Icefox: R&P Labs Mysteries, #8

By Cynthia E. Hurst

    Unusual ingredients found in their products are threatening the good reputation of Gardener's Spice & Herb Company, so R&P Labs agree to investigate. But what seems like a simple job takes a deadly twist when one member of the Gardener family has a fatal accident on an icy road and another is freeze-dried along with the herbs. Before long, the scientists turned detectives are separating a pair of battling brothers, babysitting a lively septuagenarian and finding themselves on very thin ice as they race against time to discover who is killing off their clients one by one.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Plane View Books
• Release date: Mar 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781501420474

Cynthia E. Hurst

Cynthia E. Hurst is the author of two mystery series set in present-day Seattle, the R&P Labs Mysteries and the Zukie Merlino Mysteries, and the Silver and Simm and Milestone agency series, which both take place in Victorian England. Like her characters, Cynthia grew up in Seattle, then earned a degree in journalism and worked on several newspapers and magazines in the US and UK. The R&P books are based on her time spent in the small research lab where her parents both worked, and many of the R&P staff's projects are ones actually undertaken by the lab. The Zukie books were inspired by her Italian relatives. She now lives in Oxfordshire, the setting for the two Victorian series. She is also the author of the Time Traveller trilogy, which visits various bits of English history, and which stemmed from an unfortunate incident.

Book preview

ICEFOX

––––––––

CYNTHIA E. HURST

––––––––

R&P Labs Mystery 8

Copyright © 2013  Cynthia E. Hurst

All Rights Reserved

Plane View Books

––––––––

The characters and situations in this novel are wholly fictional and do not depict any actual persons, businesses or organizations.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Epilogue

Prologue

The car turned onto the freeway entrance ramp, the tires sliding a little on the frosty tarmac. The driver automatically corrected it, his attention more on singing along with the CD in the player than driving. It was a route he had taken many times before, and he knew exactly how fast he could negotiate the curve without incident.

Volare ...  There was nobody quite like Dino, he thought. He didn’t mind Sinatra, but Dean Martin was his first choice, with that velvety, slightly slurred voice. Cantare ...

He broke off his song abruptly. The road in front of him suddenly seemed hazy, as if a fog had descended over it. He glanced out the car’s side window and saw blue sky above him, a cold sunny day. Below, he could clearly see traffic moving on the freeway. He shook his head, and mist swirled in front of his face.

He slowed a little, taking one hand off the wheel to rub his eyes. But the fog got thicker. He felt a sudden dart of fear as he realized he could no longer see through the car’s front window and had no idea how close he was to the edge of the ramp. The fog was like a cloud, growing heavier, and try as he might, he couldn’t focus through it. He thought he heard a very faint hissing noise, but told himself he was imagining it.

His foot automatically moved to the brake, but before he could depress it, the left front fender hit the ramp’s guardrail with a crash that sent his head flying backward against the headrest behind the seat and then forward into the steering wheel with an impact that stunned him. The left side of the car tilted up and it fell onto its side. The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was the cloud of fog, settling gently around his shoulders in the crumpled car. 

Chapter 1

Snow would be fine, Rob Mangan reflected, if it could be confined to Christmas cards and distant picturesque peaks. Having several inches of it strewn across the streets of Seattle had created a landscape of slippery roads and treacherous hills, compounded by the inexperience of drivers far more accustomed to rain. Rob lived less than three miles from his workplace, but as he turned in to R&P Laboratories’ parking lot, he felt as though he had motored across Siberia.

He urged his elderly Nissan across the snow-covered surface and manuvered it into a parking space – or at least where he calculated a parking space would be – turned the engine off, and looked around. An immaculate Chevrolet sedan was already parked in the lot, and Rob raised his eyebrows.

Of the lab’s four other employees, Virginia McClain was the one he would reasonably have expected to use the bad driving conditions as an excuse to stay home. Virginia was in her mid-sixties, but she was still working full time, for which Rob was extremely grateful. She was sensible, competent and utterly reliable, which he supposed explained why she had driven through the snowy streets to work, rather than curling up with a book in a warm house.

He gathered his briefcase and lunch bag and started to open the car door. As he did, a sleek black BMW turned carefully in off the street. Rob waited a minute while the driver parked at a precise right angle to the building and got out of the car, turning up the collar of a heavy sheepskin jacket against the cold.

Hi, Ellis, he said. I wasn’t sure whether to expect you or whether you’d be stuck in a drift somewhere. How was your trip?

It looks like we might as well have stayed in Seattle, Ellis said, surveying the lot’s white covering. No, it was fine. The other people couldn’t make it because of the weather, so Sly and I had the chalet to ourselves.

So did you get any skiing in? Rob asked, grinning.

