Purrfectly Deadly

Chapter 9

Odelia parked her aged, old pickup in front of the health food store. She’d been there a couple of times. Though she wasn’t big on health food solutions, she had been taking her daily vitamins lately, hoping they would give her the advertised energy boost. Her mom was the bigger fan, and Gran, too. Every time Odelia was over at her parents’ place she saw how her mom and grandma popped the herbal capsules by the dozen, probably hoping to extend their lifespan or to cure some disease they hadn’t yet contracted.

She entered the store and for a moment spent some time perusing the displays and the shelves stocked full. From fat reducing pills to stuff guaranteed to boost the immune system, she was sure her mom had tried them all. She picked up a box of capsules that promised to add extra Omega-3 fatty acids to her diet and reduce joint pain, and walked up to the counter at the back of the store. A man with a hipster beard and horn-rimmed glasses greeted her with a jovial smile. “Found something, hon?”

“I, um…” She wondered how to launch into a line of questioning that would lead the man to confess he was JPG’s drug supplier, and placed the box on the counter. “I found these,” she said with a fake grin. How easy it would be if she could just get Uncle Alec to let her flash a fake police badge. People answered all kinds of questions when they thought you were a cop.

“If you buy a second item today it’s fifty percent off,” said the guy.

“Actually I was wondering if you have something a little stronger?”

He eyed her over his glasses for a moment. “Stronger than Omega-3? What about the Omega-3-6-9 complex? More bang for your buck.”

She quickly checked left and right, making a display of trying to be discreet. Inadvertently the man moved a little closer. “I’m having a hard time relaxing at night,” she said. “And it’s taken a toll on my…” She felt a blush creep up her cheeks. “On my love life,” she finally whispered.

A smile now spread across the man’s face, although it was hard to see through that bushy beard. “You need something to boost your love life?”

“Yeah, something really powerful,” she said. “Something… awesome.”

He nodded. “I’ve got exactly what you need right here.” He rummaged around beneath the counter for a moment, and Odelia’s heart skipped a beat.

Now she was getting somewhere. But instead of vials of GHB, he carefully placed a small box on the counter. She leaned in and saw that it said, ‘Firm Up Your Sex Life with Ginseng—Bedroom Miracle Cure.’

“How about that, huh?” the salesman asked. “That should hit the spot.”

“I…” She gestured at the ginseng. “Is that the best you can do? I mean,” she corrected herself, “Is that the most potent stuff in the store?”

“Sure is, hon. And all yours for nineteen-ninety-nine. Real bargain. Before you know it, you and your boyfriend will be humping like rabbits.” When she glared at him, he quickly corrected, “Or you and your girlfriend?”

She probably shouldn’t have mentioned her non-existent love life, but that didn’t give this guy the right to become personal. “Look, buster,” she said, running out of patience with this oversized bearded hobbit, “I know for a fact that you sell Liquid G out of this shop and don’t you dare deny it.”

At this, his perfectly groomed rectangular beard waggled. “Liquid G? I think you’re mistaking me for someone else, honey. This is a health food store. I strictly deal in health food solutions, not drugs.”

“Oh, yes, you do,” suddenly a gruff voice sounded behind Odelia.

She didn’t even have to turn around to know who the voice belonged to. “Why is that wherever I go you keep showing up, Detective Kingsley?”

“I could ask you the same thing, Miss Poole,” he returned, then flashed his badge to the man behind the counter, who was still clutching the ginseng. “Please tell me you can do better than that,” he said, gesturing at the ginseng.

The man looked horrified. “You’re both cops?”

“No, Miss Poole is a reporter for the Hampton Cove Gazette. I’m with the Hampton Cove PD, Mr. Haggis. She likes to think she’s a cop, though.”

“I was doing great before you showed up,” she snapped.

“Yeah, you were doing fantastic. So you’re having issues with your love life, huh?”

“You heard that?” she asked, that blush creeping further up her cheeks.

“Even if I hadn’t wanted to, it was unavoidable. Your voice carries.”

“I was trying to be discreet,” she said, giving him her best scowl.

“And failing miserably, as usual.” He turned to the shopkeeper. “Mr. Orville Haggis, I presume? Owner and proprietor of The Vitamin King?”

“Uh-huh.”

“The question still stands, Orville. Were you selling GHB to JPG?”

The man’s mouth opened, then closed again, causing his beard to move as if operating on a hinge. Finally, he admitted, “Yes, I was.” He sighed, closing his eyes. “You wouldn’t believe how much ginseng you have to sell to make a living around here. So I have to supplement my income by shifting some of the more pricey items on the side. Johnny kept me in business.”

“Now we’re talking,” said Chase, with a quick glance at Odelia.

