Good Chemistry (6 page)

“Oh my God.” It landed on her soul like a sledgehammer blow. She’d just met the man of her dreams, and he was the Doc Robber. Now she had a face and a name and she’d be damned if she was going to share her discovery with the rest of the squad. This was her case to solve. Her mind was going a hundred-miles-an-hour as she rushed across town to be by her dying father’s side. Fear, hope, despair, elation, every imaginable emotion was churning through her as she raced across the deserted city in the quiet dead of night.

Chapter 6

Six weeks earlier

“Well, here it is. This is as refined as the formula is going to get,” Andrew said excitedly.

Bernie’s mind went into scramble-mode trying to think of a course of action. She knew that Andrew, in his single-minded obsessive way, would want to start testing immediately.

“Now? You mean right now? I didn’t think you’d be ready so soon. I can’t do it today. I planned on fasting for twenty-four hours before the test in order to clear my system out. I don’t want anything to skew the results. Can’t you wait until tomorrow?” Bernie braced herself for stiff resistance from Andrew.

His brows knitted with deep thought. “My God you’re right. What in the world was I thinking? Of course, you need to fast and you need to drink at least eight glasses of purified water. Thank you, Bernie. Your diligence has saved me again. Since there’s nothing left to do here today, I suggest we both go home and get some rest before the big day.” Bernie nodded. He counted on Bernie to guide him whenever he started operating from his obsessive blind spot.

“You go ahead and go home. I’ll close up things here.”

Andrew put his hand up to give Bernie a high-five and nearly knocked her off her feet. “Oh, sorry about that.” His enthusiasm was dampened by the delay. He hung up his lab coat and moped toward the door. She knew he would pace nervously, possibly all night, until it was finally time for the test to begin.

Bernie patted Andrew on the shoulder to console him as she pushed him out the door before he changed his mind.

“All right. I’ll see you bright and early.”

Nodding sympathetically, Bernie gave him a final shove and shut the door behind him before he had a chance to turn around and start talking again. Andrew was a notorious door talker. Once he was wound up, you just had to close the door on him and apologize later.

Bernie went to the window and peered around the edge of the blinds. She watched Andrew get in his car, back out, and head for home. Her expression was fixed and determined. Bernie knew that he would think of nothing else all night long. She felt sorry for him when he got like this, because she could relate.

Bernie waited a half-hour. When she was satisfied that he wasn’t coming back, she opened a small glass cabinet. It had an ultra-violet light in the top to keep the contents sterile, so no germs could skew a test.

She held the vial of elixir in her hand while she copied all the information from the label, so she could print out perfect duplicates for it and the antidote. The label maker spit out two fake labels and Bernie prepared two vials filled with tap water. She switched the fake vials with the real ones. She then carefully tucked the vials in a small carrying case about the size of an eyeglass container.

She hung up her lab coat and as she was about to turn out the lights, she paused to look around. A feeling of dread crept into her. She sighed and shook her head. Then she got in her car and drove home.

As a scientist, she was used to working a problem from every angle, but this problem overwhelmed her sense of reason and logic. The scientist in her knew that this had too many variables and could go wrong in a million different ways. Under normal circumstances, she would never dream of doing an experiment like this. Ever.

Bernie wasn’t operating from a place of logic and reason any more. All of her decisions were coming straight from her heart. She always had her emotions firmly under the control of her reasoning mind. Now, before the experiment even began she was already far down the path of the unknown and unadvisable.

She could see herself losing Andrew to another woman who she knew could never be right for him. Andrew had stumbled them into the biggest disaster she could ever remember facing. Bernie pulled up to the house and parked.

She didn’t get out right away. She sat for a moment just running through all the possible ways this could go wrong, but ultimately none of it mattered. It all came back to one thing: losing Andrew. Bernie screwed on a determined face. She was becoming as single-minded as he was.

The one thought that trumped all others was . . .
If I don’t do this right now I’ll lose Andrew forever.
Bernie finally dragged herself from the car. She knew that as soon as she was inside the house, Judy’s eagerness to proceed would be too much for her to resist.

“Judy, I’m home.” Bernie called out after she opened the door. Like a frenetic dog, pent up all day and running to greet its master, Judy practically jumped up on Bernie and licked her face.

“So did you get it? Did you bring it?” Judy started her barrage right on cue. “I wish you would give this a little more thought. What if something goes wrong? This
might
actually kill you!”

