McClendon's Syndrome (v1.1)

by Robert Frezza

  The door slid open. I collapsed across the threshold, panting. Nothing had ever smelled as sweet. I must have passed out, because I woke up a few minutes later with blood all over my hands and a terrific headache. The common area was empty, but I could hear Catarina shouting and banging her fist on her door.

  I was lying half in and half out of my room. “It’s okay,” I told her weakly. Then I threw up on the carpet and tried to clear away the haze.

  “Ken, what happened? Are you all right?”

  “Yes. No. Somebody tried to put me to sleep permanently. I cut my hand up.” I staggered over to her door and stuck it through the mail slot to let her bandage it.

  “Thanks,” I said. I let my head clear. After a few minutes, I got up and limped to the outer door. The corridor was empty. I walked down to stores for another screwdriver and used it to unfasten the access panel in the corridor for my air duct.

  The cutoff was tripped. A cylinder of carbon dioxide was jammed into the space, hissing away merrily. I grabbed it, slammed the valve shut, and flopped down beside Catarina’s door again.

  “What happened, Ken?”

  “Somebody tried to kill me.” I coughed and tossed my head to improve the oxygen flow. “Somebody piped carbon dioxide into my air duct and jammed the lock on my door.”

  “I heard someone come in. That’s why I tried to wake you.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  “No. Normally, I can recognise footsteps, but whoever it was was trying to be stealthy, and I couldn’t tell.”

  My breathing had returned to normal, although my head still hurt. “I figure once they came back and removed the carbon-dioxide cylinder, the natural assumption would have been that I had kicked off from natural causes.” Hooked down. “What did you use to wrap my hand?”

  “One of my shirts.”

  I grinned weakly. “It’s pretty well ruined. I guess that makes us even on clothing.”

  I could almost feel her smile through the wall. “At least.”

  “I think I’ll be all right. I doubt whoever tried it will try again tonight.”

  “I’m going to stay awake and listen just in case. Rest in peace.”

  I grinned and went back into my cabin. Instead of sleeping, I pulled out the little Brazil nut and worried it open with the broken screwdriver. It split evenly into two halves, which was a little unusual since Brazil nuts are three-sided and I generally have to pound hell out of them to get them open.

  I sat and thought about everything: Frido, the alien ship, the coin, the emerald, the paper shoved under McHugh’s door, appearing and disappearing blood and powder. I’d managed to accumulate a fair amount of evidence, even though I didn’t have the vaguest idea what it all meant, and I was getting pretty tired of having people take cracks at me. Whoever was trying to kill me was getting more sophisticated.

  The thing to do was to treat it as an engineering problem. I’d used deductive and inductive logic to isolate the malfunction. I’d run diagnostics. I’d tested subsystems. I’d disassembled and checked everything, and I didn’t have an expert I could call in to take the blame.

  What engineers do when all else fails is hit the sucker with a bigger hammer. I curled up in my chair for two hours of scheming and then flipped on the intercom.

  “Hey, Davie Lloyd, get everyone on the bridge in ten minutes. Everyone. Send Dykstra to help me break Catarina out!”

  “Have you gone nuts, MacKay?”

  “No. I’m going to show everyone who killed Frido. Get everyone assembled on the bridge, Ironsides. Or else.” I flipped off the intercom.

  I went over and rapped on Catarina’s door. “Come, Watson. The game is afoot. I’m about to show who killed Frido.”

  Rosalee wandered in, wearing a dirty nightshirt and a hair net, with a crowbar in her hand. She just sort of ripped the retaining bar off, having practised it once.

  “Thanks, Rosalee,” I said.

  “Don’t mention it,” she replied, dropping the crowbar and shuffling off to the bridge.

  Catarina emerged, dressed in black as usual. Her expression was grave. “Ken, do you know what you’re doing?” she asked seriously.

  “Sort of,” I told her. “You’ll not dissuade me, fair damsel, I’m tired of having people try and put me in the meat locker with Frido.”

  She smiled. “All right, Ken. I’ll play. But when is the game not afoot?”

  I looked at her for a second.

