Strange Brew (The Tortie Kitten Mystery Trilogy Series Book 2) Read online

  “Witchcraft?” Shen studied the broad design. Wide eyes caught mine.

  “What do I look like, a witch-ologist?” I said. His nervous gaze became a stink eye.

  Shen hugged himself. “Did it get cold in here?”

  I didn’t feel colder. What I felt was—I wasn’t sure. I glanced over my shoulder, certain we were being watched. There was nothing but dark rock.

  “This place is seriously creeping me out,” Shen said.

  There were more areas down here to check out, but all of a sudden, I thought we’d seen enough. “Me too. Let’s get the hell out of this hole.”

  “Should we get photos?”

  I shook my head, already heading for the vault door. “What does this prove? We have the victim’s photo to prove that the album exists. Whoever ran this terrible little facility has covered their tracks by now, I’m sure. We’re after a murderer, not a record producer.”

  We hurried out, our steps probably too quick considering we only had flashlights.

  “What if they’re one and the same?” Shen asked.

  I thought about it. “They might be. But whether they recorded it in this little torture dungeon, or at Abbey Road, what’s the difference?”

  Chapter 15

  I found out the difference ten minutes later, as we headed back for the torn-up bridge. A loud crack shattered the stillness, followed by an echo. Shen knocked me to the ground as a bullet sparked off the concrete pathway. The difference was that nobody would likely be shooting at you when you left Abbey Road Studios.

  My gun was in my hand, and I assumed a prone shooting position. Shen did the same. “I can’t get an angle on him.”

  “He’s got the higher ground. For all we know, he’s lying under our vehicle. I’ve seen your range scores. Think you can hit him?”

  My gun was a big one, a Magnum Research .357 magnum with a ten-inch barrel. Very shiny. I liked a big gun because it made my butt look smaller. Or was that wishful thinking? If I had my druthers, I’d carry a gold .50 caliber Desert Eagle. Maybe the gold one with tiger stripes. Call it a fashion statement. I’m not really that much of a gun person. Department regs forbade the giant rounds, thus the .357. My mind was raving on under the intense stress.

  Even with magnum rounds and a long barrel for accuracy, hitting anything smaller than a skyscraper at this distance, with the wind blowing, the target hidden and firing on us, and our adventure in the facility making my hands shaky, was pretty unlikely. Shen knew it, too, even if I did take my shooting seriously.

  “If I can draw his fire, maybe you can make the bridge.” Shen was panting, his skin shiny, eyes too wide. “Even if you can’t hit him, you’ll certainly get close enough to scare him off.”

  “Shen, no, that’s a stupid idea—”

  He jumped up, moving away in a crouch. He discharged two rounds toward our vehicle. I thought I heard a window break. But stupid idea or not, I couldn’t let Shen put himself in jeopardy for nothing.

  Keeping as low as I could, I sprinted to the bridge. My eyes scanned the opposite side, the levy road, our vehicle on the other side of the fence. I saw no one. Maybe I’d even made myself a sitting duck.

  There was a low, musical sound. I recognized the irritating tweedle of Shen’s phone. I turned, and saw him belly-crawling toward me.

  My gaze shot back to the road. “Shen, stay there!”

  Even in broad daylight, I caught the muzzle flash before the shot rang out. Our shooter was huddled down near our vehicle. He probably had his own vehicle there, out of sight on the other side of the rise. Taking aim, I targeted the air just above where I saw the gunfire. I squeezed off a round. My ears rang. Still, I heard the satisfying sound of a terrified grunt from the sniper. I was close. Taking the opportunity, I raced across the bridge, the road, and flung myself down at the edge of the levy.

  “Shen, c’mon, I’ll cover you!” I looked back. Shen was lying still. I could see the darkening of his suit coat. He’d been hit.

  Training dictated that I take out the shooter first. It was a no-brainer. But that was my partner out there. He was exposed, in the line of fire, and unconscious. Belly-crawling backward, I kept the top of the ridge in sight as I moved toward Shen.

  Out of nowhere, a mountain lion appeared. It bounded down the road, lightning-fast, letting out a snarling scream. A human scream answered, and a gunshot.

