Needled to Death

by Annelise Ryan

  “I won’t bail,” Bob says. “I work out every morning.”

  “I’m not talking about the gym, and you know it,” I say in my best chastising tone. It’s the one that gets Roscoe to look guilty even when he hasn’t done anything wrong.

  “I’m committed to having you along for the ride on this case,” Bob says with a reassuring smile. “You’ve earned it. But like I said before, don’t let your pride get in the way and ruin it for Toby, or his mother. Please?”

  That last bit is pure manipulation and I shoot him a look to let him know I know it. But he finishes it off with a pleading expression that melts me a little. “Fine,” I tell him. “But you have to tell me if you find anything on it, okay?”

  “Deal,” he says. I shove the laptop over to him. “What’s the password?” he asks, opening it and poising his fingers over the keyboard.

  Clearly, we still have some trust issues, because he isn’t going to just take my word for it. I tell him, and after chuffing a laugh he types it in. This is followed by a satisfied grin as he closes the thing and tucks it under one arm.

  “Do you have the cord for it?”

  I fish it out of my briefcase and hand it over. Bob gets up and heads toward his office. I’m not sure if I’m welcome to follow him, and when I catch sight of the open door on the microwave oven I remember that I sprayed the inside of it.

  “Mind if I clean out your microwave?” I call out after him, figuring this will at least keep me in the station for now.

  “Knock yourself out,” he says over his shoulder.

  I grab a sponge and the spray bottle of cleaner and go to town on the microwave’s interior until I have the entire thing sparkling clean. Satisfied, I shut the door and wipe down the outside. After straightening a few items on the countertops—a basket of condiment packets and jellies, a toaster, and a coffee maker—I feel comfortable enough to leave the break room. I head for Bob’s office hoping I’m still welcome there and find him chatting with a young woman with long black hair pulled into a ponytail. She is wearing glasses that make her brown eyes look buggy big.

  “Ah, Hildy, I’d like you to meet Laura Kingston, one of our evidence techs,” Bob says. “She works a lot of night shifts, and we share her with the ME’s office, so some of her hours are spent over there and some are here.” Laura offers a hand and a big smile. “Laura, this is Hildy Schneider,” Bob continues as Laura gives my entire arm a vigorous shake. “She’s a social worker over at the hospital.”

  “You’re the one who figured out how to crack into this computer,” Laura says. Though it isn’t technically a question, I start to answer anyway. But the woman doesn’t give me a chance. “That’s quite resourceful of you. Very clever. Detective Richmond tells me he’s reopening the case because of you and some things you uncovered. You might be a detective in the making, Ms. Schneider. It is ‘Ms.,’ isn’t it?” A lightning-quick glance at my left hand. “Or can I just call you Hildy? Is that short for something else? It’s a very pretty name, and not all that common, though I knew a girl once who had a grandmother named Brunhilde and she had people call her Hildy. Who wouldn’t with a name like that, right?”

  As she emits a titter of a laugh, I open my mouth to answer any one of the questions she’s tossed at me.

  “I mean, what kind of person would name a kid Brunhilde?” Laura goes on before I can utter so much as a syllable. “Although these days it seems like anything goes, doesn’t it? Oh no! I hope your name isn’t Brunhilde. If it is, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it, just that it seems cruelly old-fashioned, you know? It’s Teutonic in origin and means ‘armored battle maiden,’ which is quite fierce, don’t you think? Still, if I ever have a kid, I’ll give it a simple, ordinary name. None of these weirdo names. Do you have kids? It’s a full-time job being a parent, isn’t it? Not sure I’m cut out for it, but who knows what the future holds? If I do have kids, I’d like to—”

  “Laura!” Bob says in a loud voice.

  The woman stops talking and claps a hand over her mouth. “Oops, sorry,” she says with another titter. “I have a tendency to ramble a bit.”

  A bit?

