KIM POSSIBLE, RON STOPPABLE AND OTHERS ARE THE PROPERTY OF DISNEY AND THEIR RESPECTIVE ARTISTS
Much to everyone's dismay, including, I'm sure, his own, Arthur Paisley was dead.
The early morning air was cool and crisp, yet laden with the promise of migraine-inducing heat, in the way that it often is as the tail-end of summer begins to segue into fall. KP and I were eating breakfast on her back porch. It was early enough that stars still glittered in the pastel-coloured sky like sequins.
It was the Spring Break of our senior years in college; her at L'Sorbonne and myself at the Middleton Culinary Institute. I had done a lot of growing up, being away from her. She had, too. Gone was much of the naiveté, the juvenile banter. We were growing up, and it showed in how we acted. I smiled surreptitiously. Life marches on.
The Kimmunicator interrupted the still life with its jaunty tune; Wade's face snapped into view on the tiny LCD on both of our wrists.
"What's the sitch, Wade?" asked Kim, pushing aside a plate of my homemade croissants and jam.
"Paisley is dead."
Kim tented her hands, pursing her lips. "Paisley…Paisley…"
"The dude who had the McHenry Laser Grid," I added helpfully, watching Rufus demolish a crepé on my plate.
"Oh, Mr. Paisley! He's dead? Wasn't he only around fifty-ish? That's no age. Was he ill?"
I reviewed the information Wade had sent to my Kimmunicator. "No. Arthur Paisley was, by all accounts, the very picture of health. His last three physicals show no signs of any medical problems. Not even any scars…you know the type." The last remark was pointed. Being the sidekick had seen me knocked around quite a bit over the intervening years. The skin over the ribs on my left side was rugose from a narrow miss of Shego's plasma. Various other contusions, impacts and mishaps had left their marks as well. Kim, on the other hand, was as unblemished as the day she was born. I worked hard to keep it that way; far better it be me than her. Besides, the ladies dig the scars.
Kim favored me with a tender smile and reached across the table to give my hand an affectionate squeeze.
Wade cleared his throat, his dark skin slightly darker at witnessing Kim's display of affection. "Anyways, Mrs. Paisley is wondering if you two would take a look around. She suspects foul play, but I can't decide if she has a valid motive for her suspicion or if it's just the grief driving her. I'll leave it to you two to make the call. One thing, though: Mrs. Paisley's first name is Bonnie, lately of the Middleton Rockwaller's." With this, his picture flickered out as he signed off.
I continued scrolling through the data. "Says here that Mr. Paisley died after a sudden-onset grand mal seizure. The coroner's office is investigating, of course, but…" My voice trailed off as I continued to flick through the pages of EMT and police preliminary reports and findings.
"Do you think it could be foul play?"
"He was a powerful man."
"And powerful men have many enemies."
I realized I was still holding her hand and squeezed back as I shot her a cocksure grin. "They have friends, too. I say it's worth a look if nothing else, KP."
If it hadn't have been for the fact that Mr. Paisley had put Team Possible on the map on the first place with his fortuitous typo, I would have turned the matter down flat. Kim was only home for a week before she had to return to the Sorbonne, and I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could.
However, this was important. I could see from the set of her eyes that she agreed with my decision. I sidled up beside her and squeezed her butt.
"Let's roll, Monkey Man," Kim laughed. "I was getting bored of sitting still, anyways. I can do anything, but never that!"
Kim goosed the throttle of the Sloth and guided us towards Crouch End, Mr. Paisley's mansion, on a thin whisper of rocket exhaust. Soon, Middleton was far behind us and we were out over the verdant greens and yellows of Stockdale and rural Upperton.
In the passenger seat, I poured through the background information on Mr. Paisley that Wade had data-mined.
"According to Wade's data, Paisley was involved with the copyright auction for the Moodulator and Dr. Drakken's Brain Switcher. His claims to the patents were, of course, bitterly contested by both Dr. Drakken, despite being jailed, and Dr. Cyrus Bortel. While Bortel had created the programming for the Moodulator, it was Paisley who had discovered how to interface the chips with the autonomous control centers of the brain and over-ride them. In addition, the Paisley's are the largest mortgage and land-owners in Upperton and Lower Stockdale."
