A Little Death

By Jovanka Bach

A LITTLE DEATH BY JOVANKA BACH
Revised by John Stark
Jocasta Rex, is a medical doctor. One day she walks into her office and discovers a naked body lying on her examination table. Its the body of a sophomore student, Hector Ramirez Munoz, and the striking feature is a fully erect penis. Jocasta is stunned. Her office is in shambles. While searching around for clues, she is suddenly struck on the head from behind. She falls to the ground unconscious. When she recovers she is surrounded by police investigators, who are incessantly questioning her about the murder of Hector. Jocasta is adamant about taking on her own investigation of the murder so the officers leave. Her quest leads her to Venezuela, where she discovers an underground factory that is distilling a powerful aphrodisiac from a plant called Rubour Vellorum Flapparum or Red Velvet Flapper. Eventually she solves the case, aided by the local police who arrest the farmers growing the plant, and Jocasta becomes recognized as a brilliant scientific investigator, that eliminated a dangerous drug.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503599017

Jovanka Bach

Jovanka Bach was a playwright, novelist and medical doctor based in Los Angeles. Her first successful stage plays were the Balkan Trilogy, which her husband John Stark, produced and directed at the Odyssey Theatre in Santa Monica and off-Broadway at the Barrow Group Theatre in New York. Other successful plays included O'Neill's Ghosts, Sylvie, and Mercy Warren's Tea. Most recently her play Chekhov and Maria was produced in New York by John Stark, and filmed by Eric Till. It won three best feature awards, and is now airing on Super Channel Canada, PBS TV, Russian TV and coming up soon on Spanish and French TV. Her Platypus children's stories were written just before she passed away in 2006. The three stories were illustrated by Colby Monier. http://www.johnstarkproductions.com/

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Copyright © 2015 by Jovanka Bach.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 08/17/2015

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

CHAPTER ONE

For ten long years, Dr. Jocasta Rex had wished, hoped and prayed for a special event to interrupt the tenured gray line of her academic life. At some time, somewhere, some thing was bound to happen, she knew - she felt it in every cell of her six foot, two-inch frame, but never did she dream when it came, it would be with such violent, such flagrant presentation.

The chicken in the oven, browned and softly gurgled in its juices, the cold Le Blanc de Blanc in her throat was pleasantly dry, and Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’, her favorite symphony, swept through the room evoking pastoral scenes where chicken and white wine would go quite well. She reclined in the arm chair especially built to accomodate her statuesque body and allowed herself a few moments of escape.

The empty wine glass descended in a precise line to the coaster. Jocasta sat up. Enough dawdling. Best work on the lecture she was to deliver tomorrow at a symposium on the Foxglove family.

University mail, a recent journal, a rough draft of a grant proposal came out of her briefcase, but no notes or kodachrome slides. Damn it! She had been in such a hurry to get away from the University that she had forgotten the most important thing - the lecture material.

And look at the weather. Rain pummelled the window, pounded and cowed the shrubs beneath it. Too late to call her secretary. By now, the woman had gone home. There was no recourse but to go back. However, first she would have her dinner and then a Couvoisier with her Benville, an expensive ciqar of an elegant Burmese blend.

The electrically controlled garage allowed her to drive directly from her home to the underground University parking without getting wet. This accomplishment pleased her to no end. She worked hard to arrange her life efficiently for the greatest comfort and the achievement of total dryness in the midst of heavy rain, made her feel as if she had been awarded first prize in some competition.

She smiled smugly and puffed on the Benville as she walked from the parking area through a narrow entry and to the main corridor of the B level.

The smells hit her - earthy, fetid and unpleasant. Animals to be used for experimental purposes were kept here. Many of these were dogs and their restive barking came from behind closed doors as some attendant or other disturbed them during his work. Nice creatures, dogs. Jocasta never used them in her experiments. Her guinea pigs were mice, rats and occasionally medical students.

A fresh Benville. Ah! The smell was an olfactory delight. It replaced the stink and in the elevator, played luxuriantly in her nostrils.

