Murder in New Eden

by Charles C. Cole

Table of Contents

Chapter 24: At the Vintage Soda Fountain

Nakamura and Wayne sit at a quiet corner of the white-marble counter in The Vintage Soda Fountain. There is something conspiratorial about their frequent glances at each other. They both sip furiously through long paper straws while taking competitive ultra-extended, breath-free slurps.

Wayne comes up for air first. “Brain freeze! Brain freeze!”

Nakamura continues.

“I hate you. No wonder Sgt. Cody has the hots for you. You’re so gifted.”

Nakamura swats Wayne roughly in the gut with the back of her hand, while continuing to the last drop.

“Hey! Not so rough!”

Nakamura smacks the counter, like a pin-deciding referee at a wrestling match, as she finishes the last few ounces of her strawberry malted.

“Show off!” Wayne snipes.

Mr. Hallahan, the thin silver-haired pharmacist in the striped apron and soda jerk hat with pink piping, says nothing. But, while rinsing a metal ice cream scoop at the sink, he manages a general head-shaking look of disapproval.

Nakamura slams down the empty drink and gasps for air. “Take that, bad guys, wherever you are! I am going to vacuum you off the face of Satellite City New Eden!”

Mr. Hallahan raises a cynical eyebrow.

Wayne tries to “ruin the moment” with friendly teasing. “Now we know how you can return the favor to super-soldier Jeb Cody for all of his after-hours self-defense training.”

“We can’t all be good at dissecting dead bodies,” retorts Nakamura, “or mixing up the latest in mood-altering body-wash.”

Wayne gasps. “That’s right! The chief asked me to cross-train you, and I completely forgot.”

“Not that I’ve been waiting around; someone has to educate our visiting caveman in modern culture.”

“I’ve heard.” She kisses the back of one of her hands, with loud cartoonish affection. “But, seriously, we’ve got to get you to my office to use all of the cool tools. Of course, it would help if we had a fresh dead body to slice and dice.”

“Don’t jinx us! Are you crazy? These are our neighbors!”

“Come on, it’s not going to happen. What would our desperate assailant use? We don’t have guns. I know: how about a full bottle of floral-smelling shampoo to the back of the head? Whack! Or maybe by shoving sweaty gym socks down the victim’s throat until he or she asphyxiates.” She imitates the gesture. “Or decapitating our defenseless vic with an unexpectedly sharpened belt buckle.”

“You know as well as I do that it doesn’t have to be that complicated or creative. Whatever it is, it will be a murder propelled by emotion-fueled impulses. It will be sudden, using whatever’s convenient: a bathtub, a pillow, a balcony ledge. It doesn’t have to be fancy to get the job done.”

“A balcony ledge?” echoes Wayne.

“Why not?”

“No, it’s a good choice. And it might have already been used. We’ve all been under the impression that the first victim, Edgar Dumont, jumped to his suicidal death from his apartment in New Eden Towers. But we don’t know. Dr. Valdez was toying with the emotions of his victims through ‘drug therapy’, making them more aggressive, so why didn’t Dumont lash out?”

“Maybe he did,” counters Nakamura. “A housebound neighbor who hasn’t been discovered.”

“Even if that’s true, then why stop there?” asks Wayne. “Bernie Ketchum treated his killing spree like a board game. He could have slipped around at night in the dark, keeping track by carving notches into his headboard, but he wanted a high body count. It didn’t matter if he got caught or killed, as long as he took a double-handful of innocents with him. And he had a gun. Not a particularly quiet way to murder someone and get away unnoticed.”

“Which came from where?”

“Where he worked,” Wayne says.

“Wild coincidence,” says Nakamura, slowly as she adds the facts, “or someone knew he had access to a working weapon of mass destruction.”

“Dr. Valdez was treating him,” Wayne explains. “He must have known. Was he treating Edgar Dumont, too?”

“Well, that explains it,” concludes Nakamura. “Case closed.” She slides off her stool decisively. “Let’s pay our bill and get you back to the lab.”

“When Petrillo and I gave Dumont’s apartment the once-over,” continues Wayne, making no indication she’s done reviewing the circumstances, “I found a bottle of pills from Valdez, but it was nearly full.”

“So he’d recently renewed his prescription.”

“Or he knew better,” says Wayne, “refused to take them, threatened to tell, and was pushed to his death. When the pre-dawn maintenance crew just happened to stroll by and find the body.”