Naturally. Ellis pushed his floppy blond hair back from his forehead, and Rob wondered why he had expected any other answer. Although he was still two months away from his thirtieth birthday, Ellis Freeman took life very seriously and was offended if anything – even the weather – dared to upset his plans. If he and  his wife had gone to the mountains for a weekend skiing trip, he would have made sure they spent some time on the slopes, regardless of how enticing a log fire and a bottle of wine might have seemed in comparison.

The drive up was a nightmare, Ellis continued. Snow, ice and freezing fog. We saw a couple of fender benders and at least one vehicle that had gone off the road into a drift. Some people didn’t even have chains or studs. I have never understood why snow and ice seems to turn ordinarily intelligent people into lunatics. I’m just glad we took my dad’s Land Rover instead of the BMW; someone would have been sure to slide into it.

As if to illustrate his words, an old Volkswagen Beetle skidded sideways into the parking lot, aiming at the empty space in the far corner and missing the BMW’s rear fender by no more than six inches. Ellis flinched and then took up a more aggressive stance as the Beetle slid to a stop just short of the wall, the door was flung open and the driver emerged, wrapped in an ancient black leather jacket. A thin layer of half-melted snow covered his shoulders and head, where small spikes of black hair poked through the coating.

You look like an experiment in controlled cryogenics, Ellis said. Mitch, you didn’t drive that thing all the way from Beacon Hill, did you?

That ‘thing’, Mitch said with dignity, is a vintage car, and very reliable. He shook his head energetically and wet snow whirled in all directions. Of course I drove it all the way; how do you think I got here? By dog sled?

Good point, Rob said, wiping icy drops off his face. But why are you covered in snow?

Yes, most people would think of closing the window, Ellis said.

Well, I did play Spin the Beetle a few times, Mitch admitted, as the trio rounded the corner of the lab and approached the front door, being as clearing streets in the south end isn’t exactly a priority for the city. I ended up in a mini-drift after the last one and had to dig myself out. But I didn’t hit anything.

How can you tell? Ellis asked. You’d never notice a couple more dents.

Rob opened the door and ushered the two of them inside. They all headed automatically across the lobby to the kitchen area, where Virginia had started up the coffeemaker. She was standing beside it, holding a mug of hot coffee, and as far as Rob could see, her only concession to the winter weather was that she had swapped her usual pristine white track shoes for warm waterproof boots. He suspected that was only temporary and that the track shoes were safely tucked away in a corner of the bacteriology lab where she worked.

You should have stayed home instead of driving through the snow, Mitch told her sternly as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

Why?

Mitch floundered for a moment, searching for a tactful response. As the lab’s bacteriologists, he and Virginia were not only work colleagues but also close friends, and Rob knew Mitch didn’t want to insult her by suggesting she was too old or frail to tackle challenging driving conditions.

I hope you’re not suggesting I shouldn’t carry my fair share of the workload, Virginia said to him.

No, but the snow ...

Or that I’m an incompetent driver.

Hell, no.

Virginia let him struggle a little longer and then said, It’s very kind of you to think of my welfare, Mitch. Have a cookie. Her blue eyes twinkled as she held out a plastic carton of homemade chocolate chip cookies.

Thanks.

And dry your hair off. You’re soaking wet.

Yes, Grandma.

You don’t need to worry about Virginia, Ellis said, taking a cookie. She’s a better driver than you, snow or no snow. Come to think of it, most people are.

Shut up, Mitch said. If you’d had to drive from the south end instead of your poncy Magnolia condo, you would never have got here at all.

He took his leather jacket off and slung it over the coat rack, revealing a bright red sweater decorated with a grinning Santa Claus face, worn with multi-pocketed cargo pants tucked into scuffed biker boots. When Rob had hired him five years previously, it had partly been on the theory that the half-Japanese street kid who had somehow managed to acquire a college degree would liven up the lab’s atmosphere. The theory had been proven correct, but Mitch’s liveliness took many forms, and his running verbal battle with Ellis was only one of them.

Love the Santa Claus sweater, Rob said. Was it a Christmas present?

More likely Goodwill’s New Year clearance, Ellis said.

No, I found it at a rummage sale, Mitch said proudly. Only a buck. Wicked, isn’t it?

Yes, if you’re color-blind and totally devoid of taste.

You shouldn’t talk that way about Rob.

What?

He said he liked it.

Is Phil coming in today? Virginia asked, deftly defusing the argument before it could escalate.

He’ll be along later, Rob said. His younger brother’s home life, with its three young children, tended to be one of barely controlled chaos, but his commitment to R&P Labs was unquestioned. 

He’s probably out sledding with the kids, Mitch said, reaching for a dishtowel and rubbing his head. Or making a snowman.

I doubt it. But he said he was going to drop by the store on his way in and top up our coffee and sugar supply.

