Blue Goodness (Michael Kaplan Mysteries)

by David W. Cowles

  “Next, we went to Hogg’s clinic. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, until we found a pair of his ostrich leather cowboy boots hidden in a file cabinet. They had splotches of blood on them—Mrs. Hogg’s blood type. And we found spots of her blood on Hogg’s truck.”

  “It sounds like there’s more than enough evidence to bring him to trial for the murder of his wife,” Michael said approvingly.

  “Yeah, we think so. Hogg has a number of cuts and scratches on his face and arms, which ties in with his blood having been found at the murder scene. Mrs. Hogg must have put up quite a fight before he killed her.

  “Funny thing, though. Hogg seemed to be in total shock when we told him his wife was dead. His reaction seemed genuine, but it could be he’s a good actor and faking it. He swears up and down he didn’t have anything to do with his wife’s murder, and he can’t shed any light on how her body got into the mine.”

  “What about the blood you found in the house? Did you ask him about that?”

  “Hogg insists it can’t be his. He claims he hasn’t been at home for over a week, and the last time he saw his wife was two days ago. They were separated, you know. She had gone to the clinic to sign some legal papers. Hogg maintains his cuts and gashes were caused by an accident he had at the clinic.

  “As for the boots, he said someone stole them a week ago when his wife threw all of his clothes out into his front yard. He doesn’t have any idea how they found their way into the clinic.”

  “I guess you didn’t really expect him to confess, did you?”

  “Naw. His hotshot lawyer, Oscar Stein, was in to talk with him, and Stein sat in during our interrogation. Hogg’s stonewalling. I’m sure that’s what Stein told him to do. Stein’s really pissed at Hogg, though. He threatened to quit as his attorney and leave him hanging out to dry. He told him that right in front of me. I suspect it’s because of the videotape matter.”

  “Did you question Stein about that?”

  “Of course, but he said he had no idea Hogg was serious about offing Lamb. Claims he thought the man was just bullshitting. The district attorney isn’t going to do anything about that; not with Stein, anyway. I suppose the fact the DA’s married to Stein’s niece might have something to do with his decision.”

  “That figures. Okay, Mark, if anything else comes up, will you give me a call?”

  “Sure. Why don’t you stop by my office for coffee tomorrow? You can bring the donuts.”

  “I have something very important I must do first thing in the morning, but I’ll be there as soon as I’m finished. Around ten or ten-thirty, I’d guess. And yes, I’ll bring the donuts. Glazed or cake?”

  “How about some of each?”

  “You got it.”

  “THAT’S A NICE SHIRT, Michael. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear a turtleneck. Is it new?” Kimberly asked. She’d decided not to act like a fishwife about Michael’s disappearing act. That would accomplish nothing, except possibly start an argument, and that was the one thing she wanted to avoid.

  “Yeah,” he replied, avoiding her gaze. “I bought it this evening.” Michael’s voice sounded shaky.

  “You should get a few more. The style looks good on you.” Something about Michael didn’t seem quite right, but Kimberly couldn’t figure out what. “I’ll make us a pitcher of margaritas. Then we can sit down and you can tell me all about your afternoon and evening.”

  “What I really need is a strong cup of coffee,” Michael requested weakly.

  “No problem, honey. It’ll be ready in a jif.” Kimberly filled the coffee maker and turned it on. “Do you want to try some of my tuna casserole?” she asked.

  “Not now, thanks. I’m feeling a little queasy. Maybe later.” He plopped down on the couch.

  Kimberly sat next to him. She put her arms around him and gave him a hug, then turned his head so he was facing her. “You look terrible, Michael. Tired. No, it’s more like you’ve been on a three-day binge. What have you been doing?”

  “It’s a long story. I was upset with you because you didn’t stay in the office and wait for my call, so when Mark brought me back to the Times, instead of going upstairs to the newsroom, I got in my car and started driving. I phoned Soozie to tell her about Hogg’s wife. No, that isn’t true. That’s the excuse I gave myself. I guess I wanted to see her, but I can’t explain why because I don’t know the answer myself. We met at her apartment. I wasn’t going to stay long, because I was supposed to meet Mark back at Metro at three, but the time passed so quickly—”

  Kimberly’s eyes flashed with fire. “You had sex with her again, didn’t you?” she knew the answer even before she asked the question.

  Michael looked down at the floor. “Yes.”

  Kimberly could feel her blood pressure rising. “Did Soozie tie you up and rape you, like you said she did previously?”

  Michael stared off into space. “No. I don’t know what happened, exactly. We were just sitting on her couch and talking, and out of the blue she told me to make love to her, and I couldn’t refuse. I don’t know what’s the matter with me, Kim, but I can’t say no to anything Soozie tells me to do. Tonight, I have to pack my clothes, so I can move in with her in the morning.”

  Kimberly lit a cigarette. “Is that what you want to do?”

  “No, but I have to.”

  Michael wasn’t making any sense. “Why do you have to shack up with her, if that’s not what you want? Wouldn’t you rather stay here with me?”

