Case of the Ragin' Cajun

by Jeffrey Poole

  “What’s that? Looks like it’s addressed to Mark Spears.”

  Jack snapped his fingers. “That’s right. I was the first of us to appear, so they gave them to me to hold. It looks as though they’re gifts, from fans.”

  Gifts from fans? I caught sight of a package addressed to Jack and glanced down at the dogs. As near as I could tell, they were staring directly at Jack’s gift.

  Right about this time, a swarm of uniformed officers suddenly appeared, led by none other than Detective Martins. This time, his sidekick was shadowing him. The two of them saw us and immediately veered our way.

  “Mr. Anderson,” Detective Martins began, “have you found anything?”

  “We’ve had two hits so far,” I said, which caused both detective and consultant to stiffen with surprise. “The first was back there a bit. The dogs stopped at a circular wire display of books. Don’t ask me why, other than my most recent novel was on it.”

  “I remember seeing that,” Greg mused, mostly to himself.

  “And the second?” Detective Martins asked.

  I pointed at Jack’s table. “Right here. In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say the dogs have singled out that package for Jack, there. Again, don’t ask me why.”

  Detective Martins approached the table and pointed at the package. “Are you this package’s recipient?”

  Jack nodded. “I am.”

  “Do you recognize the sender?”

  “As you can see, Detective,” Jack began, using a tone of voice which suggested he was lecturing a room full of amateurs, “there is no return address. As for the shipping label, well, it looks as though it came from this city.”

  “Would you mind if I opened it?” Detective Martins asked. I could tell from the way Martins was talking that he was on full alert. “In fact, I’d like to insist on it, if that’s all right with you?”

  Jack’s eyes had widened the instant he noticed how serious Detective Martins was behaving. He nodded and hastily stepped away from the table. The detective then produced a tiny pen knife and made a move to slice through the packing tape.

  “Umm, am I the only one who’s worried?” Jillian asked, as she started backing away from the table.

  Stepping in front of her, I ended up snapping my fingers a few times. “Detective? Jillian has a good point. Should you be opening that thing in here? What if it’s a … you know, something which goes boom?”

  “The bomb squad is standing by outside,” Greg announced. “Perhaps we should let them deal with this?”

  Detective Martins paled and hastily refolded his knife. “Of course, you’re right. What was I thinking? Just a moment. We’ll deal with this.”

  A few minutes later, a crew of three people, pushing a heavy metal cart, arrived. They were decked out in the full padding that I’ve seen bomb experts use when investigating a potentially live bomb. Jack’s package, and every other package on the table, was carefully placed into the metal bin and rolled away. Ten minutes later, we got the news.

  “They took thermal scans of it,” Detective Martins told us, as he listened to the bomb squad’s report on the phone. “There’s nothing special about it. In fact, it looks like a drink bottle of some sort.”

  “You have my utter blessing to do with it as you see fit,” Jack assured the detective.

  “That goes for any package addressed to me, too,” I added.

  As it happened, Jack’s package did contain a bottle. On it was a label I recognized. Irn Bru. It was touted as tasting like liquid bubble gum, and in case you were wondering about the name, well, it was pronounced iron brew. It was a bright orange liquid that was readily available in Scotland and various parts of the UK. Having been to Scotland myself, I can say that I’ve tried the local favorite, but apparently, it’s an acquired taste.

  Jack, apparently, had gone on record that this particular orange drink was one of his favorites when he visited the Highlands of Scotland during an international book tour. One fan must’ve paid attention, because they sent him a bottle. As for the other packages, that’s all they were: gifts. And mine? Someone had sent me a claddagh pendant. For those who might not know, the claddagh is the internationally recognized symbol of Ireland. It has the appearance of two hands clasped around a heart, with a crown directly above the heart. Trust me, you’d recognize it if you saw it.

  “How pretty!” Jillian said, once I showed the necklace to her. “You have very thoughtful fans.”

