Curt Colbert - Seattle Noir

“That may be too little prevention, too late,” said McKean. “Depending on the dose. Can you drive, Fin?”

“To the hospital?”

“No. Take us to my labs, quickly.”

I floored the gas and he got on his phone. “Janet, get all the mouse antiserum together. Get it ready for injection into two patients.”

“There’s not enough blood in a mouse-” I began, but McKean interrupted.

“You can dilute antisera vastly. A little may go a long way.”

Panicky minutes followed as my car roared and McKean described the very symptoms I was experiencing. “Depending upon the toxin dose, the sensation of tingling lips progresses to tingling of fingers and toes-” I felt my fingers tingle as I wrenched the steering wheel and skidded onto the ramp of the West Seattle Bridge; my toes tingled as I floored the accelerator and the tires screamed. “Next,” McKean continued as we streaked across the highrise span above the Duwamish River, “you may lose control of your arms and legs-” I struggled to keep in my lane as the Mustang rocketed northbound on the Alaskan Way Viaduct toward downtown. “Some victims experience a sense of floating or vertigo-” My head swam and my vision grew hazy while I fought to keep from driving through the railings and dropping us fifty feet onto the railroad tracks.

“How about going blind?” I gasped. “I’m having trouble seeing the road. It’s all going red.”

McKean thought a moment. “Blindness is not a part of this syndrome. But seeing red is common when people feel extreme rage or fear.”

“I’m feeling both right now.”

“Is your heart pounding?”

“Isn’t yours?”

“Seeing red occurs when blood pumps so rapidly it floods the retina of the eye until one can actually see it. I suggest you keep cool, Fin.”

“Keep-” I tried to protest but gagged on my pounding heartbeat.

My vision grew redder, my hearing roared, and McKean’s voice receded as he said, “Finally, the chest muscles become paralyzed and the victim stops breathing.”

Just two blocks from the lab, my vision went from red to black.

“Wake up, Fin.”

An angelic voice brought me back and I looked around groggily. “Wha-? Where?”

“You’re with me, Fin,” said Kay Erwin, her pretty face coming into focus above me. “You’re at Seattle Public Health Hospital. How do you feel?”

“Better than yesterday,” I said, noticing Peyton McKean leaning over her shoulder, observing me like I was a lab rat.

“Better than two days ago,” he corrected. “You’ve been comatose for forty-eight hours. Took one sip more than I did. The antibodies barely pulled you through.”

“But your vital signs are great this morning,” said Kay. “No permanent damage.”

“How’d I get here?” I asked, struggling to remember missing events.

“You managed to get us to the lab, Fin,” said McKean, “though it was close. Janet met us at the curbside and injected half the antibodies into each of us, then called an ambulance. Kay tended us through the crisis. We’re both well on the way to recovery. My antiserum worked!”

The next day, as Kay signed my release papers, McKean rushed into my room. “I hope you’re up for a drive, Fin. Vince Nagumo just called with news. The police are after Craig Showalter. They raided his home and found a methamphetamine lab. Two of his henchmen dead in a gun battle, but Showalter’s still on the loose. He hightailed it the evening before, according to his girlfriend.”

“So, what next?” I asked.

“Let’s go have a powwow.”

An hour later, sitting in Clara’s living room, McKean showed Frank and Clara his photo of the man by the pickup. Clara gasped, “That’s my nephew, Billy Seaweed. He’s a good kid.”

Frank shook his head. “Got some strange friends, though, like Erik Torvald. For a white guy, he was all right, but still a white man to the bone, because he was using Billy’s tribal rights to get geoduck licenses. Used power gear to siphon up half the sea bottom when he took ’em. Not like we used to do: dig ’em up with a stick and fill in the hole. Still, Torvald was a lot nicer than Billy’s new partner.”

“Craig Showalter?” asked McKean.

“How’d you know that?”

“I’ve got connections. Vince Nagumo, FBI.”

“Billy’s an Internet addict,” said Frank. “A kinda Indian Goth. Obsessed with darkness and apocalyptic stuff. But I don’t think Billy’s a killer.”

“Showalter’s a bad choice of friends,” said McKean. “According to Nagumo, he’s got quite a rap sheet: ex-con, home invasion robbery, drug dealer.”

The scruffy dog came to its place beside me and began nibbling a bare patch at the base of its tail. I withheld my dismay, but the dog abandoned itself to a frenzy of licking and nibbling, raising a stench that nauseated me. I got up, trying to look nonchalant by wandering to a back window while McKean continued his discussion with Frank and Clara. I gazed at the trees overarching the house but then spotted something on a back drive that sent a chill through me: a black Dodge Ram pickup exactly like the one at the park when we were poisoned. Immediately certain it was Craig Showalter’s, I made a small wave to catch McKean’s eye, then pointed out the window.

“What is it, Fin?” he asked without the faintest effort to keep my concern a secret. He came to the window, saw what I had seen, and turned to look expectantly at the people in the room. Clara flinched first.

“Oh dear,” she moaned, her eyes welling with tears. She fanned her throat, and then quit trying to hide the obvious.

“He’s here!” she sobbed. “Billy’s in the basement. He’s been staying here for a couple of days now.” She covered her eyes and wept. “Poor Billy!” she gushed between wet hands.

McKean went to her solicitously. “Don’t be so sure we’re here to get Billy in trouble, Clara. He’s unlikely to be the murderer.”

A voice came from a back doorway. “I’m just as much to blame as Craig Showalter. I made the poison he used.”

We all turned to see Billy Seaweed standing at the top of a stairway that came from the basement. “It’s all gonna come out pretty quick,” he said. “So why hide anymore?”

He stood in the doorway with one hand braced on the jamb, an odd, faraway look on his face, seeming not to hear anyone’s exclamations of concern or questions.

“I was just tryin’ out the old man’s recipe,” he said. “Internet guys were stoked. I thought we’d test it on somebody’s dog or something. But Craig talked me into giving him some. When Erik Torvald turned up dead, I knew I was in deep shit. Show-alter poisoned Torvald so he could take over his business.”

“I figured that,” said McKean.

“Showalter was looking for a way to get out of the meth business; go legitimate.”

“If you can call it legitimate,” I said, “to kill a man for a few geoducks.”

“Lotsa money in geoducks these days.”

“Was it him who tried to kill us at the park?” asked McKean.

Billy nodded. “We was here at Aunt Clara’s the first time you guys came by. We heard what you said to Frank, so we knew you were onto us. Craig jimmied your car door and poisoned your Cokes while I was in the woods yelling at you guys. I didn’t know it till later. I was tryin’ to protect the old man, but Craig was tryin’ to get rid of you for good.”

“We were on the right track,” said McKean, “but unfortunately you were a step ahead of us.”

Billy laughed in an odd, sad way. “I’m still one step ahead.”

McKean’s dark eyebrows knit. “How’s that?”

After a long moment, Billy turned robotically and said, to no one in particular, “C’mon. I’ve got something to show you.”