  I reached Shen. “Chuck,” I patted his cheek. “Wake up, Shen. C’mon! Wake up!”

  Above us, I heard more shots, and an engine starting. A vehicle roared off. From my point of view, it was a very loud cloud of dust. Now, there was just a really big, really angry cat in my way. I saw the animal peek at us over the edge of the road before vanishing.

  “For God’s sake, Chuck, wake up. I don’t know if I can carry your dead weight.” Don’t say dead, I did a mental head-slap. The phone in his pocket tweedled on, making me ready to lose my mind.

  Shen’s eyes opened. “Oh, that’s gonna hurt in the morning.”

  “You gotta give me some help, partner,” I said. “Can you get up?”

  He rolled a little to the left and the right. “Nope,” he said through his teeth.

  I managed to get him on his feet. He leaned against me with practically his full weight. His right leg dragged. I saw blood seeping into the ground where he had lain. It was an awkward three-legged race across the bridge and up the slope to the levy road. My eyes were peeled for the big cat as we pushed through the gate. “Almost there,” I panted. “Almost there.”

  I nearly dropped my injured partner to the dirt. Sgt. Josephine Gustafson sat on the back bumper of the vehicle. Her blouse hung open as she dragged on her motorcycle boots. She stood up, hopping her foot into the second boot. “Put him in back and grab the first aid kit,” she said.

  “There’s a—” It hit me before I could say it. The mountain lion—it was Gustafson. I’d suspected her of some sort of paranormal thing. It became evident that she was a shifter. I beeped open the back. The sergeant helped me fling the rear seats down and drag Shen into the cargo space.

  Shen tried to suppress a scream of pain. The sergeant looked at the blood on her hands. “Dammit. Hang on, Chuck, let me get your pants off you.”

  He looked up at Josephine. “I’ve had dreams like this—owww!”

  I grabbed the first aid kit from between the front seats. Gustafson yanked Shen’s suit pants down, causing another half-scream from my partner. Blood oozed from two wounds on his thigh. “Through and through,” Gustafson said. “I hope. Rip open one of those blue packets,” she ordered.

  I did as she rolled Shen toward her. She grabbed the pack and dumped the powdered contents into the bleeding wound on the back of his leg. Shen jerked and sang soprano.

  “I got this. Drive, Garcia, drive!”

  She pulled the hatch down as I slid behind the wheel. Dust flew as I threw the car in gear and floored it.

  “How did you find us?” I asked, keeping the pedal down and the tires on the road.

  “I was out here tracking down a wolf report. Heard your radio check. Thought I’d better take a look when dispatch didn’t respond.”

  In the rear view, I saw her rip open gauze pads and gloves. “There isn’t anything in here for pain, other than Tylenol,” she said.

  While my eyes were drawn to my passengers, I knew I had to watch the road at this speed. It had taken a long time to drive out here. It was a longer trip to the medical center in French Camp. I was determined to make the trip in half the time.”

  “I’m going to use the tourniquet. You’re not bleeding that badly, but I can’t keep pressure on the wounds without using two hands,” she said. “There’s no suture kit. I’d rather leave that to the doctors, in case you need surgery. Just try to stay with me, Chuck.”

  Soon, I was hurtling down Route 4, lights and sirens—Code 3. I weaved between the traffic, my foot all the way down.

  “Take a right on South Tracy,” the sergeant said. “I know a shortcut.”
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  “South Tracy?” It was a two-lane strip through the country. There were many places where a vehicle couldn’t pull over to yield to us. “You sure?”

  “Shouldn’t be any traffic. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

  I whipped the SUV into a drifting turn down the two-lane, and punched it again.

  “You still with me, Chuck?”

  Chuck murmured that he was. Then he said, “On the off chance I don’t die, would you like to have dinner with me, Sarge?”

  “You’re not gonna die, Inspector.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  She paused. “I think you may be delirious.”

  Gustafson’s shortcut was a dirt track that ran between two fields. Mud spun out from the tires as I gunned it. Shoots of green sped past in a continuous blur. The radio squawked, the first sound I’d heard from it.