Good thinking, Mitch said. We can survive without new equipment; we can survive without regular pay checks, but we can’t survive without coffee.

Rob grinned and took his briefcase into his office. There was more truth in Mitch’s statement than he liked to admit, although in recent years bouncing pay checks had largely been eliminated. But there was no denying that most of the small research lab’s equipment was very basic, some of it was second-hand, and the brick building itself was an unattractive but functional leftover from the war years, nearly seven decades previously.

In fact, the newest piece of equipment in the building was the coffeemaker, the previous one having been destroyed by a double murderer who had resented the R&P staff’s exposure of his activities. He had correctly deduced that given half a chance, the five of them would spend hours gathered in the kitchen area, drinking coffee, discussing a criminal case they had gotten involved in and tossing around theories as to what had happened and who the culprit might be.

Rob also had to admit that he and his staff had a habit of stumbling over or into this sort of case on a surprisingly frequent basis, so much so that he sometimes thought they would be more successful as a forensic lab – or possibly a detective agency – than a research facility.

He shook his head and settled back into his desk chair, starting up his computer to check e-mails and websites. He didn’t really expect to find anything of interest, and he wasn’t disappointed. January was always a slow month, with business taking a nosedive after the busy holiday season. Those clients who hadn’t over-extended themselves at Christmas, he had learned from bitter experience, weren’t about to waste their money by paying overdue bills.

He had come to the depressing conclusion that he would have to start calling prospective clients to rustle up some business when the door of his tiny office opened and Phil looked in. It would have been obvious to any observer that he and Rob were brothers, and might even have been mistaken for twins. They were both in their mid-thirties, but Phil was slightly thinner, slightly taller and slightly blonder, with strawberry blond hair instead of Rob’s darker coppery tones.

I’ve put the coffee and sugar in the kitchen, he announced. Have I missed anything?

Only Mitch’s Santa Claus sweater. You’ll need sunglasses. How are the streets around your place?

Dire. But the good news is that it’s melting, so we’ll have a foot of slush by this afternoon.

Wonderful.

Phil withdrew and Rob turned back to the e-mails. Down at the bottom of the list of unread messages was an e-mail from an unfamiliar address. He opened it up and read:

Dr Mangan:

I would like to make an appointment to meet you and discuss the possibility of your laboratory doing some work for my company. Could you give me a phone call to set up a date and time?

Thank you,

Nick Gardener

Now, that’s more like it, Rob said to himself. He jotted down the attached number on his notepad and reached for the telephone.

––––––––

FIVE MINUTES later, he put the phone back down with a puzzled expression. He thought for a  moment, then pushed his chair back and went out to the kitchen. He poured himself a cup of coffee and waited, mentally counting. He expected action within a minute, and he had got to forty-five seconds when Phil ambled across the lobby from the chem lab to join him.

I’ve just had a strange thing happen, Rob told him.

Somebody’s check didn’t bounce?

Not that strange. I had an e-mail from someone called Nick Gardener, wanting to discuss having us work for him. He asked me to call to set up a meeting. So I did.

And?

Well, he seems to have changed his mind.

It happens.

Yes, but if people change their minds, they don’t usually sound worried about it.

Worried?

Maybe nervous would be better. Or apprehensive. He said he was sorry, but he’d had second thoughts and decided they didn’t need us after all.

Like I said, it happens. There’ll be other clients. There always are.

I know, but it’s still strange.

Phil stirred his coffee. So what sort of business does this Gardener person have? I suppose it would too much to expect it to have anything to do with plants.

You could stretch a point and say it does. Apparently it’s a company that sells herbs and spices. Wholesalers. They supply stores and delis and so on.

And what did he want us to do? Before he changed his mind, that is.

I don’t know. We didn’t get that far.

They drank their coffee in silence. Relative silence, that is, because they could hear Mitch singing in the bacteriology lab behind the Staph Only sign. Today, it seemed to be a medley of Roy Orbison hits – Mitch loved the music and fashions of the 1960s and deeply regretted not having been born until the mid-1980s.

It was one of the many reasons he had formed a close friendship with Virginia, whose knowledge of the decade was extensive and first-hand. She could even boast a fleeting acquaintance with Jimi Hendrix, based on their brief overlapping attendance at the same high school.

Mitch was just hitting the final chorus of Blue Bayou when Ellis came down the short hallway from the biology lab and joined them at the coffeemaker.

Sounds like a scalded cat, he said, indicating the bac lab.

He’s not that bad, Phil said judiciously. If he was, Virginia would have told him to shut up long ago.

She’s far too tolerant. So is Catherine. He gets away with murder with both of them.

