Ceremony

by Paul Austin Ardoin

  Dunn folded her arms. “Just because you’re what?”

  “Never mind,” Eddie muttered. “I grabbed a late dinner. There’s a new all-night Thai place on Second and Wells.”

  “What did you have?”

  “Yellow curry with tofu and eggplant.” He paused. “I might still have the receipt.”

  “You pay with a credit card?”

  “Uh—no. Cash.”

  “Tofu and eggplant? That sounds healthy.”

  “I’m a vegetarian.”

  “A vegetarian?” Bernadette arched an eyebrow. “And yet you kill fish and pull their livers out to cure cancer?”

  “I’m a walking paradox.” Eddie’s upper lip curled slightly. “After I ate, I walked straight home. I got back around twelve-thirty, maybe twelve forty-five. My roommate had fallen asleep in front of the TV. I woke him up when I came in.”

  “He can confirm your whereabouts?”

  “I guess so. He was pretty out of it and went straight to bed. Maybe he remembers.”

  “Is he a grad student too?”

  “Yes. Philosophy.”

  “Philosophy?”

  Eddie rocked the chair back on two legs. “He’s dying to wear a tweed blazer with elbow patches.”

  “Is he home?”

  “No. In class until four.”

  “You have a phone number for him?”

  Eddie eyed them, then grunted and got up. He walked into the kitchen and came back with a sticky note and a pen. He wrote on it and handed it to Detective Dunn as she stood.

  He took out his wallet and leafed through the bills, then withdrew a receipt. “There. That’s for the Thai place Monday night. Now, if you don’t mind,” he said, “I’m on call tonight. I’ve got some errands to run.”

  “Actually,” Bernadette cut in, “one more thing. How hard is it to take a syringe full of ibogaine without anyone knowing?”

  “It’s under lock and key on the third floor in a temperature-controlled cabinet.”

  “That didn’t answer the question. Who has access?”

  “We need to inject it into the fish livers, Agent Becker.”

  “Even though ibogaine is a Schedule 1 controlled substance?”

  Eddie cocked his head. “Not our version of ibogaine. At least, our paperwork says it’s not. The extractions are from a different source and don’t meet the legal definition—”

  Bernadette nodded. “I see you know about the loophole, too.”

  “From what I understand, we paid a premium to modify the ibogaine so that it would still meet our research needs without requiring the controls and the oversight.”

  “So—what, you just take the ibogaine whenever you want?”

  “It’s not just me. Tommy had access, Professor Lightman does too.” Eddie rubbed his temples. “We have controls in place. Anyone who takes it needs management approval, and there’s a sign-out process. But it’s not that expensive, and the combination of ibogaine and ferritin has presented the most promising results so far.”

  “Does the Freshie enforce the sign-out process?”

  “Of course. I always sign it.”

  “Be honest with us, Eddie,” Dunn said. “If someone wanted to take some ibogaine without signing it out, how hard would that be?”

  “Well, I—” Eddie stopped, then screwed up his mouth. “I guess it would be pretty easy. You could sign out with someone else’s name. Or…”

  “Or what?”

  “The security personnel aren’t always there.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you have oversight,” Bernadette said. “Anyone with access to the building can take it.”

  “They’d need a key to the cabinet.”

  “Which everyone has.” Bernadette sighed. “Anyone tried to get high off it?”

  “In that concentration? Not likely.”

  Bernadette shook her head vigorously. “It’d be easy to dilute. Get a teaspoon and a gallon of vinegar and you’d have enough ibogaine to get a whole dorm high.”

  “Or a whole congregation,” Dunn murmured.

  Bernadette stood and stared at Eddie. “Where’s the accountability? Where’s the audit trail?”

  Eddie looked at Bernadette blankly. “We’re not doing anything illegal. Besides, I’m a grad student researcher. I don’t have any input into the Freshie’s policies.”

  Bernadette’s phone buzzed in her purse, but she ignored it and let it go to voicemail. “Who’s responsible for the security procedures?”

