The Cin Fin-Lathen Mysteries 1-3 (44 page)

“The truck was found at the strip bar on Military Trail.  No
witnesses.  Cotton fibers found on the discarded clippers in the bed of the
truck.”

“How did he manage so many flowers?” I asked.

“No idea or evidence to tell us,” Dave answered.

“Tuesday night,” Tony resumed, “after Cin and Harry returned
home, Cin retrieves her mail of the last two days from the mailbox.  In the
middle, she finds an envelope written in blocked script.  She notices that
there isn’t a post office stamp or a postage cancellation.  She alerted me, and
I called Sergeant Buslowski.

“Fingerprints?” Harry asked.

“None.  But the same cotton fibers were found along the seal
of the envelope.  Cin used rubber kitchen gloves when she brought in the mail,”
Tony added.

“So, we have a tie into the three crimes, four including the
theft of oleander and the truck and the papers.  Cotton fibers, poison and
Coconut Palm Concert Band members killed or targeted.” Dave paused.  “We have
how, where and when.  Let’s start working on who and why,
people.”

“Can I add Miles to the list of intended victims?” I asked.

“Why do you feel Miles was a target?” Tony asked.

“Carl, Cheryl and Miles had my ill will in common, Manfred
and Tobias also to a small degree.  The killer seems to either share my
feelings or thinks he knows my feelings.  He has taken a great risk to turn all
of this into a game.  A deadly game, and I was an unknowing player.  Not
anymore.  I’m not going to sit back and give this monster free reign!”

“She may be right,” Doctor Botticelli spoke up.  “A why
might be to impress Cin or to improve the band or to play benefactor.”

“Why Cin?” Harry asked.

“When I look at a crime scene, I usually run a list and fill
in the blanks.  When there is an additional murder, I first make sure there is
a common bond.  The third attempt, whether it was an attempt on Miles and/or
the bassoonists, I linked the three.  The common bonds in all three are the use
of poisons.  Plant poison or poisons used around plants.  All three were
planned.  The third attempt was planned weeks in advance as were the two
successful murders.  Another common bond is this theater.  The killer gave us a
sense of the dramatic with the specter of Carl forever running late.”

The profiler stopped and let the image of Carl sink in
before continuing, “Cheryl, the copycat, dared try to imitate the best and the
beautiful, whether it was musical or personal.  How dare she even try to play
as well as the first oboist?  How dare she even shadow the beauty of Ms.
Fin-Lathen?  Although a poser in life, the killer gave her a very original
death.  The killer gave the most beautiful part of the poison to Ms.
Fin-Lathen.  He showered her with the flowers.  He courted her.  And what did she
do?  She stopped his next tribute.  Spurned his love.  He won’t try to kill
Miles, Manfred and Tobias again.  He will try to kill Ms. Fin-Lathen.”

“Why me?  Why am I the object of his attention?”  I echoed
Harry’s thoughts, keeping my voice even.

“You found Carl.  Why not?” Botticelli said simply.  “You
tried to save Cheryl.  You are a player.  You saved Miles, Manfred and Tobias. 
In his eyes, you’re his equal.  You’re beautiful, original, humorous and, for
the most part, alone and vulnerable.  Because of your recent divorce, you are
on your own.  Your admirer wants to ease your grief.  He has taken the people
who cause you angst away.  Now he will either take the ones you love away or
kill you so you can be his always.”

“This isn’t making me feel any better,” I said.

“What if you’re wrong?” Harry questioned.  “What if it’s
just a sick game, and Cin has been chosen to be one of the players?”

“He still will have to kill her to win the game.”

“But only after he takes away her loved ones?”  Harry took a
deep breath.  “He can’t get to Luke and Noelle because they’re out of the
country.  Alex is away at college, and we can make sure he stays there.”

“What about you?” Botticelli asked.

“Me?” Harry’s voice squeaked.

“You’ve taken the role of her protector.”

“Damn straight.  So he’s going to come after me next?”

“Looks like it.”  The profile rolled his neck as if he was
now bored.

“We have to find this guy and stop him before he ups the
stakes,” Tony’s serious tone rung through the quiet room.  “Let’s go out to the
stage and work on this.  Miles, thank you, you can go home.  Please don’t eat
anything that you yourself haven’t cooked.  Please refrain from any social
contact with any band member.”

“What about Carl’s funeral tomorrow?” Miles asked.

