Play Dead

Chapter 32

"Your visitors are here."

James LaRue stuck his hands through the small rectangular opening in the cell so the guard could slip a pair of handcuffs around his wrists. The heavy cage door was unlocked, the sound of metal against metal reverberating hollowly.

LaRue shuffled out, his slippers making a shushing sound against the glossy cement floor. He was led through a series of locked doors to a small, brightly lit room with surveillance cameras high on three walls and an inner observation window of reinforced glass.

Sitting at the table was Detective Elise Sandburg. With her was a guy with dark hair and an angry face.

They were both dressed like they were ready for a funeral.

An omen?

He sat down across from them, annoyed to find that the chair was difficult to get into gracefully because of the short chain used to anchor it to the floor.

So. There she was. The woman he'd drugged.

For a moment he found himself distracted by her strange eyes. They were multicolored, with dark lines going through them.

She was attractive, something he didn't recall because he'd been so fucked-up at the time. She was also very cool. Very together. Just like you'd think a detective would be, only prettier.

The guy… he was rougher around the edges. With the look of someone who needed some kind of fix. Maybe alcohol. Maybe drugs. Maybe even legal medication prescribed by a doctor who liked to keep his patients happy.

LaRue experienced a wave of panic.

He'd been panicking a lot lately.

What a stupid thing for him to do. A stupid, stupid thing. But it had seemed so logical at the time. Funny how that kind of thing worked. The guy-he would surely understand that. He'd surely done some stupid things while under the influence.

Now there was a good chance LaRue himself might end up in prison with murderers. With pedophiles. Where beasts with shaved heads and tattoos raped guys like him.

He looked from one to the other, hoping he didn't appear as desperate as he felt.

"Hey-" He glanced up at the guard.

She was a large, tough-looking woman he'd managed to coax a smile out of a few times. "Would it be possible to get something to drink?" he asked. To his visitors, Tie said, "Would you like something? Soda? My treat."

Detective Sandburg shook her head and, with a twist of her lip, said, "I'll pass."

LaRue inwardly cringed. Oh, shit. Last time he'd offered her something to drink, it had been laced with tetrodotoxin.

"Me too," said the guy.

She was pissed. Of course she was pissed. They were both pissed. Why wouldn't they be? But it wasn't as if he'd killed her. It wasn't as if he'd meant her any harm.

"Okay."

He waved his linked hands nervously in the air, as if to shoo away his bad idea and the time he'd already wasted. These were important people. Busy people.

"Stop wasting our time, LaRue."

Wow. Apparently the guy was a mind reader.

"I'm sorry," LaRue said. "And you are?"

"Detective Gould."

"Nice to meet you." He slid his hands across the table, cuffs jingling.

Gould leaned deeper into his chair. "I don't shake hands with people who poison my partner."

Double shit. "I don't know what you're talking about." LaRue pulled back his hands.

"You don't remember giving my partner a glass of water laced with tetrodotoxin?"

LaRue shook his head.

"But aren't you an expert on the stuff?" Gould asked.

"Well, yeah."

"Don't you sometimes have it in your house?"

"Hey, I can't help it if she somehow came upon some when she was snooping around my place."

"You mean, a glass laced with TTX just happened to bump into her mouth? Didn't you in fact offer her a drink? Didn't you in fact hand her the glass?"

This was bad. Really bad. Whatever happened, LaRue had to make this convincing. The rest of his life could depend on it…

"You have no proof of anything."

"I collected pieces of broken glass," Elise said. "Took them to the lab. Guess what they found?"

He let out a long breath. Shit, shit, shit.

"Tetrodotoxin," she said. "On a glass from your house. A glass you handed to me."

"Don't lie to us," Gould said. "Because we already know all the answers."

"Not everything. You can't know everything."

"We'll see about that."

They interrogated him for three hours.

Thank God nobody smoked. That would have been bad, because the room was small, and something like that could have really gotten LaRue's asthma stirred up.

