Daze of Wine & Murder

The Best Laid Plans

Chianti Sangiovese wore a form-fitting, black velvet evening gown. A gold choker glittering with diamonds encircled her throat.  On her feet she wore strappy gold sandals with 4 inch heels.   Her hair was piled high and held in place with jewel crusted combs.  Tonight she would preside over her first festival – and she was ready! Everything was going to work out just as she’d planned.

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To make certain she couldn’t get lost, the novice bacchante used Google Earth’s mapping feature to plan her driving route to the party.  She’d been assured that all the libations would be provided, but just before she took the freeway exit heading south, she stopped at a special little shop near the end of Main Street and picked up a couple dozen bottles of a very special wine – and one extra-special cocktail.  No one was leaving her Bacchanal coronation sober – and one person wouldn’t be leaving the party at all.

Chianti reached across the seat and felt for her purse.  She fumbled it open and caressed the special purple vial inside.  Tonight she would drink one last toast with Stephan.  She would tell him that she wished him well in his new life, and wished him happiness with his new wife.  Then he would sip from his drink and understand that she was really wishing him good-bye.

The map showed a road crossing the freeway about seven miles outside of town.  She was to take a right there, and five miles later another right, and a mile after that, a left should put her at a lovely little boat club on the edge of a private bay beside Barbaresco Lake.

It was a pleasant mid-summer Friday evening.  Chianti manipulated the automatic windows until they allowed a nice fresh breeze to enter the car, but wasn’t so brisk it ruffled her hair.

She was surprised so few cars were on the road, and even more surprised as she made the final turn to discover no clubhouse in sight.  Still, the parking lot was filled with cars, and spotlights illuminated a big black banner advertising the Bacchanal in letters of red.  She parked the car, grabbed her purse, and followed the noises of revelry.

Despite the bright moonlight, she found walking a challenge.  The dirt path was strewn with pine needles, tree roots and other natural disasters waiting to trip her up.  Branches and brambles tugged at her velvet dress.  She wished for sturdier, flatter shoes.  Why had no one told her she would have to hike in?  And how much further was it?

The trail pitched steeply.  Chianti’s sandals found little purchase on the slick pine needles covering the trail.  She slipped, arms flailing, and crashed to the ground, sliding several yards downhill before she came to a stop.

Shakily, she got to her feet.  Her gown hung in dirty tatters.  Her hair tumbled about her shoulders, the jewel encrusted combs were lost somewhere in darkness.  Her palms bled – and she had no idea where she was.  She listened for the party, but only the whisper of wind through the trees, and the sound of water lapping against the shore came to her ears.

The moon still shone brightly, but she could discern no trail.  Perhaps, she thought, I will find it if I climb back up the hill.  She took off her sandals and reached for her purse – but it was gone, lost in the darkness, or a bush, or just too far from the trail to see.

Perhaps I should just go home, she thought, her mind all a jibber.  Nothing was going as planned.  But she couldn’t leave without her purse. It held her car keys – and the purple vial.  Chinati remembered again why she’d made her plans.  Stephan had first introduced her to the Bacchanal.  They’d participated in the drunken parties five times each year, during all the years they’d lived together.  It was Stephan who urged her to become a priestess, and then, during the few short weeks she was away training, he’d met and married another woman.

Her resolve to continue strengthened, Chianti left her shoes where she had fallen as a landmark, and searched away from them in ever widening circles, but she did not find her purse.  Had she dropped it at the top of the hill?  Had it continued tumbling down the slope?  In either case, Chianti would have to walk out of sight of her shoes to find out.

She left one silver sandal where she’d fallen and carried the other sandal down hill several yards, and then put it down, planning to again use it as a landmark to help her find the first shoe.  That’s when she saw her purse.  It had gone over the embankment and tumbled onto the beach.  Chianti carefully crawled down after it, leaving bits of her expensive velvet gown on the underbrush as she went.

The embankment was queachy.  The wet ground soaked her to the skin.  Mud oozed between her toes and collected in the tatters of her pantyhose.  Never had a sober Bacchanal priestess looked so disreputable.

Suddenly the embankment gave way.  Chianti rode the wave of mud on to the beach and crawled to her purse.  She clutched the leather to her chest and staggered to her feet.  Clapping and cheering filled the air.  Flood lights lit the beach.  Someone yelled, “Our Priestess is here!  Let the party begin!”

A drumroll echoed and the crowd started chanting, “Chianti! Chianti! Chianti!”

Chianti stumbled to the bandstand.  A microphone was thrust into her hand.  She stood muddy and bloody and tattered.  Her hair hung in a tangle.  She had never looked worse, and still she laughed.  She grabbed a bottle of wine, held it high into the air with her right hand, and holding the microphone in her left hand, encouraged the crowd to drink and enjoy in celebration of Bacchus.

And suddenly Stephan was at her side, pressing a wine glass into her hand.  “You said we would share a drink,” he said.  “No hard feelings.”

Chianti tried to smile.  Things weren’t going at all as she’d planned.  She was supposed to have approached Stephan, drinks in hand, looking beautiful and elegant and cool.  Instead she looked like something that washed ashore in a storm.  Still, her revenge was salvageable.

A drink.  She needed a drink to help her collect her wits and reconstruct her plan.  She accepted the one from Stephan’s hand and sipped gratefully.  “So,” she asked, “Where is your — wife?”

“I didn’t want to introduce Sherry to you until I was certain you planned to be civil;” Stephan answered.

Chianti took another sip — champagne.  “Of course I plan to be civil.  Isn’t that what I told you on the phone?”

“Hmmm,” Stephan answered. “But after seven years of living with you, I know that what you plan and what you actually do are rarely the same.  For instance,” he put his hand on her shoulder and turned her to face the parkinglot, where she could clearly see her car.  “Why did you climb up and over the hill instead of just walking down the beach?”

Chianti realized that the spotlights on the Bacchanal sign had obscured her view of the beach.  “It sounded as though the party was coming from behind me.”  She said aloud.  “How could that be?”

Stephan smiled. “It isn’t an unusual phenomena around water.” He talked while refilling her champagne flute.  “The breeze from the lake carries the sound up the hillside and it echoes back down.”

Chianti wondered why no one had tried to stop her, but before she could ask, Stephan directed her attention to the beautiful blond woman who’d just stepped up and taken his arm.  The woman’s bright, dimpled smile and sparking green eyes were familiar.  Chianti covered her confusion by drinking from her champagne glass.  She knew this woman – this woman who must be Stephan’s new wife.  How was it that –?