“Did you really want to go?” Tony questioned.

“No,” he admitted.

“Then don’t,” Tony put very clearly.  “I have Buck’s keys so
I will lock up.”

Miles looked over at me and mouthed a thank you.  I nodded
and he left.  Tony signaled an officer to follow Miles out. 

“So they still suspect him,” Harry hissed in my ear.

“Maybe it’s for his protection?”

“They were following us today.  Remember the traffic cops at
the airport.  Do you think it was for our protection?”

“Really, those bastards.  How did you find out?”

“Used a little charm and policewoman Andrea spilled her
guts.”  Harry gave me his plastic smile.

“And I thought you were trying to make me jealous.”  I
sighed.

Harry looked at me, and we both started laughing.  The
others in the room looked over at us, but it didn’t stop the laughter. 
Sometimes you just have to search for the humor and indulge in it.

Tony invited Harry and I into the conference room and shut
the door behind him.  He thought for a moment and began, “I don’t want you two
to misunderstand me, but I see that my actions have left the door open.”

Harry and I looked at each other when he paused.  Okay, here
it comes, our tacit communication acknowledged.

“Who the hell do you think you are?  Miss Marple and
Hercules Poirot...”

“Hercule,” I corrected.  “Hercule Poirot.”

His eyes bore into mine with impatience tinged with
loathing.  “Whatever.  The point is, I have a report from my men that you have
been busybodies in an investigation that you don’t belong in.”

“Dave said...” Harry started.

“Dave Buslowski is not in charge of this investigation.  He
has no say here.”

“Looked like he had a good handle on it out there,” Harry
pointed out.

Tony’s blood pressure was making his neck bulge.   “I
repeat.  Unless you want to find yourself in jail with an obstruction of justice
charge, stay out of it.”

“So, you’re not curious?” I asked calmly, trying to smooth
the waters.

“Curious?”

“About what we’ve found out?”

“No. I or my men will properly interview these men.  Nothing
you’ve done so far is helping.  Can’t you see that?”  Tony slammed his hand on
the table.  “I can’t take any of this into my case.  It’s all hearsay.”

I had to admit that he was right. I grabbed Harry’s hand
before he could say anything else.  “I’m sorry we’ve gotten in your way.  I
just wanted to make sure that I could walk into the band room without tripping
over any more bodies.  I appreciate you including Harry and I this evening.”  I
got up.  “I understand the strain you’re under.  My advice - and you probably
won’t take it - is, Dave’s got more of a handle on this than your profiler
does.  Brian Harrison isn’t worth your time.  Billy, maybe.”

Tony blew out some air and he nodded.  “Thanks for coming
in. Don’t leave the area and don’t eat anything you haven’t cooked yourself.”

Harry rose from his chair, looked at me and over at Tony. 
His body language was hard to decipher.  “You know, Dick-tective, you are over
your head.  Cin’s been through this before.  Higher stakes than your precious
ego.  Don’t call us when you can’t find your ass with your elbow.”

“Harry!” I hissed.

He just walked out the door, ignoring my admonition.

“You blew it,” I said and turned on my heel before Tony
could recover.

I caught up with Harry at the door.  “Hold on, partner.”

He looked back at me and smiled.  “Partner?”

“Oh yes, time to do things our way, Harry.  I linked my arm
in his. “Did you see how he addressed me as a suspect and a victim in one
sentence?”

“Noticed.”

“Do they teach that at the police academy?”

“Nah, it’s dick behavior, learned on the mean streets.”

We started laughing as we walked through the open loading
dock door overlooking the plushest landscaped street in south Florida.

~

Harry eased the car out of the parking space.  I felt
cramped, and the sunburn made me very uncomfortable.

“Harry, put the top down,” I instructed.

“You don’t have to ask me twice.”

Harry lowered the top, and we started to drive away.  He
slowed the car to a stop. 

“That’s odd.”  He backed the car up.

“What?”

“Miles’s car is still here.”

“Are you sure that is Miles’s car?”

“1999 red Ford Mustang.  Not too many of those around.” 
Harry turned off the engine and got out.  He looked in the car.  “It’s
definitely Miles’s.”

“Where is he?  Where’s the policeman that was following
him?”  I started looking between the cars.

“Careful, Cin.  This doesn’t feel good to me.”

“Harry, get the flashlight from the emergency kit in the
trunk.”

