Brainy-BOOM!

by Wally Duff

  94

  Fifteen minutes later, Janet and Tony met David and me in my driveway. They followed as I drove back to David and Rick’s house. This time, there were no parking places on either side of the street. Tony double-parked their Ford Police Utility SUV in front of the house and put on his blinking blue cop lights. I double-parked in front of them.

  The falling snow had partially filled the imprints I’d made in the front yard, but it was still obvious that a person had slid all the way from the front door to the sidewalk.

  David remained in the van. We got out and stood staring at the house. They pulled out their guns. I had my backpack but didn’t take out my Glock.

  Tony pointed to the disrupted snow. “Makin’ snow angels?” he asked.

  “No, Tony, I wasn’t making snow angels,” I said. “I ran out of the house and fell on my ass. Happy now?”

  He smiled. “Typical skirt. Runnin’ instead of fightin’.”

  I clenched my fists, but he was right. I ran and never considered any other course of action.

  “Let’s get on with this,” Janet said. “It’s cold out here.” She turned to me. “Take us through it.”

  We moved forward. “David and I walked up these planks,” I said. “After we entered and closed the front door, I heard a noise which sounded like compressed air coming out of a machine.”

  “Nail gun?” Tony asked.

  “It was, but I didn’t know it for sure at the time.”

  Tony and Janet held their guns in front of them. Janet nodded at my backpack. “You might need to protect yourself if this goes upside down.”

  Pulling out my gun, I made sure I had a round in the chamber as we walked through the still-open front door and stepped inside. We stopped but I left the door open.

  “What happened next?” she asked.

  “David called out, but Sullivan didn’t answer. David remained here in the hallway, and I walked in and found Sullivan’s body.”

  “Stay here,” Janet said. “Do not leave this spot.”

  They walked down the hall into the great room. I waited for the sound of gunfire. Instead, I heard laughter.

  “Did it again, sweets,” Tony said, from the great room.

  “Did what?”

  “Lost another body.”

  95

  No freaking way!

  I ran into the great room. Janet and Tony stood in the middle of the space where Sullivan’s body had been.

  It was gone. So were the plywood desk, the folding chair, and the house plans.

  “This is impossible!” I fumed.

  Janet holstered her gun. “For most people, I would agree with that statement. But not with you. You seem to be good at this. Tell us exactly what happened in here.”

  I walked over to the spot where Sullivan had been nailed to the floor and table.

  “Sullivan was right here,” I said, as I pointed at the spot where he’d sat. “His feet were nailed to the floor and his hands were nailed to the makeshift desk.”

  Tony looked around. “Seems to be missing, along with the body.”

  “You guys know I’m not making this up.”

  Janet walked around the perimeter of the room and then peered out the back windows. “It’s hard to figure how this went down.”

  “What happened is that someone killed Sullivan and removed his body, cleaned up the evidence, and took everything out into the alley,” I said. That’s why we didn’t see anyone when we drove up.” I pointed toward the detached garage. “They parked back there.”

  “Two vehicles, Sullivan’s and the killer’s,” he said. “Where are the tracks?”

  “What tracks?” I asked.

  “Should be foot tracks in the snow if the perp removed the body with all the evidence and tire tracks when he drove away,” he said. “Don’t see either one or Sullivan’s truck.”

  The backyard was a morass of cement chunks and overturned dirt where footings had been dug for the patio. A tarp partially covered a stack of boards. A larger tarp had been thrown over another area in the yard that seemed like it was waiting for cement, but the fresh snow covering it had not been disturbed. I didn’t see any footprints or tracks in the snow indicating that anything had been dragged away from the house.

  I turned to Janet. “Sullivan’s body has to still be in here.”

  “If you’re right, maybe the killer is here, too,” she said.

  She took out her gun again. So did Tony. The two detectives left the great room to search the house. I remained, looking for clues to prove my case.

  There were several nail holes in the floor, but I couldn’t be sure if any of them matched up to where Sullivan was sitting. I checked for blood spatter on the floor or nails stuck in the wall where the killer had fired at me.

  I hadn’t found any by the time they returned.

  “Anything?” I asked.

  Janet gave me a small shake of her head. “A big goose egg.”

  Tony came in from the backyard. He stomped his feet to clean the snow off his Hunter boots. “No cars. No trucks. No tracks. Nothin’ to prove anybody drove a vehicle in or away. Nothin’ out there.”

  “I can’t believe this,” I said. “The guy killed Sullivan and tried to kill me. I know what happened.”

  “How do you explain this?” he asked.