The interrogation was pretty much what you'd expect. They bullied him. Especially the guy. LaRue could feel the hatred coming from him.

He was asked the why, where, who.

As the hours progressed, he could sense their growing frustration. They'd entered the room hoping to find him guilty of the tetrodotoxin murders, and he'd given them nothing to substantiate their theory. They were disappointed.

Sorry to let you down, peeps.

The interview shifted.

"What can you tell us about tetrodotoxin?" Detective Sandburg asked.

LaRue would have crossed his arms if it had been possible. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, hands in his lap. He stared from one to the other. "Nothing."

"Nothing?" Detective Gould asked in mock disbelief.

"I don't want to talk about tetrodotoxin."

Gould tensed up again. He leaned forward. "What you want has nothing to do with this conversation."

"I'm not going to talk about tetrodotoxin," LaRue said, shrugging his shoulders.

"What would I have to do to convince you?" Gould asked.

"Is that a threat?"

"Of course not," the guy lied, glancing up at a corner camera. "I would never threaten someone who poisoned my partner."

"My expertise has a price," LaRue said.

Gould made an impatient sound.

"I'm the most knowledgeable person in the country when it comes to tetrodotoxin," LaRue said smoothly. "And you should be taking advantage of such expansive knowledge. My education wasn't cheap. This is the U.S. We thrive on capitalism. I have a product. I sell the product. You buy the product."

"You want money?" Gould asked incredulously. "People are being murdered, and you want money?"

"Oh, and I suppose you're a volunteer detective."

Elise crossed her arms. "He wants the felony charge dropped."

LaRue smiled at her. She was a doll. A complete doll.

"Your ego is awe-inspiring," Gould said. "But you aren't the only tetrodotoxin expert in the country. Don't you think we've been in touch with other specialists? You have no bargaining power. Nothing to stand on. You can't tell us anything we don't already know or can't find out from someone else."

He was bluffing. Either that, or misinformed. Nobody knew as much about tetrodotoxin as LaRue. He looked up at Gould through his lashes. "You don't know anything about tetrodotoxin. Nothing. You think you do, but you don't. There's a secret society, a huge underground network of people who are addicted to TTX."

"Why would someone take poison for entertainment?" Detective Sandburg asked.

"At first, it's for the thrill. Like somebody else might go skydiving, or drive too fast. But then…"

He ran his tongue over his lips, then inwardly berated himself. They would think he wanted out because of his own addiction.

"It's not a physical addiction," he quickly said. "It's a mental one. It's a high like nothing else, because it is one step away from death. I understand that. I know all of the sweet corners, the stages TTX takes a person through."

He shifted in the slick chair. "You know what it's like. You know what I'm talking about," he said, addressing Detective Sandburg. "Don't you feel as if you've cheated death? You've mastered death? Doesn't it give you a feeling of power in a world where so much is beyond our control?"

"You know, Mr. LaRue, I wouldn't have described it as a pleasant experience. But maybe it's because it didn't involve free will."

Would she ever let that go? "I was a mess that day. A total mess."

"That should never be an excuse," Detective Sandburg said.

He was losing them.

"I have an idea," Gould said. "Why don't you stay here, and if we need your help, we'll know where to find you?"

This wasn't working. Not working!

Tears of fear and frustration welled in his eyes and everything got blurry. He couldn't end up in prison with creeps watching as if he were some tasty morsel they hadn't yet sampled. Or worse, had sampled. Why had he turned himself in? Why hadn't he seen where such action would lead? God, he was as naive as a ten-year-old.

He leaned close and whispered, staring directly into Detective Sandburg's eyes-because he felt that was where any chance of sympathy lay. "Can you imagine what it would be like for me if I go to prison? Where the animals are running the zoo? Look at me! I'm a scientist! I'm a geek! I haven't any street smarts."