While Chianti was trying to put the puzzle pieces together in her suddenly foggy mind, she finished off her second glass of champagne.  Stephan slipped the flute from her fingers and tucked it in his coat pocket, then he and his new wife took her by the arms, one on either side, and walked her back to the spot where she’d tumbled down the embankment.  “Wha –.  Whad are you –“  Chianti’s eyes focused on the woman – Sherry? – Stephan’s wife.  “I  know you!” She exclaimed.  “You –“

Sherry held up a little purple bottle just like the one in Chianti’s purse.  “I sold you a poison that can’t be traced when mixed with alcohol.  And I doctored several dozen bottles of wine with a special sleeping potion.”

Stephan lifted Chianti’s purse from her unresisting hands.  He removed her car keys and her purple vial.  “You won’t be needing these,” he said. “But I’ll return the keys anyway, after we’ve passed out your special wine.  No sense letting it go to waste, besides, we’d just as soon nobody remembered too much about tonight.” He handed her purse back.

Chianti’s fingers didn’t seem to work properly.  The purse fell to the ground.  She sat down heavily beside it.

“You’ve had a good dose of the sleeping potion,” Sherry said.

“That was the first drink,” Stephan said.  “I put the poison in the second one.”

“Nothing ever works out like I plan it to,” Chianti said, and fell backward into the sand.

~*~

The Crime Scene

“We’ve definitely got a serial killer on our hands,” Detective Vincent Copper spoke as he strode a marked path through the crime scene, the Bluetooth transmitter in his ear relating information to the Barbaresco Chief of Police.  “Three months, three different Bacchanal clans snuffed.  Somebody has a grudge.  But they may have made a mistake this time.  They’ve left someone alive – barely.  The EMTs are working on her and the Life-Flight helicopter is just now landing.”

Copper tapped the Bluetooth and ended transmission.  The noise of the chopper would have made further communication impossible anyway.  He demanded an update on the victim’s medical status, secured transport details, and asked the lead of the forensics team if they’d found anything of significance in her personal effects.

“I think it’s supposed to look like the lady fell off the mountain side and died right here,” Marty Credence told the detective.  “But she’s alive and we may just have an important witness.”

“Oh?”  Copper took a recording devise from his pocket and clicked it on.  He nodded toward the crumbled embankment and said,  “Tell me more.”

“Well,” Credence turned to face the mountain and pointed uphill.  “She arrived, traipsed around a bit through the brush in the dark – no clue as to why – and then took a tumble.  We found her hair combs, her shoes and bits of her velvet dress scattered down the mountainside.”

Credence handed Copper a sealed plastic evidence bag with a jeweled hair comb inside.  “The lady’s purse was here beside her – her name is Janice Wheeler, but as an initiate bacchante she took the name, Chianti Sangiovese – she’s a real estate agent from a successful firm and – by the way, the jewels and gold are real – she’s not hurting for money.”

Copper was used to Credence’s detailed parenthetical monologues, and sometimes he even appreciated them, but for right now he just wanted the big picture. He waved his hand in the air in a rolling motion, urging Credence to move it along.

Credence dropped the chatty air and started listing facts.  “So far we know Ms. Wheeler fell a short way down the mountain, got up and walked a few more yards, and then fell the rest of the way, landing here.”  Credence took a side-step away from where they’d found Janice and pointed at a spot several feet to the left and about a yard closer to the embankment.  The sand held the deep imprint of her hands, knees and feet where she’d landed.  It also showed her staggering steps as she gained her feet and struggled to the band stand.

Copper visually traced the fifty yard path.  “She went to the bandstand.  So how did she end up back here?”

Credence elaborated.  “We found a microphone covered in blood we think is her’s, from the lacerations on her hands.  She definitely went to the bandstand and we think she was able to speak.”

“What you think doesn’t matter,” Copper said.  “I don’t want imagination.  Give me facts.  What do we know?”

“We don’t know how long she was on the bandstand, or if she may have gone anywhere else, then returned to the bandstand, but we do know that she arrived here,” Credence pointed at the place they’d found her, “walking between, and very close to, two other people.”

The sand told a story.  “So you’re saying she was carried,” Copper asked, noting the marks that looked as though her feet were dragging.

“Supposition, but it seems that’s so.  The sand here isn’t anymore tightly packed than anywhere else.  Unless she can levitate, something or someone else was keeping her footsteps from sinking in.”

“What about the other two sets of footprints?”

Credence unfolded a measuring rod and lowered it into one of the larger footprints.  “They are measurably deeper in the spots where it looks as though Ms. Wheeler was being carried.”

Copper smiled.  “I want cartography on all of this.”

“In progress, sir,” Credence assured him.  “Photographs, plaster casts … all standard procedures.”

Copper nodded.  “Anything else?”

“We have a theory that the additional prints belong to a man and a woman.  His prints being the wider, deeper ones, and her’s being roughly the same size as Ms. Wheeler’s, only wearing shoes.  But we won’t have any firm evidence until we get everything back to the lab and look at it more closely.”

“Nothing from the club house?”  Copper pointed at a huge octagonal building floating in the middle of the lake.

“It wasn’t open.  There are no signs that any of the party ever left the beach.  The boat ramp is chained every evening at nine p.m. and this shindig didn’t start until midnight.  Even so, we’ve asked the D.A. to subpoena any surveillance equipment they might have.”

“Good work, Credence,” Copper switched off his recording device and shook the forensic officer’s hand.  “Keep me posted.”

Copper followed the carefully-marked path around the outskirts of the crime scene.  Fifty-seven people had died here last night.  Almost fifty-eight.  Why?

This was a crime of wholesale slaughter.  It was not a crime of passion against a single victim – or was it?   Nothing made sense.  In January, 72 people from the Reisling County Clan died at bacchanal.  In February, 32 people in Merlot County died the same way.  Now this.

Unlike their legendary counterparts, these Bacchanal ceremonies were non-violent – in fact, surprisingly non-violent given that sex and alcohol were the reveler’s prime pastime.  Copper stopped as near to the bonfire as the marked path allowed.  From his vantage point he could see a scorched Big Mac box, what looked like a green religious tract, and a pile of sharpened sticks ready for roasting marshmallows.  They looked out of place amidst the police tape, orange evidence flags, and body silhouettes.

Copper turned his back on the scene and walked to the edge of the lake.  He stared down at his mirror image on the surface of the water.  Years ago he’d built a partition in his mind between his job and his life.  Everyday that partition seemed to grow more fragile.  Copper wondered if it was time to get out of law enforcement.  His dreams were haunted by the sightless eyes of those whose cases had never been solved.

He walked to his car, then turned and stared out over the crime scene.  Tonight one hundred sixty-two people would haunt his dreams.  He thought of Janice Wheeler and hoped it wouldn’t be one hundred sixty-three.

Copper activated the Bluetooth in his ear and dialed his cell phone, then started his car and headed for the highway.  His call was answered on the first ring.

“Well?”  The Chief demanded.

