More Twisted

knocked from his lungs.
    Gasping, in agony, he scrabbled back in panic. He stared around him—and saw no threat. He then shouted at the security man, “What’re you doing?”
    Breathing heavily, Eberhart rose and pulled his boss to his feet. “Sorry . . . I had to stop you . . . . The cigar.”
    “The—?”
    “Cigar. Don’t touch it.”
    The security man grabbed several Baggies. In one he put the cigars. In the other the FedEx envelope. “When I was asking you about stores you go to—for the securityplan—you told me you get your cigars in Phoenix, right?”
    “Right. So what?”
    Eberhart held up the FedEx label. “These were sent from a Postal Plus store in the Sonora Hills strip mall.”
    York thought. “That’s near—”
    “Three minutes from Trotter’s company. He could’ve called the store and found out when you ordered some. Then bought some himself and doctored ’em. I’ll get a field test kit and see.”
    “Don’t I need . . . I mean, don’t I need to eat cyanide for it to kill me?”
    “Uh-uh.” The security expert sniffed the bag carefully. “Cyanide smells like almonds.” He shook his head. “Can’t tell. Maybe the tobacco’s covering up the scent.”
    “Almonds,” York whispered. “Almonds . . . “ He smelled his fingers and began washing his hands frantically.
    There was a long silence.
    Rubbing his skin with paper towels, York glanced at Eberhart, who was lost in thought.
    “What?” the businessman snapped.
    “I think it’s time for a change of plans.”

    The next day Stephen York parked his leased Mercedes in the hot, dusty lot of the Scottsdale Police Department. He looked around uneasily for Trotter’s car—a dark blue Lexus sedan, they’d learned. He didn’t see it.
    York climbed out, carrying plastic bags containing the FedEx envelope, cigars and food from his kitchen. He carried them into the PD’s building, chilly from an overeager air conditioner.
    In a ground-floor conference room he found fourmen: the buddy team of Lampert and Alvarado, as well as Stan Eberhart and a man who was dressed in exactly the same clothes that York wore and who was his same build. The man introduced himself as Peter Billings, an undercover cop.
    “Long as I’m playing the part of you for a little while, Mr. York, was wonderin’, s’okay to use your pool and hot tub?”
    “My—”
    “Joking there,” Billings said.
    “Ah,” York muttered humorlessly and turned to Lampert. “Here they are.”
    The detective took the bags and tossed them absently on an empty chair. None of the cigars or food contained poison, according to a test Eberhart conducted at York’s. But bringing them here—presumably under the eye of vengeful Mr. Trotter—was an important part of their plan. They needed to make Trotter believe for the next hour or so that they were convinced he was going to poison York.
    After the tests turned out negative Eberhart had concluded that Trotter was faking the whole cyanide thing; he only wanted the police to think he intended to poison York. Why? A diversion, of course. If the police were confident they knew the intended method of attack, they’d prepare for that and not the real one.
    But what was the real one? How was Trotter actually going to come at York?
    Eberhart had taken an extreme step to find out: breaking into Trotter’s house. While the landscaper, his wife and their children were out Eberhart had disabled the alarmand surveillance cameras then examined the man’s office carefully. Hidden in the desk were books on sabotage and surveillance. Two pages were marked with Post-its, marking chapters on turning propane tanks into bombs and on making remote detonators. He found another clue, as well: a note that said “Rodriguez Garden Supplies.”
    Which was where Stephen York went every Saturday afternoon to exchange his barbecue grill’s propane tanks. Eberhart believed that Trotter’s plan was to keep the police focused on a poison attack, when he was in fact going to arrange an “accidental” explosion after York picked up his new propane tank. The security man, though, couldn’t go to the police with this information—he’d be admitting he’d committed trespass—so he told Bill Lampert only that he’d heard from some sources that Trotter was asking about propane tanks and where York shopped. There was no evidence for a search warrant but the detective reluctantly agreed to Eberhart’s plan to catch Trotter in the act.