“I notice you’re referring to Johnny in the past tense, Mr. Haggis,” she said. “So you’re aware that he died last night?”

“I heard about that, yeah,” said Orville. “But I swear I had nothing to do with that.”

“I beg to differ,” said Chase. “I think you had everything to do with that. You see, it was your product that killed Johnny.”

“That’s impossible,” said Orville. “I always gave him the right dose. Johnny knew the deal. One vial and that’s it. He knew the risks, so if he took more than one, that’s not my fault.”

“What is your fault is that you were delivering an illegal substance to a very unstable pop star,” said Chase.

“Johnny wasn’t unstable. He knew exactly what he was doing.”

“Did you always deliver your vials with a seal?” asked Odelia.

“Yes, I did. The ones I prepared for Johnny carried his personal seal.”

She smiled. “Pink with a unicorn, right?”

“That’s right,” he said. “That’s the way he wanted it.”

“Any way the vials could have been tampered with?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “I thought he died from an overdose.”

“Someone laced Johnny’s GHB with a very potent venom,” she said. “Which caused his heart to fail. Any idea what venom was used?” she asked Chase.

He stared at her, then rolled his eyes. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but since you’re going to simply turn around and ask your uncle I might as well. The venom found belongs to the Australian funnel-web spider.”

She stared at him. “Spider venom?”

“Not just any spider. Apparently it’s the most lethal spider in the world. The weird thing? The venom is deadly only if injected directly into the bloodstream. When imbibed, its proteins are broken down by stomach acid, and the effect is greatly diminished. The only reason the venom was toxic in this case, is because Johnny was suffering from an enlarged heart, possibly caused by years of drug abuse.”

“So whoever administered the venom…”

“Was a rank amateur,” said Chase.

They both turned to Orville. “So it looks like you decided to off your best customer, Orville,” Chase said. “Now all I want to know is where you got the venom.”

“Spider venom? Are you crazy? I don’t even—why would I kill my best customer?”

“If you didn’t put that venom in that vial, who did?” asked Odelia.

“How should I know? I delivered the stuff to Johnny once a week. Enough vials for his guests, and the special batch I mixed up for him distinguished by the pink seal so nobody could tamper with it.”

“And you’re sure nobody could have had access to the vials? Someone who knew about this arrangement between you and Johnny?” she asked.

“Positive. I’m a one man operation and I personally prepared Johnny’s happy juice, as he liked to call it. Between this place and Johnny’s house, nobody messed with those vials. If they were tampered with, it must have been by someone at Johnny’s end. Someone who knew about the pink seal.”

“How easy is it to reseal those vials?” asked Odelia.

“Very easy. It’s basically just a small sticker I put on top. Anybody could have peeled it off, dumped in that spider venom, and resealed it. Didn’t you find any fingerprints on the vial?”

“We did,” said Chase, darting a knowing look at Odelia. “Looks like we got the right man in jail after all.” Then he turned back to the health food guy, plucking a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “Orville Haggis, you’re under arrest for the illegal distribution—”

But before he could finish his sentence, Orville decided to skedaddle.

“Hey!” Chase yelled as the guy swung around and disappeared through a door behind him. “Hell,” the cop grunted, and vaulted the counter. “You wait here, Poole.”

But Odelia had a better idea. She quickly raced through the store and slammed through the front door. As she did, she saw Orville straddling a red Ducati and, as she watched, kicked it to life and raced off. She ran to her pickup and hopped in. After a few coughs, the engine roared to life, and she backed the car up on screeching tires. Just then, Chase came bolting full-speed through the small alley dividing The Vitamin King from the Chinese restaurant next door. She pushed open the passenger door. “Hop in!”

And then she was stomping down on the accelerator, tires squealing and spraying the front of The Vitamin King with gravel. Finally finding purchase, the truck lurched forward and they were off at a healthy clip in pursuit of the hipster drug dealer. The pickup bumped into a depression in the asphalt at the edge of the parking lot and then swung onto the main road, merging into traffic with smoking tires.

“Please tell me you learned how to drive since the last time I rode with you,” Chase said, sounding a little winded.

“Please tell me that that short chase didn’t knock the wind out of you.”

“I haven’t found a decent fitness club in town yet,” he grumbled. “It’s been weeks since my last training session and I’m starting to feel the strain.”

“There’s a great club at that strip mall we just left,” she said. “I used to go there all the time.”

“So what made you stop?”

“Between work at the Gazette and the club suddenly jacking up its prices I decided I needed to buy myself an elliptical trainer and work out at home.”

“And how do you like the machine? I might get one myself.”

She gave him a rueful look. “Actually I haven’t gotten round to buying one yet. But I will!” she quickly added when he laughed and shook his head.

