TEENAGE ASSASSIN: Episodes 1 to 4 *** ONLY $0.99 FOR THE HOLIDAYS - REG $3.99!!! ***

by Taylor, M. W.

  Remember when I said there weren't any close circuit TV cameras in this garage?

  Well, there aren't, EXCEPT for the ones I installed. Dr. Harry isn't the only one who's been videotaping people without them knowing it. I've already got a week's worth of footage that I've scrolled through to see what goes on in the garage, what time Dr. Harry normally comes and goes, and to make sure I'm not likely to get any surprises.

  It's 9:22pm. From what I've seen, Dr. Harry should be coming down the stairs and out that door in about 3 minutes. He's pretty punctual actually. Every night like clock-work he makes it to his car by 9:25pm, give or take a minute. Some might even have another word for that besides punctual.

  Anal retentive comes to mind.

  9:25pm. Sure enough, the door swings open and there's Dr. Harry striding towards his BMW, looking like he doesn't have a care in the world. Good on ya, Dr. Harry. Enjoy life while you can. Your time is almost up.

  I wait a couple minutes after watching Dr. Harry's car disappear up the car ramp and out of the garage before stepping out of the shadows. Further confirmation that you could set your watch by Dr. Harry's routine makes me smile. A target with strict adherence to routine makes it that much easier to plan their demise.

  ***

  The next day, school goes by quickly. I've got a lot on my mind, so maybe that's part of it. In any case, it seems like I'm heading out the doors minutes after I came in, even though it's been hours.

  I'm walking with my best friend Rachel. She doesn't know a thing about what I do for a living, and I highly doubt I'll ever tell her. Some things are just better kept to yourself.

  Rachel herself isn't exactly what you'd call your normal kid either. In stark contrast to my cute-nice-looking-girl-you'd-take-home-to-Mom look, Rachel looks like a cross between a Goth-Vampire type and a punk-rocker-meets-Lady-Gaga. She doesn't like labels, so she'd probably like the description I just gave her... or not. That's Rachel. You never know what she's gonna think.

  That's probably why she's my best friend. She doesn't feel the over-whelming need to fit in that most teenage girls do, nor does she care much what anyone else thinks of her. That, and the fact that she's probably as smart as I am, maybe even smarter. There's not much that gets past Rachel.

  As we walk, she's telling me about a story idea she has for a novel. If I had to guess, I'd say that's what Rachel will end up doing with her life, writing. She's good at it too.

  Mind you, she's also good at drawing, painting, and just about any artistic medium she puts her mind to. I picture her living in a big renovated loft in a reclaimed industrial district, with half-finished canvases on easels here and there, mixed with almost finished manuscripts littered about. Kind of a cliche image I guess, but I think it suits her. Give it a few years after high school's done, and we'll see if I'm right.

  For now, Rachel lives with her Dad in an apartment a couple of blocks away from mine. Makes it convenient for us to walk to and from school together, and honestly, it's kinda nice to have my best friend so close by. No, I'm not the pajama slumber party type, and neither is Rachel, but we do crash over at each other's place sometimes.

  Rachel's Dad works nights. He's a homicide detective, so he's not home a lot, and even when he is, you never know when he's gonna get called out to a murder scene.

  Kinda ironic, I know. My best friend's Dad being a homicide detective, and me being a killer. Life's like that more often than not. Probably why irony is one of the oldest words there is.

  Anyhow, Rachel's Dad is actually a great guy. He loves Rachel more than anything else in life, and it's totally obvious. Believe it or not, he's pretty cool about stuff too, which is kind of amazing when you consider what he does for a living. You'd think he'd be all over-protective and smothering, but he's not like that. Probably seen enough examples of that kinda parenting going wrong in his line of work.

  Rachel says he really likes me too, which makes me wonder how good of a cop he actually is. Guess his cop instincts, sixth sense, or whatever you wanna call it, don't kick in when it comes to Rachel. I mean, I'm sure it would if she was in danger, but she would never be in any danger from me and he probably senses that too.

