Dirty Martini

Ellis turned a lovely shade of pale beneath his perfect tan. Peripherally, I saw the super’s lips twitch, as close as I’d seen her get to smirking. I turned away, tucked my guns into both holsters, and then headed for Chateau Élan on North and Clybourn to ruin Captain Bains’s joyous occasion.

CHAPTER 32

FROM THE OUTSIDE, Chateau Élan looked like it was designed by an ancient Roman architect with a column fetish. The facade boasted ten of them, thick and white and supporting a vaulted roof. Six columns graced each side of the building, and two held up the marquee on the front lawn, which proclaimed congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Bains and Mr. and Mrs. Rothschild.

The valet seemed anxious to park my car, until he found out I was a cop and not going to tip. I parked in the valet area just the same-I’d done enough walking for the day. I was followed into the lot by a parade of cop cars, including the Mobile Command bus. When Bains showed up, he was going to have a stroke.

The lobby had a few marble statues, a fountain, and a lot of flowers and plants. I talked to a Hispanic cook, who led me to a comb-over manager named Bob Debussey. Bob appeared ready to cry when I laid out the story for him.

“Oh dear. This is horrible. Oh dear oh dear.”

“Where do you keep the liquor?”

“Oh dear. There’s a wine cellar, and the cooler. Both locked. Oh dear.”

“Who has keys?”

“I do, and my assistant manager, Jaime. Oh dear.”

Between oh dears I gleaned that there were no new hires recently, there haven’t been any strange people hanging around, and they’d gotten their latest liquor delivery this morning.

“I was missing a case of champagne, and a bottle of Oban. The groom’s father specifically wanted that scotch. The driver had the champagne, but had to go back for the scotch. Marty would have never messed up like that.”

“Who’s Marty?”

“The previous driver. Wonderful man. Died a few weeks ago. Heart attack, right after dropping off our order. Oh dear.”

I directed the mob of police entering the lobby to ask questions, take names, secure the perimeter, and search for IEDs. Bob led me, Rogers, and a perky CSU girl named Patti Hunt over to the wine cellar. Hunt was lugging a large black ALS box, and Rogers had a kit similar to Hajek’s. Bob fussed with the keys, shaking so badly I felt the wind. When he got the door open, he pointed out the stack of boxes in the near corner, sitting in front of a large wine rack that took up the back wall.

“This is presumptive, guys,” I told the team, “not evidentiary. Get me some clues, and the court case can be built later.”

Hunt found an electrical outlet for the alternate light source, Rogers dug out an aerosol can of ninhydrin, and I snapped on some latex gloves and eased a bottle of Perestroika vodka from the top carton.

“The driver today,” I asked Bob. “Was he wearing gloves?”

“Oh dear. No, I don’t believe so. He brought the boxes in on a dolly. I don’t remember gloves.”

“Is this the bottle of scotch he forgot?” I pointed to the Oban sitting on a wire rack.

“Yes. He brought that to me about an hour ago. Said he was sure he packed it the first time.”

Rogers spritzed the Oban and the vodka, and Hunt switched on the ALS and pointed the silver wand at the bottles, bathing them in green light. Nothing fluoresced.

“It’s at five fifty-five nanometers,” Hunt said.

“Nini is a picky lady,” Rogers said. “Try six hundred.”

Hunt dialed up the spectrum, and the light went from green to orange. It also brought out a dozen yellow prints on the Oban bottle, and three on the vodka.

Rogers looked at them through a loupe.

“Gloves on the vodka, at least seven different prints on the scotch.”

I took another bottle out of the top box, and a bottle out of the box beneath it. Then I went to the shelves and pulled a few random bottles. We did another spray and glow.

“All gloves on the new bottles, prints all over the old ones,” Rogers concluded.

“The distributor doesn’t wear gloves,” I said, “and he packs the liquor himself. These should have prints on them, unless they’ve been wiped down or switched.”

“But they don’t look like they’ve been opened.” Hunt pointed at the cap on the Perestroika. “The safety seal is still on.”

She was right. And the jet injector, powerful as it was, couldn’t shoot through glass. I placed three identical bottles of vodka on the floor and looked at the fill levels. All of them were uneven by a wee bit. But was that the Chemist’s doing, or were all liquor bottles slightly off?

I unscrewed the cap off of one.

“Lieutenant,” Hunt said, “if you’re thinking of taking a shot, that’s a poor way to test for toxins.”

Rogers raised his hand. “I’ll volunteer to try it.”

I squinted at the cap. There didn’t seem to be any signs of tampering. I took a tentative sniff. Smelled like vodka.

“Rogers, pass me that loupe.”

I held it to my eye and saw a tiny crystal winking up at me on the rim. I ran my pinky-my only finger currently lacking a decent fingernail-around the inside of the cap, and felt a bit of roughness.

“Unless the Perestroika master distillers use ground glass as a secret ingredient, I think we’ve found our toxic liquor. What else came with this shipment?” I asked Bob.

“Oh dear oh dear. A few cases of beer, and some pop. It’s all in the cooler.”

I ordered Rogers and Hunt to go with him, and I opened two more bottles, whiskey and rum. Each had overshot their recommended daily allowance of glass. I called the super.

“It looks like Bains is the target. It’s the liquor. I’m going to shut everything down here.”

“I’ll talk to your captain. We can let the reception go on anyway, bait a trap for the Chemist.”

“I was thinking about that, but it’s too dangerous. There might be other things tampered with, and I don’t think Bains wants to use his son’s wedding for a sting operation.”

“Agreed, Lieutenant. I’m glad I put you in charge of this case.”

I was going to remind her that I wasn’t her first pick, or even her tenth pick, but instead I said, “Thanks, but it isn’t over yet.”

I hung up and called the other team leaders to have them look for broken glass under bottle caps. Then it was huddle-time in the lobby for my team.

“We’ve found what we believe to be contaminated liquor bottles. Talk to me, Reynolds.”

“Perimeter is clear. No IEDs, no sightseers for a block in all directions.”

“Rogers?”

“Beer is bad. I looked at the bottle caps under high magnification, there are marks. Some two-liter bottles of soda have also been compromised.”

“What else have we got?” I asked.

A cop named Mathers said, “Nothing out of the ordinary in the kitchen. They had a few deliveries earlier today, nothing strange about them.”

Another named Parker added, “No strangers prowling around. Staff is spooked, but that’s to be expected. Everyone here knows everyone else, no newbies in the group. We did catch two Latinos trying to sneak out the back door, but that’s because they thought we were Immigration.”

“Okay, we’re still going to shut the place down. Mathers, I want you to-”

“You can’t close us!” This from the worrisome Bob, of course. “We’ve got two events today! These people have counted on us to make this the most important day of their lives!”

“Sorry, Bob. Can’t risk it.”

“But you said the kitchen was fine! It’s only the liquor shipment that came today!”

“We can’t take the chance.”

Bob began to cry, then fled the lobby with his hands over his face, but not before ru

“Mathers, get five guys to bag and tag the liquor bottles. We’re going to have to clean out the pantry, and the staff needs to be tested for BT as a precautionary-”