  My phone started ringing at the exact same time as Detective Martins’. We glanced at each other, shrugged, and took our respective calls.

  “Zack?”

  “Yeppers. Who’s this?”

  “It’s Richard! What in the world have you been doing?”

  “Excuse me? I’ve been helping the police. Why? What’s going on?”

  “Now they’re saying you’re trying to release some zombie drug? What in the world is going on over there? Are you trying to line us up for countless lawsuits?”

  “I’ve already spoken with the local police about this,” I assured my rep. “They know I didn’t say that. Well, I mean, I guess I did, but not in that order.”

  “Huh? Make sense, would you?”

  “Richard, some teenage girl took everything I said during that live podcast I was on and spliced it together to make it sound like I’m some bio-terrorist. I’m not. Have you listened to it?”

  “Yes, we have.”

  “Then, you’ll be able to tell that it’s not something I would say. I mean, all hail goddess Oya? I had never even heard of this damn Oya person until we started looking around.”

  “Well, that’s true,” Richard admitted. “I thought it sounded kinda funny.”

  “That’s because the words were taken from different sentences. It’s not going to flow well. It’s a very amateurish move, if you ask me. Look, Richard, I need you to trust me. I’m going to get to the bottom of this. Detective Martins is headed back over. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Mr. Anderson,” Detective Martins began, “I’ve been told we need to shut this convention down. The risk to the public is just too great. What if this girl has managed to get her hands on this devil’s breath gunk? What if it’s unleashed into the air here?”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Vance said, lowering his voice to a whisper.

  “Would you like to run that by me again?” Detective Martins said, clearly surprised at Vance’s reaction.

  We all formed an impromptu huddle.

  “Look,” Vance was saying, “if you cancel this shindig now, then there’s a strong likelihood that it’ll go off early.”

  “How do you figure?” Gregory Plinth asked.

  “You think our suspect has an accomplice,” Martins scowled. “Of course. A backup, in case something happens to her, or else something happens to prematurely clear everyone out. We’ve got someone else to find, don’t we?”

  I nodded. “We do, indeed. And I think that’s where these two will come in.”

  Martins checked his watch. “All right, here’s the thing. We need to find this accomplice in the next fifteen minutes.”

  “What happens in fifteen minutes?” Jillian wanted to know.

  Detective Martins made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “That’s when this place officially opens. If we can’t locate the accomplice by that time, and neutralize whatever threat there is, then the expo will have to be shut completely down.”

  “And that little snot wins,” I grumbled. “This place will forever be known as the location of the book expo attack. Twice. Hey, do we have a rough estimate of how many people are due to arrive?”

  “Nearly a thousand,” Martins answered, using a grim tone. “Probably more. But, I can safely say that we have nearly forty officers here. They’ve begun their search.”

  I looked down at the dogs. “Well, let’s see if we can make this easier for them. Sherlock? Watson? We’ve got an accomplice to find. Are you up for it?”

  Sherlock rose to his feet and g
ave himself a thorough shaking. Watson was already standing. I felt the twin tugs on the leashes and couldn’t help but smile. The dogs had already picked up on something. I could only hope that, in this case, it was a someone.

  “Find ’em, guys,” I heard Vance utter, from somewhere behind me.

  “If anyone can do it, they can,” Tori added.

  We followed the dogs down several hallways, through a large meeting room currently filled with attendees, and then a second set of hallways. We made so many turns that I was hopelessly lost. Then again, I wasn’t trying to find my way out. I had Jillian for that. What I wanted was to find whomever was helping Tina cause panic.

  Hearing a number of footsteps coming from behind me, I noticed that not only did we have Martins and his consultant following our little group, but every time we passed a cop, that officer would inevitably circle around and start following us. It was like I was the Pied Piper, and everywhere I went, I was playing my flute. In less than ten minutes, we had, conservatively, at least thirty people following behind us.