  Or maybe it's even deeper than that, and he doesn't even know it. Maybe on some level he knows she's safer around me than almost anyone else she could be with.

  Rachel lost her Mom when she was little. They were going for groceries and stopped for gas. Her Mom ran in to pay the bill while her Dad checked the oil and cleaned the windows. As luck would have it, that was exactly when some tweaker, strung out on methamphetamines, decided to rob the place to feed his habit.

  Rachel's Mom was the kind of person who was always doing twenty things at once, always in a hurry, and could never sit still. In keeping with her nature, she half-jogged, half-ran into the gas station to pay for the gas, and she must've startled the tweaker.

  I don't know if he thought she was a cop, or if he was just so jumpy from the methamphetamines that he pulled the trigger before he realized she wasn't a threat, but either way, it doesn't matter. The result was the same.

  The bullet caught Rachel's Mom in the chest. The kid working the cash register told the cops he thought it had missed her at first, that she'd dropped to the floor when she saw the guy with the gun and realized what was going on. It wasn't until the tweaker had taken off, pockets filled with the cash from the register, that the kid saw Rachel's Mom hadn't moved and noticed the blood pooling around her.

  Rachel says her Dad still blames himself for what happened. She says he thinks it should'a been him in the gas station. Says he thinks at the very least he should've caught the guy as he fled the station.

  Apparently Rachel's Dad had slid under the car to look at something under the motor after he checked the oil. Everything happened so fast that by the time he slid out from under the car and ran around it to head into the store, the tweaker was gone. He'd fled through the back door, but I doubt he was the first thing on Rachel's Dad's mind when he flung open the door and saw his wife lying there in a pool of blood. Cop or not, I doubt you're thinking straight when you see something like that.

  You wouldn't really know it if you met him. It's not like he's got a sign on his forehead that says Walking Wounded or something. He's actually a pretty cheerful, upbeat kinda guy, but I've been hanging around Rachel long enough to have seen those moments when the pain surfaces.

  Anyway, before it sounds like I'm getting all sentimental and crap, let's change the subject. Like I said, I like Rachel's Dad. He's one of the good guys. The world would be a much better place if there were more people like Rachel's Dad, and a lot less people like Dr. Harold Latimer.

  We're getting close to Rachel's place now. She asks me if I want to come over to hang-out, but I take a rain-check. I'd love too as I could use some chill time with my best friend, but I've just got way too much to do. Besides, I'm hoping I've got some deliveries to open when I get home.

  Rachel doesn't mind. She's cool like that, doesn't read into it worrying that I don't like her, or want to hang out with someone else, or some other stupid, insecurity thing like a lot of girls would. She knows I have a job, knows I'm self-employed, thinks I do something online to do with private investigations for rich people, and that I've always got a ton of stuff going on.

  I told her the thing about private investigations for rich people. It's the truth, just not the whole truth. I do a lot of investigating online, and most of my clients are well off. Most of them... not all of them. Knowing Rachel, she may actually be cool with it if she knew the full extent of what I do, but hey, everyone's got secrets they don't share with anyone else. I'm sure Rachel has her own too.

  ***

  When I get back to my place, I see there are two delivery notices stuck to my door. I may actually be busier than I thought I was gonna be tonight.

  I turn and knock on the door across from my apartment. I hear shuffling sounds and recognize them as the sound of Mrs. Deerborn's slippers on the floor of h
er apartment. The shuffling sounds stop, and there's a pause that I know means Mrs. Deerborn is looking at me through the peephole in the door. The sound of the chain being unhitched from the door jingles a bit before the door opens and Mrs. Deerborn greets me with a big “Hello Dear” and an equally big hug.

  If anybody asks either of us, Mrs. Deerborn is my Grandma. There's actually no blood relation between us, but there might as well be as we're closer than most grandparents and grandkids are. We sort of adopted each other after I moved into the building. She broke through my protective barriers pretty much the first time we met. She's such a sweetheart that I didn't have much of a chance.

