hard to believe for a sports car, much less a big car.”