What was this? The office door unlocked? There were important records in her files, and expensive equipment in the adjoining lab. When would that secretary learn? Or maybe it was the custodians. Damn them, anyway.

Inside nothing seemed amiss. The files were untouched, her swivel chair was in place on its plastic mat, her coffee mug was on her desk, and yes, beside it, her lecture materials, where she had left them.

This mollified her somewhat. She gathered the notes and slides, put them in her commodious shoulder bag, and took one last look around to make sure everything was in order. It wasn’t. The door to the connecting lab was ajar and showed light coming from the other side: Well, she was going to speak to someone, first chance tomorrow, about the carelessness of the night crew.

She swung the lab door open, reached for the light switch, and froze. For there, directly before her was a sight which made her stare in disbelief.

On the table used for class demonstrations lay Hector Ramirez Munoz, one of the sophomore medical students, a quiet, unobtrusive boy, who she only remembered because his father was the Venezuelan Minister of Health. Now, she was never to forget him. Hector lay on his back - not only was he naked, he was also very dead.

But, it was not the corpse which riveted Jocasta’s attention. The most striking feature was the state of the male organ. This was rigid, erect, protruding at ninety degrees to the body and remarkably large for a man of Hector’s puny size. The finding, although curious, was certainly of no prevailing practical value. Nevertheless, for several moments that was the sole focus of Jocasta’s gaze.

Gradually, anxiety, superseded by overwhelming curiosity and excitement, replaced her initial shock. For here, at last, was an extraordinary occurrence - one undeniably dramatic - one to provide a new challenge for her. Not that she had ever wished Hector any harm, but dead is dead, and she was going to make the most of it.

For several years, she had been studying major murders - in books, newspapers, journals - anything she could find, even listened to police calls on a CB radio, in every way preparing herself. This new knowledge plus her expertise in pharmacology, toxicology and medicine convinced her she would be a superb detective. And thus armed, she now launched her investigation.

First, she canvassed the lab and adjoining rooms to make sure the murderer was not hiding anywhere. She searched without a weapon, trusting her wits to be more than a match for a lurking killer. Fortunately, this conviction was not put to the test, since no other living soul was about.

On returning to the body, she stumbled and almost fell. Under her feet was broken lab equipment which she had overlooked in her excitement. Scattered, hither and thither like so much flotsam were Erlenmeyer flasks, pipettes, funnels, petri dishes. These came from Hector’s locker, now a gaping hole under the counter facing the table. Someone had ripped the door from its hinges and dashed out all the contents.

A Bunsen burner, matches and a few pieces of glassware were on the counter, indicating an experiment had been in progress when the killer struck. What this experiment had been was unclear. All evidence of it, with the exception of the dirty glassware, had been removed. Since Hector was a slow student, Jocasta surmised he had finagled a key to the lab from a custodian, probably the Spanish speaking one, and come to complete his class assignment. But why anyone would want to destroy or steal a second year pharmacology experiment was indeed a puzzle.

Jocasta began a close scrutiny of the corpse. Its posture was odd; something she had not noticed before. The extremities were extended as far as possible and bent ninety degrees at the elbows and knees, so that the skinny frame resembled an Egyptian hierglyphic. It was apparent Hector did not climb up on the table and put himself in that position. Someone had done it after his death.

Nor did he paint the burgundy red spirals on top of each hand, the inside of each heel and in the middle of his forehead. These resembled a coiled larval worm and ended in a nubbin. The same color also suffused the wide, staring eyes, their look of horror a counterpoint to the joy and elation frozen on the face.

At first, Jocasta thought the pigment was blood, but when she looked closer she saw that it was a dark carnelian substance, which scraped off in tiny flakes. These she neatly brushed into an envelope, intending to do an analysis of them later.

After making notes about the body, she inspected the experiment area, more specifically the locker space.