Did they want him to beg? At this point, he didn't have a shred of pride left. He'd beg, if that's what they wanted. Fucking cops.

His nose was running. He had no choice but to lift his parallel hands and wipe mucus on the orange sleeve of his jumpsuit.

Using some spooky, silent form of communication, the detectives nodded to each other and got to their feet.

Detective Sandburg leaned forward, hands braced on the table. "This is what we're proposing," she said. "If you cooperate with us, if you answer all of our questions, then I'll consider dropping the felony charge." She pushed away from the table. "We're going to leave you alone for a couple of minutes. Give you a chance to think about it."

"He could still be involved in the killings," Elise said once they'd stepped into the hall, and the interrogation room door had closed firmly behind them. "He could even be working with somebody else." "That's a possibility," David said. "We could have him released and put a tail on him," Elise suggested. "If he is involved, well find out fairly quickly while he leads us to his accomplices. If he isn't involved, he could actually help us with the case."

"Are you forgetting what he did to you?"

"It might be worth the risk. I'm willing to drop the charges in order to find out what he's up to."

"Maybe you won't have to." David turned toward the door. "Maybe the little shit will be ready to spill everything."

LaRue was exactly where they'd left him.

"Shall we continue our little chat?" Elise asked.

He stared silently at the shiny surface of the table.

She and David took their seats.

Rather than asking LaRue if he'd come to a decision, Elise took a less humiliating approach. "Why don't we start over?" she suggested in a friendly tone.

He didn't answer.

She began questioning him anyway.

Just normal, conversational things, to get him to relax. Where he was born. His education. Where he'd gotten his degrees.

Ego was a perplexing and amazing thing, and it always surprised Elise to discover how much people enjoyed talking about themselves even when being interrogated by the police.

There was usually a point when something fell away and suddenly the interview took on a life of its own. As soon as they got on the subject of LaRue's research, he tumbled through the hole and seemed to forget whom he was talking to.

Twice she'd seen killers reach that point and become so engrossed in telling their own story that they confessed without even knowing it.

"I expected to be famous by now," LaRue said. "Tetrodotoxin was going to be a new, better morphine, the answer to severe pain. A new way to sedate patients. Even a way to send astronauts into space in the state of suspended animation."

"What happened?" David asked.

"Budget cuts. My University of North Carolina funding got pulled."

"Ouch."

"That was three years ago. I can't believe I've been basically doing nothing since then."

He let out a heavy sigh. "My research was my life. All I knew. But I didn't realize how important it was to me until I lost it. I'm going through an identity crisis. If I'm no longer that guy, then who am I?

"Do you have any idea what it's like to spend years moving toward a goal, focused completely on that goal, certain that if you worked hard enough, it would finally be attained, only to have everything you've worked for taken away? It's fucking heartbreaking, that's what it is. It's a fucking tragedy."

"What about tetrodotoxin?" Elise said. "What can you tell us about it other than the obvious?"

"People are afraid of what they don't understand, and people were afraid of tetrodotoxin. That's why my funding was pulled. They blamed it on a lack of finances, but things were happening too quickly."

"Maybe they didn't appreciate the fact that you were using it to get high," David suggested dryly.

LaRue frowned at him. "I'll admit to taking it even then, but I couldn't get it stabilized enough for human trials. And I couldn't ask my students to be guinea pigs. My colleagues kept arguing that it would never be controlled enough to use on humans. I had to prove them wrong."

"We're going to need the names of everybody you know who's involved in this underground movement of TTX use. Every single person."

"Most of them are college students. Just harmless kids."

He was backpedaling, unwilling to turn anybody in. Actually, an admirable character trait.

"We just want to talk to them," Elise said. She slid a piece of paper across the table, followed by a pen. "Write down every name you can think of."

It took about five minutes. When he handed the paper back, there were six names on it. "Is that all?" Elise asked.

"All I can think of right now."

