Cinnamon Cyanide

The joint was already asking to be looted. The door was never locked, the safe was in the damn lobby for fuck’s sake. The only lock in the entire building was on a trapdoor into the cellar. It had been tampered with of course, and the man sent down there to explore hadn’t returned. 

He radioed in constant chatter, more than his usual nonsense. 

“Is there something in the air, Charlie?” my partner asked. I inhaled for a good moment to the scent of freshly ground cinnamon. “Cinnamon, it’s a bakery Ryan.” I dismissed, and he raised his eyebrows in concern.

“Charlie, almonds… burnt fucking almonds.” He said, hushed, like Mason, the man investigating the basement, could hear us. “What? No, are you tripping Ryan?” I replied, in a similar tone to his. 

“Mason, been dark, are you alright?” I decided to radio to him. Silence for a few moments. “Almonds, Ryan isn’t tripping here.” He says after a few seconds. “You guys have to see this.” 

I trek down the steep steps into an unfinished drug lab, confused as to why Mason wouldn’t immediately report this upon discovery. “Mason?” I call out as Ryan follows suit. “What the fuck is this? Mason? It’s a fucking drug lab heavy with the scent of burnt almonds.” He grimaces, holding a small jar filled with white capsules. 

Upon first glance, it’s clear that all of the lawsuits and illnesses surrounding this place have been caused by cyanide in the pastries. The trash can was nearly full with empty capsules, and powder covered the table in a fine dust. 

Mason was quiet, sitting on the floor in the corner. “I knew I couldn’t trust taking Ryan here.” He mutters, hand on his thigh. “How come you didn’t tell us what you saw the moment you came down here?” I ask, blood going cold. 

He chuckles, “Come on, this shitty bakery has a reputation of being shitty for a reason, this is not much of a surprise.” His hand moves to his holster and I raise my gun to train on his hand. “Oh Charlotte, you’re funny.”

Mason rises to his feet, moving his hands away from the gun. 

“The owners of this place contacted me immediately the moment they had found out their son, the future owner, had been cooking and feeding cyanide into their pastries.” He begins to laugh, pointing to two large black bags. “I found these immediately, but when apprehending their son, he enlightened me.” He takes his gun out and promptly shoots both the bags. I keep my gun trained at his hand, not wanting to kill the man who’d been my partner for years. 

It takes a moment to realize the gun at the back of my head, Ryan’s gun. “The kid informed us that his parents were knowingly baking goods with cyanide inside them. He was just dealing to keep him from working himself there for the rest of his life. So we killed them.” Ryan explains, shifting so I was staring down the barrel of his gun, along with Mason’s. 

I put my gun down, still gripping tight. “So, you two planned on what? Bringing me here to what? Persuade me into getting into your drug scheme? Kill me like the owners?” My sharp tongue gets the better of me as I step towards the dead bodies. Crouching down, I notice the lack of body to be found. 

“Or are you here to shove me into these bags of drugs instead for some odd reason?” I snort, raising my gun back to Mason. “Charlotte, oh you really are the best detective out there huh? You really earned that title completely on your own? You’re smart tongue and wit. We don’t want to kill you, that’s more paperwork for us, that’s why we didn’t kill the owners.” Mason walks towards a curtain and moves it aside, revealing the owners gagged and bound on the floor. 

“You’re simply here to confess, what the secret ingredient really is.” He smiles darkly, providing a single pill in his hands. “You see Charlie, we’ve found a large sum of money fall into our hands, and there is no real reason for this inane health crisis of a bakery to exist any longer, it’s your job to reveal your little cyanide lab.” He flicks the pill to the floor and crushes it under his boot.

“And what makes you believe that I would ever do that?” I retort as the sound of sirens come into earshot above. Ryan moves to close the hatch above us, trapping us in the cellar. I move to aim at Ryan. “Well after all, I do have the message from the old fuck on the floor over there, begging me to come and take his son away. Also your fingerprints are all over the place, that’s one thing you lack, wearing protection.” He chuckles, taking out the envelope. “It is, after all, addressed to your office specifically, I went through the trouble of checking your overflowing mailbox.” He tosses the letter to the floor.

“Well Mason, you really did get me this time, where’s the kid?” I ask, taking the safety off the gun, ready to fire. “Woah there honey, all the evidence is stacked against you and I bet you really don’t wanna do the paperwork on us.” Ryan interjects, stepping closer to Mason. 

The kid was the only evidence that Mason and Ryan were the true criminals here, I needed the kid alive. I fire a warning shot to the jar next to Ryan, sending pills and glass flying. “Kid now.” 

The teen emerges from the closet, and in a flash he’s sprayed with bullets before I can fire. The hatch opens and people fill the room. Everyone’s hands go into the air as the body of the teen falls into shattered glass, and powder. 

All the evidence I had was gone, and when watching the news from behind prison bars, Mason stood on stage and proudly announced. “The secret ingredient so desperately sought out, was cyanide. With the help of Detective Charlotte Sanders, and the owners of the Buttery Bakery, Cyanide was manufactured and slipped into various pastries that were consumed by hundreds of people.”