  Mrs. Deerborn is a widower. Her husband died early of a heart-attack at 56, and she's been on her own for the last fifteen years. They never had any children, so I'm pretty much her only family now. She has a sister who lives out West that she hasn't seen in 10 years, and other than her, there's just me. Seeing as I'm in pretty much the same situation as far as family goes, we're pretty close. Only difference is, I don't have a sister out West.

  We spend quite a bit of time together. I eat dinner over at her place most nights that I'm not otherwise occupied with work. She usually cooks for both of us which is awesome because she cooks the kind of meals I imagine the picture perfect family sits down to every night. You know... roast beef with potatoes and veggies, oven-roasted chicken, home-made macaroni and cheese, shepherd's pie, and she's a fantastic cook. If it wasn't for her, I'd probably be eating a lot of frozen dinners.

  I help her out where I can by taking her shopping, showing her how to get around online, and a lot of little things like fixing her satellite TV when she can't figure out the remote, setting up her call display and answering machine, and keeping an eye out for those scumbags that try to take old people for their life savings.

  Truth be told, Mrs. Deerborn is probably my biggest weak spot. Everyone has weak spots. Most people have a lot more than I do because they lead normal lives. People like me try to minimize their weak spots. Weak spots make you vulnerable. Weak spots are what an enemy can use to get to you... where they'll attack you.

  Maybe I'm being selfish by being so close to Mrs. Deerborn or Grandma as I call her. I accept that. But everyone's got to have somebody they love in their life. If not, what's the point?

  And it's not like I haven't taken steps to protect her. She knows I've had a troubled past, even if she doesn't know all the details or know what I do now. She knows there are people out there that might, however unlikely, find me, and want to hurt me.

  I've explained this to her, staying purposefully vague about the details to protect both her and myself. I actually originally told her this stuff in an attempt to explain why it was not a good idea for us to get close, but she wouldn't hear anything of it. She said she's an old woman, will do what she pleases, and isn't going to be scared off from being close to me. I think that just made me love her even more.

  She gives me an extra squeeze before letting go. She points to two boxes sitting on the little table beside her door and says the delivery man dropped them off earlier this afternoon. Her apartment smells wonderful, and I can tell from experience that she's got her famous home-made chilli on the stove, and a split-second later my nose-brain connection tells me there's fresh bread in the oven too.

  Of course she wants me to stay for dinner, and although I hadn't planned on it tonight, my stomach is winning on this one. Grandma's child is one of my favourite meals, and the thought of freshly baked bread dripping in butter to go with it is just too much to bear. I tell her I'll stay, but warn her I'll probably have to run not too long after as I've got a busy night planned.

  I run the two boxes next door to my apartment while Grandma finishes up in the kitchen. I sneak a quick peak inside both of them to make sure everything is as I ordered. Check. I'm going to be doing a little cooking of my own this evening, although it won't smell as good as Grandma's and it sure won't be anything you'd want to eat.

  I end up staying longer at Grandma's than I planned. Dinner was awesome as I knew it would be, and I pigged out on the fresh bread, so much so, that I ended up feeling a little drowsy, like I needed a couch. Grandma made hot tea, and we chatted for a couple of hours before I realize what time it is. Just as well probably, as the tea has woke me up, and I'm no longer feeling drowsy. I say goodnight, get a big hug and kiss, and head back to my apartment with the promise to stop by tomorrow.

  ***

  Back at my place, I pull out a large storage container from the back of my bedroom closet. Inside it looks like some kind of weird science experiment, but it's just where I keep my chemistry stuff. Every once in a while, a job requires a little chemistry work on my part, so I keep a little lab set-up stashed away for just such an occasion.

  Tonight's chemistry experiment is going to be a special one designed just for Dr. Harry. I'm gonna brew up a little something special just for him.

  One of the boxes that came today has some very special beans in it that I ordered from an online seed and garden supply store. They're called castor beans, and if you plant them they grow into a castor oil plant.

  You may have heard of castor oil from your grandparents. Back in the day, people used to use it as a laxative for when they were constipated. Some people still do. Me, I'm not constipated, and I'm not growing any castor oil plants with them.