Copper sighed.  “Just like the other two,” he said.  “All three crime scenes are identical.  Dead revelers, scattered bottles and glasses, and no signs anybody had a clue anything was wrong.”

“This one had one difference,” the chief pointed out.

Copper nodded even though he couldn’t be seen.  “Janice Wheeler.  I’m on my way to the hospital now.  Not only is she alive and a possible witness, but there is some evidence that she may have been assaulted.  Plus, she was found several yards beyond the party grounds.”

“What are you thinking?”
Copper shrugged.  “It’s just a hunch, but I’m thinking there may have been two different crimes here.”

“You know we can’t investigate a hunch,” the chief said.  “But keep your eyes open.  And keep me informed.”

Copper left the freeway via the 8th Street exit.  An environmental group stood on the corner waving picket signs bearing green panther silhouettes and the slogan, “Green Power, the salvation of the world.”  He braked for the stop-light and one of the kids tapped on his car window and offered him a pamphlet.  Copper rolled his window down just far enough to take it.  “Be green!”  The kids said, and waved as Copper pulled away.

Copper glanced at the pamphlet.  It contained an ad for some sort of environmental poet’s corner combined fund-raiser, and promised a Ralph Nader autograph to every one pledging $100.00 or more.

Tossing the pamphlet over his shoulder and into the back seat,  Copper wondered if Ralph Nader authorized the sale of his autograph.

~*~

Nurse Spanner

Copper swung through the doors of ICU and walked straight to Janice Wheeler’s room.  There was no need to stop at the nurse’s desk and ask which it was; only one door on the ward had a uniformed police officer standing guard beside it.  “Officer Marsh,” Copper nodded his greeting as he neared the guard.

Officer Marsh stood a bit straighter and squared his shoulders.  “Detective.”

“How’s the arm?”  The young officer had just returned to light duty, after taking a bank robber’s bullet in the right shoulder.

“I’m well enough for full, duty,” Marsh groused.  “But regulations say otherwise.”

“You!”  a strident voice called down the hall.  “What are you doing charging into my ICU without signing in?”

Marsh grimaced and whispered, “Head Nurse.  Pretty, but mean.”

Copper turned and flashed his most winning smile at the fury in blue scrubs.  His breath caught in his throat.  Whatever greeting he’d planned vanished along with every other thought in his brain.  The word “pretty” didn’t even come close to describing this woman’s beauty.  Her hair was ebony, her eyes were blue, her face was heart-shaped, she stood five-foot-nine in her nursing shoes – simple statistics that meant nothing, and everything.  She curved in all the right places.  Her pale skin was radiant – with anger.  And those incredibly blue eyes were shooting sparks — at him.

Copper snapped his mouth shut and reclaimed his equilibrium just in time her hear her demand, “Well?” But he couldn’t remember the question.

“Hello,” he smiled, flashed his straight pearly-whites, extended his right hand and said, “Detective Vin Copper. And you are?”

She ignored his extended hand and planted her hands on her hips. “I am the person who can get you thrown out of here for non-compliance,” she said.

“I don’t think you understand,” Copper said. “I am the detective in charge of this case –“

“I don’t think you understand.  I am the nurse in charge of this unit,” the fury responded. “There are regulations and procedures –“

Copper interrupted. “I had no idea –“

“Nescience is not an excuse,” the nurse snapped. They stood, staring each other down and listening to the clock tick.

Copper realized one of them was going to have to give, and he was on her territory. “Okay, listen,” he said. “I’m sorry. Can we just start over here?”

Certainly,” the nurse replied. “Step back to the nurse’s station with me. And we’ll sign you in. If your name is even on the list.”

“Listen, lady,” he said, pointing toward Officer Marsh and the clipboard, “I wrote the list.”

She glanced at the clipboard and curled her lip. “I don’t know who’s on that list,” she said derisively. “But I guarantee you, mine is much shorter.”

She spun on her heal and marched away.

Copper stood there with his mouth hanging open.

“Are you coming, Detective?” The nurse prodded, “Or should I ask your security to remove you?”

Copper swiveled his head and looked at Marsh.  Marsh pointed toward the nurse’s station. Copper sighed and followed the nurse, feeling like a truant on his way to the principal’s office.

At the nurse’s desk, the ebony-haired beauty slapped another clipboard stacked with forms onto the counter. “Fill these out and I’ll need to photocopy your photo ID. I would prefer your badge.” She extended her hand.

Copper’s hand went to the photo ID clipped to his shirt pocket and he shook his head, “No.” You may photocopy my driver’s license and write down my badge number,” he corrected.

She nodded her head briskly and watched as Copper extracted the piece of plastic from his wallet. “I’m going to tell you up front, detective, I have no interest in your murder case, but I have great interest in the welfare of my patients and I will do whatever I deem is necessary to protect them.”

“I understand,” Copper murmured soothingly. “We have no wish to put the victim at greater risk. Of course we will have to question her at some point –“

“Not before her Doctor permits it,” the nurse answered.

Again Copper nodded. He tapped the paper and said, “I can’t fill-in the duty roster, because I don’t know who the Chief will be sending over. I can call the office and have somebody get you a list of names.”

“Plus I.D.’s and badge numbers,” she said. “They aren’t welcome on my floor if I don’t know who they are.”

“And you, ma’am? What might your name be?”

“My name might be many things, Detective, but one thing it isn’t, is ma’am.” She took the clipboard from him and stepped through a door behind the nurse’s station. Soon Copper heard the susurrus sounds of a copy machine. He waited, drumming his fingers on the desktop. Finally the nurse emerged and returned his documents. “What is your name?” Copper demanded in his most official voice.

The nurse arched her eyebrows. She raised her hand and pointed to a large duty sign hanging on the wall behind her. Melinda Spanner, RN, it read. “Is there anything else you’d like me to help you with, detective?” She put special emphasis on that last word.

Copper felt his face flushing. “No. Thank you.” He said, and beat a hasty retreat with what dignity he had left.

On his way to the car, Copper called the station to report in. He told the chief about his encounter with Nurse Spanner..

“Listen,” the chief responded. “You’re probably going to be spending a lot of time on her turf. Make friends.”

“Chief,” Copper said, shaking his head. “No amount of propinquity in the world is going to make that woman my friend!”

~*~

The Investigation Begins

Copper parked behind the police station.  He needed to talk to the guys in forensics, see how far they’d gotten with the evidence, and check the call center to see if any weird tips had come in.  The press had yet to get wind of the murders and the longer it took them to start clamoring for answers, the better chance the Department stood of actually being able to answer them.

He decided to start with forensics.  The tenebrous basement lab was not one of his favorite places.  He was never quite prepared for the sights and scents that greeted him when he pushed through those huge stainless steel doors.

