Where the hell was Pet Girl?
I went through both small rooms, the bathroom, and the closets once more, but Norma Johnson wasn’t there.
The invisible Pet Girl had gone invisible again.
Chapter 97
I WAS STARTLED by the sharp crash of heavy objects falling to the floor below, and then I heard that rumble again, a sound like muted thunder, maybe a heavy rolling door — and I heard voices.
Conklin is talking to Norma Johnson.
By the time he called out to me, I was halfway down the stairs.
My partner was in the kitchen, staring into an opening between a counter and the fridge through a doorway I’d thought too narrow to lead to anything but a broom closet. Apparently a pocket door had been rolled into an opening in the wall — and there was a room behind it, looked like a pantry.
“Lindsay,” Conklin said in a measured tone, “Norma has a weapon.”
I edged into the eight-by-ten kitchen until I could see Johnson. Her back was to the pantry. Conklin was standing only four feet in front of her, barring her exit.
I did a double take when I realized that Norma Johnson’s weapon was the snake she gripped in her right hand. It was slim, banded, gray and white, a deadly krait, its tail lashing, its head swaying only inches from Johnson’s neck.
“Get out of my way, Inspector Conklin,” Johnson hissed. “I’m leaving by the front door, and you’re going to let me go. And I’m going to lock the door behind me. The snakes won’t bother you as long as you are very quiet and move very slowly.”
As Johnson inched toward Conklin, I could see behind her to the pantry. Metal shelving along the wall held a number of twenty-gallon aquariums, and the floor of the room was covered with broken glass.
My hands went ice cold as I understood the crashing sound. Pet Girl had pulled some of the snake tanks over, and they had smashed on the floor. Snakes were loose in the apartment, looking for hidey-holes, probably winding around corners into the small kitchen where Conklin and I were standing.
“I want you to open the oven and put that snake inside!” I shouted to Pet Girl. “Do it now, or I’m going to shoot.”
Pet Girl laughed.
“Nope, not going to do that,” she said, showing me a pretty smile I’d not seen on her face before. “So what’s it going to be, Sergeant? Let me go? Because if not, it doesn’t matter to me if Kali bites me or if you shoot me. There’s no difference to me at all.”
A clock ticked on the wall above the stove. I heard Norma Johnson’s breath quicken, and I saw that Conklin’s face was blanched. He was afraid of snakes, deathly afraid, but he stood like a rock within striking distance of Pet Girl’s lunatic idea of a pet. I couldn’t get a clean shot.
“Move aside, Inspector,” Johnson said to Conklin. “Save yourself and let me go.”
“I can’t do that,” said Conklin. And then he snapped out his hand like he was grabbing a fly from the air. He was going for her wrist, but before he could grab her, she launched the snake at Conklin.
Conklin jumped back, but the snake was airborne. My partner raised his hand as it came toward him, wriggling sinuously, batting against his palm. It clung to his hand for an instant, hanging over his wrist — until Conklin shook it off and it fell to the floor.
He stepped back, holding his wrist, then turned his ashen face to me.
“I’ve been bitten,” he said, standing stock-still. “The bastard got me.”
Chapter 98
NORMA JOHNSON BOLTED.
She tried to bulldoze her way past me, but I came out of my horrified trance, grabbed her arm, and wrenched her around.
Her shoulder popped and she screamed, but the pain didn’t stop her. She picked up a coffee mug with her free hand and, gripping it as if it were a rock, hauled back and aimed a ceramic punch to my jaw.
I ducked, kicked at her knee with all I had. She screamed again and dropped to the floor. I rolled the yowling woman onto her stomach and bent her
arms back, cuffed her as I yelled to Conklin, “Rich! Lie down on the couch. Lower your arm to the floor so that it’s below your heart. Do it now.”
Conklin walked unsteadily into the next room as if he were already dying. I noted the time, grabbed my cell phone, and called Dispatch, told Kam that Conklin was down.