  “Uh—I don’t know. Professor Lightman, maybe? Or—the IT department runs the computer systems that control the key cards, the alarm systems, that kind of thing. They’re the ones we requisitioned the cabinet from.”

  “Not campus security? Isn’t that unusual?”

  Eddie shrugged. “I don’t make the rules.”

  So many loopholes for what ought to be a Schedule 1 substance. Great.

  “I need to run those errands before my on-call time starts,” Eddie said. “I think we’re done here. I’ll walk you out,” Eddie said, pulling on a green overcoat and a gray knit cap.

  All three of them walked down the stairs, Bernadette pulling her phone from her purse. Maura had left a voice message.

  “Bernadette, it’s Maura. I received the campus security recording of Kymer Thompson. I’m forwarding it to you—it’s not a lot to work with, but it does sound like he knew his life was in danger. I’m sending this to Dr. Woodhead too—maybe it will get him back to the station.”

  Bernadette stopped at the ground floor landing and turned the speakerphone on as Eddie walked ahead of them and out the door.

  “What are we listening to?” Dunn asked.

  “The message Kymer Thompson left with campus security the night he died.”

  The recording started: the voice a nasal tenor with a midwestern lilt. “Hi—uh, this is Kymer Thompson, Graduate School of Freshwater Sciences. I believe the Freshie—uh, the Freshwater Science Lab Building—will get broken into tonight, yeah. I don’t know who, but I think they might cause some damage. Uh, I guess I mean a lot of damage. I’d like a couple of security officers over here. I have some evidence they’re going to kill—”

  The recording cut off.

  “Nice of the campus security office to cut off the recordings at thirty seconds,” Dunn muttered.

  “Did Kymer Thompson think his life was in danger?” Bernadette asked.

  “I don’t know. He certainly thought someone’s life was in danger.”

  “Or he could be talking about the lampreys.”

  Dunn nodded. “But no one tried to kill the lampreys. They killed him instead.” She motioned her head back toward the apartment building. “You think it was Eddie? He was angry enough to kill Thompson, right?”

  They walked out the front door, and Bernadette caught an idling blue van out of the corner of her eyes at the curb.

  It looked familiar.

  She glanced to her left, away from the van. Eddie walked down the sidewalk, purposefully. With a start, Bernadette realized it was the same shade of blue as the van that tried to run her over.

  Bang.

  A pinging sound next to Bernadette’s ear.

  Eddie crumpled to the sidewalk.

  Chapter Twelve

  A screeching of tires.

  Detective Dunn yelled.

  Bernadette ran down the sidewalk toward Eddie. He was lying on his back, shaking. Bernadette crouched next to him. A red stain in the shoulder of his overcoat was spreading.

  “I—I—” Eddie sputtered, eyes wide. “What happened?”

  Lots of blood. The bullet might have hit an artery. Faintly, Bernadette heard Dunn’s shouts fading. She was going after the shooter. Maybe the shot came from the blue van.

  “I’m calling for help, Eddie,” Bernadette said. She’d been at CSAB a long time, but no one had ever gotten shot in front of her before.

  Call the paramedics. Apply pressure. Bernadette fumbled with her phone and dialed.

  “Nine
-one-one, what’s your emer—”

  “I need an ambulance,” Bernadette said as calmly as she could, but she heard the note of panic in her voice as she put the phone on speaker and set it on the ground next to Eddie. “Eighteenth and Juneau. A man’s been shot. He’s still conscious. I’m with him.”

  Bernadette unwound her scarf, catching it on her earring in her haste. She pulled the scarf free and put it on top of Eddie’s wound, under his open overcoat, and leaned on the wound with both hands.

  Eddie gave a strangled cry and swore loudly.

  Her heart pounded in her ears as she gave the dispatcher her name and federal ID number.

  “Sending an ambulance now,” the dispatcher said.

  “How long?”

  “I’ll get an ETA in a moment.”

  “There’s a lot of blood,” Bernadette said. She could feel the blood soak through the scarf.

  Ugh. Sophie gave her this scarf last Christmas. It was her favorite.

  No. No thinking about that now.

  “Less than five minutes, ma’am,” the dispatcher said.