Bernie’s eyes searched Judy’s, pleading for her not to do this. Judy’s pleaded right back. “You can’t back out on me now. Every scientific breakthrough that has ever been made required some brave soul to be the first to try it.”

To Bernie that was really playing dirty. She knew that what she was saying was true. Now, even the scientific side of her was getting roped in. “Well, all right. I know we don’t really have any other choice at this point. Did you decide who you want to be the first test subject?” Bernie braced herself for who-knew-what Judy might say.

“How about the guy next door?”

“Steve? Judy! Come on. Be serious. Be realistic. That guy can’t stand you. He’s hated you ever since you backed your truck into his precious Porsche. He can’t look at you without grimacing.” Bernie was becoming angry. She thought Judy wasn’t taking this seriously.

“No, Bernie, I’m not kidding around. Don’t you see? He’s the perfect test subject. Steve’s not some a random stranger. We know he actively dislikes me. If we can make it work on him, it will work on anybody.” Judy’s logic was flawless. After years of bunking with Bernie, it appeared, she had picked something up by osmosis.

“Well, how are we supposed to get him over here? He hates me too, you know. I’m guilty by association as far as he’s concerned.”

Judy’s wheels were turning, and Bernie joined her in trying to think up a way to get the neighbor to come over to their house. “Okay how about this? We kidnap his dog. That would get him to come over.” Judy bubbled when she thought she’d solved the problem.

“Yeah, but he’d just ask if we’ve seen his dog and when we say ‘no’ he’ll simply move on and keep looking.”

Judy frowned as her best thinking was shot down. “Oh, oh, how about this, then. We say some of his mail came to our house by mistake.” Judy arched her eyebrows at her ingenuity.

“Judy, that’s even worse than your first idea. In order to tell him that, we’d have to walk over to his house and we’d have to take the supposed mail with us.” Bernie started tapping her finger to her forehead.

“Oh wait! I got it. How about this, you go over and tell him I’m having a heart attack.” Judy was sure she’d finally done it.

“Judy, he would call nine-one-one. We would have an ambulance here trying to take you to the hospital.” Judy’s face puckered as Bernie shot down her last idea.

“Oh wait,” Bernie said. “I’ve got it. We could put an alligator in his house.” Bernie smiled broadly at her own brilliance. But Judy, in turn, turned the tables and shot a hole through her idea.

“What about his dog? An alligator will eat his dog. And besides, just like you said about my idea, he would call nine-one-one.” Judy gave a smug look certain she had, for once, matched Bernie’s intellect.

“Oh hold on,” Bernie said, completely ignoring Judy’s moment. “We could lock his dog in an upstairs bedroom and jam his cell phone signal. We have a photonic analyzer at the lab. It knocks out cell phone reception for a city block every time we use it. He doesn’t have a land line. We just have to get him over here to use our phone”

Bernie looked at her inquisitively as she awaited Judy’s answer.

“You know, that just might work.” Judy nodded approvingly. Her eyes narrowed as her wheels started turning. “Well, whatever we’re going to do we’d better make it quick. He’ll be home in less than an hour.”

“Alright, you sneak over the fence and wiggle your way through the doggie door. Unlock the kitchen door for me and then hide the dog somewhere safe okay?” Judy was buzzing with adrenaline.

Oh boy, these were precisely the sort of incalculable scenarios Bernie was worried about in the first place. If it worked, they would be breaking and entering and dog napping for starters. In addition, slipping the guy a Mickey had to be against some kind of law.

As if Judy could read her friend’s mind, she reminded her, “We could just call the whole thing off. But you’ll have to accept the fact that you’re going to lose Andrew forever.”

Bernie marched across the backyard and scaled the fence. She looked all around to see if anyone was watching her
after
she hopped the fence. Not before, like any seasoned criminal worth his salt. She saw no one and dashed to the back door and wiggled her way in through the narrow doggie door.

The tiny Pomeranian started yapping madly as Bernie scooped him up and dashed upstairs. She wasn’t worried about the barking. The dog yapped all day long until Steve came home. Bernie tossed him gently onto the bed and dashed out pulling the bedroom door closed behind her just in time as he jumped down and charged the door.

Bernie vaulted back over the fence, got into her car, and headed to the lab. She went in and grabbed the analyzer, tossed it on the passenger’s seat, and headed back home.

