Fit To Be Dead (An Aggie Mundeen Mystery Book 1) (17 page)

Twenty-Seven

I wasn’t on my leopard bedspread. My body lay on something hard and scratchy. I peered down through oxygen tubes taped to my nose and spotted white hospital sheets. Something weird had happened. I hoped the oxygen was destroying aging free radicals roaming inside my body. When I spied the plastic circle on my wrist, I remembered that somebody had stolen Lee’s baby bracelet. Taped to my other hand was an IV tube.

Meredith laid her hand on top of my hospital bracelet. “Aggie. You’re awake.” She smiled. Her hair, usually perfectly groomed, resembled matted hay. Her clothes were wrinkled.

Sam, trying to avoid the IV, patted my other arm above the elbow. “Boy, Aggie, you really scared us this time. How do you feel?” The thatch of hair splattering his forehead was beyond recovery. When I looked at him, his somber eyes perked up. I remembered being furious with him, but I didn’t feel angry anymore. What if I died and never saw him again?

“I feel okay.” I sorted through memories, trying to figure out what was wrong with me, and remembered Sheldon’s party. I was definitely not hungry, but my stomach felt settled. I’d apparently survived Sheldon’s food euphoria. I hoped the purpose of the IV was merely to provide fluids.

I peeked up to see if the egg above my eye had returned. My forehead appeared normal, except for scraggly bangs thrust forward like a broom. When I coughed, my insides hurt down to my navel. My lungs felt like rusty buckets. I remembered the awful smell in the shower. When I tried to inhale, I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs. I wheezed like an asthmatic—me, who was never allergic to anything. Having reduced breathing capacity scared me.

Meredith reached beside my bed for a metal canister with a plastic cup attached to the top. “Here. Dr. Sheeply said to use this when you woke up. He called it a nebulizer, an aerosol inhaler to open air passages in your lungs to help you breathe.”

She pointed the cup toward my mouth. “Exhale as much as you can through your nose, put the mouthpiece into your mouth, past your front teeth, and close your lips around it. Take a slow deep breath while you press down on the container to spray medication into your mouth and lungs.” Meredith would make a great nurse. I did exactly what she said.

“Hold your breath five to ten seconds.” She checked her watch while I tried not to explode. “Now remove the cup and exhale slowly.” When I exhaled, Sam exhaled with me.

I immediately felt better. “What is that stuff?”

“Albuterol,” he said. “You can use it every four hours. If you need it again, Dr. Sheeply said to call the nurse.”

Now I remembered technicians wheeling me into Methodist Hospital’s emergency room with my eyes watering. Every time I’d taken a breath, my chest hurt. Somebody slapped an apparatus on my face. I heard the words “chest x-ray,” “oximeter” and “blood gases,” then blacked out.

“What day is it? How long have I been here?”

“The ambulance brought you in yesterday, Monday. You were here overnight.” He looked like he’d been crumpled in a waiting room chair ever since I’d been admitted.

“What was that stuff in the club shower that smelled so bad?”

“Chlorine gas.” He paled. “Somebody placed a balloon filled with ammonia on the shower floor, then threw in another balloon filled with Clorox. The creep who did it cut slits in both balloons. When they collided, Clorox mixed with ammonia to produce chlorine gas. The lab boys figured that out. Our team, in rubber suits and gas masks, stormed in as soon as they could to confiscate the balloons. Chlorine gas is extremely caustic—burns everything it contacts—eyes, skin, respiratory track. That’s why you’re receiving nasal oxygen...to counter effects of the gas.”

I remembered panicking in the shower, unable to breathe and desperate to escape.

“Victims cough violently, can’t breathe and are terrified,” he said.

I remembered hearing wretched coughing sounds as the naked herd charged for the exit.

Everybody’s eyes, throats and feet were burning. No wonder they gyrated on the grassy slope.

Sam held my upper arm with both hands, cradling my puny biceps and triceps in an effort to comfort me while avoiding my IV. “If your lungs had been seriously damaged, you could have suffered respiratory failure, had a heart attack and died.”

When I tried to inhale, I coughed. My lungs were damaged. I couldn’t breathe deeply like I was supposed to, to lengthen my life span. The gas had destroyed my cells: traumatic senescence. My vital parts had suffered so much wear and tear, Error Theorists could display my organs in their lab. What few hormones I had left were in hiding. Izumi’s record was safe. I felt like I was a thousand years old. Maybe other club members actually died.