  “When it is ahead,” Catarina finished for herself. She patted me lightly on the arm. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

  Everyone else was gathered on the bridge when we arrived. Spooner had the board. Whoever had designed the Scupper had planned for alternate bridge configurations, so with the jump seats folded, we had a fair amount of space to spread ourselves on either side of the command seats. McHugh was standing there in her pyjamas with her arms folded, looking less self-assured than usual. Dykstra was standing next to her, closer to the door, with her eyes shut and her chin on her chest.

  Bobo was by himself in the corner to Spooner’s right, holding Sasha Louise and looking like a duck that’s been hit on the head. As I walked in, Ironsides opened his mouth to say something, then closed it abruptly.

  Catarina moved in next to my elbow.

  I cleared my throat. “I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you all here.”

  “Damn straight,” McHugh sneered.

  “Well, I’ll tell you. I’m tired of having somebody try to kill me, so I’m going to tell you who killed Frido. I intend to reveal a murderer. But first...” I held up two halves of a Brazil nut and then passed them around, making sure to give them to Spooner first.

  “Frido left this nut behind. I figured out how to open it. Guess what was inside?” I pulled a small metal cylinder out of my pocket and held it up. “Frido left us a microtape. It was supposed to be his insurance.”

  I turned on Bernie. “This all came out of your smuggling scheme, didn’t it? The white powder was supposed to go to the Rodents, Bernie. Want to tell us what the powder is? No? Well, we’ll get to that later. Anyway, Frido was supposed to deliver the powder to the Rodent ship, but it never made it there, did it? Frido hid the powder in Number Four hold and asked for a cut, didn’t he? That’s why we screwed around on Schuyler’s World for an extra two days.”

  Bernie’s Adam’s apple started working overtime, which was all the confirmation I needed. “No, no,” said Bernie, with a startling lack of originality.

  “Frido could’ve blackmailed you forever, so you shut him up, didn’t you? But you made a few little mistakes, Bernie. You let one of the jewels you got from the aliens slip down the drain, and I found it in the grease trap.” I held up the little emerald. “You needed somebody to take the fall for killing Frido, and you tried to pin it on Catarina. But you shouldn’t have left the printout for McHugh and Dykstra. It pointed directly at you. Who other than our resident hypochondriac would read up on rare diseases?”

  “No, no,” Bernie moaned.

  “You made some other mistakes, Bernie. Somebody used a hypodermic needle to poison my fruit. You’re the only person on board who owns a hypodermic needle and has access to poisons. And you shouldn’t have gotten rid of the evidence in the safe. You were the one with the combination! Naughty of you to create circumstantial evidence against yourself.” I gave everyone present a half second to mention the needles in the ship’s medical kit. Nobody did, so I drove on.

  “You knew all about the Rodent ship and why they wanted to blow us apart, didn’t you, Bernie? That’s why you were scared even before they started shooting! You double-crossed them, that’s why they wanted to kill us. And you knew about the powder, that’s why you didn’t want me to dump the holds!”

  The real reason Ironsides and Bobo had objected to my dumping the holds was because it represented their profit margin going up the flue, but this was no time to be squeamish.

  “Another tip-off, Bernie, was the fact that yo
u were the only one who stayed on board ship while we were at Schuyler’s World. That’s why you needed Frido to move the dope!”

  Unless, of course, the dope wasn’t dope or Frido was smuggling it on his own, in which case most of my guesses were wrong, and I was going to come out looking like the south end of a northbound horse.

  “No, no...” Bernie moaned again. Sasha Louise looked at him and jumped out of his arms to the floor. Cats are fickle.

  I moved in close to where I could bore into Bernie’s eyes. “About three hours ago, somebody tried to gas me in my room by opening a CO2 cartridge in the hall access panel. I just figured out that you were the only one who could have been alone in the hall corridor at the right time.”

  “No, no,” Bernie groaned. Out of the corner of my eye I watched Catarina daintily grind her foot into McHugh’s instep before she could say something.

  “Bernie, Bernie, Bernie... You couldn’t keep your lies consistent,” I said in a gentle voice.

  Clyde was standing on Spooner’s left with Davie Lloyd. I saw him stifle a grin and quietly move opposite Bernie.

  “But your last and biggest mistake, Bernie, was not finding the microtape Frido left.” I indulged in a little artistic license. “Frido was no dummy.”

  Bobo’s head started bobbing back and forth.

  McHugh glanced at Catarina. “I had a pet lizard that used to do that.”