  I leaned against the wall. “I can’t.”

  They waited. I glanced around and noticed something.

  “The McDonald’s wrapper. It’s gone.”

  “Too bad,” he smirked. “Clue we coulda’ worked with.”

  “It proves the killer cleaned up this area before he left,” I said. “He didn’t want to leave anything behind. Talk to David. He’ll verify what I saw.”

  “I already did while Tony walked around in the back,” Janet said. “David’s in shock and not sure what he saw.”

  “Call Sullivan’s house,” I said. “See if he’s there.”

  “It’s where we’re headed next,” she said. “If he answers the front door, you might want to rethink this whole deal.”

  96

  Midmorning on Tuesday, the core Irregulars were in the locker room of XSport Fitness having completed a forty-five minute spinning class. Our kids were either in school or XSport’s child care center.

  Rick was doing Marcia’s hair. David was in their condo having a post-traumatic stress attack after what happened to us. I needed a workout to release the tension for the same reason.

  I told my friends about Sullivan and the disappearance of his body.

  “What did Janet and Tony find when they went to Sullivan’s house?” Cas asked.

  “He wasn’t there,” I said.

  “Then he’s dead, like you told them,” Molly said.

  “I agree,” Linda said. “That would seem to confirm your story.”

  “Janet said that his neighbors told them he likes to gamble, and he’s been known to hit the casinos for days at a time without telling anyone where he’s going,” I said.

  “What does his wife say?” Linda asked.

  “He’s divorced,” I said. “They visited his ex-wife, and she told them she didn’t like his gambling away all their money. She said she would let Janet know if he doesn’t send his alimony check to her; otherwise she admitted she could care less about him.”

  “Maybe she did it,” Cas said. “I might kill Joe if he blew our money at a casino.”

  “I think it’s the same woman who killed the Russian guy,” Molly said.

  “Why on earth would you even suggest that?” Linda asked.

  “Gosh, it’s pretty obvious. She removed his body after she killed him. Now she’s done it again, and we need to do what we did at Zhukov’s office.”

  “Which was what, Molly?” I asked.

  “We go back to David and Rick’s new house and hunt for clues.”

  97

  Tuesday night, Carter took care of the girls. I was back at David and Rick’s home to search for clues. I had helpers with me.


  “Be careful, Alan,” I said, using the beam from my flashlight to guide him. I turned to Molly, who also had a flashlight. “If he slips and breaks a bone, I’ll never forgive you.”

  “Don’t worry, Tina,” Alan said. “I might have mad cow disease, but my physical skills are still intact.”

  He followed that statement by slipping off the board leading into David and Rick’s house and falling on his back into the snow.

  I jumped down to help him up and shined my flashlight on his face. He blushed.

  “I guess I’m not as agile as I used to be,” he admitted.

  “I can’t believe Marcia said you could come with us,” I said.

  He didn’t say anything.

  I turned the flashlight on Molly. “Marcia does know about this, doesn’t she?”

  “Not exactly,” she said.

  I waited.

  “I stopped to see Alan tonight and we began playing Super Mario on his Wii. I remembered what we talked about after spinning this morning, so after Marcia left to go to some party thingy for the opera, I called you to meet us here.”

  “What about Lori, his nurse?”

  “She showed me how to make sure he was safe in his part of the house before she left.”

  “And you decided to take a little detour without telling Marcia or Lori.”

  “I thought it would be fun. He gets bored staying inside all the time, isn’t that right, Alan?”

  He stared straight ahead.

  “I think he’s having a moment,” I said. “Once I get the door open, you help him into the house to get him out of the wind. I’ll be as fast as I can.”

  Taking out my lock pick gun and torque wrench, I opened the lock box. The chatter from the gun made Alan blink several times, and he leaned closer to me to see what I was doing.

  “This is a lock pick gun, Alan,” I said. “It comes in handy for situations like this.”

  His eyes remained dull, and he didn’t say anything. Once the door was open, Molly helped him into the hallway. I went into the great room and began spraying luminol on the spot where I thought the desk had been. I turned off my flashlight but no blue colors appeared.

  “Damn,” I said to myself.

  “Luminol,” Alan said from behind me, causing me to jump in the dark.

  I turned the flashlight back on. “It is. Have you heard of it?”

  His eyes brightened. “C8H7N3O2, or what you know as luminol, exhibits a blue chemiluminescence when mixed with an appropriate oxidizing agent. It reacts with the iron stores found in hemoglobin. It is used by forensic investigators to detect, among other elements, trace amounts of blood left at crime scenes.”