Kim smiled impishly at the memory of the Moodulator as she started to descend towards Mr. Paisley's palatial estate, now visible towards the horizon.
"So he had power, land and prestige; a veritable honey-trap for enemies. Did he have any, aside from Dr. Drakken and Dr. Bortel?"
I rolled my shoulders. The other data Wade had shuttled along detailed Mr. Paisley's life to an extent rarely seen beyond a posthumous tell-all; which, I noted with a snort of amusement, was rather ironic in this case. Very little of the information seemed pertinent.
I lowered the Kimmunicator and leaned back, scrubbing my eyes with my palms. "He liked to live high on the hog. Maybe it just finally caught up with him."
"So our conclusion to this stands a very good chance of being "he had too much of a good deal?"
"It's possible, KP. He could out-eat Rufus."
She squealed with laughter, "Impossible!"
"Ma main droite de Dieu, Kim." A dopey smile flitted across her face even as she lined up the rapidly-descending Sloth on the driveway ahead. I had learned scraps of French for Valentines last year and she still melted to hear it. "While I was out at culinary school, Paisley and Rufus hung out a bit. They'd hit up Bueno Nacho once or twice a week and Paisley would always out-eat the little guy. It was pretty amazing to see." I pursed my lips and continued. "If that were the case, however, you would think that it'd be documented in the coroner's report. Good living leaves a footprint; it's hard to hide arterial scarring and plaque build-up in major arteries and blood vessels. Damned near impossible, in fact."
"Let's not forget that Bonnie fits into this picture somehow."
I nodded. "There's nothing I like more than predictability in our enemies, KP. And God bless her, Bonnie is certainly playing true to form. Five years ago she marries a man thirty years her senior so she can still be young and pretty by the time he kicks off and she inherits everything. Do you want me to feign shock now or save it for later?" My words were rife with sarcasm and mild distaste.
Kim's eyes flicked up from the instrument panel of the Sloth and crinkled in good humor. "Why Ronald Dean Stoppable, you sound very judgmental."
"Sorry, ma'am."
"I may have to send you to bed tonight without any…dessert." Her tongue darted out between her lips and licked them across as she winked at me. The car suddenly seemed very warm.
"I'll be on my best behavior, Ms. Kimberly."
The Sloth's tires kissed terra firma again with a barely noticeable jolt. Kim braked aggressively and throttled back. I silently thanked the Tweebs for installing the new tires; with contact patches the size of a fat ladies' thighs, making a ten-point landing was easier than eating Nacos, and my stomach no longer felt the need to visit my uvula every time we came down.
After she powered down the engines, Kim leaned across the seat and pecked me on the cheek. "Let's go meet the grieving widow and see if we can't find out why Mr. Paisley shuffled off the mortal coil so soon. I think we'll be home by dinner."
I nodded, and together we clambered out of the Sloth and made our way toward Crouch End.
Crouch End was splendid pile of burnished brass roof fittings, ivy-swathed trellises, Greco-Roman columns and stark pseudo-gothic flying buttresses. It was not a direction I would have gone, décor-wise. Lush, green hills sloped gracefully back from the front gate as far the eye could see, tapering off into wild flower pastures a short ways beyond. Off to the side, in a copse of trees, the gentle murmuring of a brook could be heard. The ground themselves were immaculate, the laws an unnatural uniform green, the hedges arranged in an artful topiary. Kim giggled as she recognized a Pandaroo amongst the arboreal menagerie.
To the side, I could see that the hedgerows had been trimmed to resemble various characters from Alice in Wonderland. I smiled; Bonnie's inner child was showing. The gnarled stone finger of the guest house poked out from a dense knot of forest at the rear of the grounds.
The flight out here had taken longer than I remembered; the sky was growing dark in the twilight of the late afternoon.
I raised the brass knocked on the front door and brought it down, once.
"Thanks for coming, Ron, Kim." Bonnie's smile seemed genuine enough. Her face was tight and drawn with exhaustion and grief, and oddly monochromatic without any make-up. Dark bags lurked under her bloodshot, but still striking, teal eyes.
She threw her arms around Kim suddenly and began sobbing soundlessly into her chest. Kim looked at me over the top of Bonnie's shoulder and quirked her eyebrows.
I shrugged and cleared my throat.