  I held up my little metal cylinder. “Frido left this behind in a Brazil nut, and it’s going to hang you, Bernie! Are you ready to talk?”

  “Yes, yes!” Bernie whimpered. “I did it! I did it all! I bought the plants, I ground them up in the coffeepot while you all were asleep. I know it’s wrong and evil to sell Rodent dope, but I had to have the money.”

  At that point, Dykstra woke up. A light went on in her eyes, and she poked her ringer at Bobo’s cowering figure. “It was you! That’s why the coffee tastes like soapsuds.”

  “They paid me off in jewels. I gave the powder to Frido to deliver,” Bernie whispered, “but he double-crossed me, so I killed him. I knifed him over the sink. I put the blood in the refrigerator to implicate Lindquist and left the printout where McHugh could find it. When Ken started to suspect the truth, I cut his lifeline and poisoned his fruit. Yes, yes, I did it. I did everything.”

  “The little gimp’s been busy,” McHugh acknowledged grudgingly.

  “God!” Spooner said, turning her head around. “I didn’t think anybody talked that way except in movies.”

  It was a full and open confession. It would have wrapped up the caper, except for the utter implausibility of it all and the pistol Bernie was holding.

  “You may have found me out, but I won’t stay and face the music. Nobody make any funny moves,” Bernie said in what was intended to be a threatening manner. He waved the pistol feebly for emphasis. “As soon as we reach orbit, me and Sasha are going to leave in the lifeboat. Don’t anybody try and stop us!”

  “Nobody’s going to stop you, but you know you’ll never get away with this,” Ironsides countered.

  “You got that straight,” Dykstra said. “That cat is probably the brains of the outfit.”

  “Oh, yes I will,” Bobo retorted in what was evidently intended to be a nasty voice.

  “How did you kill Frido, Bernie?” Catarina asked, ignoring Ironsides.

  “I... I picked up the knife...” Bernie said in a faintly convincing squeak.

  “This is going to be embarrassing,” Clyde muttered. “In another five minutes, he’ll be confessing to robbing stagecoaches and assassinating Julius Caesar.”

  “No, Bernie,” Catarina said slowly, “you didn’t kill Frido. You cut your food with plastic utensils.”

  “But he just said he did!” roared Ironsides.

  “But... I... I did so kill him, I...” Bernie stammered.

  “Oh, my God. As if we hadn’t had enough flying fertiliser for one trip,” Spooner exclaimed.

  Taking advantage of Bernie’s distraction, I whipped out my little green can and pointed it between his eyes. “Drop the gun, Bernie. Slowly. I’ve got you covered. Don’t make me use this, or your sinuses will never be the same again.”

  Horror filled Boo-Boo’s eyes. “What’s that?”

  “It’s an aerosol spray can. It’s filled with noxious gas. You didn’t think they made spray cans anymore, did you? I picked it up on Schuyler’s World. The bars there get a little rowdy. Wyma Jean, you saw me bring it back, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, he did, Bernie! He told me it was a souvenir he bought there, but he didn’t tell me what it was!” Spooner exclaimed breathlessly.

  Bobo let the pistol fall from limp wrist and nerveless fingers.

  Catarina moved in and scooped it up. “All right,” she said, “the party’s over. Ken, what’s really in that stupid can?”

  I shook it up and moved next to her. “Generic cheese whip. Goat cheese, I think. You want to try some?”

  “No.” She shuddered, then waved the pistol. “Just drop the can, Ken. Bernie, you didn’t knife Frido, did you?” she asked in a sweet voice. “You didn’t even hold the knife.”

  “I... did...” Bernie exclaimed.

  “But he just said...” Davie Lloyd roared from the other side of the command seats.

  Catarina’s voice echoed like a whip crack. “Shut up, Davie! No, Bernie. You didn’t kill Frido, because I know who did. You didn’t kill him, did you!”

  “I’ll never squeal!” he squeaked.

  Catarina smiled evilly. “That’s all right, Bernie. I know you didn’t kill Frido, because I did!”

  Spooner gasped, and my eyes widened. I had my hand inside my pocket. Gripping my little length of pipe, I whipped it out and smacked it down hard on her wrist. The pistol went flying and skipped past Spooner just as Ironsides blurted out, “Hey! You didn’t. I did!”

