Killer Pancake

Finally I was at the top of the moving stairs. Not yet sure of how much muscular control I still had, I rolled wildly onto the floor and hit a china display. The whole thing toppled over with an ear-splitting crash. I cursed and hauled myself to my feet. I had an absurd vision of Socrates: How much time did hemlock take to kill someone? But I knew something the doomed philosopher hadn’t. Thank God for Pete the espresso man’s advertising. I’d learned the antidote for hemlock from his pamphlet. It was one of my favorite substances: coffee. And I’d had enough of it this morning—a four-shot latte and a big, strong cup after church—that the poison wasn’t having the swift, lethal effect Harriet envisioned. I just needed more caffeine, and quick.

I could hear her heels rap-tap-tapping up the escalator. I tottered recklessly through the bathing suit department. Harriet would be up here any moment with her little gun. I didn’t have time to get to the exit. She’d see me and catch up. Damn, damn, damn. Then I noticed the dressing room. Hope bloomed. Could I still have the stolen key in my pocket? I certainly hoped so.

Moving seemed a little easier at this point, and I had the absurd thought that perhaps hemlock was like heroin. If you kept propelling yourself around during an overdose, things might not end up so badly. I groped in my pocket, found the key, and fumbled to unlock the door to the storage room. I turned the handle and prayed. It opened. I careened into the darkness.

“Goldy!” came Harriet’s voice again over the blare of the fire alarm. “Come out now!”

I wasn’t in the mood to provide her with a better target. With renewed determination I wobbled in the direction that I hoped would lead to that other door, the one on the left that I now realized led to Nick Gentileschi’s office. The space was not pitch-black. Light seeped downward from a distant skylight. I banged into the wall painfully, fell to my knees, and began to grope. I came to the moulding and then the door handle. I heard Harriet come into the darkness behind me. I turned the handle.

The door was locked.

“Goldy! Quit running! You just don’t understand—I had to do what I did.”

I felt the wall, wondering if Harriet had reloaded. My hand touched metal. Metal steps. I was confused. A metal staircase to what?

“I’m going to find a light!” Harriet warned, close, too close. “I’m going to turn it on!”

I scrambled up the steps. There had to be some exit up there at the top. And then I remembered Frances Markasian sitting on something—a raised box or platform that was just there, on top of the roof. Had it been the Prince & Grogan roof? Oh, please let that be it, I thought desperately. Some exit that they used for repairs. Please, anything. Up, up I climbed.

Thin fluorescent lights blinked once, then came on just as I reached the top step. Oh, Lord. The raised box was fastened with a schoolhouse lock. I glanced down. Harriet had the pistol pointed up at me.

She shouted, “Goldy, come down now!” Then she fired again.

The bullet ricocheted deafeningly off metal. I twisted the lock and pushed vertically with all my strength. The heavy door groaned. I was on the roof, I was out. The fair organizers were in the throes of breaking down the tents. Nearly everyone was gone. But I thanked the powers that be that Pete’s Espresso Bar was the last tent standing. The King of Advertising wasn’t going to be the first to leave, especially when volunteer crew members might want to buy coffee.

I ran awkwardly across the concrete and fell at Pete’s ankles.

“Espresso—straight—at least six shots—quick,” I panted.

Pete switched on the machine and looked down. Today’s T-shirt said I’M LEAN, MEAN, AND FULL OF CAFFEINE. “I swear, Goldy,” he said. “I wish every customer was like you.”

And then we heard a pistol shot.

It was over.

When Tom showed up with an investigative team at the department store, I was being discharged from the hospital across the street. I’d been given charcoal tablets, which I dutifully swallowed. The year before, I’d had an unpleasant encounter with the highly toxic—not aphrodisiac—substance known as Spanish fly, and I knew you had to get your system filtered, and quick. I wasn’t going to have to stay in the hospital, the ER doc told me, but he repeatedly remarked how lucky it was I knew the antidote for hemlock and was able to get it so quickly. I couldn’t agree more.

Tom scooped me up in his arms and hugged me long and hard. Julian had returned home and found Arch had already returned from Keystone. They’d called Tom on his cell phone and said they were on their way to see Marla.

“Sounds good to me,” I said as I got into Tom’s car.

He told me they’d found Harriet’s body behind the security room door. Self-inflicted wound, but I knew that already. I didn’t want to hear the details.