Martin Credence, garbed in lab whites from head-to-toe, including his face mask, stood over a Bunsen burner stirring a jussulent beaker.  Copper eyed the container warily, then nodded at it.  “What’ve you got?”

Credence grinned.  An ebullient light danced in his eyes.  “Chicken soup,” he said.  “Want some?”

~*~

Forensics

Copper eyed the tenebrous chartreuse liquid and his stomach flipped like an acrobat.  “No thanks, I’ll pass,” he drawled.

Credence nodded his head. “Wise choice. This is what we pumped out of Janice Wheeler’s stomach. Apparently she had chicken noodle soup and a green salad for dinner, and a Prozac for dessert. Then a couple of hours later, she ingested yet another Prozac, followed shortly thereafter by a lethal dose of benzodiazepine.”

“Benzodiazepine?” Copper queried. “The victims of the Reisling and Merlot County murders died of benzodiazepine overdoses.”

Credence nodded. “The M.O. is the same all the way down to the brand of of wine.”

“Except Janice Wheeler. She was roughed up. She ingested two poisons. And she’s still alive.” Copper ticked the points off on his fingers. “Why?”

Credence turned to his computer and tapped the keyboard, bringing the screen to life. “Prozac is a serotonin inhibitor. An overdose of Prozac causes abnormal brain activity.” The computer screen showed an electroencephalogram. “The thought process is severely inhibited. Speech and motor skills are also adversely effected.” Credence pointed his finger at different parts of the image on the screen as he spoke. “Best case scenario, the victim of an SSRI over dose suffers some mental confusion, lack of coordination and trembling. Worst case scenario — coma, convulsions and death.”

“So Janice Wheeler only suffered a mild case of Prozac overdose.” Copper surmised. “But what of the benzodiazepine? You said she was given a lethal dose?”

Credence  grinned at Copper and said, “Janice Wheeler is incredibly lucky. The primary treatment for an SSRI overdose is the administration of benzodiazepine.”

Copper demanded incredulously, “Are you telling me she was poisoned and given the antidote at the same time?”

“Yep,” Credence nodded. “The dosage on both was a little sloppy and the wine complicated things, but I just spoke to her medical doctor and he anticipates she’ll pull through with no lasting ill effects.

“Could she have planned this?” Credence asked. “What if she’s the murderer? Could this be a red herring she concocted to keep herself from suspicion?”

“Damn risky,” Credence answered. “But,” he shook his head and shrugged, “that theory might explain the bottle mystery.” He waved his hand and motioned for Copper to follow him a bit further into the lab. Copper glanced over his shoulder at the door before following reluctantly.

Credence noted Copper’s hesitance and laughed. “How is it that a big time murder investigator can still be squeamish about dead bodies?”

“They haunt me,” Copper said. “Every night when I try to sleep, every body from every unsolved murder parades behind my eyes and I usually see them in whatever form was the goriest.”

Credence clapped Copper on the back in sympathy and said, “We’re not headed for autopsy this time. Just right over here.” Credence pointed at a station just a few feet away that was littered with fingerprinting lifting paraphernalia and manned by a pony-tailed tech in a pink lab coat. “Copper, this is Janelle Poplin. Janelle –,” The tech was surrounded by wine bottles and was busy brushing one with titanium dioxide while singing a horribly off-key rendition of the Coasters’ 1959 hit, Poison Ivy and didn’t respond.

Credence raised his hand and tugged the iPod wire trailing across her shoulder, popping the ear-bud from her ear. “Hey!” The girl complained, then snapped to attention when she recognized Credence and saw Copper beside him.

“Oh, sorry,” she said and smiled nervously. “I plug into this because I can’t stand listening to the ceiling fan. It buzzes like a bumble bee.”

Copper thought her coworkers might find the ceiling fan less bothersome than her singing,

“Janelle, this is Vin Copper from homicide. Tell him what you’ve found.” Credence ordered.

“Uhm, okay, uh –” the girl stammered. “Where do I begin?”

Credence waved his hand at the array of bottles and glasses on her workbench and prompted, “How does what you found here differ from the other two Bacchant murder scene evidence?”

The girl grinned, “Oh, hey. That’s easy,” she said happily. “At the first two crime scenes there were 18 bottles of poisoned wine. All of that wine was of the same vintage and purchased in bulk directly from Lightening Bird Vineyard. It was a so-so wine and had a moderate price tag. The wine was ordered over the phone and shipped to two different addresses, both empty homes.”

Copper nodded. He knew this. He’d visited both the homes. which were up for sale and signed on to the multiple listing service. Literally hundreds of people had access to the homes on a daily basis. Two officers were following that trail.

“The Wheeler woman is a Realtor,” Credence said.

Again Copper nodded. “That piece of news was relayed to my team last month,” he said, then motioned at Janelle, “Go on.”

“Okay,” she said. “From this crime scene we have the 18 bottles of Lightingbird Wine, and 12 bottles of this lovely Cabernet Sauvignon from Black Cat Cellars, and one bottle of Vidussi Schioppettino 2004. The Lightening Bird wine was laced with a generic benzodiazepine. The Cabernet Sauvignon was laced with prescription Xanax — tied to a theft from Mercy Hospital –”

“Still under investigation,” Copper muttered. He pulled out a leather bound pocket notebook and scribbled several rapid notes. “More,” he ordered.

Janelle complied. “And this one bottle of wine,” she pointed at the bottle in question, ” is a Vidussi Schioppettino 2004. Not your average grocery store wine. It was laced with Prozac.”

Copper repeated, “Three wines, two poisons –”

“Actually”, Janelle interrupted. “There were dozens of wines. Everything from homemade dandelion to hundred dollar bottles of champagne. That was pretty much standard in all three cases. Everybody brought their favorites, but the rituals were observed with the common — poisoned — wines.”

“So these victims had twice as much poison in them than the previous victims?” Copper asked.

“That hasn’t been verified yet,” Credence said. “When we’re through here, I’ll check with autopsy –”

“Right,” Copper said. He turned to Janelle, “Anything else?”

“Fingerprints,” she said. “In the first two crime scenes the only fingerprints found were those of the victims, and not one person left their prints on more than two or three bottles. Here Janice Wheeler’s fingerprints are on every bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon.”

“Perhaps she is a copy cat killer,” Copper mused. He jotted a few more notes on his pad.

“And we have one set of fingerprints currently unaccounted for.” Janelle tapped the side of the Vidussi Schioppettino bottle with her pencil. “The only set of fingerprints that haven’t been tied to a victim.”

Copper fastened his gaze on Janelle. “Have we matched them?” he demanded. Janelle looked at Credence. Credence shook his head. “Manny is running them now. So far he’s not in our local or state data base.”

“He?” Copper demanded.