Orville was setting a nice pace, and she had to focus when they reached the heart of town. Between pedestrians and traffic she had to be careful not to hit anyone, while Orville didn’t have a large pickup to navigate and could easily slip through on his more flexible two-wheeler.

“Maybe I should buy a bike instead of a home trainer,” she said, cursing under her breath when she had to stop for two women crossing with strollers.

“So why don’t you?”

“Three cats,” she said. “They wouldn’t like it if I traded in my old Ford.”

“You take those cats everywhere?”

“Hey, I’m the cat lady, remember?”

“I said that one time,” he grumbled.

She smiled. “I’m like an elephant. I never forget a thing.”

“You don’t look like an elephant.” She blushed, and immediately he held up his hands. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

“No, I take it you meant that as a compliment?”

“Yes, I did mean it as a compliment.”

She gave him a quick sideways glance. The way he was sitting there, with his muscular frame stretching his shirt, his long legs clad in jeans, he looked more than fine. In fact he looked downright sexy. A hottie, Gran would say. But what was up with the compliments? That was definitely a first. Then she decided to focus on the mission at hand: capturing a known drug dealer. She could think about Chase Kingsley all she wanted when this was over.

Finally, they’d reached the road leading out of town, and she slammed down the accelerator, causing Chase to be knocked back against his seat.

“Christ, be careful, will you? I don’t want to die in the line of duty yet.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, gritting her teeth as she kept her eyes focused on the small dot in the distance that was Orville Haggis. “I’m a great driver.”

“If you manage to keep us alive and catch the bad guy, I’ll believe you.”

They were on a straight strip of road now, and she ratcheted up the engine to the sticking point, going as fast as she dared to take it, and still they weren’t gaining on the Ducati. But at least they weren’t falling behind either.

“I better call the Chief,” said Chase. “Maybe he can set up a roadblock.”

“Don’t call him yet,” she said. “I’m going to catch Mr. Ginseng.”

“Are you always so eager to catch your guy?”

“Sure. If you come into my town dealing drugs, I’m going to hunt you down.” She glanced over. “We’re big on civic duty in Hampton Cove.”

“So I’ve noticed,” he said. “And while I think that’s admirable, you might want to leave the heroics to the trained professionals.”

She smiled. “Like the trained professional who couldn’t catch a hipster drug dealer?” To add emphasis to her words, she punched her foot down all the way to the floor of the car. The engine responded with a roaring whine, as if asking her to cut it out already.

“Uh-oh,” said Chase. “This old thing is gonna blow.”

They were finally gaining on the bearded ginseng huckster, and she now overtook him. Chase stared at Orville and Orville stared back, seemingly surprised that his great escape had been thwarted by this duo in a beat-up old Ford pickup.

Chase rolled down the window and shouted, “Pull over!”

“No way, cop!” yelled Orville.

This decided Odelia. She had no time to be chasing drug dealers while she had a murder to solve back in Hampton Cove and about a dozen articles to write. So she quickly swung the car to the right, nudging Motorcycle Man.

“Hey!” the guy yelled, but before he could react, he was on the shoulder in a plume of dust and then drove straight into the ditch.

“Oh, God,” said Chase. “Now you’ve gone and killed a suspect.”

“I didn’t kill him,” she said, pulling over. “I just dented him a bit.”

The car came to a stop in a cloud of smoke, and they both got out to check Ginseng Guy. When they finally found him in the ditch, ten feet from his gleaming red Ducati, he was lying on his back, staring up at the sky with a startled expression on his face, as if he didn’t believe how his day had gone.

The moment he caught sight of Odelia floating into his field of vision, he shouted, “You wrecked my favorite bike!”

“You wrecked my favorite pop star,” she returned.

The guy shrugged. “He was always going to wreck himself. If I hadn’t supplied that G, someone else would have.”

“Always the same lame excuse,” Chase grumbled as he outfitted the man with a nice pair of shiny handcuffs and hoisted him to his feet. “You’re under arrest, buddy. And I’m confiscating your bike. What’s left of it, anyway.”

“See?” asked Odelia. “He’s fine. Just a few bruises.” Her eyes dropped to the seat of his pants where now a large hole had appeared and a pair of Minnie Mouse boxers were visible. “And some vestimentary issues.”

“Oh, my God!” cried the guy when he caught sight of his own underwear sticking out. “I can’t be seen like this! I have to think about my rep!”

“Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of time to think about that in jail,” said Chase, and gave Odelia a wink. “That was some pretty effective driving.”

“Can I quote you on that, Detective?”

He laughed, flashing his dimples. Maybe Gran was right. Maybe she had to snap this guy up before some other bimbo did. Maybe. But not today.