Bonnie stepped back, holding Kim's shoulders as she composed herself. I could almost see the armor of contempt that had gotten her through high school re-molding, girding her self-control.
Bonnie heaved a sigh, and the already diminutive brunette seemed to collapse in on herself even more. "I'm sorry, I just wasn't expecting this. One day he's strong as an ox, and hung like one," her eyes twinkle with amusement as Kim blanched, " and the next he's paying the boatman and I'm alone."
"My deepest sympathies, Bonnie," I said, feeling awkward.
A butler, bedecked in a suit of thick black wool and painfully white dress shirt, had led us into a drawing room off of the main foyer. Bonnie had been waiting. Her mourning gown was made of double-breasted black satin, high at the neck and trailing down into a train that gathered at her feet like a fawning rain cloud. Her hands were encased in black silk gloves. Not one speck of flesh, save for her face, was visible.
Bonnie started suddenly. "Where are my manners? I shall have the staff bring refreshments and—"
"So not the drama, B. Ron and I are here to help you, not to have you wait on us. Right, Ron?" I nodded at Kim's words and took a seat in an over-stuffed, floral-patterned armchair.
Bonnie collapsed in the armchair across from mine with neither her usual grave nor decorum, like a marionette with its strings cut. Kim perched herself on the arm of my chair. I could see a hint of her lacy black boy shorts over the top of her cargo pants. Delicious.
"What happened, Bonnie?" I asked.
She breathed in deep and let it out slowly. "Arthur was doing very well, business-wise. He had just secured the patents to the Brain Switcher and the Moodulator. He was set to make millions, if not billions of dollars. The Moodulator alone…" her voice trailed off for a second, before continuing on, stronger, "anyways, he had retired for the evening to the sitting room, reviewing spreadsheets and contract proposals and counter-offers. I had gone out to trim the topiary, and when I came back, he was convulsing on the floor of the f-f-foyer." Her breath hitched in her throat.
"The coroner's report said he died of a grand mal seizure, cause unknown."
"You two have come a long way from a simple home-grown operation; now you're getting confidential medical reports," Bonnie's perfect white teeth flashed in the settling light streaming in through the window. For some reason, a shiver stole through me at that smile. "A long ways, indeed. Yes, the coroner's report had no specific cause of death. By all rights, Arthur should be alive…but he's not."
"Did he have any enemies, Bonnie?" I asked, reaching to trail my fingertips along the exposed skin above the hem of Kim's panty line. Goosebumps dimpled her skin in the wake of my fingers.
"Aside from Dr. Drakken and Dr. Bortel? No, not that I know of."
"I'll need to view his files upstairs, take a look around. You know, Sherlock-type stuff."
"Of course, Ron, and thank you." That smile again.
"My pleasure, Bonnie."
I stood up, arching my back and stretching. "Well, let's get to it then. Kim—"
Bonnie had risen when I did, and was already leading Kim off into the western wing of Crouch End, showing off the various collections and playing hostess. Kim looked back at me, rolling her eyes. I smiled and waved at her.
The widescreen monitor blazed like a cyclopean eye, casting my shadow out behind me. There was nothing here. I had spent the last nine hours sorting through the detritus of a human life; e-mails, spread-sheets, charts, budgets, bank statements, paper correspondences, scribbled reminders, a datebook. Nothing, no smoking gun at all. But there was something…
I stood up and walked out of the sitting room, switching off the lights as I left. The window at the end of the hall showed nothing but dark. The house was silent and brooding.
The long hallway, so warm, light and inviting when I had left it to enter the sitting room, was now cloaked in ebony and twisted by time.
I wandered without purpose or direction, drinking in the details of the architecture, the décor.
Everything about this house, this case, Paisley's death, seemed out of place.
The door was simple and white, the knob polished brass.
I stepped inside.
The room was colorful, even in the darkness, it was plain that the walls were the same teal as Bonnie's eyes.
An armoire nestled snugly amongst a wall of bookshelves. I scoffed softly; I had never figured Bonnie to be much of a reader.
The bed was straight out of every little girl's dream: a poster-bed, hung curtains of sea blue fizzy cloth; enough privacy to obscure, transparent enough to tantalize.