“Well, we can’t be certain, but judging from the size and shape, the hand belongs to a male of average stature.” Janelle supplied.  “I found the same fingerprints on the Bacchante’s alabaster goblet, which is how we think she got her second dose of Prozac.”

Copper said, “Okay, let’s see if I follow.  Janice Wheeler had two Prozacs, a Xanax,  and a dose of generic benzodiazepine –”

“No,”  Credence corrected.  “Janice Wheeler had no Xanax in her system.”

“Then she didn’t drink the ritual wine,” Copper mused, “And if she didn’t lead the ritual, then there had to be another Bacchante present.  Was she among the dead?”

“Janice Wheeler was the only tattooed Bacchante at the festival,” Credence answered.  “If there was another ordained Bacchante priestess there, she left or her body was removed before we arrived.”

“So,” Copper tapped his pen against the tablet in his hand, “There’s a good chance we’re looking for two people, and we don’t know if they’re acting together or separately.  That makes things easier, now doesn’t it?”

~*~

Headlines

Copper realized his reasoning was specious.  He had no proof that two different poisonings were perpetrated by two different criminals at the same time, in the same place, and in the same manner.  In fact, if he tried to promote that theory with nothing more to go on then his gut instinct, the chief would probably throw him out of his office, and rightly so.  Still, Copper took some comfort in the knowledge that Adrian Burnette, a homicide detective from  Reisling County, had also voiced suspicions that more than one perp was involved.  In the spirit of comity, Copper had called the authorities in both Reisling and Merlot county.

Just then the sliver bat wing doors swung inward and Officer Marsh strolled in with a newspaper under his arm.  “Who’s at the hospital?”  Copper asked.

“The chief and a half-a-dozen uniforms for crowd control.”  Marsh pulled the newspaper out and unfurled it so Copper could see the headline.  Sublunary Killer Strikes Again.

Copper Dreams

The  intransigent corpses stood around him in a circle.  Slowly, in unison, each one’s right arms raised.  They pointed at Copper, staring.  Though their lips didn’t move, Copper heard their invidious voices.  Why was he sleeping when they’d not yet been avenged?  He was their paladin.  Why did he rest?  Their killer still lived and even now was likely planning his next murder, yet the paladin slept.  Had they chosen the wrong champion?  Why did this one not fight for them?

One-by-one they stepped forward.  Each of them looked Copper in the eye and asked their question, “When will I be avenged?”

The Theory

Copper rubbed his face to clear the sleep from his eyes.  He stumbled from his bed to the bathroom, hoping a shower would wash away the remnants of the dream.  No doubt about it, he was an opprobrious paladin.  Having been on the case for over two months with no concrete leads or answers to show, he found his own nescience appalling.

Somewhere, there was a clue he was missing.  He had probably held it in his own two hands and not recognized it for what it was.  Copper felt he was letting his team down.  He was the weak link and the reason these cases weren’t getting solved.  He’d lost his edge.  It was time to resign.

Copper stepped into the shower spray and just stood, letting the spray break against his shoulders and stream down his back and legs.  He tipped his head back and soaked his hair, then reached for the shampoo.  He powered the golden liquid into his hand, then worked it through his hair, from his head to his chest, to his arm pits and down.  Soap was soap, and his hand worked just as well as any washrag.

Having satisfied the soaping protocols, Copper just stood back and let the hot water beat against him while he mentally reviewed his case file.  The first two murder scenes were identical.  The third murder scene echoed every element of the first mass murders, then added in a twist.  Someone — not the original killer, Copper was certain — decided to kill Janice Wheeler and make it look as though it was the work of the original murderer.  They’d done a good job of it, too.  Too much of a good job, since they had duplicated details that had never been released to the press.

Whoever tried to kill Janice Wheeler, knew who was poisoning the Bacchanal revelers.

Copper is Curious

Copper pulled his car into the hospital parkinglot.  The environmental group was still on the corner waving their posters with the big green panthers.  He couldn’t help but notice that their fliers littered the hospital parkinglot and shook his head, wondering if they knew what kind of message they were really sending.

There was a perky little red-head at the nurse’s station.  Nurse Spanner was nowhere in sight.  Copper heaved a sigh of relief and approached the guard outside door 357.  “Detective Vin Copper,” he introduced himself to the young uniformed officer, “Any news?”

“Bobby Argyle.”  The rookie introduced himself.  “The Captain told me to expect you.  Officially the hospital isn’t allowing the press in, but there are reporters lurking behind every corner.  Two or three have managed to slip into ICU, but Nurse Spanner has made short work of them.”

“Copper said, “She does have that talent.”  He nodded at the door behind Office Argyle’s back.  “In fact, I have to check in with her – -or somebody — before I go in and question Ms. Wheeler.  Is the beautiful battle ax working today or –”

Bobby’s gaze shifted to the right of Copper and his eyes grew huge.  Copper didn’t look.  He didn’t have to.  “Good morning Ms. Spanner,” he said on a sigh.

“Very good, Detective,” she answered.  “It’s nice to see your deductive reasoning skills are working again.”

Copper turned with a smile on his face.  He needed this woman’s cooperation and further insults definitely wouldn’t stand him in good stead.  A sudden memory of his Uncle Evan inspired him.  Perhaps he’d borrow some of his uncle’s uxorious behavior and apply it to Nurse Nasty-Tongue.  “Nurse Spanner,” he said in his most agreeable tone, “when would it be convenient for me to question Ms. Wheeler?  I would, of course, want you present at the proceedings.”

“You can guarantee I’ll be present,” Nurse Spanner answered.  “There won’t be any brow-beating, threats or tag-team questioning.  My patients health is my primary concern, not your investigation!”

“As it should be,” Copper agreed.  He smiled.  “I understand your concerns and we are not here to cross examine Ms. Wheeler, but as a victim, we do need her statement.  There is a killer on the loose and she might have vital information that will help us prevent him from killing again.”

It was Nurse Spanner’s turn to look surprised.  “But surely Ms. Wheeler is a suspect?” She demanded.

Never one to quiddle about important matters, Copper demanded, “What gave you that idea?”

“Well just … I… but surely you … they said … I was sure ….”  Nurse Spanner stopped, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.  Copper couldn’t help but notice she blushed beautifully.  He also couldn’t help but wonder why she was flustered.  He waited patiently for her to continue.

“When they first brought Ms. Wheeler in,” she said.  “One of the officers said she was a suspect in a murder investigation.”

“Do you remember which officer?”  Vin asked.

Nurse Spanner waved her hands, “Things were frantic.  Doc was shouting orders, her stomach needed to be pumped, there were forensics people underfoot.  My ICU was chaos.  I have no idea who said what.”

Copper noted her apparent agitation and decided to let her off the hook — for now.  “Well, if you do remember, let me know.”  He said.  “In the meantime, when can I see Ms. Wheeler?”