  Michael shook his head sadly. “I don’t know why. I just have to. Soozie told me that’s what she wants me to do.”

  “Did Soozie tell you to buy that turtleneck shirt?” Kimberly questioned.

  “No. That was my idea.” He removed the shirt. “Look what she did to me.”

  Kimberly saw his neck and body were covered with hickeys again. “Ohmygod. Why did you let her do that?”

  “She said she wanted my wife to know I’d been making love with another woman. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  Michael then chronicled every graphic detail of how he and Soozie made love, as if the confession would somehow cleanse his soul of the hideous guilt and shame he felt. Under other circumstances, Kimberly would have been furious at Michael, but she realized something was very wrong. It was as if he had been brainwashed. He was pathetically crying out to her for help.

  “Why are you telling me all of these fulsome things, Michael? Do you have any idea how much you’re hurting me?”

  “You’re the only person I can confide in, Kimberly. Myra would never understand. I know you care what happens to me. Why can’t I resist Soozie? Am I going crazy, or what?”

  “Something’s the matter with you, that’s for sure. The first time you made it with her you suspected she’d slipped something in your Coke. Maybe she drugged you again. Did you have anything to drink at her house this afternoon?”

  “Just one cup of coffee. But I didn’t get sick or pass out today.”

  Kimberly tilted his head toward the light, so she could get a better look at him. “Your eyes are glazed and the pupils dilated. I think you should see a doctor. Tonight.”

  “She had me smoke a marijuana cigarette.”

  “You didn’t refuse?” Kimberly was astounded. “Michael, you’ve never smoked tobacco cigarettes. Why on earth would you agree to smoke pot?”

  “Because she told me to. I keep telling you, I can’t say no to anything Soozie suggests.”

  “You’ve never had any trouble saying no to me,” Kimberly observed dryly. “But you’re not going to say no to me tonight. Let’s drink the coffee, and then I’m going to drive you to the emergency hospital and get you checked out. Then I’m bringing you back here and putting you to bed. Until we find out what’s wrong with you, I’m not going to let you out of my sight. Not for even a minute.”

  “But I have to pack my clothes—” he protested.

  “No, Michael. From now on, you’re going to do what I tell you to do, not what Soo
zie told you to do. You aren’t going to pack your clothes, and you’re not going to move to Soozie’s apartment tomorrow.”

  She put her face close to his. When Michael looked into her eyes, he saw turquoise gems, as clear and crystalline as waters of the Caribbean. “Yes, Kimberly. I’ll do whatever you say,” Michael agreed meekly.

  Realization was starting to sink in. Kimberly had no idea what Soozie had done to Michael to gain control of his mind, but whatever it was apparently hadn’t lost its effectiveness. Suddenly, she had a flash of insight. Perhaps she could transfer the power from Soozie to herself. It was worth a try.

  Kimberly held Michael in her arms and kissed him passionately. He returned the kiss with equal fervor. “When we get back from the hospital I want you to make love to me,” she demanded. “Exactly the same way you made love to Soozie today. Will you do that for me, Michael?”

  “Yes, Kimberly, I will.” His words took on a strange monotone.

  “Will you make love with me because I told you to, or because you want to?” she asked.

  Michael looked confused. Kimberly could almost see the wheels turning in his head. She held her breath, waiting for his answer. Finally, he spoke.

  “Both.”

  Thirty-Five

  IN LAS VEGAS, even hospitals are influenced by the casino atmosphere. Sunrise Hospital on Maryland Parkway, the largest privately-owned hospital in the city, was built by the same group of investors who developed the prestigious Las Vegas Country Club and golf course. It was one of the first hospitals in the country to institute valet parking. At one time, in typical Las Vegas fashion, Sunrise Hospital held a monthly drawing for all patients admitted on weekends. The lucky winning invalid received an all-expense-paid vacation cruise. It was rumored (but never officially confirmed) that, on occasion, slot machines were brought into the rooms of some patients as post-operative therapy.

  Kimberly sat nervously in the emergency waiting room. She wanted to stay with Michael, to be at his side every minute, but a receptionist about fifty years old and weighing in excess of two hundred pounds, with powder-white skin and blotches of rouge on her cheeks, had insisted Kimberly remain in the waiting room until the staff had finished with the necessary tests.

  A television set mounted high on one wall was tuned to a station with a syndicated talk show. The volume was turned high enough to be distracting, but too low for potential viewers to follow the banter; the commercials, however, were clearly audible. Two children, a boy and a girl aged six or seven, were running back and forth and making a loud ruckus. A few people sat with their heads in their hands or leaned back, their eyes closed, apparently asleep; two of them appeared to be vagrants who had come inside to escape the heat. Others tried to pass the time and get their minds off of their loved ones in the examination room by thumbing through old magazines with torn covers and missing pages.

  Periodically, Kimberly would step outside for a cigarette, but hurried back inside, as she didn’t want to miss hearing her name called.