Meredith seemed to read my mind. “Since you ran the water, a lot of the mixture washed down the drain. Gas still rose up the sides of the shower, but because you jumped out fast and ran to fresh air, the effects weren’t disastrous, thank heaven. The woman in the shower next to you didn’t act as fast—she didn’t see the balloon thrown in—but she wasn’t as close to the gas, either. They kept her overnight for observation and released her this morning.”

I sent up a quick prayer, thankful to be alive. “Was anybody else hospitalized?”

“No. They brought several people to the emergency room to be checked, but they’re all okay.”

Sam regained his composure. “Since the gas was partially enclosed by the shower, the damage was contained. Somebody also tossed a couple of balloons into the men’s locker room, but no one was harmed.”

With Sam back in efficiency mode, this seemed like a good time to ask why I was still in the hospital. He cleared his throat. “Dr. Sheeply wants to observe you and do a couple more tests. He’ll be in after lunch.”

I didn’t like the expression on his face. “What tests?”

“He mentioned a chest x-ray and oximeter.” Sam was usually very direct. I knew chest x-rays weren’t a big deal. The oximeter thing must be the booger.

“Dr. Sheeply is a very kind man, a pulmonary disease specialist. Best there is. I checked around.” He patted my hand.

I was grateful, but I didn’t like the “diseases” designation. Aging progressed more slowly in the absence of disease.

At least Sam seemed to care about me, especially when I was incapacitated.

Meredith reported the health club would close for a week. Staff had told members that workers were repairing a gas leak.

Fit and Firm seemed doomed to suffer from lousy timing. Not only was their ten-year celebration ruined; they had to put off new prospects eager to join the club—all those people who witnessed the grassy slope dance. Maybe that was a good thing.

“Did you hear any more about Harry?” I asked.

“He’s very despondent. We’re keeping an eye on him.”

Poor Harry. I decided not to mention I thought I’d heard Harry’s voice not far from my shower.

Sam said once SAPD’s lab teams removed traces of chemicals, he could investigate the club without members and staff hovering around. I felt a twinge of guilt for not telling him all I knew. My remorse didn’t last long.

Meredith said she was relieved to forego working out for a week. Her coursework for American and British Literature was getting heavy. I couldn’t process any more information. Until Dr. Sheeply came to discuss my condition, I just wanted to drowse.

When I woke up, Meredith and Sam were gone. Dr. Sheeply held my wrist to take my pulse. Tall enough to play college basketball, he had chiseled features and a high forehead, which undoubtedly housed a bundle of brains.

His kind eyes comforted me. I felt silly introducing myself to a man who was thoroughly acquainted with my innards, so I smiled meekly and waited.

“Your pulse rate has slowed, Ms. Mundeen. That’s good. Let’s see what happens when you inhale.”

Cautiously, I sucked in air. Inhaling was easier than before, but I still coughed.

“Your heart rate is better than when you came to the emergency room. It approached one hundred sixty beats a minute when you arrived.”

“Is my heart enlarged?”

“No.”

“I know I inhaled chlorine gas. What, exactly, did the stuff do to me?”

“It irritated your lungs, made breathing difficult, made your eyes water and your throat burn. Chlorine gas acts like an acid, burning whatever it touches. If a person inhales enough gas, it attacks dry areas of the lungs, mixes with water and makes hydrochloric acid.”

My heart skipped a beat.

“The results can be fatal. Since you escaped the gas quickly, irritation to your respiratory track was minimal.”

“Then why am I getting oxygen?” I was worried about oxidative damage.

“To raise the oxygen level in your blood. When gas irritates your lungs and makes breathing difficult, the oxygen level in your blood decreases. Normal oxygen saturation is over ninety percent. Yours was seventy-eight percent when you came in. That’s why I kept you for observation.”

I perked up. If my oxygen saturation returned to normal, I might be all right.

“I want you to have another chest x-ray to check for fluid in your lungs and oximetry to measure your oxygen saturation.”

There was that word. Oximetry. “Is that a bad test?”

“No. They put a monitoring device on your finger to measure the amount of oxygen in your blood. No big deal. If your tests are normal, which I expect they will be, you can go home this afternoon.”

I was worried the chlorine gas had already damaged my cells and organs. “Did the gas cause my cells to stop dividing?”

“No.”

“Didn’t crosslink my proteins?”