  You see, another thing you can make from castor beans, one that most people aren't aware of, is ricin, one of the most deadly poisons there is. Ricin isn't exactly something you find on the shelf in your local pharmacy, and since it doesn't have much use other than as a poison, you're not likely to have heard of it, unless of course you happen to be in my line of work or read a lot of spy novels.

  That's actually where I first heard of ricin. I was reading a spy/thriller type novel... you know, James Bond kind of stuff, but more realistic, and one of the characters in the novel was poisoned with ricin. From there it was pretty simple to look it up online and find out what it was made from. The tricky part was figuring out how to make it.

  Did I mention I'm really good at chemistry?

  That's where my little lab set-up here comes in. I spent quite a few hours on quite a few nights tinkering around with castor beans, trying to figure out just how to get a working amount of ricin from them.

  You could actually just feed someone enough ground up castor beans to poison them, as they're toxic if you ingest them. Problem with that is you need quite a bit to do the job, and it's not as potent as other methods of delivery. In other words, the person might not die.

  Now with ricin, the most lethal way to administer it is through injection or inhalation, and then it's fast and fatal. You also only need a very small amount. Two milligrams is more than enough to kill the average person.

  The beauty of ricin is that it kills so efficiently when injected or inhaled, but it's very unlikely to show up in an autopsy. A lot depends on how soon the tests are done, and more specifically what tests are done, but most of the time, it looks like the victim died of heart trouble, and no one even thinks to test for something so specific as a poison like ricin.

  How the ricin was administered also factors in to whether or not it'll be detected. If it's administered through injection, then there's a chance, no matter how slim, that a watchful coroner will notice a mark at the injection sight and start thinking about running a tox screen.

  That's why I prefer inhalation, at least in situations where I want the poisoning to go undetected, which is what my plan calls for with Dr. Harry. Mrs. Latimer has been through enough already, so we're gonna wrap this up with a minimum amount of exposure... zero, if possible.

  Here's the thing. Normally in a case like Dr. Harry's, where the guy's such a total scumbag piece of garbage, I'd actually enjoy making things public. You know, expose him to the world for the dirtball he is. Shine some light on the situation. Maybe give the victims some satisfaction.

  But it's a little different in this case. Dr. Harry's victim
s don't even know what's been done to them. Revealing his crimes would likely just cause a lot of young women a lot of pain and suffering, probably put more than a few of them in therapy for the rest of their lives, and for what?

  I'm not one of those “truth at all costs” kinda people. Sometimes the truth is better off left buried. In this case, the truth AND Dr. Harry are better off left buried. Nobody benefits from exposing this. Lots of people get hurt.

  So Dr. Harry's gonna take his dirty little secrets to the grave with him. Only Mrs. Latimer and myself will know what happened. I can live with it. Won't lose a moment's sleep. I only hope Mrs. Latimer can get past it. Not the killing Dr. Harry part, but knowing what her husband did to all those girls.

  I don't think Mrs. Latimer's gonna lose much sleep over the passing of the good Doctor.

  So inhalation it is. Quick and deadly, without a trace. If all goes well, Dr. Harry's death will be listed as natural causes, heart failure, and everybody gets on with their lives.

  It takes me a couple hours to finish manufacturing the ricin. It's a tricky process, but I've got it down to a science, and I only need a very small amount. That's the beauty of ricin. Actually, when I'm done, I've got about five times the amount I need. I don't generally like to keep stuff like this lying around the apartment, but in this case it's easy enough to hide and useful enough to have on hand that I decide to make an exception.

  With the hard part done, now comes the most beautiful part, the part where the artist in me gets excited.

  Preparing for the delivery.

  When I said I was going with inhalation, you were probably wondering how I was going to pull that off. Maybe had some scene pop into your head of me pinning down the good Doctor and spraying the ricin up his nose or something.

  Not a bad idea actually, and probably more satisfying than what I'm planning, at least in a physical, hands-on kind of way. Sorry to disappoint you though. My plan is a little more subtle, less physical.