  The sergeant crawled forward, grabbing the mic so I could keep moving along the muddy track. “This is One-Sierra-One, we have an injured officer en route to San Joaquin General, copy?”

  “Copy, One-Sierra-One, notifying emergency services. Copy?”

  “Roger that, Dispatch.”

  To my surprise, the dirt track intersected with Howard Road—practically a straight shot to the hospital. “Did you get a good look at the shooter?”

  “No,” Gustafson said. “He was wearing a balaclava, camo tactical pants, black tennis shoes, white socks.”

  “He was wearing a mask?”

  “The rifle looked military, but vintage. Maybe an old M21. When I dragged him from under the car, he tasted... old.”

  Hardly the kind of description that would end up in court.

  “Officially, I snuck up on him and dragged him out with my hands,” Gustafson said. “He couldn’t get off a shot in close quarters, but he butted me with the weapon.”

  I made my way to the ER ambulance bay where we were met by a team with a stretcher. The sergeant buttoned up and tucked in.

  “Gunshot wound to the leg, through-and-through,” Gustafson reported to the medics. “Probably a 7.62 round. I don’t know if the femur was hit.”

  Shen swore up a storm as they lifted him onto the gurney and rolled him away. Josephine Gustafson followed with her eyes. “Sounds like he’ll be okay.”

  I looked over the seat at her. She was covered in blood, sweat-muddied dirt, her blonde hair loose, curly and wild. Somehow, she still looked better than me on a good hair day.

  “I’d better call my lieutenant,” I said.

  The Animal Control sergeant shook her head. “What have you gotten yourself into this time, Inspector Garcia?”

  Chapter 16

  I paced around the waiting room for what felt like hours. Lieutenant Dan showed up. So did Chief Walker. Medical staff wouldn’t let us see Shen while they worked on him. We huddled in the hall outside.

  “I’m going to assign you a temporary partner,” Danielson said.

  “Like hell you are,” I said. “I’m going to bring theses sonsabitches down. Sir.”

  He shook his head. “Not by yourself. You’re emotionally compromised. You’re lucky I’m not taking you off this whole damn thing.”

  “I’m calling BS. Somebody shot my partner. They did it while we were investigating the Vandermoot murder. That means we’re getting close. They’re getting desperate.”

  “Desperate is the word, Inspector,” the chief said. “Shooting at cops? You can’t know what these people are capable of.”

  A doctor in scrubs walked into the hall, tugging down his mask. “One of you can see Inspector Shen before we take him to surgery. X-rays found fragments in the wound. We think they’re bullet fragments, but they may be from a fractured femur. Either way, we need to operate quickly or he’ll bleed out.”

  I followed the doctor into an ER bay. Shen smiled at me. The doctor pulled the curtain closed for privacy. I couldn’t help but think of the hospital-like rooms in the facility cellar.

  “I don’t know what they gave me, but I hope they give me more,” Shen giggled.

  “You’ve got some fragments in your leg. They have to operate,” I said.

  He shrugged. “There’s already a couple holes down there. No biggie. You think Gustafson will really go out with me?”

  Even though I wanted to cry, he made me smile. “Maybe.”

  “Hey, I figured out who our killer is.”

  I gave him a blank stare.

  “Yeah, I guess I had to get all high to figure it out.” He giggled again. “I’ve been looking into the Peerless Scarlet Jack Explosion, trying to find some kind of corroboration. Like we need it now. Anyway, they’re all dead: one from cancer, one from a heart attack, and one a suicide.”

  He stopped talking, staring at the lights in the ceiling. While his eyes were open, it looked like he was asleep. I couldn’t take the suspense.

  “Okay, so who is the killer?”

  “Right!” He said with a smile. “It’s all in the names, Mare. It’s right there in the names. Hey, what time is it?”

  “In the names?”

  “Is it before three?”

  “What do you mean, the names?”

  “If you can get there in time, I left some stuff at the record swap on the campus. You’ll find him there, I’m pretty sure. It’s all about the names. Like the name game. Josephine, Josephine Bo-sephine, banana fanna Fo-sephine, feee... fiiii... mmmmo...”