“If you were going to murder someone, why leave the body out to be discovered?” asks Nakamura. “Why not roll him up in a carpet and toss him out an airlock?”

“Maybe they came for him, but he wanted to be discovered.”

“You girls done?” asks Hallahan, reaching for their empties.

“All yours,” says Nakamura.

“Mr. Hallahan,” asks Wayne, “did you ever mix up compounds for Dr. Valdez?”

“I never mix anything up,” says Hallahan, clearly insulted, his upper lip curling like at a bad taste in his mouth.

“I don’t mean it that way,” adds Wayne. “Not in a bad way. I just mean: Did you occasionally distribute medicine for Dr. Valdez, as a favor? Did people come here to get their meds refilled?”

“Not typically, no. I like to follow the process from start to finish, so I can stand by my product with pride. But sometimes, if he was busy, like after the crazy shooting, Dr. Valdez might leave a prescription for one of his special patients to pick up at their convenience. In that instance, I was just a public mailbox, you know? I wasn’t involved in the pharmaceutical part.”

“Did that happen with Edgar Dumont?” asks Wayne.

“Dumont. Funny you should say that. It did and it didn’t,” clarifies Hallahan. “This was just before the shooting. Valdez left a package of some custom pick-me-ups for Dumont, the classic gloomy widower, but then Director Pelkey showed up and asked for them. He said he was paying Dumont a visit anyway, and Valdez asked him to help out.”

“When was that?”

“I couldn’t tell you the date. Sorry: every day here is a lot like the one before and the one after. Not that I’m complaining. It’s a good thing. We live a good life, a simple life.”

The front door jingles as three teen-aged girls in identical plaid ankle-length skirts and maroon long-sleeved sweaters enter, textbooks held to their chests. They grab the nearest available seats, continuing an animated conversation that probably began when they were leaving school for the day.

“I’ve got to go,” Hallahan explains with sidelong glance and excuses himself. “You two kids, go save the world. And bring that soldier boy sometime. Sounds like an interesting fellow.”

Wayne growls under her breath, intentionally too soft for him to hear, but intentionally loud enough for Nakamura, “I’m interesting, too, Mr. Hallahan, especially for a girl: I wear pants!”

* * *

As Mayor Brandt approaches his office, alone and feeling more vulnerable than usual, he notices a vague male figure following him, pacing him, yet too far to make out a face. Brandt has no training in self-defense and has no slide whistle on him to call for help. His only weapon, and it has been sufficient until this very moment, is an air of swaggering braggadocio inherent to small-town politicians and corporate straw bosses.

Brandt stops. The figure also stops. In a risky move, the mayor charges at the figure for twelve feet, then stops. The figure backs quickly away for the same distance, then stops. Finally, Brandt impatiently cuts to the chase, calling out, “Are you lost, young man? Following me will not lead to finding yourself.”

“It’s me,” responds Pelkey with a stage-whisper. “We need to talk.”

“Who?”

“Your former director.”

“The proverbial bad penny. You shouldn’t be here, Citizen Pelkey. It could complicate things for all of us.”

“The chief won’t take me seriously,” lament Pelkey.

“You’ve seen the chief?” The mayor is genuinely surprised.

“Once. I tried to warn him.”

“He didn’t tell me,” mumbles Brandt, pouting. “He knows I don’t like that. People forget I’m the boss. Why would he keep secrets from me?”

“Because he doesn’t trust you?”

“That was a rhetorical question, Toby. You used to know the difference. I think you’ve been too long in the real world.”

“We should get off the street before someone comes along,” suggests Pelkey.

“True.” A concern. “Are you sure you’re not being followed?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Good enough. Are you sure you’re not just here for a dip in the pool or a volley of tennis? I wouldn’t blame you. You’ve been living in hell, haven’t you? Poor dear.”

“I have vital information.” He is selling his importance.

“Of course you do.” The mayor sounds perturbed. “I hope you’ve managed to hide your face from the security cameras. I don’t want the wrong people to think we’re doing business.”

“Can I come up?”

“Fine, but we’ll talk shop, spy versus counterspy stuff, after tennis. I’ve really gotten rusty without you. Who knows when I’ll have this golden opportunity again? For the record, your replacement, Officer Petrillo, is no replacement at all. He’s like a wild mustang daring to be broken, and I haven’t got the energy I once had. I like my minions delivered more domesticated. Let’s go upstairs, shall we? It’ll be just like the old days: me scolding and you cowering.”