  “Don’t let me down, guys,” I pleaded, as I followed the dogs through yet another large conference room. This one was empty. “Do you guys know where you’re going?”

  We approached a single, closed door on the left side of the room. Both corgis turned to look at me, as if to say, you may open the door, biped.

  “Oh, please, allow me, your Royal Canineships.”

  This drew a few snickers from somewhere behind me.

  Surprisingly, we emerged into the same food court that we had been in before. I briefly wondered if a building this size had more than one place to grab a bite to eat, but I didn’t have time to consider it. The dogs pulled me straight through the tables, which, thankfully, were devoid of people this time around. It also made it easier to spot who we were headed toward. There, sitting by herself at the table closest to the exit, was a blonde teenage girl. She had an identification card hanging from her neck, so I could only assume she had pretended to be a member of the staff, so as to gain early access back here. She turned to look at me and, the moment we locked eyes, I knew she was the one we were looking for. She let out a yelp of surprise and tried to push herself away from her table so she could make a run for it, only by the time she made it to her feet, the dogs were there.

  Sherlock darted under her chair, while Watson circled around from the left. Now, bear in mind that Sherlock and Watson were still attached to their leashes. What happened? Well, the blonde girl’s left foot became tied to her chair and her right became tied to the table itself. The moment she tried to run, everything crashed to the ground.

  Detective Martins and nearly a dozen officers were there in a flash. One officer gently unclipped Sherlock from his tangled leash and held him out to me. Another untangled Watson and held her out to Vance, who quickly tucked the corgi close to his side.

  “Well, well, what have we here?” Detective Martins asked. He noticed the bright pink backpack which had been dropped—and then kicked—under an adjacent table. He retrieved the bag and started to unzip it.

  “You can’t touch that bag!” the girl practically screamed. “I didn’t give you permission!”

  “This is an active crime scene,” Detective Martins coolly returned. “It means I can. Mr. Anderson, do you recognize this girl by any chance?”

  I stepped up to claim the recently disentangled leashes when I caught sight of the girl’s face. Yes, I did know her. The last time I saw her, she and her three other friends were arguing among themselves outside this very building.

  “I saw her with Tina,” I said, nodding. “They’re friends.”

  “She’s no friend of mine,” the girl shrieked.

  Detective Martins started reaching for the bag, as though he was going to open it up. The four of us practically cried out no in unison. I, being closest, instantly swatted Martins’ hand away from the pack.

  “If there’s any chance that bag contains what we suspect it does, are you sure you want to do that?”

  The detective paled and immediately looked toward the door. As if he had been waiting for that exact moment, a guy in a hazmat suit appeared. He hurriedly took the bag outside, which caused us to follow, but from an extreme distance. We watched as the bag was unzipped, a hand reached inside, and then reappeared, holding … a handful of empty plastic bags.

  “There are traces of a white powder visible inside each bag,” the man in the hazmat suit reported.

  With a look of sheer incredulity on his face, Detective Martins turned to the teenage girl and pointed at the bags.

  “What is this? Where is the powder?”

  The girl started sobbing.

  We watched as the bags were dropped into a special canister, sealed, and carted away.

  “What was in there?” Martins asked again. “So help me, if you don’t want to see the inside of a jail cell for the next twenty years, you’ll tell me!”

  “I am so sorry! I never sh-should have agreed to th-this!”

  “What did Tina want you to do?” Vance gently asked. “What was in there? Powdered sugar?”

  “It was supposed to be a prank!” the teenager insisted. “I never thought Tina would take this so seriously!”

  The girl broke down into hysterics. Great wracking sobs and wails were the only things that could be heard. I saw that Martins was ready to blow a gasket, so to speak, so I decided to see if we could possibly help out.

  “Martins! Look, pal. These bags? They all held some type of powder, right?”

  Detective Martins nodded. His angry red face began to revert to a healthy pink color.

  “Listen, whatever this device is, it obviously hasn’t gone off yet, right?”