  “Laura has specialized some of her studies in the areas of forensic botany and toxicology,” Bob informs me. “She also has an MBA.” Laura nods, her hand again clamped over her mouth. I can tell from her eyes that she’s smiling beneath it. Verbosity aside, I like her. She’s bubbly, happy, and exuberant. It’s hard not to like someone like that. “Tell Hildy what you were just telling me about the soil and the plum tree petal we found on Toby Cochran’s shoe,” Bob says.

  Laura drops her hand to her side and I see I was right about the smile. “Plum trees bloom in early to mid-spring, typically around late March or early April,” she begins, talking a little slower than before. “Their flowers are very fragile and tend to fall easily. The bloom rarely lasts more than a week, and if a good stiff wind comes along in that time, it will be an even shorter bloom. Given the time frame this spring, it’s a good guess that our victim was near this plum tree between the twenty-fifth of March and the fourth of April. Also, if the tree is to produce fruit at all, there must be another plum tree somewhere close by to fertilize it. Otherwise the flowers won’t produce any fruit. And it would appear from the soil sample that the tree in question does produce fruit, because there is evidence of old, decayed plums in the soil. That means there is likely more than one plum tree in the area where Toby’s petal came from.”

  “Any idea where that might be?” I ask.

  “Sorry, no,” Laura says with an apologetic smile. “At this point it’s more a case of knowing it’s the spot once you find it rather than being able to find it from what we have.”

  I look at Bob. “Have you shown her the bridge picture on the computer?”

  He shakes his head and turns his attention to Toby’s laptop, which is sitting on the desk next to Bob’s computer monitor. He taps the touch pad a few times and then turns the laptop so Laura can see the image.

  “Are any of those trees plum trees?” I ask.

  She bends down and stares bug-eyed at the picture. “Can you zoom in some more?”

  Bob shakes his head. “That’s as tight as it will go.”

  Laura sighs. “Hard to say at this distance. I’d need to see the leaves closer. But there are definitely some plum-sized trees.” She points to some spots on the screen along the border of the heavily wooded area.

  Bob is writing in his notebook again and I see that he is recording the coordinates noted in the lower left corner of the image. He then prints out a copy before handing the computer over to Laura.

  “Dig around and see if you can find anything.”

  Laura, apparently still cued in to her need to be quiet, whips off a snappy salute before taking possession of the laptop. She then turns to me and says, “It was nice to meet you, Hildy. You never did tell me if that’s your full name or a nickname.”

  “It’s short for Clothilde,” I toss out quickly, hoping to keep her from going off on another rambling speech. “It means ‘famous in battle.’”

  “And you are in this battle,” Laura says with a smile.

  “It was nice meeting you, as well,” I say, hoping she’ll take the hint. She does, and with one last smile at the two of us, she hurries from the office.

  “I think that means it’s time for us to call it a night,” Bob says.

  “Yes, I suppose it is.”

  “Thank you for dinner.”

  “And thank you for dessert. And for this.” I wave a hand in the air.

  “You earned it.” He is standing by the printer, his hands smoothing down the front of his shirt and slacks. He looks nervous, as if he thinks I might be expecting something more from him, but he makes no move toward me. Given that we’re going to be spending time together cooped up in a car, I decide it might be better to keep things platonic for now.

  To ease the tension I say, “I guess I’ll see you in the morning. Five o’clock sharp.”r />
  He nods but says nothing, and after we stand there smiling awkwardly at each other for a few seconds, I turn and leave, heading out through the break room and the back door.

  When I get home, I let Roscoe out into the yard and pour myself one last glass of wine. As I reflect on my day, I decide it was both full and a good one. My spirits take a bit of a hit, however, when I undress for bed and discover several jelly packets in my pants pocket and realize I have no memory of putting them there.

  Chapter Seventeen

  My alarm chimes, disrupting a dream about dancing syringes in a disco nightclub. Not my strangest dream ever, not by a long shot, and it’s not too hard to figure out where it came from, given the events of the evening before.

  I roll over and slap the alarm into silence, then flop onto my back, staring at the ceiling and debating whether to keep my gym date with Bob Richmond. The bed feels cozy and comfortable, the blankets soft and warm, and Roscoe is curled up by my feet. I feel my eyelids grow heavy and let them close for a few seconds.