A shimmering teddy was laid carelessly across the quilted bedspread. It promised lascivious joys. I trailed my fingers along the material as I stepped over to the roll-top desk, tucked into the corner of the room.
The top of the desk was cluttered with pages and envelopes, all marked with Bonnie's gracefully rolling script. A sealed envelope sat on top of a small sheaf of papers. On impulse, I picked it up and tore it open. The ripping seal seemed so impossibly loud in the dark.
I began to read.
Dear Brick,
This is taking too long. You said when I married the old fart that it was only going to be long enough to outlast the pre-nup and let the cancer take its course. It has been FIVE YEARS. He was supposed to live a maximum of two. Screw the pre-nup, let's just do what the cancer won't and kill him already.
He's been spending all his damned time in the freaking basement until all hours of the day. Sometimes I don't see him for days at a time. He won't say what he's working on, but I know that with the settlements for the Brain Switcher and Moodulator, he's looking for his next 'big thing.' I can practically smell the money from up here. It smells good. I don't know what interest he has in the Brain Switcher. I can understand the appeal of the Moodulator; instant love, at the touch of a dial. Drive your enemies into suicidal depression. Oh yes, I can see the possibilities. But a brain switcher? Get real.
We can't keep sneaking around, Brick. I think he might suspect something, and if we're caught, all of this time is for nothing. I will NOT waste all this time for nothing. The money is mine by rights. How about you be a god damned man and help me take it, instead of treating me like your personal toy and meal ticket? I have the tits, Brick; I have the power. Remember that.
Whatever we're going to do, we need to do it soon. This is getting very old. I catch him looking at me out of the corner of his eyes, sizing me up. He might be an old geezer, but damn he gives me the creeps. All I have to do is go through with it with him once, and the pre-nup obligation is met. I can do it. I need to it. WE need to do it.
I'll give it three more months, Brick. And then I'm ending this, cancer or no.
All my love,
B
I stood there for several minutes, non-pulsed. The Bonnie I had seen was clearly mourning her dear, dear husband. She had all but broken down as Kim held her. Those weren't the actions of an adulterous wife; they were the responses of a faithful and loyal one, one who loved Arthur Paisley. My mind struggled to make the square peg fit the round hole for several minutes more before it flitted across my brain, so fast as to be almost lost in the mix. A faithful wife…or one who was a good actor.
The universe shifted on an unknowable axis, and I saw what had been staring me in the face the whole time.
"You two have come a long way from a simple home-grown operation; now you're getting confidential medical reports…"
The attitude change. The request, no, the plea, for help. The sudden attachment to Kim. So unlike Bonnie because it wasn't Bonnie. A gold-digging wife, cheating on him with another man. An old man, saddled with an indescribable and amoral genius, crippled with cancer, dying….with a brain switching machine. Paisley, rich beyond most comprehension, married to an unfaithful wife, dying, and powerless to stop both. He uses the Brain Switch machine to take his wife's body and cheat death, while remaining in control of his own estate. My hands began to shake and it wasn't from cold.
Dropping the letter, I reached down to the ream of papers and picked up another.
I, Bonnie Paisley, being of sound mind, leave my estate to x Kimberly Anne Possible...
By the time the paper hit the desktop I was sprinting back down the hall the way I had come, shouting Kim's name.
I burst out of the hall and skidded to a sudden halt.
The front foyer was abandoned. Even the butler had disappeared.
"Kim?"
Pistol rounds hammered into the wall around me. One clipped my ear as it passed. Too close.
I rolled behind a high-backed chair, bleeding all over the immaculate white marble floor.
The butler, standing in a modified Weaver stance halfway up the winding central staircase, might have killed me right then had he continued shooting.
Instead, he holstered the weapon and started down the arched staircase, pulling a filigreed and wickedly curved blade that was less a dagger and more a short sword, from inside his suit. It seemed he was intent on carrying out an up-close-and-personal execution.
I waited until he was close enough to touch before leaping out of cover and throwing a punch at my assailant. He blocked it easily, poorly aimed as it was.
I threw myself aside as the sword cleaved the chair in twain. The back swing of the blade nearly caught me anyways, but I dodged behind a pier column that took the force of the blow in a splintering shower of sparks and stone chips.