Rob smiled. Ellis was correct to a degree; Mitch was an expert at using charm to cover up any shortcomings, especially where women were concerned. He had won Virginia over within a day or so of starting work at the lab and had been successfully employing a version of the same technique on a large number of young women for some time. A year previously, however, he had narrowed his focus and set off in determined pursuit of lawyer Catherine Quinn, who had moved in with him shortly afterward and was now expecting their child in a matter of weeks.

For his part, Ellis believed in employing charm only as a last resort, when logic, reasoned argument and bribery had failed to achieve the desired goal. He considered flirting a waste of time, and he couldn’t fathom why Catherine was attracted to Mitch in the first place, something that occasionally perplexed his male co-workers as well.

Mitch finished his song with a falsetto flourish, and he and Virginia came out of the bac lab and collected their coffee and cookies.

I meant to ask if you and Sly enjoyed your ski trip, Virginia said to Ellis. With this much snow in the city, it must have been much heavier in the mountains.

Yes, so much so that the other people we were supposed to be meeting decided to stay home rather than risk the roads. We had the whole chalet to ourselves, which was very pleasant. 

You could have gone skiing here, Mitch observed. No point slogging all the way up to Snoqualmie or somewhere in a blizzard just to slide downhill again.

Skiing involves a lot more than just ‘sliding downhill’, Ellis said patiently. It cleared up on Saturday and we were on the slopes most of the day.

If I’d been holed up on my own in a chalet with Sly, Mitch said, leering, you wouldn’t have seen me wasting my time skiing.

Shut up, Ellis said, turning a light shade of magenta. Or I’ll tell Catherine you’re backsliding and lusting after other women again.

I’m not lusting after Sly; I just appreciate her. You remember when she and I ...

No, I don’t. And neither do you, because it never happened.

Mitch smirked and Rob mentally chalked up another point for him. It was an uneven match, since Ellis had all the advantages that a privileged background, family money and a private education could provide. The only opportunities Mitch had ever had were those he had created for himself, with the exception of the high school biology teacher who had stepped in to rescue him from the consequences of juvenile delinquency.

While Ellis was familiar with the interiors of country clubs, ski lodges and plush hotels, Mitch had barely escaped an acquaintance with the interior of the local jail. This discrepancy in their backgrounds, however, had never stopped Mitch from trying to score points off his slightly older and far stuffier colleague, and often succeeding.

Rob’s just had a strange experience, Phil said, distracting both opponents. A company called Gardener’s, who sell spices and herbs, wanted us to do some work for them and then decided they didn’t. Rob said the guy he talked to sounded worried or nervous or something.

"Really? I didn’t think our reputation was that intimidating, Ellis said. If he hasn’t committed a crime, there’s no reason not to hire us."

Rob and Phil exchanged glances. That couldn’t be it, could it? Rob said. I know we’ve had a little publicity about our activities in the past, but not enough to scare anyone off.

You wouldn’t think so, Virginia said. And why contact us in the first place, if he had any qualms about doing business with us?

Maybe he didn’t know how shit hot we are at solving crimes, Mitch said, snaring another cookie. And then someone told him, so he got cold feet and backed off.

We’re a research lab, Phil said. We don’t go looking for criminal activity.

I know, Rob said, sighing, but we don’t have to; it always seems to find us anyway.

––––––––

HE WAS still thinking about Nick Gardener’s odd reaction and  his staff’s ability to get tangled up in crime when he arrived home late that afternoon. Most of the snow had melted or at least been reduced to slush by now, and it was much easier to drive through. He parked the car in the driveway and squelched though the soggy mess to the front door.

His wife Holly was lying on the living room sofa reading a book, and looked up as he came in.

How are you feeling? he asked, as he leaned over and kissed her.

A little better. I’ve only had one bout today. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that all the books are right and morning sickness goes away after twelve weeks or so.

I’m sure it will. And remember that they say morning sickness means the pregnancy is progressing well.

I know, although it’s hard to appreciate that when you’ve got your head down the toilet.

Yes, I can see where it might be. But I’m glad you’re feeling better. Where’s Sophie?

Holly put the book down, sat up and swung her feet onto the floor. She told me she’s doing an experiment upstairs in her room. I was afraid to ask what it was, but as long as nothing explodes, I suppose it’s all right.

Rob grinned. His nine-year-old daughter from his first marriage was determined to become a scientist, and had decided that waiting until she went to college and earned a chemistry or biology degree would take far too long. When she had lived in her mother’s small apartment she had been limited as to what she could do, but she had moved into Rob and Holly’s house after Christmas, and her new bedroom offered limitless possibilities.

Rob had contributed an old microscope and some test tubes, beakers and flasks, but had drawn the line at a Bunsen burner. Sophie had sulked for days and finally they had compromised – no burners, but she could use a Waring blender in the kitchen and heat things – very carefully – on the stove.

Holly stood up and padded