A goose neck lamp, angled into the cavity gave enough illumination for the walls and base, but the corners and crevices were in shadow. Jocasta stuck her head inside and used a pen light to see the difficult spots. She saw nothing interesting, and was ready to withdraw when a tiny bit of fuzz in the lower back corner caught her eye - possibly a spider. But no. The object didn’t move, was dark red, and on looking closer, woody and crescent shaped. However, the crescent was part of a deeper portion which she tried to pull out with her fingers, but couldn’t; it was lodged too securely.

She found a slender hook used in plant dissection and probed and tugged once, twice, three times. A tentacular object sprang into view - dangling on the hook like a worm to be used for bait.

The find was a slender helical vine, wine red with a fuzzy coating, a part of some plant or other. Jocasta, despite her expertise in this area, could not identify it.

The elastic spiral twined easily around her little finger and ended in an even more tightly coiled nubbin about the size of a ‘B-B’. When placed in the center of her palm, its fuzzy coat produced a pleasant, sensual feeling against the skin.

It was apparent that the painted coils on the body were two dimensional representations of the item in her hand. This was an exciting connection, and she remained, staring at the thing in her hand and wondered about all sorts of possibilities.

The blow on the head, therefore, was a complete surprise. All six feet and more of her crashed against the lamp. The heightened glare from the exploding bulb was her last glimpse of consciousness.

A soothing cold pack was on her head, but the loud raspy voice in her ear more than obliterated this comfort. A sharp faced, balding man peered intently at her. He had a stogie clamped between his teeth. It was one of those cheap kinds with a terrible smell, nothing like the elegance of her Benville. Not only was the man’s cigar an esthetic affront, but his manner was equally irritating.

He leaned in on her with an elbow on his knee and a foot up on the side rung of her wooden armchair. Are you feeling better, lady?

While holding the ice pack to her head, she squinted sideways at him, raising her eyebrow disapprovingly. This mannerism was lost on the man, however, who swiftly proceeded to his next question.

What are you doing here, this late at night, lady?

Don’t call me lady!

The man was somewhat taken aback. What do you want me to call you? - Madam?

She was in no mood for his minor witticism.. Her anger was making her forget the pain in her head. She sat straight up and stared him flush in the face. I am Dr. Jocasta Rex, M.D., Ph.D., Full Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology.

Oh, yeah. He shifted the stogie to the other side of his mouth.

Yeah. she said ironically. And who may I ask, are you?

Clarence Lankin, Chief of Homicide and these, he swept the lab with his arm, are my men.

For the first time, she realized her laboratory was overrun by a determined looking crew, engaged in a variety of activities. They dusted the counter for fingerprints, marked the position of the body, which had already been wrapped and placed on a stretcher for removal, and took photographs (the flashbulbs made her wince with pain). Out of this melange, she picked out two distinctive individuals, one was a tall stoop shouldered man clutching a pocket scribble pad and peering at unlikely places for clues, such as window sills and tops of distant cabinets. The other man was short, pudgy and a dervish of unconcentrated activity, distributed with the intent of a buxom bumblebee frantic for honey. He dashed without surcease from fingerprint technicians to photographers to the coroner’s men.

Who are those two? asked Jocasta.

My detectives, Samuels, he thrust his cigar in the direction of the tall one, and Rilen, indicating the short one.

Do they know what they’re doing? asked Jocasta.

Sure. Lankin was indignant. They’ve been on the force a long time.

Hmph. She surveyed the activity in the lab disapprovingly. You’re turning everything upside down in here.

This is a criminal investigation, doctor. Lankin’s tone was condescending. He blew a heavy puff of smoke in her direction.

Jocasta wrinkled her nose in disgust. Good God, what a vile cigar!

Sorry. He grinned perversely, but put the cigar in his further hand, Guess women never like cigars.

Jocasta let this comment pass. She, herself, had a great need for one of her Benvilles, but for the moment they were out of reach, in her purse somewhere.

Across the room, the black custodian smiled at her and waved. How’re you doing, Doc? Feeling any better?