  I startle awake some time later and fling myself out of bed, convinced I have just slept through most of the morning, not to mention the gym appointment. My actions startle Roscoe, who barks and leaps from the bed, alert and at attention. I see from the clock that only five minutes have passed and murmur some calming words to Roscoe. He lets out one last woof for good measure and then flops down onto the floor. I’d be tempted to flop down again, too, but thanks to my little surge of adrenaline I’m now wide awake. I stumble into the bathroom and begin my preparations, nearly tripping over Roscoe in the process.

  It doesn’t take long to realize I haven’t thought things through very well. I don’t have any appropriate gym wear, not that I’d know what that is. My last association with any type of gym was PE class in high school. The best I can come up with is a T-shirt, some sweatpants that, like most of the pants I buy, are too long, and my walking shoes, a pair of beat-up tennies that have Velcro straps instead of laces. I roll the waistband of the sweatpants several times, which gets them close to a normal length but also gives me an extra roll around my middle. I settle for a combination of rolling and cuffing instead.

  Roscoe watches me with a look on his face that says it all. I suspect he’s embarrassed for me, because when I grab his leash to give him a quick outing before I leave, he turns his head away and refuses to move.

  “Fine, have it your way,” I tell him, tossing the leash back onto the coat tree. “Just remember that it’s Saturday. Don’t come whining to me when P.J. doesn’t show up at her usual time.”

  Despite my warning, I’m not too worried. Roscoe has proven to have an incredible bladder capacity, going twelve or more hours at a time without so much as a leg cross. P.J. comes by before school every morning to walk him, rain, snow, or shine, and typically shows up by eight on the weekends.

  I arrive at the gym two minutes before five, find the main entrance unlocked, and stop just inside the front door. I’m surprised to see several people already inside working out. Clearly there are more insane people in Sorenson than I realized. Given the hour, I figured Bob and I would be the only ones here, though I don’t see Bob yet. I’m halfway through a mental curse when I hear his voice behind me.

  “Wasn’t sure you’d make it.”

  I turn and smile at him. I didn’t hear him enter and realize he’s surprisingly light on his feet for a man his size.

  “Neither was I, but I did,” I say, looking around at the various contraptions before us. “I’ve never been to a gym before and I have no idea what to do with most of this equipment. Can you help me?”

  “I’ve got someone much better to help you,” Bob says. He looks over my shoulder and does a come on motion with his hand. I look and see a cute young girl with huge green eyes and dark red hair come jogging toward us, her ponytail swinging gaily. She stops in front of Bob and smiles, not the least bit out of breath, and I see then that her face is dotted with freckles.

  “Sherri, this is Hildy,” Bob says. “She’s my guest today and new here, so I was hoping you could show her the ropes.”

  “Happy to,” Sherri says, beaming that thousand-watt smile at me.

  “I’m going to go work my circuit,” Bob says, and then he heads for a contraption rigged with a bunch of weights, wires, and pulleys. I’m disappointed to see him go—I admit I had a vision of him being the one to “show me the ropes”—but I’m also kind of glad because I have a bad feeling about what’s to come and how much I’m going to humiliate myself.

  Sherri gives me a quick once-over and says, “I take it you don’t follow any type of formal exercise program?”

  “Is it that obvious?” I say, embarrassed.

  “No worries,” she says. “We all start somewhere. Let’s begin with a tour.”

  I’m relieved; a tour I can handle. Fifteen minutes later, she has shown me the entire place, from the women’s locker room and showers, which I vow to never use, to the office area. She breezes over most of the exercise machines, telling me she’ll go into more detail as needed later. Then we do a health questionnaire, which I’m able to pass without any red flags popping up, other than the fact that my BMI is nearly the same as my age. I’m a little shocked when I get on the scale, since I’ve been avoiding mine at home. I tell Sherri that I’m not overweight, I’m just under-tall. She smiles at that, so I go for another one.

