Red Mist

27

The mirrored medicine cabinets are open wide, their contents strewn over shelves and the granite countertop, in the sink, and all over the floor, as if a storm blew in or an intruder ransacked the master bathroom. Scattered about are cuticle scissors, tweezers, nail files, eye drops, toothpaste, dental floss, teeth-whitening strips, sunscreens, over-the-counter pain relievers, body scrubs, and facial cleansers. There are prescription medications, including zolpidem tartrate or Ambien, and anxiolytic lorazepam, better known as Ativan. Jaime wasn’t sleeping well. She was anxious and vain and not at peace with aging, and nothing she had on hand to relieve her routine discomforts and discontentedness was going to defeat the enemy that confronted her the final hours and minutes of her life, a violent attacker that was sadistic and overpowering and impossible to see.

As I interpret her death through the symbols of her postmortem artifacts and her chaotic clutter, it is clear to me that at some point early this morning she suffered an onset of symptoms that caused her to search desperately for something, for anything, that might mitigate panic and physical distress so acute that it looks as if an intruder pillaged her apartment and murdered her somehow.

There was no intruder, only Jaime, and I imagine her dumping out the contents of her pocketbook, perhaps looking for a medication that might relieve her suffering. I imagine her rushing inside the master bath for a drug that might offer remedy, and sweeping and knocking items off the shelves, frantic and crazed by the torture of what had seized her. Only it wasn’t another person killing her, not directly. I believe it was a poison, one so potent it transformed Jaime’s body into her own worst enemy, and I wasn’t here.

I hadn’t stayed. I’d left earlier, so relieved to get away that I’d waited outside in the dark under a tree for Marino to pick me up, and I can’t stop thinking that had I not been hurt and angry, I might have noticed the warnings. It might have occurred to me that something was wrong, that she wasn’t merely drunk. I was defensive of Lucy, and she’s always been my weakness, and now someone she loves, maybe the love of her life, is dead.

“If you don’t mind.” I indicate to Chang that I want to look and touch as he takes photographs.

Had I been here during Jaime’s crisis, I could have saved her. There were signs and symptoms, and I ignored them, and I don’t know how I will explain that to my niece.

“Sure, go ahead,” he says. “Any reason for you to suspect she might have had something inside this apartment that someone else wanted to get hold of? I notice several computers and what looks like case records and other confidential documents in the living room. What about sensitive information on her computers?”

“I have no idea what’s on her computers. Or even if they’re her computers.”

I could have gotten a squad here. I could have given her CPR, I could have breathed for her until paramedics took over with an Ambu bag as they rushed her to the ER. She should be in a hospital now, on a ventilator. She should be all right. What she shouldn’t be is cold and stiff on her bed, and I will have to tell Lucy I failed Jaime and I failed her. I’m not sure Lucy will forgive me. I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t. All these years she has made the same comments to me again and again, repeating the same objections because I make the same mistakes. Don’t fight my battles. Don’t feel my feelings. Don’t try to fix everything, because you only make it worse.

I made it worse. I couldn’t have made it any worse, and I’m saying to Chang, “I think you’re aware of what Jaime’s been doing in Savannah, and therefore the nature of the documents you’re referring to. But to answer your question, I wouldn’t know if she had something inside her apartment that someone might have wanted. I have no idea what’s on the computers in the living room.”

“When you were with her, did she say anything to give you the impression she was worried about someone wanting to harm her?”

“Only that she’d gotten increasingly security-conscious,” I reply. “But she didn’t mention anything specific about being afraid of anything or anyone.”

“Don’t know what jewelry and other valuables she might have brought down here from New York, but her watch is still sitting there.” He indicates a gold Cartier watch on a black leather strap on the counter near a glass that has a small amount of water in it. “Seems like that would have been worth stealing. I’m wondering if she started rummaging for medication or something when she was drunk.”

I pick up a box of Benadryl out of the sink, noting that the top has been ripped off as if the person was in a frantic hurry. On the floor is a silver packet with two of the pink tablets missing.

“I’m no longer sure she was drunk. At least not as drunk as she seemed.” I look at the price sticker on the Benadryl box. “Monck’s Pharmacy. Unless there’s more than one, it’s in that shopping area near the GPFW where the gun store is.”

“She bought this since she’s been down here, since she’s been interviewing people at the prison. Maybe she had allergies,” he says. “You have an idea when she first came to Savannah and rented this place?”

“She indicated to me that it was several months ago.”

“Maybe April or May. The pollen was really bad this spring. It was like everything had been spray-painted yellowish green. For a while I couldn’t run or bike outside. I’d breathe in all this pollen and my eyes would swell, my throat would close up.” He is making conversation, being amicable, the good cop chatting with me.