  The pistol bounced off Ironsides’s shoes. He bent down and picked it up. Then he pulled another pistol out of his pocket and pointed the two of them at us. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Catarina rubbed her wrist and smiled at me. “Ken, you’re sweet. I love you dearly. But sometimes you’re really stupid.”

  “But you said—but I thought—” I thumped my head. “Yeah, who am I to think?”

  Ironsides was fiercely staring at Bernie. “You idiot! If you had remembered to tape up the box, this would have never happened.”

  “If you hadn’t forgot and screwed up the watchlist so that I had to stay on board ship, I wouldn’t have had to ask Frido to deliver your stupid box!” Bobo retorted with venom.

  “Oh, be quiet! I got to think!” Ironsides held one hand with a pistol up against his head while he covered us with the other.

  McHugh and Dykstra looked at each other. “Oh, Christ!” McHugh muttered. “That rips it.”

  “I don’t understand.” Spooner said.

  Catarina began to explain. “I was trying to trick Ironsides into making an admission. I haven’t been doing so well with this case.” She reached up slowly and unpinned her butterfly. She opened the back of it and pulled out a little wafer with a metal shield on it. “It really is all over, Davie. I’m Lieutenant Lindquist, Naval Intelligence, seconded to Naval Criminal Investigation Branch. I am going to ask you to surrender. There isn’t any place you can run, and anything you do now will just make it worse.”

  “Oh, wow!” Clyde said, edging a little closer to Ironsides.

  “Oh, my God! We had a cop on board the whole time, and we lock her up!” Spooner observed.

  “No! Stay away! I got to think,” Ironsides said, pointing both pistols at Catarina and scowling.

  “Why don’t you tell us what happened, Davie,” I said.

  “What in hell do you think happened?” he hissed. “I needed somebody to take the box down. Frido was supposed to do it, but Bernie left the box open, and Frido must have figured out what the stuff was. Instead of bringing it along, he hid it, and we couldn’t find it. We were going nuts because the Rats w
ere going to cut our throats, and that idiot Frido thought it was just a big joke! When we got him in the galley, I grabbed him and shook him, but the stupid clown just giggled. We had to get the stuff, so I picked up the knife and held it to his throat. I threatened to kill him if he didn’t talk, but I didn’t mean it. Then the ship started bouncing, so Bernie ran back to the bridge to keep her from going adrift.” He looked at the wall. “He just laughed at me. He thought it all was a big joke.”

  “And?” Catarina asked gently.

  “Damn it, I tried to hold him but he slipped when the ship lurched, and I lost him. It was awful! He slipped. I didn’t do it, he let his head slip.”

  “How did you know Catarina was a vamp?” I asked.

  “Oh, Christ, you know Bernie. Bernie’s afraid of any kind of disease. He looked it up right after she came aboard.”

  “You sure messed things up,” Dykstra said with a trace of pity.

  “What the hell was I supposed to do? We were going to lose the note on the ship,” Ironsides told her. “We didn’t mean any of it.”

  I looked at Catarina. “You’re Navy! Then what you told me was phoney. That means you’re not a vamp!”

  “Sorry, Ken,” she said slowly. “I’m afraid that part’s true.”

  I closed my mouth and then turned to Ironsides. “Why did you go after me, Davie?”

  Ironsides hung his head. “Damn it, Ken. You were sniffing around. You would have found out. I would have lost my ship, everything. She’s all I have.”

  Bernie just looked down and didn’t say a word.

  “Why you, Bernie?”

  He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I couldn’t go to jail and leave Sasha Louise alone. I just couldn’t,” he explained, with more nobility than I’d given him credit for.

  The damn cat almost did kill me.

  “We knew the drugs were moving. We were pretty sure it was this ship. Davie, Bernie, it’s over. Just give me the guns, and it’ll be all right,” Catarina said quietly.

  “No!” Ironsides shouted. “We’ll take the lifeboat.”

  “Now, listen. Frido’s death was manslaughter, not murder. Don’t make things any worse for yourself than they already are,” Catarina said. She circled a few steps to her left, cutting Davie Lloyd off from the door. Davie Lloyd began turning in place like a dancing bear, the two snub-nosed six-millimetres in his hands as he tried to cover her.