  “It’s hard to stay thin when you’re what I like to refer to as fun size.”

  “We’ll see about that,” she says ominously, and I decide to quit with the jokes for now.

  Sherri puts together a program for me, a series of exercises clearly geared toward helping me lose weight, build strength, and kill myself. She demonstrates each one for me, doing it with all the ease and charm of a late-night infomercial queen. It encourages me at first, making me think the machines can’t be all that hard, but when my turn to try each one comes about, I realize Sherri is in great shape and I’m not. I try not to look embarrassed as she lightens the weights on the machines for me, and then lightens them some more when I still can’t perform the demonstrated exercise. I’m sweating like a pig by the time we’re done, and my legs are shaking so badly I’m not sure I’ll be able to drive myself home. That’s when Sherri informs me that this hasn’t been my actual routine, but rather an orientation and warm-up. She then sits me down and fills out a form that details my actual exercise routine, the various machines I’m to use, how much weight to apply to each, and how many reps I should do. The mere thought of it makes me nearly blow a circuit.

  During all this, Bob glances over and smiles at me several times, and once even gives me a thumbs-up as I’m struggling red-faced to try and keep the machine I’m on from ripping my arms out of their sockets. His encouragement bolsters me to the point that I think I can at least make it to my car before dying, though that is before I have time to sit with Sherri and go over my circuit. Getting out of my seat when I’m done with her proves to be an exercise in agony, the only form of exercise I expect I’ll be experiencing the rest of the day.

  Bob is still working his circuit when Sherri finishes with me, and I tell him I’m going home to shower and will meet him at the station in an hour if I’m still alive. Then, clutching the membership information Sherri has given me, I hobble out to my car. As I drop into my front seat with a groan, I decide the gym’s marketing plan needs a redo. They need to seal up the membership stuff before they cripple their potential customers.

  P.J. is bringing Roscoe back to the house from his walk when I pull into my driveway. “Where have you been?” she says, eyeing my tomato-red face and sweat-streaked clothes.

  “I went to a gym,” I say as I try to pry my screaming body out of my car.

  “Really?” She gives me a coy smile. “Does this have anything to do with that detective? Do I smell a romance in bloom?”

  “All you smell right now is a lady who nearly sweated herself to death.” My pride kicks in, and even though I’m screaming in pa
in in my head, I force a smile onto my face as I head for the front door. I hope P.J. will drop Roscoe off and leave once we’re inside, but no such luck. She unhooks him, hangs his leash on the coat tree, and follows me into the kitchen, where I go about fixing myself a couple of toaster waffles with a side of ibuprofen. Shades of some drivel Sherri muttered about healthy eating echo in the back of my mind as I wait for the waffles to pop up, but I mentally gag her, tie her limbs to one of the exercise machines, and then add lots of weights to it.

  “I love those,” P.J. says, eyeing my waffles when they pop up.

  I roll my eyes at her. “Very subtle . . . not.” I put the two warm waffles on a plate and hand it to her. Then I remove two more waffles from the freezer and drop them into the toaster.

  P.J. knows her way around my house, and it doesn’t take her long to get out the butter, the maple syrup, and a couple of forks and knives. She settles in at the table in my kitchen and starts buttering her waffles. “Are you dating this detective guy?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I’m interested in him. But for right now our relationship is on more of a professional basis.”

  “You should totally date him,” P.J. says, pouring syrup onto her waffles. “You need to get out more.”

  “Easier said than done,” I grumble. “Dating is hard when you live in a small town and work all the time. You don’t meet a lot of guys.”

  “What about online dating?” P.J. suggests, shoveling in her first bite of waffle. Mine pop up in the toaster, and I transfer them to my plate and then join her at the island counter.

  “I tried that,” I tell her. “I had this one guy who seemed interesting. He wasn’t bad-looking, and his profile said he was a metalworker who lived in a gated community.”

  “Did you meet him?”

  I shake my head. “Turns out the gated community he lived in was actually a prison and the metalwork he did was making license plates.”