Meanwhile, Judy walked about a quarter-mile in the knee-deep water of the canal behind their house. She finally spotted her quarry. The gator saw Judy and sank beneath the water-line leaving behind a telltale stream of bubbles coming to the surface.

Judy launched herself in that direction. She lurched back up out of the water with a choke-hold on the five-foot-long alligator. It closed its mouth with a sharp snap and Judy quickly clamped down on its tooth-filled snoot. She didn’t have a free hand to wind the tape around its mouth, so she headed for the house leaving the tape and catch pole behind.

The two women arrived back at the house at the same time. Judy pinned the gator to the ground long enough for Bernie to wind the electrical tape around its mouth.

Together on the count of three, they heaved the gator over the fence and then scrambled over themselves. They jammed the gator backwards halfway through Steve’s kitchen door. Holding his mouth closed Bernie popped the tape and they shoved him the rest of the way inside. They climbed over the fence and dashed across their backyard as Steve pulled into his driveway.

The girls activated the jamming device. A moment later a series of loud, womanly screams issued from inside Steve’s house. He shot out his front door like a cannon ball, nearly ripping the screen door off its hinges. He tumbled out onto the lawn but sprang back up and quickly pushed the screen door closed. He wedged his foot at the base of the door to keep it shut while he dialed nine-one-one.

It was useless. All he heard was a faint static on the line. “Great! The perfect moment for you to go haywire on me.” Steve caught his breath and looked around. The gator disappeared back inside his house. He knew that he and the girls next door were always the first in their neighborhood to come home from work.

He looked over and saw that both cars were home. “Great.” He shook his head in resignation, as he headed over to knock on their door. He simply couldn’t stand to be around Judy. He thought she was a loud mouth. He didn’t understand why he never saw her in a Roller Derby outfit. To him, it seemed like the perfect fit for her.

With a slow dread-filled sigh, he knocked on the door. Judy instantly pulled it open which startled him. He realized that she had to have been standing right there waiting for him.

“Oh. Hi Steve, what’s up?”

“I hate to bother you, but I’ve got an alligator in my house and my cell phone just took a dump.”

Judy looked genuinely puzzled. “Well come on in. I’ve been hoping to talk to you since the insurance company fixed up your car. Are you happy with the way it turned out?”

Steve could only grumble something inaudible but then asked, “Could I use your phone please?” Steve cut right to the chase. He didn’t want to be there any longer than necessary. Judy picked up the phone and pretended to dial nine-one-one.

“Okay, I’ll put him on now.” Judy handed Steve to the land line phone and he proceeded to tell Bernie, who answered the fake call on the line in her room, about the alligator.

After being assured of emergency assistance, Steve hung up and turned toward the door to leave.

“Can I offer you a drink of some kind?”

“No thanks. Thank you for letting me use your phone.”

“Oh, please stay a moment, won’t you? I’m terribly sorry about your car. Is there any way we can get past it and be friends?”

Steve let out a frustrated sigh. “Yeah, okay. I don’t see the harm in it.” He sat down on the couch while Judy went to the fridge.

“Is beer okay?” she hollered into the living room.

Her voice grated on Steve’s nerves. “Yeah that’s fine.”

Judy poured his beer into a frosty mug from the freezer, and then squeezed the potion-filled syringe into the beer.

Judy came in the living room and handed Steve his beer. She took a sip of her own. She watched as he took a few swallows. Nothing happened. He took a few more. Still nothing happened. The beer was already half gone.

Steve was trying to chug it so he could get away from Judy. He drained the last of it and set the empty mug on the coffee table.

“Well, I’d better be getting home. They’ll be arriving soon.” He got up and headed straight for the door. He was almost out. Then he clutched at the doorframe. Steve’s entire body began to quiver unnaturally. His chest expanded as he drew in deep animal-like breaths. His eyes took on a wildness.

Suddenly, he dashed back across the living room and threw himself at Judy’s feet. “My God! What a complete fool I’ve been. All this time and you were right next door.”

Judy looked lustfully into his brooding wild eyes. Ravenously he pulled her by the hand up off the couch.

He showered her arm with kisses as he worked his way up. He found his way to her warm, tanned neck. He kissed her neck up and down, leaving a trail of hickies as he went. At last, his lips found their way to Judy’s yearning mouth. Steve was going wild with passion. He grabbed the front of Judy’s shirt and ripped it open. Buttons went skittering across the floor in all directions. He ravaged her silky, well-rounded breasts.