He opened the small trunk and dug beneath the shoeboxes from
our afternoon adventure and found the flashlight.  Harry turned it on and
started flashing it around Miles’s car.  I walked over to claim possession of
the light when something over Harry’s shoulder caught my eye.

“Harry, I don’t have my driving glasses on.  Can you see
that?”  I pointed to the front of the Avery Theater.  I could just see
something on the other side of the main stairway.

“That’s the flagpole.  Miles probably forgot to take down
the flag again.”  Harry dismissed it with a glance.

“No, hang on.”  I walked over and dug through my purse and
could not find my glasses.  I walked towards the flagpole.  As I got closer my
vision started to clear.  The flag was flying limp, with this breeze?  It was. 
Damn, I couldn’t see.  I continued walking towards the front of the theater. 
The flag was wrapped around something.  Someone!  “Harry!  Harry!” I shouted as
I ran.  “Get the police.  Oh shit!”  As I rounded the front of the building, I
caught the full view.  “Miles, shit.”  I scrambled over the hedge and ran full
out to help the police officer that I thought was trying to get him down.  “How
did this happen?  Let me help you.”

The policeman’s skin was an all too familiar pale blue.  His
hands were tied into the ropes of the flagpole, and then tied to the pole.
Miles was still.  His hands were bound up in the rope over his head.  Around
his neck was a necklace of flowers.  A picture flashed in my mind.  It was
devil’s trumpet.  The flag was caught between his legs.  I craned my neck up
and felt a spray of moisture.  Had the sprinklers started?

I no longer heard anything clearly.  I knew someone was
yelling.  I felt hands pulling me away, unlocking my fingers from the ropes.  I
just couldn’t move.  Lights, lots of lights, illuminating the bizarre story
that this double murder told.  Tony wanted to hang this on Miles.  Miles should
hang for the murders of Carl and Cheryl.  But Miles didn’t kill them.  Manfred
and Tobias, were they still alive?  Harry’s voice kept repeating in my head,
“it’s the old farts, it’s the old farts.”  Miles’s voice, “What’s the
problem?”  Mine, “are you a fainter?”  “What’s the problem?  What’s the
problem?”  The doctor’s cool, bored tone.  “Spurned his love.  He won’t try to
kill Miles, Manfred and Tobias again.  He will try to kill Ms. Fin-Lathen.”

I felt something warm about me.  Light in my eyes.  Carl’s
eyes, happy with the anticipation of performing.  How could he play with a mic
stand in his chest?  I saw Cheryl dancing around in my orange halter top.  Her
face pressed into mine.  “Where did you get your shoes?”

My face was wet again and again.  My eyes must have
exploded.  Again and again.  Burning, cooling, burning, cooling.  Lights,
fingers at my eyes.  Faint sounds, real sounds.  More lights, stingy tears. 
Why was I crying?  I was not crying over my shoes.  Let her have my shoes.  No
more fingers.  I will give you the damn shoes.  “No!” Stinging in my arm. 
Lights, fingers, cool air, haze.  I couldn’t reach my shoes - where were my
shoes? 

“Cin.  Cin,” Harry’s voice.

“Come on, don’t leave us!” the finger’s voice.

“You can have my shoes.  No more fingers!”  I heard my own
voice above the waves.

“Cin, what shoes?” Harry asked.  “Is she coming around?”

“Lord, look at those eyes.  She’s in anoesis.”  Lights,
fingers talking?

I looked at the fingers and followed them up to a face. 
Ed.  Not Cheryl, Ed Novak.  I squinted my eyes.  “No pliers?”

He smiled.  “So you remember me?  We’re on the way to the
hospital.  Can you tell me what you got in your eyes?”

“Spray.  Datura, devil’s trumpet, around Miles’s neck.  Tell
them, very bad, very bad poison.” 

Ed moved away and was communicating with the hospital. 
Harry’s face replaced his.  I tried to reach up and brush his curls, but my
arms wouldn’t move.

“Hey there, Cin.  How are you feeling?” Harry’s voice was
soft.

“Stuck.”

“We had to restrain your arms.  You were freaking out. 
Fighting us.”

Harry’s head disappeared, and Ed poured something in my
eyes. 

“Sorry, Hon, but I have to keep these flushed.  Here, hold
her head to the side,” Ed instructed Harry.  “Keep running this through both
eyes.  Come on, Hon, keep your eyes open,” he coached while he started calling
out numbers. 