  “You’re gonna be okay, Eddie,” Bernadette said, leaning forward to put more weight on the wound. “The ambulance will be here any minute.”

  “I got shot?”

  “There was a light blue van in front of your apartment building,” Bernadette said.

  “Is that who shot me?”

  “Maybe.” Was that the same light blue van that almost ran me over? Bernadette shifted her weight, the cold sidewalk digging into her knees. “Do you know someone with a blue van?”

  Eddie gave a laugh and then winced. “That bastard.”

  “Who? Who do you mean?”

  “Only person I know who drives a light blue van.” He wheezed.

  No blood in the airway. That was a good sign. “Who, Eddie? Who is it?”

  Eddie giggled. He was going into shock.

  “Who, Eddie?” A siren around the corner, getting closer.

  “Tommy,” Eddie said. “Tommy drives a blue van.”

  Detective Kerrigan Dunn plunked herself in the chair next to Bernadette in the hospital waiting room. “Some morning,” she muttered to Bernadette, tapping on her phone.

  Bernadette blinked. How long had she been sitting there?

  She’d ridden in the ambulance with Eddie, but he couldn’t answer any of her questions. Who’d want to hurt him? Why would anyone would target him? The oxygen mask went on and then Bernadette was useless, only getting in the way as the paramedics had tried to stabilize him.

  It was a handful of blocks to Aurora Sinai, and after the ambulance pulled in, two men rushed Eddie through double doors. Bernadette wasn’t permitted to follow. A health care worker had escorted her to the waiting room.

  She looked at the phone. Four missed calls from Maura. One from Dunn.

  “I missed your call,” she said.

  Dunn drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair. “You had a lot on your plate.”

  Bernadette shut her eyes. “Eddie told me that Kymer Thompson drives a blue van. He thought Tommy was trying to kill him from beyond the grave.”

  “Yeah.” Dunn leaned back in her chair. “Tommy didn’t have a car, though. I’ve already put in a request to see if the Freshie had a blue van.”

  “I almost got run over last night by a light blue van,” Bernadette said quietly.

  “What?”

  Bernadette told Dunn about following Nick LaSalle, then losing him at the arena and the van coming up on the sidewalk.

  “You need to put that in your report.”

  “Of course.” Bernadette had to get her head in the game. She’d known when she accepted the demotion—and really, what other choice did she have?—that she’d be working homicides, and it could be more dangerous than money laundering. In the last fifteen years, she could count on one hand the number of times she’d drawn her gun—and she’d only fired it at the range. That ping—that was the bullet whizzing right by her ear. Another couple of inches and she’d be dead. If she’d been much taller, it would have hit her shoulder, not Eddie’s. And if she hadn’t jumped out of the way, she’d have been hit by the van—maybe the same van—the night before. “You didn’t get a license plate, did you?”

  “Partial,” Dunn said. “Wisconsin plates.” Her phone rang and she answered immediately. “Dunn.” A pause. “Right, I should have thought of that. Anyone in particular?” Another pause. “No, that’s everything I need for now, thanks.” She ended the call and turned to Bernadette. “Guess who the van belongs to.”

  “If you say Kymer Thompson—”

  “Maybe I should say, ‘Guess what the van belongs to.’”

  Bernadette squinted at Dunn. Not the Freshie—she would have said. Then it hit her, and she felt stupid for not thinking of it sooner. “Agios Delphi.”

  “Yes. I’d say there’s a lady priest we need to start putting the screws to.” Dunn stood.

  “Are they putting an APB out on the van?”

  “Yes. You ready to go?”

  “All the way out to Whitefish Bay?”

  “Maybe. We’ll check the Anne Askew Chapel first. Agios Delphi was supposed to have their weekly service there last night. Maybe Reverend Roundhouse is there cleaning up.”

  “I thought their service was cancelled.”

  “You’d rather drive all the way to Whitefish Bay and realize she’s back here?”

  Bernadette closed her eyes. Only a couple of hours ago, she’d been inches away from leaving Sophie without a mother.