“I don’t think so.” He checked his watch.

“Has my brain lost any cells? Can I grow synapses?”

“Your brain is fine. Your synapses are multiplying as we speak.”

“Did my lungs lose breathing capacity?”

“No. You’re breathing off the effects of the gas. Your lungs should be as good as before.”

As good as before. That’s what I wanted to hear. Sam was right. Dr. Sheeply was a jewel.

Twenty-Eight

A nurse appeared and stuck my index finger in the oximeter. When she finished, an orderly whisked in behind her and wheeled me to x-ray. I didn’t mind going. This trip could be my ticket out of the hospital.

I had to consider the little matter that somebody had tried, again, to kill me. This maniac was determined. While the orderly pushed me back from x-ray, I lined up suspects in my head.

When we got to my room, Sam stood there looking like an eager puppy. “Boy, you look better. You’ve finished your tests?”

I’d almost forgiven him. He was just doing his job. “The tests were a cakewalk. Nothing to them. I’m ready to get out of here. I’m sick of being sick.”

He grinned. “If Dr. Sheeply discharges you, I’ll drive you home. I called the testing lab. They’d heard about the chlorine gas attack at Fit and Firm. When I told them we were investigating the contents of containers you took them as a related crime, they didn’t quibble about giving SAPD the results.”

“What did the analysis show?”

“Somebody put camphor in the spray deodorant bottle. When you sprayed under your arms, you got camphor poisoning through your skin.” He patted my arm. I wished he’d wrap his arms around me.

“I’ve heard of camphor, but what, exactly, is it?”

“It comes from camphor trees that grow in Japan, China, Formosa, Sumatra and Brazil. They use steam to distill it from fifty-year-old trees.”

“Sounds exotic. Hard to get.”

“Not really. Three-fourths of the camphor we produce in the United States is synthetic. We use it in plastics, lacquers, varnishes, explosives, pyrotechnics, moth repellents and cosmetics. Camphor is in Vicks VapoRub.”

I remembered Aunt Novena’s putting Vicks VapoRub on my chest and Campho-Phenique under my nose when I had a cold. “So camphor is easy to get?”

“Yes. Like ammonia and Clorox.”

“How did camphor get into the club’s deodorant?”

“The lab scientist said somebody crushed up a lot of mothballs, mixed them with liquid and put a hefty amount in the deodorant bottles.”

“What symptoms does camphor cause?”

“Headache, flushing, sweating, nausea and vomiting, vertigo, mental confusion, irritability...”

“I experienced every one of those symptoms.” I still didn’t know what I’d said to Dr. Carmody. “I felt so terrible after eating, I thought the food was contaminated. But before lunch, after I worked out and showered, I used the deodorant.”

He sat on the side of my bed. “Camphor acts within fifteen minutes to an hour after absorption through the skin. With sporadic use and various delivery amounts, I guess reaction time varies.”

“When I got sick at Sheldon’s party, camphor I’d absorbed earlier must have stayed in my system. Plus I couldn’t avoid viewing his buffet table.”

“If somebody gets a massive dose, they suffer seizures, respiratory failure, go into a coma and die.” He looked stricken. He’d watched me stumble through various stages of destruction for days. My respiratory system really took a beating. I was thankful for every breath I took.

“What about the purple bath crystals?” I asked.

“They found a trace of potassium permanganate in the bag of crystals marked ‘club,’ but not enough to harm anybody. The cleanser they use to disinfect the hot tub contains diluted amounts of the compound. Whoever packaged the bath crystals could have accidentally mixed in a few particles of the cleaning solution.”

“Employees who clean the locker room also package the bath crystals?”

“Yes. They scoop out measured amounts from a five-gallon container of crystals, wrap them in cellophane and put them by the hot tub.”

“What about the crystals marked ‘home’?”

“Plain old bath crystals. By the way, where did you get those?”

“I saw them by the hot tub and decided to swipe a second batch. I asked Mr. Eagleton to mark one bag ‘home’ to distinguish them.”

I noted that my brain cells were percolating. Grace had not given me poisoned bath crystals.

My favorite nurse, Jenny, bounced in, smiling. “Looks like you’re going home.”

“Boy. They get those test results fast,” Sam said.

“Dr. Sheeply asked them to rush the reports since she’s here for observation. We always have patients needing beds.”

Jenny helped me dress in clothes Meredith had brought from my house earlier. She found a wheelchair so Sam could push me downstairs.