  Shen faded out. Two surgical nurses yanked the curtain back. “We’d better get him to the OR. Excuse us, Inspector.”

  They wheeled him out a double door in the back. I was left with nothing but his drugged out ranting. While I didn’t know what he was talking about, I figured I’d better get to the record swap on campus. Just in case.

  My lieutenant and the chief caught me as I headed out. “Shen’s in surgery. I’ll be back.”

  “Where are you going, Inspector?”

  “There are some more potential witnesses to interview. There’s a record swap at the UV student union. No danger involved.”

  “Don’t go alone, Inspector. Take Billings with you. You need someone to watch your back,” Danielson said.

  “Have him meet me,” I said, and headed to the vehicle.

  THE RECORD SWAP WAS pretty low-key. Maybe a dozen vendors had tables set up. Students hauled around little square suitcases full of record albums. But as I approached, I saw a flyer posted on one of the big square pillars.

  Have You Seen This Record?

  There was a photo of Sonic Lobotomy. It had to be the one from Vandermoot’s phone.

  $50,000 Reward. Call 555-2217.

  I dialed the number. Shen’s voice answered.

  “Thank you for calling the Delta Vista Metro Police stolen record hot line Please leave any information about the LP, Sonic Lobotomy: Or, the Portable Brainwave Installation Kit. Identities will be protected. Information leading to the recovery of this record will be rewarded. Thank you.” Beep.

  So this is what he’d been doing so early this morning. My eyes found the flyers taped and tacked in highly visible places. Some students studied the posters. None of them seemed to know anything about the record in question. Still—what an idea. “Shen, you’re a freaking genius,” I said.

  I recognized a couple vendors, Robert Zackery and Sketch Moses. Both wore black armbands, in memory of their colleague. College kids sorted through the albums. A few were trying to sell some vinyl. There was nothing out of the ordinary going on. I circulated, listening in.

  “What’s the deal with the reward poster?” A co-ed asked Zackery.

  Despite his obvious interest in the young woman, his face fell. “Oh. That. Someone got murdered over it. A friend of mine.”

  “Wow!” The student said. “Did you hear about that, Shayla?”

  Another young woman wandered over to the Zax Trax table. “No. That’s just crazy! Is it worth a lot of money or something?”

  Zackery, finding a growing audience of pretty girls, pontificated. I slipped away. Shen’s idea was
more brilliant than I realized. We were putting out information about the murder without alerting the press. I’m sure that was soon to follow. More immediately, whoever killed John Vandermoot would likely hear about this long before it was on the news, or in the paper.

  I scanned the crowd, looking for potential murderers. None stood out. I wandered to the Scorpio table. Sketch Moses scrutinized me. “Well, I can’t say you’re not working the case.”

  “Tell me something, Sketch. I don’t know a whole lot about the record industry. If all the pressings of Sonic Lobotomy were pulled, all accounted for, how could anyone possibly own a copy?”

  Moses snuck a hit from a vape pen. No smoking in school. “I’ve been thinking about that since you gave me the third degree,” he said.

  “And?”

  He let the smoke out of his nostrils. I caught the skunky herbaceous smell. “Usually, a label will send out promotional copies before the release. Hippopotamus was a real small label, though. Some say their pressing plant was a Mafia front.”

  I didn’t need any more complications like organized crime ties to this. “Who would get the promotional copies?”

  “Well, the band, and their management. Maybe a few radio stations, with a little payola to get the thing played. You know, drugs or money or something—a bribe. Usually, this was done only with singles, with 45s. But once in a while... here.” Moses rifled through his record boxes. He came up with a record in a plastic bag.

  I looked it over. Inside the bag was a plain white record sleeve. The label was hand written. Sketch pulled it out. “This is a promotional acetate. It was cut in the studio from the master tapes. The material, the acetate, is softer than vinyl, so it can only be played five to ten times before the grooves wear out.”

  “Do you think Hippopotamus Records sent out any of these for Sonic Lobotomy?”