“Let me check with the doctor,” Nurse Spanner said and hurried away.  Copper watched her go, wondering what was really on her mind.

“She was lying,” Officer Argyle said.  “She looked at the floor, the wall, the ceiling, but not once did she look at either of us.”

Copper nodded.  “I noticed that, too. What I’m wondering is why she was lying. It’s certainly not something she’s very practiced at.”

Argyle made a murmur of agreement.

“Have you over-heard anything newsworthy regarding Ms. Wheeler’s condition?”  Copper asked.

Argyle nodded and hooked his thumb to point over his shoulder into Janice Wheeler’s room.  “I heard Doc tell her she didn’t need to be in ICU any longer, and they were making plans to move her up to the third floor.”

“Good,”  Copper said. “The Chief wants to keep her in the hospital as long as possible. She’s safer here than she would be home alone, and there’s no probable cause to arrest her, so — ”

“Arrest her?  Is she a suspect?”  Argyle asked.

“Well, I doubt she poisoned herself,” Copper said noncommittally, then turned to watch Nurse Spanner approaching with a glaborous fat man in doctor’s scrubs.

Two Attacks

“Doctor,” Nurse Spanner began the introductions, “This is Detective Vincent A. Copper. He works for the Barbaresco County Sheriff’s Department. Detective Copper, this is Doctor Kilgare.”

“Hello, Doctor,” Copper shook the shorter man’s pudgy hand. “I would like to question Ms. Wheeler. What is her current medical status?”

“Question her?” Dr. Kilgare’s voice cracked. He appeared to be out of breath and beads of sweat glistened on his glaborous head. “Excuse me,” he said, and mopped at his face with an oversized white handkerchief.

“Are you ill, Doctor?” Copper motioned at Bobby Argyle to bring a chair. The young officer brought the chair from his duty post outside Janice Wheeler’s door.

“No,” the doctor answered, but he sank into the chair gratefully. “I just … just had to walk up …” he gasped for breath …” three flights of stairs.” Again the doctor mopped his forhead and face. “Those young green power … gangsters! H-have commandeered the elevators and … and are … are staging a .. a … a sit-in!”

The senticous Nurse Spanner interrupted the doctor’s divagations and finished crisply. “They’re demanding we stop all non-essential power use immediately. If a patient dies because medical staff or equipment couldn’t get to them quickly enough, I will see that every one of those punks rots in jail!”

Copper turned to Bobby Argyle. “Check it out,” he ordered and nodded his head toward the elevator. Argyle hesitated. He pointed toward Janice Wheeler’s room. “My post, sir?”

“I’ve got it covered,” Copper answered. “I won’t move until you get back.”

“Right,” Argyle said. “Where are they?”

“F-first fl-oor,” Dr. Kilgare answered. And Argyle disappeared into the stairwell.

Nurse Spanner checked her wrist watch and murmurred that she’d be right back. Copper watched her fit a stethoscope to her ears as she entered Janice Wheeler’s room.

“Okay, Doc. When can I see –” Copper turned back to his companion just in time to the pudgy little man slide off his chair and onto the floor.

Kilgare clutched at his chest and murmured, “Heart … heart.” Or maybe it was hurt, hurt. Whichever, Copper got the message loud and clear and shouted for Nurse Spanner. He bent down and loosened the good doctor’s clothes.

Spanner came on the run. She took one look and started shouting orders. Medical staff seemed to appear like ants from the woodwork. Copper was shoved aside, bells started clanging. Someone yelled, “Get a gurney!”

Copper backed up to Janice Wheeler’s door and watched. He stared at the doctor’s rubefacient face and wondered if his collapse was caused by the exercise of climbing the stairs, or if there was another, more sinister cause.

A Startling Revelation

Copper, took his self-appointed station in front of Janice Wheeler’s door.  He would have preferred going inside and questioning her, but without medical clearance, and without a witness present, he couldn’t act on anything she said.

He grabbed his cellphone and dialed.  When the ring sounded in the Bluetooth receiver clipped to his ear, he reholstered the phone and counted the rings.  As he waited, he rocked back and forth, toe to heel, toe to heel.  Copper wasn’t one for standing still.

“Chief!” he said when the phone was answered.  “Send me an amanuensis!”

Back in his office, the chief looked at his speaker phone and raised his eyebrows.  “If I do,” he asked, “Will I have to arrest myself?”

Copper laughed.  “No.  A stenographer, or your secretary.  I need someone to record Janice Wheeler’s testimony and witness it.”

“Where’s Argyle?”  The chief demanded.

“I sent him to check out the sit-in that damn environmental group is stageing in the lobby.”

“Sit in!  What the hell are you talking about?”  The chief demanded.  Copper heard him bellow, “Anybody out there know anything about that Green Panther environmental group stageing a sit-in at the hospital?”  Then the chief said into the phone, “Apparently Tremmel and Hollis are on it.”

“Tremmel and Hollis?”  Copper queried.  “They’re newer than Argyle!  We’ll have every tyro in the department working on this and it might never get sorted out.”

“Well, why the hell did you send Argyle downstairs then instead of going yourself?”  The chief demanded.

Copper filled him in on the Doctor’s sudden heart-attack and the sit-in.  “It just seemed too much of a coincidence,” Copper said.  “There was no way I was leaving Janice Wheeler’s door.”

That is probably best,” the chief agreed.  “I am on my way over.  Stay put.”

“Will do,” Copper said.  He rung off just as the elevator doors slid open and disgorged two young men dressed in Green Panther t-shirts.  Copper took a step backward.  Janice Wheeler’s room was dark.  The young men were unable to see him, but he could watch them.

“Can I help you?” the perky red-headed nurse that greeted Copper when he came in treated the boys to her thousand watt smile.

“Yeah, uhm, our friend is here.  Her name is, uhm … ” The tall, brown-haired kid turned to his shorter companion.  “She’s your friend, man.  What’s her name?”

The shorter man looked startled.  Before he had a chance to answer, the nurse interrupted.  “This is the intensive care unit.  None of our patients are seeing visitors today, gentleman.  I’m afraid I am going to have to ask you to leave.”

From his vantage point, Copper watched the taller of the two young men give his surroundings a careful once over.  “Pretty quiet here,” he said.  “You all alone?”

“No, I am not.”  the nurse answered.  Copper noticed approvingly that she took a step back, away from the nurse’s station.  They wouldn’t be grabbing her over the counter.

“Oh, hey!  Did I scare you? ” the tall young man asked.  “Man, I’m sorry.  And we aren’t looking for a patient.”

“No,” the other kid said.  “We’re looking for a nurse.  A beautiful brunette with eyes cold enough to freeze lava.  She borrowed the Professor, man.  Stuck him in a lab coat and asked him to come play doctor with her.”