I dove again, feinting past him and grappling him from behind. It was desperation that drove me; unarmed as I was, I had little chance of overcoming him. He got an arm around himself, latched onto my coat, and threw me over his shoulder back the way I had come.
My coat ripped along the seams. I smashed into the remains of the high-backed chair, scattering stuffing and wood splinters along the polished marble floor. I had barely risen to my knees when the sword swooped in again on a long, curving strike and chewed a hole in the floor.
I ran from him then, across the foyer and towards the back rooms. Two of the house staff, wild-eyed and frothing, clearly seeking their mistress's favor, closed in from a pair of side doors to block off my escape. One carried a rolling pin; the other, a cast-iron pan.
I think they both quickly came to regret their involvement.
The breathing room had been all the space I needed to draw upon the Mystical Monkey Powers. The familiar, intoxicating blue aura pulsed off of me. I side-stepped the frying pan, caught and broke the wrist that wielded it, and kicked the man down. He didn't move. The pan spun off through the air like a drunken Frisbee, clattering onto the marble floor some dozen yards away and too far to reach.
The rolling pin swung down towards the back of my head, but suddenly my other hand was there and grabbed his elbow, pushing the servant back on his heel. As he rebounded, my leg slashed in toward the side of his knee. He fell over with a sharp exclamation of pain, losing hold on the rolling pin. I kicked him in his exposed belly so hard he doubled over, trying desperately to remember how to breathe.
The immediate threat dealt with, I focused. Kim was in danger. I could feel myself reaching across time and space, calling, yearning, imploring. And it came.
The Lotus Blade. It purred in my grip as I brought it to a high guard in time to block a savage blow from the Butler's eldritch blade. The ancient Japanese sword's silver-blue aura pulsed with a vengeful light.
The Butler realized the nature of the fight had changed. I could see it in his eyes.
My counter-swing severed the Butler's left wrist, dropping his hand to the floor, twitching.
The second met the short-sword on the down stroke and destroyed it, the blade dropping to the marble beneath our feet with a whispered scream.
My third cleaved the Butler in two from left shoulder to his groin. He didn't make a sound as he fell.
I spun on my heel and sprinted for the basement door, my blue aura lighting the way, calling out for Kim.
And hoping to hear an answer.
I took the entire basement staircase at once. I was amped up on Mystical Monkey Power; gravity could go suck an egg.
I tucked into a forward roll as I landed and surveyed my surroundings.
The Brain Switch Machine dominated the basement. It was utterly still. Good, I had gotten here in time. Kim lay unconscious, strapped down to an examining table at the base of the machine. Her red hair spilled off the back of the galvanized steel table in a still-birthed waterfall.
Shadows bobbed and lurked along the periphery of the basement, concealing who knew what. I didn't care. Kim was in front of me, and nothing could keep me from her side.
Springing out of my crouch, I ran over to her, my aura preceding me, flaring bright and powerful. She was untouched, unharmed as far as I could see. Her eyes fluttered open and flared in alarm as she looked over my shoulder. "RON!"
I had the Lotus Blade in my hands and up before she had even finishing screaming the word. Bonnie Rockwaller / Arthur Paisley gaped at me, disbelieving hands moving back and forth over the mystical sword transfixing her torso. Blood pooled in her mouth as I watched and dribbled slowly down her chin. Her jaw moved, perhaps trying to speak. All that came out was a low mew. Calmly, I planted my foot on her stomach and kicked the dying brunette off the blade. She crumpled in the dirt, struggling feebly. I turned my back on her death throes.
The Lotus Blade cleaved through Kim's restraints as if they were made of tissue paper. My hands roamed all over her body, checking. She sat up into my face, hard, tongue knocking on my teeth. I let her in. The kiss was long, hard and passionate. A stray lock of red hair hung in front of her right eye; I brushed it back behind her ear.
Laying the Lotus Blade down on the table, I turned back around and walked over to where Bonnie lay in the dirt. She was still now, unmoving, a pool of blood tingeing the dirt floor a darker brown. I reached to the base of her neck and felt for a pulse. Nothing. The body of Bonnie Rockwaller was dead, and Arthur Paisley with her.
I was dimly aware that Kim had come over to stand behind me. The Lotus Blade was clutched tightly in her hand.
"You've come a long way from a simple sidekick, Ron. A long way, indeed."