My Tuesday Aspects of Aging class was already over. I would have to tell Dr. Carmody I’d been hospitalized Monday and Tuesday. I needed to concoct a plausible diagnosis so when I showed up Wednesday after missing two more days, he wouldn’t respond with uncontrolled rage. If I told him somebody had tried to kill me, I didn’t think he could take it. Instead of calling him, I would immerse myself in serious studying before I had to face him again.

Riding in Sam’s car as we headed for home, I was euphoric watching kids running around and people mowing grass. The day, clear and bright, was about fifty degrees. Sun twinkled through leafless trees. I’d be sure to watch the sunset. The heavens would be streaked with pink, red and yellow—colors so vivid that, in a painting, they wouldn’t look real. I wished Sam and I could watch the sunset together. When I smiled at him, he reached over to pat my hand. I wanted him to grab it. Instead, he cleared his throat. Since I was ambulatory, he was apparently back to business.

“Detective Sammis located George Ball’s sons, Patrick and Michael, in California. Patrick is an accountant in San Francisco. Michael, a camera operator, goes on location with film crews. They confirmed Grace’s story about their father’s hunting trip. They said they couldn’t imagine his doing it, but George must have mixed up his pills. They keep in touch with their stepsister, Linda Livermore, through her store manager.”

I watched sunlight sparkle on the grass. “Detective Sammis met the boys and the store manager, Margie Carlyle, at Linda’s Healthy Habitat store in LA. After Linda remodeled the store a few years back, she hired Margie. Linda added protein drinks and mineral supplements to the health foods, put in two treadmills facing the TV and added lounge chairs where people read health magazines.”

“It sounds like Linda’s store has been very successful.” It seemed that everyone wanted to live a hundred and twenty years.

“Patrick and Michael worked there during college. They said Healthy Habitat financed a lot of their USC education. Margie Carlyle told Sammis that after customers’ positive response to the remodeling, Linda decided to take a break. She announced she’d developed wanderlust, would be in and out and would contact Margie for messages. That occurred three years ago. Margie says Linda comes back to LA for a week or so to check on her stepbrothers and the store, then takes off.”

I loved gazing at the horizon. Hospital rooms were so confining. “Do they know where Linda goes?”

“No, but in her back office, Sammis found catalogues from UT Pharmacy School and USC’s School of Pharmacy.”

“I guess she never discarded her dream.”

“But why drop out of sight?” he said. “Sammis found out she gave up her LA apartment two years ago. The boys haven’t heard from her for six months. Her cell phone number is inactive. They’re worried. Sammis is checking the universities to see if she’s registered.”

Sam’s report was interesting, but I still thought SAPD was wasting a lot of money snooping around Grace’s family just because her husbands died young.

“I talked with Harry Thorne again. He said a couple of years ago, Holly started dating every available male, didn’t listen to anything Harry said and wouldn’t give him the time of day. Her actions really hurt him.”

“I’m sure they did. Poor Harry. He loved Holly, and she wouldn’t even acknowledge he was her uncle.” Her attitude must have distressed Harry on another level. The club represented his life’s goal, and she made a mockery of his upscale, dignified establishment. Did her reaction turn Harry’s love into hatred to the point where he flipped out and ran her over? I still wondered if he knew about the baby, his last chance to raise a child. I glanced at my nails. “When did Harry return to the club?”

“He felt pretty good Sunday when I left. He probably dropped in Monday morning.”

I decided not to tell him just yet that I’d heard Harry bellowing on Monday, right after the creep tossed balloons in my shower.

When I popped up in Harry’s office the day Holly nearly drowned, he might have thought she’d confided in me. Maybe he thought I’d influenced her to relinquish her baby. My relationship with Holly was too limited for me to influence her, but Harry didn’t seem rational about his wayward niece. He might have followed me to Las Tapitas to confront me.

I didn’t want to process any more information. I just wanted to meander through San Antonio with Sam forever and let crisp air hit me through the open window while the sun warmed my arm.

During my hospital stay, he’s had time to reflect and wanted to talk about it. “I’ve been thinking about those spray bottles, about whether the poison was meant for Holly. It’s a question of timing.”

“I wondered about that, too. The first day I experienced symptoms was the day Holly nearly drowned.” I bit my lip and sneaked a glance at him.