* * *

Behind closed doors, Police Chief Leo Schiavelli and Sgt Cody, both in full uniform, stand on either side of the chief’s desk. The guest armchairs have been moved against the walls, clearing a runway of sorts.

The chief unbuttons his coat and hangs it on a wooden coat tree near the window. Sgt. Cody does the same.

“One. Two. Three,” instructs Schiavelli.

They lift the heavy desk a mere eight inches or so and carry it six feet across the room, the chief grunting like a first-time mother during hard labor, and embarrassed about it the whole time.

Lois barges in, her face paler than usual, seemingly to the rescue. “Chief, are you okay?”

“Out! Out! And close the door! And lock the outer door! Nobody comes in until you hear from me! Got it?”

Lois nods quickly and ducks away, closing the door.

“Sergeant Cody—”

“Jeb.”

“Jeb, put the desk right against that wall. Can’t overdo it. We don’t want any surprises. Nobody’s getting in here, not without a thermonuclear rocket-propelled grenade.”

Cody smiles at the exaggeration, knowing full well that the chief, a life-long New Eden resident who’s never been off the peaceable satellite, has never witnessed an RPG in all its explosive glory.

“Gently. Lower it gently,” says Schiavelli. “And down.” The desk has landed.

“Are you okay?” Cody asks. The man in white has begun to see the unassuming, soft-in-the-middle Schiavelli as a father figure, more than a stock-character battle-hardened commander.

“It’s not me I’m worried about, you damn fool. Unlike you, this desk has not been preserved in its original condition in some hifalutin cryogenics tube for the last bazillion decades. It’s had to endure a lot of wear and tear. Hell, I used to stand on top of it and tap dance when I was a teen, before I knew I’d be working here as an adult.” He reaches for his coat and re-dresses.

“Tap dancing, sir? Why?”

“Because I was a teen with energy to burn. Chemically treated water or not, hormones make you do the stupidest things, especially male hormones. Or maybe the water’s been broken for all these years, which would explain a lot. My dad, the stern-looking gentleman in the photograph on the wall, to the far right of the other two stern-looking gentlemen, was the top cop in this precinct, most of his life. If he caught me, he wasn’t going to tell on me because it would reflect poorly on ‘the management’. Of course, he might have used his belt if he felt it was deserved.”

“Really?”

“What? You never had to be disciplined as a kid?”

“Not like that.”

“And here I thought it was the established protocol. I guess I’m not surprised I was treated differently. You might notice I don’t have kids of my own, right? Based on all available evidence, the old man didn’t know how to raise ’em. Who could blame him? There was no manual. Improvisation was not his forte. So who was going to teach me how to parent? Not him. But he did teach me how to be a good cop. So it worked out.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. If I’d been raised touchy-feely, conflict-averse, I might never have pushed for letting you out of the box. Or worse, I would have caved last night and given away four of your best friends to Superintendent Delumbria to do what he wanted with them, just because he demanded it.”

“I met Delumbria. I was not impressed.”

“So you did. Your feisty girlfriend, Lucy Nakamura, hurt a couple of his boys, as I heard it, for being a little handsy. I’ll bet he didn’t appreciate that.”

“Girlfriend?”

“I forget you’re not from around here. That’s what we locals call the person you’re holding hands with, in this century. Don’t worry; it’s not against the rules. Besides, you don’t work for me; you’re a fee-lancer. She does, however. I’ll talk to her. PDA: public displays of affection. I haven’t had to give that lecture in a long, long time. Maybe I’ll forget. But you better not break her heart.”

“No, sir!”

“Good to hear. Because her number one pal, the brilliant Eartha Wayne, under orders mind you, could probably slip you a cocktail that would make you believe that whatever battle you last fought in... had never ended.”

The chief passes Cody his dress jacket. “Put your coat on, son. Then help me roll the carpet back, will you? We’re going to see if there are still a few pesky bees in the hive. Never know. In truth, I’ve never seen the antique artillery for myself. I couldn’t tell the difference between my RPGs and my BVDs. Hell, for all I know, this here could be the vault where old ice cream goes to die.”

Proceed to Chapter 25...

Copyright © 2018 by Charles C. Cole