time and I just finished one. In my book …”
I stopped, doubled over in pain and gripped my stomach, bloated from swallowed air. I tried to stifle a long, noisy belch, but failing that, the result was immediate and wonderful relief.
“Excuse me!” I gasped, “… it’s how I killed my victim,” I finished, breathless and mortified.
A thought attacked my brain, which was slowly recovering from the mush attack. “Quick! You have to get him back to the hospital. He could still be in danger.” I jumped to my feet, dragging the detective with me.
He jerked his arm from my grip, “Why?”
I gasped; opening and closing my mouth like a fish out of water. My hands flapped helplessly. The words were there, somewhere. He unholstered his two-way radio, his thumb poised over the transmit button.
“Tell me,” he barked, his dark eyes compelled me to speak.
“The bullet in my story was dipped in poison. By now he could be having convulsions and dying!” I shook his arm, “Call an ambulance! He might need help. Call 911. Oh, please hurry! CALL 911!” I wailed.
“How do you know he was shot with a poisoned bullet if you didn’t do it?” he demanded.
“I don’t know — for sure, but someone I thought was my friend read my manuscript yesterday. Then she emailed me last night and threatened to kill me using my poisoned bullet idea. Maybe Conrad wasn’t poisoned but can you take that chance?”
I took his arm again and dragged him across the studio toward the exit.
“I patterned my victim after Conrad and if he was shot like I described in my book, I have to be sure he’s okay. But that’s all I’m admitting to!”
Smith barked instructions into the radio, twisting away when my urgency threatened to jostle the radio from his arthritic grip. Then we double-timed it to his unmarked police car in the lot out back.
“Get in!” he ordered, starting the engine. He squealed his tires while leaving the parking lot, which settled me firmly into the seat and effectively closed my door at the same time. A true gentleman, that detective.
“Now, tell me why you think his shooting has anything to do with your book? If you’re wrong about this — ” his voice trailed off while he activated the siren and drove, swerving rapidly through tiny openings in busy downtown traffic.
“I sort of modeled the victim after Twitchell. You were right. I don’t like him much, but I didn’t expect anyone to get shot,” I moaned, clinging to the door handle, the dash, even grabbing the ceiling. Cinching my seat belt tighter I prayed like I never had before. Smith drove like a madman, ignoring the blaring horns of the motorists he’d cut off. If we crashed, at least my conscience would be clear when I died.
Just my luck. I was going to die trying to save the twerp after I’d successfully killed him in my story.
We raced into the hospital parking lot just ahead of the ambulance. The double doors in the back burst open as two paramedics scrambled to slide a stretcher from the interior. Eyes wide with fear, Twitchell was strapped to the metal-framed gurney. His body suddenly arched against the restraints, veins bulging in his neck and forehead. His mouth opened wide in a silent scream as they whisked him into the emergency room.
We trailed inside behind the paramedical entourage where Conrad lay crumpled on the gurney. The EMT’s surrounding him shouted his vital signs, preparing to hand him off to the ER staff.
Smith beckoned to a doctor racing toward the patient and stuck his badge under the man’s nose. The detective then jabbed his twisted hand in the small of my back and roughly shoved me forward, growling, “Tell the doctor what kind of poison you used.”
Doctor Rashid, according to his name tag, paused impatiently, looked at me and jammed his fists on his hips.
“I used amonicum cordripimine.” I stammered, “It’s slow-acting and undetectable.”
Seeing Rashid’s horrified expression, I cried, “No! I didn’t poison him! I wrote a book and someone copied the murder that I wrote. Can you help him?”
The doctor shook his head impatiently. “What was the poison?” His teeth were clenched and I watched the cords stand out in his neck, just like Conrad’s.
“I made it up! I didn’t want to use the name of a real poison in case someone …” I fizzled to a stop when he abruptly turned away.
A rigid forefinger erupted from the doctor’s angry fist, stabbing in the direction of an empty alcove. “I need blood drawn, STAT. Possible unknown poison!”
The doctor glared in my direction, but I could see his mind was already on his patient.
CHAPTER NINE
“Code Blue!”
I always knew I’d write that in one of my books someday, but when it happens for real it’s dreadful. Especially if it happens to a friend — did I say that? Where’d that come from? I wouldn’t call Conrad Twitchell my friend if his life depended on it.
Okay, another poor choice of words.
He was dying and I suddenly realized I didn’t want him to. Now, don’t go thinking I was getting all soft with regrets for the things I said and thought about the Twitwit. It’s not my fault he was a target for some sicko mimicking my brilliant manuscript.
All right, so I sat beside his bed and watched him throughout the night. His convulsions were so violent the restraints dug into his wrists and each time the tremors subsided, he fell back looking quite dead. His face was pale and waxy, his eyes sunken and ringed with dark bruises. He looked like a mutant raccoon.
For a while I thought I was losing my edge. Then I realized that the only reason I didn’t ache to annihilate the kid, at that particular moment anyway, was because he wasn’t yapping at me in his annoying, condescending voice. That always made me crazy. Add to that the fact that he was the same age as my son.
That night it was touch and go. He coded twice and the doctors were amazed that his heart hadn’t sustained massive damage from the poison coursing through his body.
He reminded me of something out of a science-fiction movie with all those machines bleeping and the needles and IV bags dripping counteractive drugs into his veins.
Sometime in the early morning hours his pale hand, long fingers limp and clammy, slid toward me. Before realizing what I’d done, I offered my hand. I tried to retrieve it, but he twitched weakly every time I moved. It seemed as if he needed physical contact. I crouched unmoving beside him the rest of the night, watching him labor for each breath. His body shuddered from the deadly effects of the poison.
His breathing slowly returned to normal as pink and gold clouds over the Cascade Mountain range lit up the sky. He sighed once and fell into a deep, exhausted sleep. Trust me, the reason I endured so much discomfort was only to avoid murder charges.
At my age, sitting motionless and hunched over a body for hours is unwise. Make that downright idiotic. I discovered this during the spectacular sunrise when I managed to work my hand loose. I wanted to leave before the officer posted outside