He snapped his eyes at me. “Why didn’t you tell me she nearly drowned, Agatha? I had to learn about it from officers who questioned the members and staff.”

“I thought it was an accident.”

“No, you didn’t.” He stared at the road.

“Well, I wasn’t sure. I felt sorry for her, and I didn’t want to discuss her misery. Then she was dead and it didn’t seem to matter.”

He whipped his eyes in my direction. “It mattered to the investigation.”

“I guess I should have told you.”

“You didn’t tell me because you like to figure things out on your own. But murder is a little out of your field. Let professionals handle it.”

I didn’t want us to get angry. I just wanted to enjoy the weather and his company and being alive. I didn’t look his way.

“Aggie, promise me you’ll stay away from that club. They’re going to open early, maybe on Friday. SAPD detoxed the building and scoured every inch of the premises for clues. It’s clean, so the chief gave the go ahead. Harry’s afraid if they stay closed any longer, they’ll get so much bad publicity they’ll lose prospective customers.”

I wanted to say, “I’ll promise to stay away from the health club if you promise to keep Elmore Moseley from snooping around Grace,” but I didn’t. I stretched my neck toward the window so he couldn’t see how interested I was to learn when the club would reopen. I crossed my legs and rubbed one foot against the other.

“You’re in danger, Aggie. I’m going to assign a patrol officer to watch you and your house. You’re especially in danger at the club. Somebody killed Holly there and tried very hard to kill you.”

He was back to know-it-all mode. Why couldn’t he let me rest? I didn’t blame him for getting worked up, but how could he solve everything? He didn’t know nearly as much as I did about Holly or the suspects, and I wasn’t going to tell him. He was dead wrong about Grace. I couldn’t believe he let SAPD sic Elmore on her. Why should I do what Sam wanted? How could I make progress finding the killer if he had robo cop trailing me?

“Okay,” I replied, as if I agreed with everything he said. “Let’s think about what happened to Holly while I was poisoning myself with deodorant. The second day I got sick was the day she died. That was Tuesday. Maybe the killer tried to poison her but saw an unexpected opportunity to run her down.”

“It’s possible. Did you have symptoms again on Wednesday, after she died?”

I thought about it. Wednesday was the day I wormed my way into Holly’s apartment. This wasn’t a good time to remind him of that.

“I was a little queasy on Wednesday. As you know, I was terribly sick Thursday night at Sheldon’s party. I recovered Friday. Saturday, I was...I fell down the stairs. Sunday, I recuperated. The egg...remember?”

He looked exasperated. Our schedule had been pretty hectic.

He pulled up in front of my house, inhaled, slowly let the air out and sat there. “The killer could have been after you all along.”

“Or the killer could have targeted Holly, but after killing her, the murderer continued poisoning bottles to make it appear that the hit and run and the poison weren’t related.”

While he considered that possibility, another thought came to me. “What about Meredith? I saw her use the club’s deodorant once, but she didn’t get sick. Then she started bringing her own toiletries. Maybe she was the potential victim, but the killer didn’t know she brought her own stuff.” I had no idea whether the last part was true, but my idea sounded pretty good, so I kept talking. “I wonder if any of the men got sick.”

He sighed. “No. Our officers questioned people at the club all during this investigation. The perp tossed balloons in the men’s locker room, and men had to exit through the gas, but everybody escaped. No one reported any lingering illness.”

He’d apparently forgotten about Harry’s illness. I decided to let it ride. He got out, plodded around the car and escorted me to the door. I grubbed around for the key I’d hidden in the shrubs. As soon as we entered the foyer, he turned to face me.

“While investigating Holly’s past, I learned something from the adoption agency. When Holly got pregnant, she did care about her child. She felt she couldn’t keep it—she had issues in her life they wouldn’t disclose to me—but she wanted to do the best she could for the child. She loved her baby and made the best decision she knew how to make.”

I wasn’t sure why he brought that up. He grasped my shoulders, bent down, kissed me on the cheek and wrapped me in a bear hug. Warmed by his embrace, I felt my irritation with him over Grace struggling against my attraction for him. I loved the smell of his aftershave. I decided to quit thinking and relaxed into the curve of his neck. I slipped my arms around his back and pressed him to me. I wasn’t too weak to think about the splendid possibilities once I regained strength.

We hugged for several minutes, not moving. When Sam pulled away, he gazed into my eyes for a long time. Then he kissed me, pecked me on the nose, whirled and strode out the door.