Sammy Chang is being collegial, and I know the game. Loosen up, open up, I’m your friend, and I intend to treat him as my friend because I’m not the enemy. I have nothing to hide. I’ll take a polygraph. I’ll swear to the facts under oath. I don’t care that he hasn’t read me my rights, and I don’t care what he asks. I will admit freely that I feel guilty, because I do. But I’m not guilty of causing Jaime Berger’s death. I’m guilty of not preventing it.

“I’m going to guess she took Benadryl last night based on the torn-open box and the packet on the floor,” I say to him. “If she took two tablets, she must have been suffering significant symptoms, possibly was having trouble breathing. But we won’t know until her tox is back whether she has diphenhydramine on board.”

“Maybe she had a severe allergic reaction to something she ate. Maybe the sushi. Was she allergic to shellfish?”

“Or she thought she was having a severe allergic reaction because she was having difficulty breathing or swallowing or keeping her eyes open,” I tell him, as I pick up other toiletries to see where she bought them. “It’s been reported, as you know from being at the prison a few hours ago, that Kathleen Lawler was having difficulty breathing after she came in from the exercise cage. Supposedly she had trouble speaking and keeping her eyes open. Symptoms one might associate with flaccid paralysis.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“Nerves are no longer stimulating muscles, usually starting with the head. Drooping eyelids, blurred or double vision, difficulty speaking and swallowing. As paralysis progresses downward, breathing becomes labored, and this is followed by respiratory failure and death.”

“Caused by what? What might she have been exposed to that could do what you describe?”

“Some type of neurotoxin is what comes to mind.”

I bring up Dawn Kincaid. I tell him that Kathleen Lawler’s biological daughter, who is charged with multiple violent crimes in Massachusetts, including the attempted murder of me, experienced difficulty breathing inside her cell at Butler this morning and went into respiratory arrest. She appears to be brain-dead, and I explain that officials there are concerned she was poisoned.

“I’m not aware of Jaime being allergic to shellfish, unless she developed a sensitivity recently,” I continue. “Although an anaphylactic reaction to shellfish could cause flaccid paralysis and death. As could other types of poisoning. It appears Jaime did a lot of her shopping at the same pharmacy, Monck’s. It would be good to pay close attention to anything she might have purchased there, anything from there that’s in the apartment. Any product or over-the-counter meds or prescriptions, including anything she might have gotten in the past that we’re not seeing now. Just to rule out she didn’t do this to herself or that something she bought there wasn’t tampered with.”

“You mean if someone tampered with something on the shelves inside the store.”

“We need to consider every possibility we can think of, and we need a careful inventory of everything in this apartment,” I reiterate. “The last thing we want to do is overlook a potential poison that gets left behind and hurts or kills someone else.”

“You’re thinking suicide’s a possibility.”

“I’m not thinking that.”

“Or that maybe she accidentally got hold of something.”

“I have a feeling you know what I’m thinking,” I answer him. “Someone poisoned her, and it’s deliberate and premeditated. My overriding question is poisoned her with what?”

“Well, if something was put in her food,” he then says. “Any ideas what could cause the symptoms you described? What might you put in someone’s food that within hours would kill them from flaccid paralysis?”

“There’s nothing I would put in any person’s food.”

“I didn’t mean you personally.” He continues to photograph every item in the bathroom, every toiletry and bath product, every beauty aide, even the bars of soap, and he is jotting notes in his notebook, and I know what he’s doing.

Buying time and gathering information, methodically, painstakingly, patiently. Because the more time we spend, the more I talk. I’m not naïve, and he knows I’m not, and the game plays on because I choose not to stop it.

“And a neurotoxin would be what? Give me some examples.” He probes for information that might tell him I murdered Jaime Berger or the others or know who did.

“Any toxin that destroys nerve tissue,” I answer. “The list is long. Benzene, acetone, ethylene glycol, codeine phosphate, arsenic.”

But I’m not worried about any such thing. I don’t believe Jaime was exposed to benzene or antifreeze, or that some household product like nail polish remover or a pesticide was laced in her sushi or mixed with her Scotch or that she got into the cough syrup. Those types of poisonings are usually accidental or irrational acts. They aren’t the stuff of my nightmares. There are far worse things I fear. Chemical and biological agents of terror. Weapons of mass destruction made of water, powder, and gas, killing us with what we drink, touch, and breathe. Or poisoning our food. I mention saxitoxin, ricin, fugu, ciguatera. I suggest to Sammy Chang we should be thinking about botulinum toxin, the most potent poison on earth.

“People can get botulism from sushi, right?” He opens the door of the shower stall.