“Harry, tell him to stop calling me Hon.”

 Harry smiled weakly.  Then nothing. White fog.  The fog was
moving.  No I was moving.  The fog was ceiling tiles, lights, tiles, lights, a
rhythmic clicking, and lots of noise.  Voices, Ed, women, men, Ed, a hand
coming to my face.

“Ms. Fin-Lathen, can you hear me?” an odd visage questioned
me. 

“Yes, where’s Harry?”  I tried to rise up.  Hands held me
securely down.

“Harry?  Your son?”

“Yes, Harry’s my son.  Where is he?” I said slowly.  “Why is
it so hard to speak?”

“We gave you valium.  Are you sleepy?”

“No, just slow.”

“Harry is outside,” a female voice said.

“Could you ask him where the car is?”

“Don’t worry about the car, Ms. Fin-Lathen.”

“You don’t know Harry,” I said.  My breathing was getting
harder.  “I am having trouble breathing.”

“Can you stay awake?  I don’t want you to sleep.  We think you
were sprayed in the face with a dilution of sap from datura stramonium.”

“Devil’s trumpet,” I said calmly.  “There was devil’s
trumpet around Miles’s neck.”  I turned my head.  “Miles?”

“I don’t know anything about Miles, sorry.  The paramedic
was quick to flush your face and eyes with saline.  You were delirious.  Kept
fighting, I understand.  We’re going to clean you up, check out your blood, and
check out your eyes. If you respond well, then we will see about letting you go
home with Harry.”

I suffered mutely through needles, and when they finally
took off the restraints, it was only for a urine sample.  A large male nurse
moved me to a dry gurney.  He propped up the back and removed what was left of
my clothes.

“Ouch, some sunburn.  Let me get some cream for that.”  He
disappeared, and the realization hit me that I was topless, sitting here with
my gravity-challenged breasts hanging out.

He came back, and I put my mind somewhere else as he applied
the cream and gently dressed me in a hospital gown.  My head began to pound,
and I just wanted to sleep.  The thought of my baby abandoned in that parking
lot, alone and frightened, this kept me awake.  Alex, Noelle, I wondered if
anyone called them?  For the briefest of moments Father Michael flashed in my brain. 
I owed him something, but I couldn’t remember what.  I would deal with that
later but not before I found my car.

They wheeled me into a room on the second floor, and, only
after some pleading, let me go to the bathroom.  I was still attached to an IV
that I don’t remember asking for.  I wheeled it in with me. I closed the door
and sat down.  Wait, I got up and pushed my panties down.  Nope, wasted
effort.  Where the hell was my underwear?  I sat back down, peed and took my
time standing up.  I wheeled myself to the sink and tried to wash my hands. 
The male nurse ended up drying me off and lifted me up and put me in bed.  Warm
covers were pulled up. 

“I am going to check your vitals.  Then your son Harry can
come in.”

“I didn’t catch your name.”

“Brent.”

“Thank you for the lotion, Brent.  Could you do something
about the lights?  It’s like the full sun is drilling into my head.”

“Does your head hurt?”

“Hurt doesn’t begin to describe it.”

“I will call the doctor about the headache.  Your eyes are
still fully dilated from the effects of the poison.  When I can, I’ll wander
down to optical and score you some sunglasses.  Until then, let’s lower the
lights.  There how does that feel?”

“Better.  Thank you.”  I leaned back and rested my head.  I
raised my arms, very happy that I could do so but dismayed by the bruising
around my wrists.

“Knock, knock?”  Harry’s timid voice called from the
hallway.

“You can come in, son.”  Brent picked up my chart and left
us alone.

Harry just stood there at the end of the bed. His shirt was
undone.  He pulled his sleeves over his hands but not before I saw the
scratches on them.  Harry reached behind him and pulled out a flattened piece
of canvas that had once been one of my shoes.  He put it on the tray table.

“What is it with you and shoes?”  He stepped back down to
the end of the bed and cocked his head to the side as he looked back at me.

I cocked my head and looked back at him.  “Do I look that
bad?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, I left you.  I ran to get Tony.”  His face was
tense.  Harry was obviously very stressed out.

“I asked you to.  No, I remember demanding you to.  I’m the
one that got me into this.  Please come over here.  I could really use a hug.”
I held up my arms weakly.