Leaving Basilisk, we rushed to the factory of Jekyll Lifestyle Products & Necroceuticals. McGoo would already be there with Robin, but he didn’t know that Harvey Jekyll wasn’t acting alone. Brondon Morris did some of Jekyll’s dirty work; apparently, he carried more than product samples in his case.
When we arrived after dark, the company was locked up tight, and a thick chain secured the fence gate and sally port. I was stuck outside.
The separate administrative building was dark and quiet, but I could see lights and hear nighttime generators humming inside the industrial complex. Perfumey vapors wafted from the smokestacks, venting the chemical operations on the process floor.
Sheyenne rattled, tugged, and twisted the padlocks and chain with her poltergeist hands, then drifted back, dismayed. “I can only do so much, Beaux. How did Robin and Officer McGoohan get in? Do you think he called for backup?”
“I’m guessing McGoo won’t want to share credit for the big arrest—he needs every brownie point for his personnel file.” I looked around, but saw no sign of them. I pulled out my phone and called Robin’s number. No answer. Maybe they had gone back to the offices in defeat, so I punched in that number, but the phone rang and rang until the voice mail kicked in. I tried one last call, to McGoo’s private phone. Again, no answer.
“We’ve got to get in there,” I said, very worried now. “Spooky, go scope the place out. Check the offices. I want to know where Robin and McGoo are—and if there’s anybody else inside.”
“Leave you here? I won’t be much good in a fight if I can’t touch Jekyll or Brondon—”
“Right now I’ll settle for recon.” She blew me a kiss, then flitted off through the fence and into the dark compound.
The bright lights from the factory windows told me something was going on in the main building. I regarded the fence, the razor wire on top. If my friends were in trouble, I wasn’t going to stay stuck out here in the cheap seats.
Bracing myself, I grabbed the chain links with stiff fingers, poked the toes of my shoes into the gaps, and hauled myself up. This was not my favorite thing to do. When I lurched over the curled razor wire, the sharp metal barbs tore the fabric of my shirt and pants, and I didn’t want to think what it was doing to my skin. I’d be seeing Miss Lujean Eccles for another patchup as soon as this was over. But if Robin and McGoo were in there and in trouble, I didn’t care how battered I got trying to save them. As I let myself drop, I heard a ripping sound, then I fell free. I got to my feet, brushed myself off, and staggered toward the factory and the open loading dock door.
From my earlier infiltration of JLPN during the garlic-laced shampoo case, I was already familiar with the big chemical vats on the process floor, the tanks of fragrances, base chemicals, active agents, dyes, and fillers. Mammoth horizontal stirrers churned the huge cauldrons, and the mixtures were piped off to bottling lines that filled containers, pasted on labels, sealed caps, and boxed up the necroceuticals for distribution.
During daylight hours, the factory was a synchronized, bustling place, filled with workers. Now most of the machinery was turned off, but I could still hear the sighing, burbling sounds of fermenting mixtures and chemical reactions.
I also heard voices, a man and a woman.
Brondon Morris, wearing a green plaid sport coat, had forced Robin up the metal steps and onto a catwalk on top of a huge vat. I saw no sign of McGoo or Jekyll, and I felt cold inside, fearing that McGoo might already be dead somewhere. What if Brondon had simply shot him in the back of the head, as he’d done to me, then coerced Robin in here?
Her hands were tied behind her back, and that got me angry. Brondon jabbed a gun directly in her face, forcing her to take another step along the catwalk. His broad grin was just like the one he had worn when flirting with the three zombie cougars. He was going to make her jump into the vat.
He brandished his gun, which looked like a .38, the type of weapon that had gunned me down in the street after Sheyenne and I left Grandma Wong’s shop. If that was the same gun, then this guy must really like to shoot me.
I drew my own revolver and lurched to the metal stairs before he could shove Robin over the edge. “I wouldn’t do that, Brondon!”
He swung around, startled, and looked down at me from atop the giant cauldron. “Dan Chambeaux!” He let out a mocking laugh to cover his surprise. “You really do keep rising from the grave.”
While he was momentarily distracted, Robin kicked him in the shin. It was the best she could do with her hands tied.
