Poisoned Pin: A Cozy Mystery (Brenna Battle Book 2) (13 page)

When Riggins was ready, I bowed. I smiled. I did a few uchikomi, or entries to throws, without the finish. And then I completed one throw. The pull was perfect. The timing was impeccable. He flew forward, over my extended leg and onto his back with a beautiful
tai-otoshi
throw. I have a killer tai-otoshi, and when I nail it, I can just feel the perfection like a glorious sweetness in every cell of my body, something like the “Hallelujah” chorus in Handel’s
Messiah
.

The air flew out of Riggins’s lungs with the thunder of the throw. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Blythe standing near the table. Her arms flew up in the air, releasing a flurry of multicolored paper cups. A real confetti-like accent to the occasion, if you ask me.

“Brenna!” she gasped.

But it was hard to hear her over the
Hallelujah!
of the moment.

Riggins moaned a little. He took a few shallow breaths. I watched him and smiled. Man, that felt good. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d thrown someone as hard as I could. I rarely did so with anyone who wasn’t truly high caliber, but Riggins was a pretty big guy with a good seventy-five pounds on me. That should make up for it some. He staggered to his feet and as he straightened, his back popped. He looked down, wincing and rubbing his back.

“Oops! I guess I put a little too much power into that one. You’re not quite as heavy as you look.” I smiled with mock sweetness.

Riggins lifted his head. He smiled. That magnificent—or was it maleficent? I couldn’t decide—smile that dimpled his cheeks and lit up his eyes. “Wow. I knew you were good, but … ”

I eyed him, trying to figure out if he was just trying to burst my bubble by not reacting. But he just looked … impressed. Genuinely impressed. My elation morphed into self-consciousness. And dumb intoxication with the look in his eyes. And the dimples. The dimples!

“Um, thanks. And sorry. I, uh, didn’t mean to call you fat.”

He glanced down at his perfect abs, then grinned at me. “Of course you did.” There was enough of a mock in his voice to make it clear. He knew I didn’t think he was fat.

He knew he was a pile of rock solid perfection. Stupid puffed-up jock! Maybe I should’ve trusted my first impression of the guy. Okay, so Will Riggins wasn’t stupid, except when it came to Harvey …
 

Why did Will Riggins do this to me? Why couldn’t my trusty creep-o-meter have warned me about him from the get-go?

Before I could think of what to say, how to even feel about Will Riggins, a couple of my judo kids came in the door, accompanied by their parents. They were dressed in their gis and ready to be part of my demonstration. Soon the rest of them would be here too. Unless their parents had all gotten wind of the disaster that will be known hereafter as the Cherry Orchard Demon Child Debacle. Little Ashtyn and Lucy, the two who’d shown up, were only four. They weren’t in school yet, and had been spared the C.O.D.C.D.

I smiled fondly, a little sadly, at the girls, and put an arm around each of them. “Thanks for coming!” I said. We might have a lot of cupcakes to eat together, these little ones and me.

20

Katie ran straight to me and threw her arms around me, casting all fear of humiliation aside. “I’m sorry about what happened at the school today.”

“Oh, well, I told you I do stupid things, right?”

“It’ll be okay, Sensei Brenna.”

Maybe she was right.
 

All my kids had come, except for Sammi. Thank God I had them. At least, if no one showed up, they could put on a little show for their parents. As for Sammi, I guess the C.O.D.C.D. had humiliated her beyond belief.

Sammi and Katie had reached a sort of understanding. Sammi had so far obeyed my mandate to never speak of the Christmas pageant that had ended Katie’s stint in ballet. To my surprise and relief, Sammi was very patient with Katie, who struggled and lagged behind the other girls. I think what Sammi got out of Katie’s catastrophic meeting with the window, was how her mother had never looked back, never noticed. Sammi could relate to that, I think. I hoped she’d be back. The Bonney Bay Battlers just wouldn’t be the same without her.

The door bell jingled again. It wasn’t Sammi, but the first newcomer had shown up—Jill, Harvey’s neighbor with the perky blond ponytail.

“My kids said there was a funny judo lady putting on a show. With free cupcakes. I figured that must be you.” Jill’s smile was friendly. I was starting to like this lady.

“Yes, well, I do much better with smaller groups of kids. And —”

“And cupcakes!” one of the boys piped up.

“And cupcakes,” I agreed.