  He blinked and stared into the darkness. I flashed the light around the room, but Molly was gone.

  “Molly, where are you?” I asked.

  “Checking for clues,” she answered from the basement.

  “And?”

  “It’s weird. Part of the floor is cement but the rest is dirt.”

  I walked to the head of the temporary basement stairs and glanced back to make sure Alan’s brain was still in the off mode. “Ah, Molly?” I whispered. “Better leave this alone. The cement part is where Frankie’s guys buried the guy I shot.”

  Her flashlight moved back and forth. “If you say so, but I think it’s a clue.”

  “It is, but it’s to a crime I committed. I think we should forget about it.”

  98

  I followed Molly and Alan back to his home. She punched in the security code on his front door, which was located on the side of the house. We took him inside.

  “Do you need any help, Alan?” Molly asked.

  “Help?” he asked.

  “Getting ready for bed,” she said.

  His eyes narrowed. “I am not that far gone that I cannot properly prepare for bed.”

  “Before we leave, I have a question,” I said. “Do you know much about vitamins and supplements?”

  His eyes brightened. “Ah, yes, complementary and alternative medicine. Seventy percent of the health care in the world is levied by nonmedical personnel. We can posit these formulations are efficacious in many clinical settings.”

  “So, like Sir Alexander Fleming accidentally found penicillin, could other substances be found in nature that might cure cancer?” I asked.

  “They might and probably will be in the future.” He peered into my eyes. “Does this have to do with Fertig and Diane Warren?”

  “It does.”

  He smiled. “You finally figured it out from what I told you at the dinner party.”

  “Fertig’s supplements cured the breast cancer, not his surgery.”

  “That’s it?!” he shouted. “That’s what you deduced? Unbelievable. Did you not listen to one word I said?”

  “I did, and I thought that’s what you meant.”

  He stomped his foot. “Do I constantly have to be exposed to small minds? Is there no one who can comprehend what I am saying?”

  I hung my head. “If it’s not good enough, I apologize.”

  He raised his voice. “Can you not see it? The solution is right before your myopic eyes. Expand your view, and you will have Diane Warren in your clutches. She is in an indefensible position. You will win if you simply listen to what I told you.”

  He whirled around and left the room.

  “He sounded kind of upset,” Molly said.

  “No kidding,” I said. “I wish I knew what the heck he was talking about.”

  99

  Wednesday morning, the core Irregulars were in the locker room after having finished a strictly strength class at XSport Fitness.

  “Yesterday I forgot to tell you guys that before Eddie left he presented an interesting idea to me,” I began.

  I told them what he said about Fertig and Diane Warren. I didn’t say anything concerning Alan’s rant about my inability to understand the ramifications of Fertig’s supplements.

  Linda disagreed. “All Eddie has is a theory based on words a crazy man uttered. In my opinion, that’s extremely meager evidence.”

  “And like Eddie told you, there’s a problem investigating this,” Cas said. “New patients who have a breast cancer operation done by Diane’s current surgeon will be given conventional post-op breast cancer treatment. It’ll be at least five years before anyone discovers the cure rates have changed.”

  “Yes, but that’s for the new patients,” I said. “What about the existing ones? If they were cured on Fertig’s supplements and now no longer can get them, won’t they risk getting a breast cancer recurrence?”

  “It’s possible, but again, it might take several years for this to occur,” Cas suggested.

  “If Fertig’s nurse told us about his discovery of herbs in the South American rain forest, Diane obviously knows about them too,” I said.

  “And she has at least five years to find them,” Linda said.

  “I wonder if her breast cancer doctor is still selling supplements to his post-op patients?” Cas asked.

  Huh?

  “If he is, and she knows he’s not selling Fertig’s South American supplements that cure breast cancer, that might be the real story here,” I said.

  “That’s a great legal point,” Linda said. “She and her employee would be willfully and knowingly committing fraud and potentially allowing patients to die of breast cancer who think they are receiving Fertig’s treatment regimen.”

  “But they wouldn’t be,” Cas said.

  Molly looked up. “Yeah, so she would be killing those poor ladies.”

  “It is possible a prosecutor might file murder charges too,” Linda added.

  “If we can prove this, we can put her out of business,” I said.

  “And when they slap her in jail, she won’t be able to blow us up,” Molly said.

  “Okay, but how do we prove Diane’s doctor is selling different supplements than Fertig used?” Cas asked.

  I thought back to the visit Janet and I made to Fertig’s of
fice when we were told about the South American supplements.

  “Frankie,” I said to myself.