William Diehl - Seven ways to die

Rizzo noticed the thoughtful look on the pharmacist’s countenance. “Anything else you can tell us?” he asked.

“Yes,” he said. “The elevator wasn’t working. She walked back and asked me where the steps were. ‘It was working a minute ago,’ she said. I pointed down the hall and she left again.”

Kate and Rizzo shared an uneasy glance as they walked down the same hall Song had walked nine hours ago, toward the “Exit” sign that indicated the doorway to the staircase.?

They never made it to the stairs.

A few feet before the exit, a door marked “Pharmaceutical Storeroom-Authorized Personnel Only” caught Kate’s attention. The door was ajar.

“That’s odd,” she said, stopping in front of the door. Her hand extended to push it open when Rizzo intervened.

“Let me,” he said, reaching inside his jacket for his piece. “Stand behind me.”

Kate wasn’t budging. “I can handle myself,” she said.

Rizzo kicked the door open, then reached for the light switch.

For the rest of his life, Kate’s scream would haunt his dreams.

Like Handley and Uncle Tony, she’d been stripped naked, and was seated. On a card-table chair. Her legs and arms bound with surgical tape. One hand was clutching an open bottle of Excedrin. They could see that at least a third of the pills were missing.

The other hand was positioned on her lap, its thumb taped beneath the four fingers.

Kate stopped screaming. She was staring at her lover as though a huge practical joke was being perpetrated on her and, if she just waited, Song would wink and say, “Gotcha!”

Rizzo studied the rigid corpse. Song’s body was perfect, not an ounce of fat anywhere, he noticed. Her breasts were perfectly formed, the nipples hard with the caress of rigor mortis. No visible signs of trauma-only the look of surprise on the good doctor’s face seemed out of kilter with what otherwise could have been mistaken for a model posing nude for a painter.

The sonofabitch who had done this to her was painting with human lives.

Kate hadn’t moved, not backwards, not forwards. Rizzo could see she was in shock. “Let me handle this,” he said, taking her by the elbow and backing her toward the door.

With a wrenching effort, Kate snapped out of it and turned her head toward him. “Take your hand off me,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“If you’re fine,” he said. “You’re superhuman.”

“Why her? Who would do this to Song?” Kate sobbed. “She never hurt a fly in her life.”

“My guess is that it had nothing to do with her at all,” Rizzo said, reaching for his cell phone. His nose wrinkled at a familiar scent.

Kate detected it too.

“Burnt almonds,” Rizzo said.

“Cyanide?” Kate guessed.

Rizzo nodded as he speed-dialed.

Then Kate pointed to something else, the shelf to the right of Song’s body.

It was filled with boxes and boxes of blue and green surgical booties.?

For the rest of the day, the entire squad was turned on its ear. Kate’s devastation ignited a slow burn that would not cool until Androg was brought to justice. Cody had tried to send her home, to get her a prescription for valium. She’d refused both.

“Don’t you realize I’d go crazy if I went home?” she said. “Don’t do that to me. I’m staying here. I’m working the case.”

“You know you can’t work the case, Kate. It’s not in your job description. It’d be counterproductive, to say the least. You observe cases, remember?”

“I’m staying here and doing my job,” Kate insisted.

While they awaited Wolfsheim’s autopsy results, no one doubted for an instant Larry Simon’s preliminary analysis that they were dealing with the same psychotic killer who had offed Raymond Handley and Uncle Tony: all three victims ended their lives in a sitting position, all were in their death seats between twelve and one o’clock a.m., none of them seemed to have any connection to the others. “And I’m betting that the cause of death will not be the obvious one,” Larry added. “It won’t be ‘Excedrin laced with cyanide.’”

Simon’s head was focused on the photo showing Song’s thumb taped under her four fingers. “It’s a message from the perp,” he concluded firmly. “He’s warning us that Number Four is about to happen. Maybe even giving us a hint about how it will happen or who it will happen to. If anyone can figure it out, you can,” Simon said. “What are your thoughts?”

“What I think is that it may be something else,” Cody said. “Maybe it’s already happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe she was Number Four.”

Tuesday, October 30

The call to Stinelli had not gone well, and Cody threw his empty coffee cup against the wall. Even with three investigations going, his attempt to beg off the Ball tonight had been stonewalled.

“Sometimes politics takes precedence over procedure,” Lou asserted. “I know you’re up to your eyeballs, but believe me it’ll be a much bigger problem if you don’t show up.”

“Why?” Cody wanted to know.

“Because, for one thing Goddamit, your pal Ward Hamilton is going to be there, and that damned Clue prize he received has gotten the whole town talking about his next project, which is you! If you don’t show, he’ll smell fear. And blood-yours. There’ll be no hope of containing the meltdown, and holding him back till you’ve caught this maniac Androg. ”

Cody knew his goose was cooked. He had no choice but to join those who were fiddling while Rome was burning.

“In that case, Chief,” Cody said, “I guess I’d better take a nap. I haven’t been home for forty-eight hours.”

Stinelli’s grunt was how he terminated the call.?

Feeling way more uncomfortable in a tuxedo than Bruce Wayne could ever imagine, Cody walked up the stairs to Amelie Cluett’s apartment. A glance at Handley’s door made him even more uncomfortable. He’d spent the afternoon listening to TAZ report that nothing new had been found to throw light on Raymond’s death and Bergman was getting nowhere with the Venezia interviews.

Instead of riding whip on the group, Cody was dressed in a monkey suit and going to the fairytale ball as though the grim realities of his day to day job had been whistled irrelevant.

But there she was, opening the door before he could knock or ring: tastefully stunning in a midnight blue silk dress, faux diamonds around the hem, excited to see him looking ruggedly dashing.

Amelie did a little girl’s twirl, to show off the dress-and to waft a delicately tantalizing perfume in his direction. “How do I look?”

“You look…” Cody took the time for a full detective’s perusal. “Edible.”

“A man of many words,” Amelie giggled. “You don’t look too bad yourself. Please come in for an aperitif.” Then she caught herself. “I’m sorry. I forgot you don’t drink. Haven’t gotten around to it, I mean.” She confused herself into a blush that only accented her finely-chiseled features.

“That’s not it,” he said. “It’s just that this is an official function.”

“You can’t be going to a ball ‘on duty,’” she replied, disappointed.

“Believe me, I can,” he said. “It’s about the only way you could drag me there.”

“So that makes me, what, official volunteer arm candy?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye. She reached for her clutch. “Okay, officer, lead the way.” She offered her hand.

And Cody took her hand as though it was the most natural thing in the world to do.?

En route to Gracie Mansion, Amelie quickly realized small talk wasn’t happening. “Spill the beans,” she said. “What’s on your mind? Or are you always this silent on a second date.”