J. Konrath - Dirty Martini

“Apparently they can do that while trotting,” I said.

“Did you see that? It came out of nowhere.”

Actually, I did see it, along with where it came out of. But I chose not to mention it.

“Some got in the spokes,” Buchbinder whined. “I just cleaned the spokes.”

“Pay attention to the road.”

“My God, my bike is trashed. What was that horse eating?”

“Let’s get off this topic.”

“What’s that on the fender… peanuts?”

“Pass the damn horse or I’m firing you.”

He made a hand signal and thankfully got around the horse and cart. But getting past it and getting past it were two different things.

“I gotta clean this quick, before it hardens. Don’t want to have to chisel it off.”

“Let’s talk about something else,” I said. I didn’t say, “Like your non-future in the Homicide division.”

Buchbinder, however, was fixated.

“I can smell it. Can you smell it?”

Jesus. It just wouldn’t end.

“I got some on my pants.”

“Buchbinder, shut the hell up about the horse already.”

“Okay. But I never saw Mr. Ed do that, no sir. That manure pile was the size of a small child. Lucky we weren’t both killed.”

I didn’t feel lucky. Not even a little bit.

“Do you smell peanuts?”

We got to Willoughby’s shortly thereafter. I instructed the Horseshit Whisperer to take witness statements after he cleaned his pants. Then I spoke with the bartender.

“She came in alone. Sat down, ordered a dirty martini, up. Took off her jacket and asked where the bathroom was. I made the drink and set it down by her stool.”

I looked at the empty glass, an olive at the bottom.

“Did you see anyone near her drink?”

“Some guy came to the bar, took some napkins.”

“Did he touch her drink at all?”

“I only saw him out of the corner of my eye.”

“Can you describe him?”

“White guy. Suit. Had an eye patch.”

Dammit, Roxy. After that long talk about making yourself a target and being extra careful, how could you leave an unattended drink on the bar? I stared at my gray jacket on the bar stool, and could picture her on camera wearing it, looking so confident and professional.

I left it on the stool. I’d never wear it again.

I switched focus to the martini glass, trying to figure out how to transport it. The Crime Scene Unit would have the materials. They needed to be here anyway, to dust for prints.

I used the cell phone to call in the CSU, and some members of my team, including an Identikit artist. Maybe with all of these witnesses, we could give the Chemist a face.

My phone rang. Rick. I picked it up.

“Where are you?” he asked.

I filled him in.

“Shit. She was a good kid. You can’t blame yourself.”

“Sure I can.”

“She was a professional. She knew the risks.”

“She was a child.”

“Put the guilt on the back burner for a little while. I think I figured out his delivery system. What he’s using to tamper with food.”

That got my attention. “What?”

“He’s also been using it directly on people. It’s called a jet injector.”

“What is that?”

“I can do better than just tell you. I’ll show you. When will you be free again?”

I looked around, at the several dozen people in the restaurant.

“A few hours at least.”

“We had to cut lunch short. Up for dinner?”

I thought of Latham, unconscious and on a ventilator.

“I’ve got something to do after work.”

“How about a quick bite? I’ll bring some food to your office. I can show you there.”

I hadn’t eaten anything, and by dinner I’d be ravenous. And if I ate at work, it would give me more time with Latham.

“Fine. Meet you there at five.”

No big deal, I assured myself. It wasn’t like we were going to have sex in my office.

Right?

I GOT BACK TO the office a little after four. A copy of the personal ad set to run in tomorrow’s newspaper was on my desk.

Chemist-the answer is yes.

My stomach was growling loud enough to make passing dogs growl back. I visited the office vending machine, plunked in two quarters for a candy bar, and then stopped when I remembered that candy bars were on the list of tampered food items.

What was left to eat? Food in cans, and things I hunted and cooked myself. And I wasn’t even sure about the cans-the CDC found evidence that a can of chicken soup might have been dosed with BT.

What the hell can contaminate canned food?

I had half a roll of breath mints that had been in my purse for a year, and I wiped off the lint and ate those, along with water from the tap.

The CSU had lifted a bajillion fingerprints from Willoughby’s. The crime lab, in conjunction with the CDC/WHO/HMRT, had confirmed that Roxy’s martini had been dosed with Tanghinia venenifera , known as the ordeal bean of Madagascar. It also grew wild in Hawaii. As few as ten drops of extract were fatal.

Poor Roxy.

I flipped through a few reports from witnesses at the restaurant, and three of them had put together a composite picture of a generic-looking guy. It was so featureless, it looked like a Ken doll with an eye patch. A hot dog vendor a block away had corroborated the sketch, adding that the Chemist spoke with a Midwestern accent, stood about five feet nine inches, and was between twenty-five and forty-five years old. But even though he had extended contact with him, all he really had focused on was the damn eye patch. Basically any thin white guy could be our perp.

I guessed the eye patch to be a disguise, because it hadn’t been mentioned in any of the scads of reports. We ran it through the registry just the same. Over two thousand guys in our database could fit the description. I put a team on it.

The mints did nothing to curb my hunger, so I wandered over to Herb’s office, to apologize for being an ass and to see if he still had those antique Twinkies.

His office had been cleared out, and there was no Herb to be found. No food either. He’d even taken the wrappers.

I passed the vending machine again, and paid special attention to the packaging. Chips-could be tampered with. Candy bars-could be tampered with. Mints-it would be hard to inject toxin into mints.

I bought a roll, then spent five minutes turning them around in my hands, looking for evidence of tampering.

Life is about taking risks, Rick had said. I opened the package and popped one in my mouth.

I didn’t die.

As I sucked on the candy, I went through the reports that Herb had compiled, and made some calls to get updates on the questioning of the victims, witness searches, security tapes, and Alger’s arrest record. None of it pointed in any specific direction. I took out my To Do list and stared at it.

trace M44 purchases

Alger-arrest record

talk to neighbors

question mailman who delivered letter

security tapes at BT scenes

witness search at BT scenes

survivor interviews/background checks

research IEDs

I added to the list: gardener, fingerprints probably on file, disguise/eye patch, white Honda Accord, local, two million dollars.

I stared at the new list. Why two mil? It was a lot of money, but not that much. He could have demanded more than that. Did it have some kind of significance?

I also noted that question mailman was still on the list. I leafed through Herb’s folder and found the statement from Carey Schimmel, USPS. It was the shortest statement in the history of statements, amounting to: I delivered the letter . Carey also admitted that since the anthrax scare, he wore gloves, which explained his lack of fingerprints on the extortion envelope. I crossed that off the list.