I was itching to ask Jill about Harvey, but more families were arriving. We ended up with about fifteen interested kids coming with their parents. I’m not sure whether they were really interested in judo, or in the crazy lady, or … cupcakes. Whatever. They were here, and now they were going to see some judo. I was determined to get at least a few of them to try it. Once they tried it, they’d love it.

My judo kids all looked sharp in their white judo gis. Well, if you didn’t look too close. Only one of them sported a red juice dribble down his front, only two had their pants on backward, and only a couple of them sported grass stains on their knees. I had them all paired up, and they took turns coming to the front and demonstrating a pin or a throw on their partners. The parents clapped, and most of the guests paid attention.

“Now it’s time for ‘Throw the Cop’” Blythe announced.

Right on cue, Riggins came out, wearing a pair of classic mirrored sunglasses. He took them off with a flourish, gave the audience a theatrical scowl, and bowed onto the mat. I caught myself smiling and quickly corrected it to a matching scowl. He charged at me, and I threw him over my shoulder. No
tai-otoshi
this time. A nice
ippon
seoi nage
instead.

The crowd cheered.

“Come on! You can throw him harder than that!” some guy yelled.

Riggins pointed an accusatory finger at him. It was one of the guys I’d met at the Police Athletic Club judo practice. He’d probably come to watch his friend suffer.

“Harder! Harder!” the kids began to chant.

Riggins and I locked eyes for a second. Yes, I could throw him a lot harder than that, and we both knew it. Oh, the glorious bit of fear I’d put in those deep, brown eyes! It made my heart sing. Yes, I am an awful, awful person.

I shook my head. “I’ll leave that to you guys,” I said to the kids. “You kids, too!” I gestured at all the kids who were seated off the mat, watching. “Just take your shoes off by the side of the mat, and line up to throw Officer Riggins.”

No, I wasn’t getting soft. Now that I’d gotten my glorious taste of pay-back, I was determined to be nice to Riggins tonight. Not just to show my gratitude for him coming here. Certainly not because it pained my heart to think he might be mad at me. Nope. I needed to milk some more information out of him about the murder case. Also, I really didn’t want to kill the guy. How could I help Harvey if I was in jail for murder myself?

I waited a second. No one moved. Not one kid. Even my Bonney Bay Battlers. They looked at Riggins, then looked around at the kids next to them. Some of them pretended to be fascinated with their feet. Okay, some of them truly were fascinated with their feet, but typically in class, that was just Charles, a freckled seven-year-old who had trouble focusing on anything else.

It seemed everyone was eager to let someone else throw the cop, but no one wanted to get in on the action. I still wasn’t allowed to take falls, with my recent concussion and my over-protective sister hovering over my every move, but my kids had thrown Blythe at practice many times. Yet, for some reason, they seemed to think they couldn’t throw Will. I don’t know, maybe it was because he was six-one and about one-ninety instead of five-five and a buck twenty-five. The kids were still so new to judo, they didn’t really get that Will could take a fall for them just as well as Blythe could. Maybe they were also afraid they’d mess up and end up getting crushed.

“Well!” Blythe said, “I’m sure you all noticed those yummy cupcakes.” She pointed at the table.

Little heads turned in sync, drawn by the lure of sugar. Their noses sniffed the chocolately air. The delicate aromas of vanilla and the mild fruitiness of pink lemonade layered beneath the more powerful, crown jewel of cocoa. I almost moved to start the stampede for the table, but then I experienced one of those sort of lightning-strike moments of sheer genius.

“Not yet,” I whispered to Blythe. “I have a plan. Hold those out so the kids can see them, but don’t let them have any. Grab a plate and bring it right to the edge of the mat.”

Blythe scrunched her nose at me, but then she did as instructed.

“We have a cupcake for each kid who throws Officer Riggins!” I said. “And an extra cupcake for whoever throws him the hardest!”

There was a murmur of excitement, but no one seemed to be making a move—except for a small ripple in the crowd.
 

“Excuse me,” a young voice said. “Coming through.”

Sammi emerged, all
gi
-ed up. She made a hasty bow onto the mat, and walked right up to Will, eyes shining with the hope of revenge. She was no fan of Will Riggins or the Bonney Bay PD in general. Uh-Oh. I hoped Will had recovered from my throw, because this kid was about to put everything she had into pounding him through the mat.