Brondon yelped, hopped on one foot, and swung the pistol back to her. “Stop that!” As fast as I could, I started running up the narrow steps along the side of the vat, although I knew I wouldn’t get there in time. Brondon didn’t know where to point the gun. He swung it back and forth. “I suggest you stop, Chambeaux! I’ve got plenty of bullets, and even if they don’t hurt you, imagine what they’ll do to your pretty little partner.”
I had made it halfway up the stairs, but I stopped, held up my handgun. “Don’t hurt her, Brondon.”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course I’m going to hurt her! Haven’t you been following the program? Toss your weapon across the floor.”
“Why in the world would I do that?” I decided to see how far I could push it. Moving slower now, I climbed two steps higher and kept my gaze fixed on his.
“Because I’ll shoot her right now if you don’t.” He pressed the barrel against her head, pushed hard, and Robin flinched back. “You’ve already seen what a bullet did to your skull. You choose—think fast! Three … two …”
“All right! Stop, I’ll do it.” I tossed my revolver over the metal stairs and onto the floor. It was the only advantage I’d had, but Brondon could easily kill Robin in an instant. Maybe if I could get him to soliloquize, as movie villains do, I could figure out some-thing. I glared up at him. “I’ve unraveled your plot, Brondon. We know you sold your antique Smith and Wesson to Ivory after you killed me.” I pointed to the pistol in his hand, using that as an excuse to advance another step higher. “Did you use that .38 to shoot me down in the street a few nights ago?”
“It’s my new gun,” he said, admiring the weapon. “I wanted something lighter and more stylish.”
Robin’s dark eyes widened as she put the pieces together. She hadn’t known what Sheyenne and I learned from Ivory. “You’re the one who shot Dan?” She had real, heartwarming murder in her glare. “Why?”
I had been just about to ask the same question.
Brondon looked at Robin, annoyed, but she kept her back straight and refused to be pushed around. “He was closing in on me. I had to cover my tracks before he unraveled JLPN’s overall plan.”
Under other circumstances it might have been funny. “I never liked you, Brondon, but I was never after you—in fact, I had no idea you were involved in anything until tonight. Harvey Jekyll was the one in my sights. I followed him out to the dump with his hazardous chemicals, and we found the silver Straight Edge ring in his study. We know he’s the Grand Wizard.”
Brondon looked like a gorilla with indigestion. “I’m the Grand Wizard. I created Straight Edge. Harvey’s just a second banana, a wannabe with money.”
Now I was even more confused. “What are you talking about?”
Brondon wore a strange expression, then smiled. “Oh yes, I forgot—I never did get a chance to go over all the details before I shot you from behind. I decided it was better not to gloat, not to explain everything.”
“I wish you had. It would have made solving my murder a heck of a lot easier.”
“I didn’t know what you had discovered, but I couldn’t risk having you blow the whistle. Our new line of necroceuticals was being released in the Quarter, and I had to take you out of the picture.”
“Sorry to pee on your parade, Brondon, but I wasn’t looking into the new product line at all. I don’t even use the stuff.”
Brondon blinked. “But you were following me! I saw you.”
“Miranda Jekyll hired me to do covert surveillance on her husband. She wanted to catch her husband having an affair so she’d have leverage for her divorce settlement. I was following you just to get to him.”
Robin said, “The cat’s out of the bag now, Brondon—you might as well explain it. Isn’t that what villains do?”
“I’m not the villain—I’m trying to save humanity.”
“Strange way of showing it,” I said. “With all those people dissolving horribly in the last couple of days.”
“Do you still have graveyard dirt in your ears? I said I’m saving humanity, not unnaturals. The whole line of necroceuticals was designed for this purpose, and this purpose alone.” Finally, the villain’s soliloquy. I used the distraction of his ranting to advance another two steps toward the catwalk.
“JLPN is the most popular toiletry line for unnaturals. All the monsters use our body washes, shampoos, deodorants, skin creams, perfumes and colognes, toothpaste, hair gel … and every single product is impregnated with a seemingly innocuous Compound X.”
“What an original name,” I said. “Compound W and Prepa-ration H were both taken?”
