'I don't understand. What does Griggs's death have to do with what happened to me?'
'I'll tell you later. Did you see which way the bastard went when he left here?'
Doreen shook her head. 'No. I really thought that he was going to kill me. I was amazed, frankly, when he didn't. If he hadn't gone into that panic mode, I think you'd have found my body today.'
He couldn't have gone far after the attack on Doreen, not if he was plunging into a post-amber meltdown burn, Elly thought. He would have needed at least a few hours of deep sleep. Odds were, he had gone to ground somewhere in the Old Quarter.
'You should have called me,' Elly said, opening another cupboard to look for the tea.
'I was too scared. All I could think of was that if I told anyone, he would find out somehow and come back to kill me. He's a cop, Elly. He could get away with it.'
'He's not going to get away with anything.'
Doreen wiped her eyes. 'What do you mean?'
There was no canister of tea in the next cupboard either. Elly gave up in frustration. 'Oh, the hell with making the tea. Let's go back to my apartment. I'll make some there. I need to call Cooper, anyway, and I'd rather do it on my own phone. Yours might be bugged or something.'
'Bugged?'
'You said he was a cop.'
'Yes, but why would he bug my phone?'
'How should I know? He's a cop. They do stuff like that.'
Elly started to close the cupboard door, but the sight of the bottle on the top shelf stopped her cold. She looked at it, unable to tear her eyes away from the label.
'Doreen?' she said very quietly.
'Yes?'
'Since when did you start drinking Founders Reserve scotch?'
'What? Oh, the scotch.' Doreen winced. 'I don't drink it. Can't afford it, even if I did like the taste, which I don't. You know me, I'm a cheap wine spritzer kind of gal.'
Elly swallowed hard. 'So who gave you the Founders Reserve?'
'He brought it here. Said he wanted to have it on hand whenever he came to see me. He was very particular about it. Why?'
'Dear heaven.'
Elly slammed the cupboard door and whirled around. 'We've got to get out of here. Right now.'
'Are you kidding? I can't go outside looking like this. I'm not even dressed.'
'Put on an overcoat and a pair of shoes. You've got to hurry, Doreen.'
Doreen got slowly to her feet. 'You're serious, aren't you?'
'Yes.'
Elly grabbed Rose and rushed into the hall. She opened the closet door and yanked a knee-length purple coat off a hanger. When she got back into the kitchen she saw that Doreen was starting to respond.
'Okay, I'm not arguing.' Doreen took the coat and followed Elly down the stairs. 'Guess I'm still too scared to be logical.'
'Faster,' Elly said. She led the way across the shadowed shop, fighting back a tide of panic.
She yanked open the front door and paused a few precious seconds to check the street.
Nothing moved that she could see. She glanced at Rose, who appeared unalarmed.
Heartened, she led the way across the street, fishing for her key.
'Why the sudden panic?' Doreen asked, watching anxiously as Elly rezzed the lock on the door of her shop.
'I used to date a man who drank only Founders Reserve scotch,' Elly said. 'He was very particular about it.'
'What was his name?'
'Palmer Frazier.'
'But the guy who did this to me was named Jake Monroe.'
'That's the name he gave you.' Elly shoved open the door, ushered Doreen inside, and whirled around to yank the shades down in the front windows. 'No wonder he didn't want you to introduce him to me.'
It dawned on her that Doreen had gone absolutely silent behind her and that Rose was growling softly in her ear.
With a sickening sense of dread, she turned around.
A man loomed in the shadow-filled doorway of the back room. He had a pistol in his hand.
'Eldora St. Clair, you are under arrest for the possession and sale of illegal para-psychoactive substances,' Grayson DeWitt said.
Chapter 32
'STUART GRIGGS WAS A JORDAN'S JUNGLE FANATIC.' Benjamin Bodkin peered at Cooper over the rims of a pair of old-fashioned reading glasses. 'Did a bit of small-time business with him over the years, the occasional journal, that sort of thing. But he could never afford the expensive items. Not until fairly recently, that is.'
Bodkin's Rare Books was a dimly lit space saturated with the unmistakable aroma of old volumes. The shelves went from floor to ceiling on every wall. They were crammed with books of all sizes, shapes, and descriptions. Under other circumstances, Cooper thought, he could have spent hours here browsing the collection.
Bodkin, himself, went very well with his bookshop. He was comfortably plump and rumpled, with a shrewd, scholarly air.
'When did the situation change?' Cooper asked.
'A couple of months ago Griggs called and said he knew that there were three copies of Jordan's herbal in private collections. He asked me to approach the three collectors and see if any of them would be willing to sell. One proved willing, and I handled the transaction.'
'How much did he pay for the herbal?' Cooper asked.
'Far too much.' Bodkin snorted, removed his glasses, and started to polish the lenses with his handkerchief. 'What can I say? To most collectors the herbal is merely an expensive oddity, but to a true Jordan's Jungle buff, it is the Holy Grail of herbals and therefore no price is too high.'
'Where do you think he got the money this time?' Cooper asked.
Bodkin was clearly amused. 'That, sir, is a question that I never ask my clients. All I can tell you is that sometime during the past few months, Stuart Griggs must have come into an inheritance.'
*****
MORE LIKELY GRIGGS HAD TURNED TO DEALING DOPE TO pay for his lifelong search for Jordan's Jungle, Cooper thought on the way back to where he had parked the Spectrum. But it was unlikely that the sophisticated business techniques required to run a successful drug ring were taught in horticulture school.
According to the research he had done, the history of chant on the streets of Cadence had altered significantly over time. It had been little more than a trickle in the Old Quarter for a couple of years, virtually ignored by the authorities, who had bigger problems on their hands. Then, sometime during the past few months, the drug had suddenly exploded into a headline-grabbing issue.
It seemed probable that the rumor Benny and Joe had heard was correct. Griggs had acquired a partner in recent months, an entrepreneur who had seen the full potential of the enchantment dust business and figured out how to take a small, one-man drug operation into the big time.
Cooper's phone rezzed just as he was getting into the Spectrum.
'This is Boone,' he said.
'Ormond Ripley, here. I've got some surveillance tapes that I think you might want to look at.'
'I'm on my way.'