She grabbed his sleeve, hooked her arm around his waist, and threw him over her hip to the mat. There was a collective “Ooh!” from the kids and a gasp from the adults. The impact reverberated through the wood floor beneath the mat. Will got right back up and gave Sammi a bow. I’m pretty sure Sammi’s shadow of a smile was due to the satisfaction that she’d caused Will some serious discomfort, and not because of the hearty round of applause from the crowd. She took a cupcake from Blythe and bit into it triumphantly.

Soon I had a line of cupcake-and-glory-craving kids waiting to toss Officer Riggins. I coached my younger Battlers, and several kids who’d never been on the mat before, through how to take Riggins down. I must say, his rear end bounced rather nicely on the mat each time he fell.

At the end of the night, we ended up with a blanket of sprinkles and crumbs all over the dojo floor and the mat, and a dozen more kids signed up for judo. Not bad. I endured many jabs about the C.W.D.C.D., but most of them seemed good-natured. I guess if I’d managed to discourage all the Bonney Bay-ans without a sense of humor from showing up, that wasn’t a totally bad thing. I managed to fake laughing at myself. Maybe I was going to have to get used to being the lovable new clown in town. Or else, you know, stop doing idiotic things in public.

Will stayed the whole time, talking judo with the kids and the parents. Once they’d all left, he grabbed the garbage can and made his way around the dojo, collecting cups and napkins and the occasional fallen, upside-down cupcake—each one truly a tragic loss—while Blythe swept and I mopped the mats.

“So,” I said, trying to sound casual. “What was it, cyanide?” He cocked his head at me quizzically. I shrugged. “I’ve been doing a little research. Derek was fine when I left him just a few minutes earlier. Cyanide works fast, and it’s easy to find.”

“Yes,” Will admitted. “It was cyanide.”

“And that’s why you think Harvey did it? Because he was the one who was there with Derek?” I said.

“Look, we both know Harvey didn’t do it,” Riggins said.

“We do? I mean, of course we do! But … how?”

“We finally pried a useful bit of information out of Harvey. Derek had a smoothie from Espresson on the Bay with him when he arrived at Reiner House. After you left, he picked it up from a side table and took a sip. Harvey didn’t make the connection, and of course he’d thrown the cup away by the time we’d come back to investigate, but we found it in the garbage and confirmed there was Cyanide in its contents.”

“Someone from Espresso on the Bay poisoned Harvey?” Blythe exclaimed. “Do you have the suspect in custody?”

“There’s no evidence of cyanide at the espresso stand. No motive among the employees working that day, and no evidence that Derek bought a drink there on the day of his death.”

“Someone else could’ve purchased it and given it to him,” I said.

“Yes, they could. But no one purchased that type of smoothie at all that day. We’ve tracked down all the customers and we’re questioning them anyway, but, it doesn’t look promising so far.”

“What if the smoothie wasn’t purchased that day?” Blythe suggested.

“Don’t you think Derek would’ve noticed an old smoothie? I mean, it’s supposed to be semi-frozen,” I said.

“True … wait! The cup. The cup was an Espresso on the Bay cup, right? But who’s to say the
smoothie
was from Espresso on the Bay?” Blythe said.

“You’re right!” I said. “Someone could’ve reused an old cup. They could’ve made the smoothie themselves, at home.”

“Sure,” Riggins agreed. “And we’ll catch them, but it might take a while.”

“Well,” I said smugly, “at least you’re not trying to pin this on Harvey anymore.”

He gave me a look that said,
You’re a little slow today, aren’t you?
“No one was ever trying to pin anything on anyone. And I never even suspected Harvey. We took him in for his own safety. What would happen if we released him now?”

I didn’t answer. He’d go right back to his house. The house where someone was rigging chandeliers to fall. Probably the same someone who’d put cyanide in Derek’s smoothie.

“So, what are you going to do, charge him with a crime he didn’t commit?” I asked.

“I can’t do that. Coastal State is another option, but it could be difficult to get him back out of there again, especially if he acts too … ”

“Too much like he belongs in an institution?” I said. “Why can’t you just tell him he’s in protective custody?”

“We tried that. He refused.”

“Oh.”

“Look, I’ve already told you too much.” He gave us a look that said,
Don’t make me regret it.

I picked up the lemonade thermos. “I’ll take this outside and rinse it out.”