“Maybe you’ve seen him,” the other kid asked.  “He’s short, fat and bald.”

“Professor?” The nurse queried.  Copper could tell by her posture that she realized they were talking about the supposed Dr. Kilgare.

“Yeah.  He’s not really a professor though,” the tall kid said.  “We just call him that because he talks like an encyclopedia.  Anyway,” the kid waved his arm to encompass the unit at large, “We figure he must be passed out in one of these beds by now.  He’s a niddering fool and hyperventilates and passes out whenever get gets a bit nervous.”

“Yeah, and just talking to that nurse was scaring me!”  The other kid said. “We figured he’d have melted into a quivering pool of jelly by now.”

Copper had heard enough.  He reached into his breast pocket, palmed his badge, and stepped out of Janice Wheeler’s room.  “Gentlemen, do either of you have any idea what Nurse Spanner wanted with your friend?”

More Revelations

Copper couldn’t help but smile. It looked like his stagnicolous case was about to get a spate of fresh water.

“I don’t know no Nurse Spanner,” the tall kid said. “I just know the professor and I’m wondering where he is, that’s all.”

Copper positioned himself where he could clearly see the door to Janice Wheeler’s room in the mirror over the nursing station, yet still invigilate the young men before him. He asked the shorter kid. “Do you know Nurse Spanner?”

The kid shrugged. “I don’t know man. I mean I sort of know the nurse we’re looking for. She’s married to one of my professors — a real professor. His name isn’t Spanner, though. It’s Rose.”

“Married people don’t always have the same last names.” Copper told him. “Supposing that Mrs. Rose and Nurse Spanner are the same person, what was it she wanted your friend — the professor who isn’t a professor — to do?”

“She just said she wanted to play a practical joke on an old friend. James is always up for a laugh, so he said he’d love to.”

“James?” Copper queried.

“Risible.” The shorter guy said. “His name means “ready to laugh” or something like that, and James always is.”

“I’ll need your names, as well.” Copper said.

The two boys looked at each other. “Oh, hey,” the taller of the two said. “Are we in trouble or anything?”

“Not that I know of,” Copper said. “We might need to call you as witnesses or ask you more questions.”

The boys shifted nervously. “Witnesses to what?” The shorter guy exclaimed. “We didn’t see anything!”

Copper raised his eyebrows. “If you don’t know what I’m talking about, how do you know you didn’t see it?”

“Look,” the shorter guy said. “I’m Bernard Allen Barnes Junior, but my friends just call me Al. Did the professor, I mean Jimmy, do something illegal or what? We really don’t know any more than what we told you.”

“Yeah,” the taller kid said. “I’m Wally — Wallace — Schultz. We don’t want no trouble or nothing. We just wanted to grab the Prof. This sit-in thing was a stupid idea. This is a hospital man. They’re trying to save people’s lives here and they don’t need us getting in the way.”

“Yeah,” Al added, “We’re all about saving the planet and saving lives. That stuff downstairs is a bad scene.”

“So, whose idea was the sit-in?” Copper asked.

The two boys looked at each other and shrugged. “I don’t know,” Wally said. “We were out on the street with our signs trying to tell people about riding the bus, using less electricity and recycling, and stuff and Professor Rose says we picked the wrong street corner because people going to and from the hospital had more important things to think about.”

“Yeah,” Al added. “Then Marsh — our club president — said then he’d make’em pay attention, and he ordered everybody into the lobby. Then when we got inside, he demanded we stall all the elevators.”

“That’s when the nurse came up and took Jimmy away.” Wally said. “Pretty soon a cop walked into the lobby and asked us to leave and said we were putting people’s lives at risk. I thought how he was right and everything, and I told Al I wanted to leave …”

Al finished, “And I said let’s get Jimmy and blow. So here we are.”

Copper said, “What was your professor doing out on the street with the club? Does he hang out with you much?”

“Nah,” Al answered. “He said he was coming to visit his wife and just stopped to say hi to Wally and me. He recognized us from his mythology class.”

Copper, busily writing on his pad, looked up at Al. “Mythology class?” He queried. “I always liked mythology. You mean like Zeus and Hercules and Aphrodite and such?”

Wally nodded. “Yeah, man.”

“How about Bacchus,” Copper asked. “Anything about Bacchus?”

“Oh man,” Wally said. “The professor is really into Bacchus. He was going to take us to the Bacchanal, but at the last minute he called it off. He said we couldn’t do it as a class thing because of the alcohol.”

“Yeah, he said he’d get fired,” Al said. “And made us all promise not to go.”

“And it’s a good thing we didn’t,” Wally said. “According to the newspapers, everybody’s dead.” A look of surprise crossed his face. “Hey, is that what this is about?”

Copper waved his hand in dismissal. “I’m interested in Nurse Spanner.” He redirected their thoughts. “When the Nurse came to ask Jimmy to play her little practical joke, where was your professor?”

Again the boys looked at each other and shrugged. “I know he came inside with us,” Wally said. “But I don’t know where he went when Marsh started giving orders.”

“So, this Professor of yours — the real one — is he about five feet ten inches tall, with brown hair, a closely cropped reddish brown beard and gold wire rimmed glasses?”

“Yeah, that’s him!” Al nodded.

Copper wasn’t surprised. The man had just strolled down the hall and into Janice Wheeler’s room.

Stephen’s Story

As he reached for his gun, Copper told the boys, “Stay here and be quiet.” Wally made a little gulping noise and froze. Al raised his hands and backed up against the wall. Copper moved to the door of Janice Wheeler’s hospital room as quickly as silence allowed.

“You don’t have to be afraid, “ Copper heard the man speaking, and still holding the gun in his right hand, reached into his shirt pocket with his left hand, retrieved his recording devise, and switched it on. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

The woman, Janice Wheeler, answered, “You tried to kill me!”

“Yeah,” Stephen said, “And you planned to kill me. How about we both just agree to forget it? Nobody has to know.”

“Since you took the poison out of my purse, there’s no evidence against me.” Janice said. “All you’ve got is your word that I tried to kill you.”

Actually, sweetheart,” he answered, “we left the drugged bottles of wine behind and they’re covered in your fingerprints.”

“It wasn’t a drug that would kill anybody,” Janice said. Her eyes widened in horror. “Your wife!” She shrieked, “Oh my God, Stephen! Did she put a sleeping potion in those bottles? Or poison!?”

“Look, that’s why I’m here,” Stephen said. “A couple of days after you left for your training in Italy, I met Sherry – her real name is Melinda Spanner, I think, and she teaches Chemistry at the university.”

“Melinda Spanner is my nurse!” Janice sounded shocked. “And she doesn’t look a thing like your wife!”