  Martins checked his watch. “We have less than five minutes.”

  “Then, let’s make ’em count. If you had a large quantity of powder, and you wanted to infect as many people as possible, where would you put it?”

  Vance nodded. “The ventilation system!”

  “Look around, Detective Samuelson,” Martins sighed. “This place is too big. There’s no way we can search all of the ductwork in time.”

  I pointed at the corgis. “We found her; we can find this device. Have your bomb squad ready.”

  Martins’ grim face nodded. “They will be. Should we evacuate?”

  “Tina is already in custody, right?” Vance asked.

  Martins nodded.

  Vance then pointed at the girl. “That means the only way to set it off, if it isn’t already programmed to do so, would be by cell phone. Confiscate hers, would you?”

  Martins nodded. “Gladly.”

  I looked at Sherlock and Watson. “Guys? You’ve been absolutely fantastic so far, but I really need you to come through for me. Somewhere out there is a large quantity of powder, and it’s probably attached to some type of electronic device. We need to find it.”

  The dogs took off like a shot. Deciding we needed to find this thing as quickly as possible, I let the dogs sprint ahead, which of course meant I had to sprint alongside them. Glancing back, I could see Vance, Detective Martins, and Gregory Plinth keeping up with me.

  Sherlock and Watson led us to the opposite side of the food court and promptly ran through the closest open door. Running pell-mell down the hallway we were in, it felt as though the dogs were changing directions as abruptly as the light cycles from Disney’s Tron movie. Once again, I could only hope that someone else knew how to backtrack out of here and return us to the food court.

  The dogs skidded to a stop in front of a closed door. Looking up, I could see that it was a woman’s restroom. Also of note was that we were now apparently in a seldom-used area of the convention center. Aside from my own labored breathing, and that of my companions, I couldn’t hear or see anyone else. I looked at the door and then back at Detective Martins.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what? Go in, of course.”

  I knocked on the door and propped it open with my foot. “Hello? Anyone in here
?”

  There was no answer.

  “I’m coming in, ladies. Make sure you’re covered.”

  “There’s no one in there, you goof,” Vance quietly said, from directly behind me.

  Once we were inside, the dogs headed for the sinks, and then promptly went under them. Squatting, I could see that there was an air intake vent just a few inches above the floor. I looked back at Martins and then pointed at the vent.

  “Oh, please let this be it,” I heard Martins say.

  The New Orleans detective fumbled with something on his belt, which I later saw was a multi-tool similar to the one I typically wear on my belt, and quickly removed the vent cover.

  “Anything?” Vance hopefully asked.

  “Plinth? You there?”

  Gregory knelt down on the floor so he could peer under the sinks. “I’m here. What is it? Did you find something?”

  “Call the bomb squad. Those dogs did it! We found it!”

  EPILOGUE

  “What are these things called again?” Vance asked, as he cut off a corner of the dessert in front of him and popped it in his mouth. “Beignets? All right, I’ll admit it. I like them.”

  “What’s not to like?” Tori challenged. “They’re a French pastry, consisting of a sweetened dough made using yeast, given square cuts, and dusted with powdered sugar.”

  “I don’t think I’ll look at powdered sugar the same way ever again,” I chuckled.

  “Seen too much of it lately, have you?” Vance teased.

  “I’m just glad there was no way that nutjob girl could’ve gotten her hands on that devil’s breath crap,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. “That was the best news ever, wasn’t it? That there was nothing in those bags but powdered sugar? Made my day. Made my week, if you want to get technical.”

  It was now Tuesday, the following morning. The four of us, including the two dogs, were sitting at a table at Café Beignet’s outside patio. We had several hours to kill before we needed to be at the airport so we could head home.

  “And here I thought writers led boring lives,” Vance commented, as he popped the remaining piece of beignet in his mouth. “Hmmdve thaw herr ‘eee eggsitmnn?”