“Clostridium botulinum, the anaerobic organism that produces the poison or nerve toxin, is ubiquitous. The bacterium is in the soil and the sediment of lakes and ponds. Virtually any food or liquid could be at risk for contamination. If that’s what she was exposed to, the onset was unusually fast. Usually it takes at least six hours for symptoms, and more commonly twelve or thirty-six.”

“Like when you have a can of vegetables that’s bulging because of gas and you’re always told not to eat something that looks that way,” he says. “That’s botulism.”

“Food-borne botulism is commonly associated with improper canning and poor hygienic procedures or oils infused with garlic or herbs and then not refrigerated. Poorly washed raw vegetables, potatoes baked in aluminum foil and allowed to cool before they’re served. You can get it from a lot of things.”

“Shit, well, that just ruined a lot of foods for me. So if you’re the bad guy …”

“I’m not a bad guy.”

“Saying you were, you’d cultivate this bacteria somehow and then put it in someone’s food so they die of botulism?” Chang asks.

“I don’t know how it was done. Assuming we’re talking about botulinum toxin.”

“And you’re worried we are.”

“It’s something we need to consider very seriously. Extremely seriously.”

“Is it common to use in homicidal poisonings?”

“It wouldn’t be common at all,” I answer. “I’m not aware of any cases. But botulinum toxin would be very difficult to detect if you didn’t have a history and a reason to suspect it.”

“Okay, if she couldn’t breathe, was having all these awful symptoms you’ve described? Why wouldn’t she call nine-one-one?” He photographs bath salts and candles on the side of the tub. Lavender and vanilla. Eucalyptus and balsam.

“You’d be surprised how many people don’t,” I reply, as I indicate I’d like to examine the prescription drugs, and, of course, he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t care what I do as he continues to lead me down the path he wants me on. “People think they’ll be okay or can help themselves with home remedies, and then it’s too late,” I add.

I open the bottle of Ambien, and information on the label indicates the prescription was filled ten days ago at the same pharmacy near the prison where I stopped by yesterday after using the pay phone. Thirty ten-milligram pills, and I count them.

“Twenty-one left.” I return the pills to the bottle, and next look at the Ativan. “Filled at the same time and by the same pharmacy as the other, where she purchased most things in here, it seems. Monck’s. A pharmacist named Herb Monck.”

Possibly the owner, and I remember the man in the lab coat I bought the Advil from yesterday. A pharmacy that does home deliveries, it occurs to me. Same day, right to your door,the promise on signs posted inside, and I wonder if Jaime had more than food delivered.

“Eighteen one-milligram pills left,” I inform Chang. “Carl Diego is the prescribing doctor for both.”

“Most people who want to kill themselves take the whole bottle.” Chang takes off his gloves and reaches into a pocket of his cargo pants. “Let’s see who Dr. Diego is.” He has his BlackBerry out.

“Nothing to indicate a suicidal overdose,” I emphasize.

I open drawers and cabinets, finding perfume and cosmetic samples Jaime must have gotten free at a department store or more likely from shopping online. Things delivered. Life brought to her door, and then death handed over in a take-out bag. Handed to me.

“We don’t want to get hung up on thinking she caused her own death when there’s someone out there who might do it again,” I say to Chang. “Multiple deaths already. We don’t want more.”

I’m suggesting rather bluntly that he doesn’t want to make the mistake of getting hung up on Marino or me. If Chang looks too hard at us he won’t look anywhere else.

“A doc in New York on East Eighty-first. Maybe her GP up there, who called in her prescriptions down here.” Chang is checking the Internet, and what he’s really doing is giving me plenty of room to get trapped. “If something was put in her food deliberately, it would have to be odorless and tasteless, wouldn’t you assume? Especially in sushi?”

“Yes,” I agree. “As much as we know about what’s tasteless.”

“What do you mean?”

“Who tastes a poison and lives to report on it?”

“Examples of really strong poisons that would be odorless and tasteless?” As if I have a malignant truth he can coax out of hiding. “Tell me what you would use if you were a killer.” He pushes harder.

“There is nothing I would use, because I wouldn’t poison anyone, even if I might know how.” I look him in the eye. “I wouldn’t help another person poison someone, even if I thought we could get away with it.”

“I didn’t mean literally. I’m just asking what you think would have done the job. Something you can’t smell or taste, and you put it in her sushi. Besides the bacteria that causes botulism. What else, for example?” He returns his BlackBerry to his pocket and pulls on fresh gloves, tucking his used ones in an evidence bag and sealing it so they can be disposed of safely.

“Hard to know where to begin, and these days it’s also hard to know what might be out there,” I say to him. “Really scary chemical and biological agents made in labs and weaponized by our own military.”