“Would you listen to me?” Stephen said. “Mel has this special closet full of wigs, contacts that change her eye color, make-up that changes her skin tone, padding to make her look bigger – there’s like this hidden door off the back of her regular closet and I accidentally saw her come out of it this morning dressed like a nurse –“

“Stephen, this is all very interesting, I’m sure, but –“

“I asked her what was going on,” Stephen raised his voice and kept on talking. “She said she was doing a charity event for the hospital and that was her costume. I asked about the hidden door. She told me I’d imagined it, and then she led me into the kitchen and fixed us each a big cup of coffee. She even mixed in my cream and sugar, which she doesn’t usually do.”

“To bad she didn’t mix in a little of her special poison,” Janice snarled.

“I think she did,” Stephen answered. “I didn’t drink it. I pretended to take a swallow and she gave me a brilliant smile, blew me a kiss, said, “ta-ta, Stevie,” and left the house. I poured the coffee in a clean mason jar and put it in the back of the fridge.”

“Stephen, as far as I’m concerned this entire conversation is obarmate! I went to Italy for three months – for you! I suffered through that damn Bacchante training — where I was obviously an opsimath – to make you happy. And I come home to find you married to someone else! Now you expect me to care that she wants you dead? Ha! I want you dead!”

Copper was loving every minute of their conversation. He knew the tape player was picking it up loud and clear, and that he was listening to his own release from the accusing stares of 162 corpses. He mentally celebrated his assiduity, grinning from ear to ear as he imagined how proud the chief was going to be.

He felt a sharp jab to the back of his neck and his legs buckled. Just before his face hit the floor he heard Nurse Spanner’s voice. “You didn’t drink your coffee this morning, did you my love?”

The End

Copper pitched to the floor, unable to move. He heard Nurse Spanner’s voice, and saw her nursing shoes as she stepped over his prone body. She said, “You’re supposed to be dead, Stephen. You’ve wasted a perfectly good dose of my potion.”

“Mel! Why are you doing this?” Stephen demanded. “I thought you loved me!”

“Love!” Melanie Spanner snorted. “What do you care of love? Booze and sex! Drunken revelry! All you care about is your own hedonistic satisfactions. You might call that love, but I know better!”

“Oh please, no! Is that a gun?” Janice Wheeler spoke.

“It is a dart gun,” Melinda Spanner confirmed. “I got it from the veterinarian Stephen gave me to at the last Bacchanal.  I have filled the darts with my own special potion.”

Copper heard a faint popping noise. Stephan Rose slumped to the ground. A red fletched dart protruded from his neck. Convulsions wracked his body, his feet drummed against the floor, then all movement ceased and he stared sightlessly at the ceiling.

Copper wondered if there was a similar dart protruding from his own neck, and why he wasn’t dead.

“Damnit!” Janice Wheeler snapped. “You killed Stephen and I really wanted to do that!”

“Yes, well, we don’t always get what we want, do we?” Janice Wheeler said. “If we did, you would have been dead a long time ago.”

“What did I ever do to you?” Janice demanded. “It seems to me we should be on the same side! We both hate the Bacchanal and obviously we both wanted Stephen dead.”

“You are the reason everything has gone wrong!” Melanie shrieked. “My cheating husband died when I poisoned everybody at the first Bacchanal.  At the second Bacchanal, I killed the couple that invited him to his first festival –”

“And hundreds of other innocent people!” Janice interrupted.

“There are no innocents at a Bacchanal!” Melanie cried. “Besides, the third set of murders was to be my last!  I set Stephen up to take the fall.  I chose him because he was beragging about cheating on you.  Then when you came to my shop looking for a way to kill him, it all seemed so perfect. I figured Stephen and I would kill you, and the evidence trail would lead the police to Stephen, who I planned to poison and make look like suicide, but you lived! Then I tried to set up a fake doctor to take the fall for your murder, but the damned fool had some kind of apoplectic fit and ended up in the emergency room. Now I’m out of time.”

Copper saw Janice recoil against her bed pillows.  “No! Please! Don’t shoot!” she cried.

The hospital door bounced against the wall and Melinda Spanner screamed. The gun spun across the floor and came to rest under the hospital bed.

“Hold her, Wally!” Copper heard Al shout.

“I’m trying! I’m trying!” Wally answered. “Help me!”

Janice Wheeler scrambled from her hospital bed and grabbed the dart gun. “Nobody move!” She yelled.

“Excellent idea. Nobody move. You, put the gun down.” Copper wanted to shout with joy. The Chief of Police was on the scene, and everything was going to be alright. Janice Wheeler lowered her hand to her side and pointed the dart gun at the floor. “Officer Argyle,” the chief said, “take this woman into custody.”

“No!” Melinda Spanner yelled. Copper felt someone stumble across his back. Wally fell to the floor beside him. Melinda lunged forward and grabbed for the gun in Janice’s hand. The two women struggled briefly and the gun went off. They stood eye-to-eye staring at one another. Janice Wheeler slowly backed away and sat down on the vinyl covered chair beside her bed. Melinda Spanner slumped to the floor, her body convulsing spasmodically.

Lights flashed. Bells rang. Dozens of pairs of shoes passed Copper’s line of vision, some police issue, some hospital regulated. He felt hands on his back and someone shouted, “I think this one’s alive!”

***

The intransigent corpses stood around him in a circle. Slowly, in unison, each one’s right arm raised. They all pointed at Copper, staring. Though their lips didn’t move, Copper heard their whispers. Thank you. One-by-one each corpse said thank you, and faded away. When the last one had gone, Copper opened his eyes.

“Welcome back!” Marty Creedence sat beside Copper’s hospital bed.

Copper frowned. “Am I under guard?” His throat was dry and his voice sounded raspy. Marty stood and poured a cup full of water from the small pink plastic pitcher at Copper’s bedside.

“Drink,” he said, handing Copper the cup. “I’m not your guard, I’m a visitor. I figured you’d want to hear what went down while you had your little nap.”

“I’m not dead,” Copper said. “Why?”

Marty laughed. “Apparently our pulchritudinious nurse didnt believe in killing cops. Instead of shooting you with the dart gun, she stabbed you with syringe full of muscle relaxant.”

“Well, it certainly relaxed me,” Copper said, “But I remember the summotion of the bodies and Janice Wheeler’s arrest.”

“Yeah, that little phlyarologist has been talking non-stop since Argyle snapped the cuffs on her. Luckily, your recording devise never stopped running. No matter how many creative ways she claims her own innocence, we have the whole thing on tape.”

“And the Green Panther kids,” Copper asked. “What happened to them?”

“Well, two of them — Al and Wally — probably saved Janice Wheeler’s life. They came in about thirty seconds ahead of the chief and jumped the nurse. They are pretty excited about the whole case, and are talking to the chief right now about joining the police academy.”

“Good,” Copper said. “Someone to take my place when I retire.”