  Inside the emergency room, Michael had been given a small plastic cup with a paper lid and sent to a restroom to produce a urine specimen, then told to remove his shirt and lie down on an examination table, separated from other patients only by a heavy plastic curtain suspended from chrome-plated metal pipes. He could hear a woman moaning somewhere to his left and a baby whimpering somewhere to his right. A victim of a drive-by shooting was scooted past on a gurney, accompanied by the ambulance attendants and two Metro officers.

  After what seemed to be hours, but was actually closer to fifteen minutes, a nurse entered and took Michael’s pulse and blood pressure, measured his temperature by inserting a device that looked like a small electric drill into his ear, stuck a needle in his arm and extracted three small tubes of blood, and disappeared outside the curtained enclosure. A little later, another nurse popped in and attached a number of wires to Michael’s chest and wrists and ankles, then turned on a machine to monitor his heartbeats. Later still, a male nurse or an intern, Michael wasn’t sure which, listened to his lungs and examined his eyes.

  “Mrs. Kaplan—” the receptionist called out. Kimberly always became tickled when a stranger assumed she was Michael’s wife. Someday, perhaps, she would be. “You can go in and stay with your husband now, if you’d like.”

  Kimberly didn’t need to be told twice. The woman led her through three sets of heavy metal double doors with small glass windows at eye level and into the cubicle where Michael was waiting.

  “What did the doctor say?” Kimberly asked apprehensively.

  “I haven’t seen a doctor yet,” Michael groused. “They’ve taken blood and poked and prodded me, but I don’t have any idea what’s going on.”

  After another twenty minutes, a man in a white coat entered the room. He looked enough like the County Coroner, Mort Postum, to be his brother. After scanning a form attached to a clipboard hung from the foot of the examination table, he turned toward Michael and Kimberly and smiled. “I’m Dr. Myron Schwartz,” he introduced himself. “How are you feeling, Michael?”

  “I’m feeling fine, but—”

  “That’s good. Those marks on your neck make you look like you were attacked by a vampire, if you believe in such creatures,” he joked. “Put your shirt back on and we’ll find an office where we can talk. We’re very busy in E.R. tonight and people are lined up waiting to be examined.”

  Michael and Kimberly followed Schwartz down a hall and into a small office, bare save for a metal desk and several straight-back chairs.

  “Yours is an unusual case,” Schwartz said. “Most of the time we see people with broken arms or other accidental injuries, heart attacks, flu, or other sudden illnesses. You’re here because you suspect you’ve been drugged. Why do you think that?” He reexamined Michael’s eyes.

  “It’s … it’s kind of embarrassing, Dr. Schwartz—”

  “Go ahead. At my age and in my profession, there’s not much I haven’t heard many times before.”

  “There’s this woman. Soozie. Three times now, strange things happened after she gave me something to drink.”

  “That seems to be a simple matter to cure. The next time Soozie offers you a drink, just say no,” Schwartz said dogmatically. “Go on, what kind of ‘strange things’ are you talking about?”

  “The first time, I passed out. The second time, I said and did things that were totally foreign to me. Then, today, after she gave me a cup of coffee, I couldn’t resist doing anything she requested.”

  “Such as?” Schwartz prompted, somewhat impatiently.

  Michael blushed. “Sex.”

  “Are you saying this Soozie woman gave you an aphrodisiac? There’s really no such thing. At least, nothing that works that quickly. There is a medication called yohimbine, made from quebracho bark—the bark of a tree indigenous to Chile and Argentina. It’s been approved by the FDA as an aphrodisiac, but it wouldn’t produce the immediate results you described.”

  “No, I’m not talking about an aphrodisiac, doctor. Whatever it was Soozie slipped into my coffee didn’t change my libido, it made me powerless to resist her demands.”

  “I see. Mrs. Kaplan, would you mind waiting outside for a few minutes? I need to talk to your husband privately.”

  Kimberly didn’t want to leave, but had no choice. She stepped into the hall and the doctor closed the door behind her.

  “Okay, Michael, level with me. I’m a busy man and don’t have the time to play silly games. You went out and got yourself laid, and when your wife saw those hickeys you made up this cockamamie story to try to get yourself out of the doghouse. That’s what really happened, isn’t it?”

  “No, Dr. Schwartz, that’s not it at all,” Michael protested vigorously. “First of all, Kimberly isn’t my wife. My wife and I are separated at the moment. I’m staying at Kimberly’s house temporarily, but she’s just a friend. We’ve never been intimate.”

  “And Soozie—how did you get involved with her?”

&
nbsp; “Soozie’s a real estate agent. She was showing me houses. She’s an extremely attractive woman, very sexy, but I’m not a philanderer. The last thing I thought I would ever do is cheat on my wife, not even now while we’re living apart.

  “I’m really frightened about what’s happening to me. I can’t make rational decisions when I’m with Soozie. I can’t make any decisions at all, in fact. She tells me to do something, and I have to do it, even if I don’t want to. I can’t think of any other way to explain the effect she has on me. As an example, this afternoon Soozie told me to smoke a marijuana cigarette, and I did, even though I’m adamantly against illegal drugs and never smoked any kind of cigarette before in my entire life.”