Better than not feeling anything. She realized he was the one responsible for the ice pack, and thanked him.

Lankin confirmed this by explaining that the custodian saved her life. He heard a crash, came running - and found you out cold with some guy gtanding over you with a cord in his hand.

Who? Did you get him?

No. He got away. But we do know one thing -- he was Latin with a black mole on his cheek. Do you know anyone like that? She shook her head.

Why should the guy try to kill you?

I don’t know. I was too busy studying the body.

The what?

The corpse - the body.

Why were you doing that?

Trying to find clues.

What for?

To help me in my investigation.

Your investigation?

Yes. I intend to solve this crime myself.

Now look here – Lankin shook his cigar in her face. Jocasta brushed it away and forgetting her headache, got up. She towered above Lankin by at least a foot. He was startled. In her seated position, she had not seemed so tall. Lankin quickly recovered his surprise, however, and sticking the cigar in his mouth, looked up at her admonishingly.

Let me tell you this. I have a competent, professional staff and don’t need any amateurs on this case.

I am not an amateur. I have never been an amateur at anything in my entire life. Jocasta haughtily turned away and went into her office to hunt for a Benville. The craving for one was over-powering.

Lankin, forgetting himself, followed closely behind. Then how come you got that bump on your head? he said, gesturing and pointing with his cigar.

It could have happened to anyone. Jocasta was searching through her purse for the cigars.

But it happened to you, doctor. It happened to you. Jocasta ignored this. She found the tortoise shell case containing her Benvilles.

If those two, she pointed to the lab, are an example of detectives, then anyone can become one.

Oh, is that so?

Precisely. She took a cigar from the case and lit it. Lankin was dumbfounded. His eyes grew wide and he stood poised with his cigar in midair. Jocasta blew a puff of smoke in Lankin’s face, thereby repaying in kind.

He coughed. Jesus!

This is one of the finest blends on the market today, said Jocasta. You should treat yourself to one. Until then, you can try one of mine. She handed him a cigar.

No, thanks. I’ll stick to my own brand.

As you wish. She replaced the cigar, and sat down on the edge of her desk. You realize that Hector, the poor boy, was undoubtably poisoned by a very powerful drug.

No kidding. Lankin was sarcastic.

Obviously, it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out, continued Jocasta, and taking into account Hector’s partial ectasy and the state of, she cleared her throat and said delicately, his private part, one can say that the drug is also a strong aphrodiasiac.

Yeah, and I suppose you know which one it is.

No, but I soon will.

You’re telling me a lot of new things here, Doctor, replied Lankin acidly.

Jocasta was undaunted. To solve this murder, you need an expert in drug chemistry and toxicology. And my area of interest is precisely that. Furthermore, I’m one of the top people in my field.

Yeah?

Yes. You can ask any of your crime lab toxicologists and see if they don’t agree.

What are you getting at, Doctor? Lankin was getting impatient. He stuck the cigar in his mouth and moved around restlessly.

Just this - I will be your consultant and help you solve the case.

No thanks. I have my own sources.

I’ll do it for a nominal fee, until I produce my first breakthrough.

No! Murder is Homicide’s responsibility.

I already have strong ideas about the case.

You got strong ideas about a lot of things, doctor.

Lankin suddenly turned around, pointing his cigar at her, and asked suspiciously. Are you withholding any evidence from us?

Jocasta thought about the flakes of pigment in the envelope; and more acutely about the spiral which her assailant had stolen from her hand. None of this information had been given to Lankin. She focused on the smoke from her Benville - trying to be nonchalant and not give herself away. Well, ah - ah - kind of evidence would I withhold?

You know that better than me. But I’m warning you - if you do anything like that - I’ll get you for obstruction of justice.

Threats or attempted coercions only made her get more stubborn, contrary and determined, as she felt at present. Furthermore, the small, belligerent Lankin unpleasantly reminded her of her ex-husband Edgar. She rose to her full height which in bare feet was six feet two inches, but with