  “Bathroom,” Bernadette said, and got to her feet without looking Dunn in the eye. She saw the sign for the ladies room and thirty seconds later she was looking at herself in the mirror above the sink.

  I am a badass, she thought, and breathed out, but the air caught in her throat. Even though she wore a dark suit, it wasn’t hard to tell that she was stronger than the average forty-year-old—hell, than the average twenty-year-old. She regularly benched one-sixty-five. She could have lifted Eddie Taysatch into the ambulance by herself if she had to. I am strong. I am strong enough to take this on. She found a hair tie in her purse and put her hair back into a ponytail.

  She could take Vivian Roundhouse. She could take both Vivian and her girlfriend if she had to. She closed her eyes and envisioned the last round of training shots she’d taken. It was the most accurate she’d ever been—her instructor said she was in the ninety-fifth percentile of agents.

  But accuracy on the shooting range didn’t always translate in practice. She’d read the articles—accuracy dropped to thirty percent in real-world scenarios. And whoever the shooter was had been accurate. There must have been thirty feet between the car and Eddie Taysatch.

  Unless the shooter had intended to hit Bernadette instead—

  Bernadette opened her eyes, and the room spun for a moment before snapping into place. This wasn’t helping. It wasn’t doing any good to think about it here. She’d go see Vivian Roundhouse, she’d get answers or she’d kick some ass.

  Why get rid of Eddie Taysatch? Did he know something? Did he see something?

  She looked in the mirror and straightened her blazer, took a deep breath, and walked out the door.

  Dunn drove the cruiser, Bernadette in the passenger seat, turning onto Twelfth Street from Highland Avenue.

  “There was an open spot back there,” Bernadette said.

  “Let’s drive around the campus. The chapel’s up here on the left—let’s see what we can find.”

  “What we can find?”

  “Any light blue vans that might be parked on the street.”

  Bernadette shook her head. “You put out an APB on the van. Do you really think someone shot Eddie Taysatch and left it parked on the street?”

  “Stranger things have happened.” They turned into the campus. The snow let up until only a few flakes fluttered to the earth. “Did Eddie say anything else?”

  Bernadette turned away from the street—no sign of the van yet. “What
?”

  “You rode with him to the hospital. Did Eddie say anything else?”

  “No. He was going into shock.”

  “You didn’t see the driver, did you?”

  “Nope.”

  Dunn rubbed her neck, then put her hand back on the steering wheel. “Even after we talk with Vivian Roundhouse again, we’ve got a bunch of people to interview. There’s the head of the Piscary Association, Douglas Rheinstaller. We can lean on him—he’s the one who punched Eddie, after all.”

  “How hard do you want to push?”

  “We can bring him into the station and charge him with assault if we need to.”

  “Maybe he’s got a light blue van, too. Or maybe someone else at the Piscary Association.”

  “I checked. He doesn’t have a van, but we’ll check out the other members of the board, maybe a few of his friends. It’s a common make and model.”

  “Where do we interview him?”

  “He lives out near the airport. Works as an electrician. Gets home about three. I vote for heading over there after we talk with the reverend.”

  Bernadette looked out the window again. Still no blue van.

  Dunn braked for a stop sign. “You think your sniffy colleague will turn up any time soon?”

  Bernadette tapped the armrest thoughtfully. “Who knows? He has a history of going AWOL on cases.”

  “Then why keep him around?”

  “He’s impossible to replace.”

  Dunn tapped the steering wheel thoughtfully. “Can he really smell when this ibogaine stuff has been in a room?”

  “I think so. Obviously, my bosses think so, too.”

  Dunn turned a corner and Bernadette recognized the street. They’d made a loop all the way around campus. “I don’t think we’ll find the van.”

  “Me neither.” Dunn pulled in front of a parking meter at the curb, and they got out, the passenger door gently scraping a mound of snow.

  “What exactly is your plan, Detective?” Bernadette asked.

  “Let’s ask the reverend about the van,” Dunn said. “See where that leads us. Maybe she can ask her bestest buddy Anne Askew if she can see the van from the sky.”

  Bernadette shot Dunn a look. “You don’t need to be disrespectful.”