David stiffened. She could see he was ready to press LaRue for more names. She folded the paper. "This will give us a place to start."

Then he talked about tetrodotoxin, telling them things they did and didn't know.

"The poison attacks sheathed, peripheral nerves, but doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier, which means the victim's mental functions are unimpaired. In the wrong hands, TTX could be the perfect method of torture. Imagine being able to do and say anything to someone while that person remained fully conscious and aware."

"Maybe that's why your funding was pulled."

"TTX is everywhere. Anybody can get it. Anybody can produce it. I was doing something worthwhile. I was trying to harness it."

Elise opened her briefcase and pulled out a five-by-seven of Truman Harrison and placed it on the table in front of LaRue. "Recognize this person?"

"I saw his picture in the paper."

"Ever meet him?"

"No."

Next came the black-and-white of Jordan Kemp, taken in the cemetery.

"Oh, man. This is some evil shit." He pointed to the photo. "You don't think I had anything to do with this, do you?"

"Did you know him?" David asked.

"Was he someone you sold TTX to?" The question was slipped in on the sly. Elise suspected LaRue of selling the poison, and hoped she could trip him up.

"I never sold TTX to anybody. Let's get that straight."

"Did you know Jordan Kemp?"

"I saw him a few times."

"Where?"

"Black Tupelo."

"You go to Black Tupelo?" David asked.

"Not for the reason you might think."

"What about Strata Luna?" Elise pressed. "Have you ever met her?"

"No."

"Sure about that?"

"I tried to. I wanted to meet her. Who doesn't? I finally convinced the kid, Enrique, to call her for me."

"So you talked to her on the phone."

"Yeah."

"What about?"

"I'd heard rumors that she knew how to make zombies. Total bullshit, I'm sure, but I thought she might know something about tetrodotoxin that I didn't. It can be mixed with different ingredients with varying results. Depends on the cocktail. It's hard to regulate the dosage of straight TTX, since the strength is all over the place. But it always does one of three things: gives a person a buzz, paralyzes, or kills."

"So what's your professional opinion about the Savannah cases?"

"Not straight TTX. Straight TTX paralyzes, yeah, but not for days. With tetrodotoxin, the user wakes up after a few hours or dies."

Elise took note of the instant when he realized he'd incriminated himself. On camera. In front of three people.

She looked at her partner. He was smiling.

Elise felt a little alarmed now that she realized just how close she'd come to dying that day at LaRue's place.

"That's about all we need for now, wouldn't you say?" Gould asked.

"I knew the strength of the tetrodotoxin I gave you!" LaRue said in a panicky rush, his handcuffs rattling. "I knew it wasn't enough to kill you!"

"That sounds like a confession," Gould said, mockery in his voice. "Shall we get some people in here for a deposition?"

"I thought you were going to drop the charges."

"I said we'd think about it," Elise said.

"I told you everything you wanted to know."

"Yes, but you also admitted to almost killing me. You're a smart man. Surely you can't expect us to responsibly release someone with your history."

"A history of attempted murder," Gould added.

"You need me!" LaRue said. "You know you need me!" He glanced up at the guard, then back to Elise. "This isn't over, is it? You'll be back, won't you? I helped you today. I can help you again."

"We'll consider it and let you know."

He jumped to his feet.

Gould shot upright, prepared to hit him if the occasion called for it. The guard stepped forward to stand to LaRue's left.

"When?" he asked, looking from Gould to Sandburg. "When will you get back to me?"

"Hard to say," Sandburg told him.

LaRue glared at her.

BITCH!

She was enjoying this, enjoying keeping him in the dark, toying with him. His anger shifted to Detective Gould. What did that reject know? LaRue thought with resentment. He'd never been picked on, never had anyone laugh at or make fun of him.

As if in silent communication, the detectives turned and began walking away.

LaRue held his cuffed hands toward their retreating backs. "I'm going to be fucked in the ass!" he sobbed.