Brondon sneered. “After prolonged use, Compound X saturates unnatural tissue. They don’t even know it. It raises no red flags on any chemical analysis. But now …” He spread his arms wide to indicate the factory floor and the bubbling cauldrons. Then he caught himself in the middle of his overly grandiose gesture, looked embarrassed, and trained the gun back on Robin to stop her from kicking him again. “With all of our advertising, the unnaturals will have to try the new and improved Fresh Loam line. And each new product contains a different, very special trace chemical.”
“Let me guess: Compound Y?”
“No! Compound Z! And when that innocuous chemical reacts with its counterpart Compound X, it becomes a deadly dissolvogen! The contaminated unnaturals disintegrate like the filth they are. They’ll drop like a plague of locusts flying through a cloud of insecticide. And because Compound Z is pervasive in the products used by all unnaturals for their personal hygiene needs, the monsters will be virtually extinct before they know what hit them. The streets will run pink with goo!”
I thought his crackpot plan was good enough to go on a website that listed top-ten nefarious schemes. Since I had never used any of his samples, my own body wasn’t affected when I was exposed to Compound Z. But poor Mel … and I even felt sorry for the three zombie cougars.
“If thousands of unnaturals melt into puddles on the same day, it won’t be hard to follow the bread crumbs back to JLPN’s product release,” Robin said. “Even if you kill us, someone will figure it out. You’ll go to the electric chair.”
Brondon snorted. “Do you really think the rest of the human race won’t applaud? Wholesome citizens will see this as a second chance, a cleansing after the Big Uneasy. How hard could it be to eradicate the few stragglers and take care of any new unnaturals as they arise? I’m betting that good people would say enough is enough and finish the job.”
Even without asking, I had another reason to be disgusted with the man. “I watched you flirt with Cindy, Sharon, and Victoria, saw you pretend to be their friend—and then you made them all just dissolve. You murdered them.”
Brondon shrugged. “Since when is it a crime to kill dead people?”
“I can make that case,” Robin said.
“Decent people are sick of bleeding hearts like you. Getting all uppity about human rights. Who cares about a few monsters? Harvey Jekyll and I will be celebrated as heroes.”
He tried to push Robin to the edge of the vat, but she held her ground. I wanted to lurch forward and strangle him, but I was still four steps from the top. I could never get to her in time.
Sheyenne’s ghost reappeared, flitting onto the process floor. She saw us, absorbed the tableau in an instant, and swept up in front of Brondon Morris, looking as scary as she could manage. “I’m not going to let you hurt Dan again! You killed him once.”
But Brondon knew a ghost couldn’t touch him. “Go ahead and say boo all you want. I killed you, too, when you got to be a pain in the ass. And you’re both still annoying.”
Sheyenne’s expression was outraged. Brondon looked at her and laughed. “You didn’t know? After you had such a strong allergic reaction to the Compound X in the sample you stole, I tried to do damage control, but you just had to send the sample out for chemical analysis, didn’t you? Then I found out you were Chambeaux’s girlfriend, and I caught him digging into JLPN business, saw him surreptitiously following Harvey. I could put two and two together. I had to get rid of you both.”
“Sheyenne had nothing to do with it!” I said.
“I poisoned Sheyenne’s drink at Basilisk—toadstool toxin. Tasteless, effective, nearly always fatal in a high enough dose. And I had plenty of it here in my chemical labs for research. Toadstools do wonders for certain skin conditions in unnaturals. After I killed you both, that should have been the end of it. Imagine my surprise when you both came back!”
I lurched up three more steps until I was almost at the top—but I was still unarmed. Brondon pushed Robin closer to the edge of the foul-smelling chemical vat. As she struggled to keep her balance, I yelled, “The Compound Z in that vat isn’t going to hurt Robin. She’s human.”
Brondon looked exasperated. “She can still drown!” He cocked the gun. “And that stuff’s caustic in high concentrations. We’ve done hundreds of animal trials on bunnies and puppies just to make sure. All part of JLPN’s dedication to quality control and safety before we go to market.”
He pointed the barrel directly into Robin’s face again. “Now, you’re going in, one way or the other.” He tightened his finger on the trigger.
The gunshot took me completely by surprise.