The Chemistry of Death

Chapter 16

Joe paused in his garden for another breath of green air. It wasn’t actually green, of course, but it smelled greener than anything he’d encountered in months. He’d installed a whole-house air filter in the Victorian soon after he moved in, and it helped with the musty, dusty smell, but the air down here still smelled like an old library, like books, stone, dry wood, old paint, and wool. He hadn’t minded the smell, but being able to step out into the green was intoxicating.

Something smelled like flowers, which was odd because Maeve had explained that the groundcover would probably never flower under his makeshift lighting conditions. Sniffing, he turned in a slow circle. Edison looked at him like he was crazy, and Joe couldn’t really blame him. By the time he completed the circle, the floral smell was gone. He’d probably imagined it.

He held up a glow-in-the-dark tennis ball, and Edison dashed to the door that led to the outside tunnels. Joe shrugged his stained hoodie on, hefted his grubby backpack, and followed. The hoodie and backpack helped him blend in with the occasional homeless person he encountered so they didn’t challenge him or mug him. He had ID to show any track workers or transit police he met, and they left him alone, too.

Edison’s tail waggled as he waited for Joe to punch in the numbers to let them out. He’d take the dog for an extra-long walk to burn off that surplus energy.

Edison walked through the door next to him, but instead of waiting while Joe closed the door, the dog went to a nearby wall and peed on it. Odd. Edison had various places where he marked his territory. None were so close to home.

Joe sprayed the liquid with a bottle of odor remover he carried in his backpack. The product claimed to destroy odor using bacteria. He wasn’t sure if that was marketing hype, but the tunnels had started smelling better since he’d begun using it.

“This is a one-time pee, right, buddy?” he asked.

Edison was too busy sniffing the ground to glance up. He made a thorough circuit of the ground around the door and the electronic keypad in front of it. Probably a rat had wandered by. Edison was fascinated by the comings and goings of rats.

Joe’s phone rang. He’d accidentally put it in the wrong pocket, the one without a Faraday cage. He didn’t get reception many places in the tunnels, but he’d installed a leaky coaxial cable at his house to give him a signal when he was close to home. Vivian’s picture popped onto his screen.

“Tesla,” he answered. He and Edison weren’t going anywhere fast anyway since the dog was still busy sniffing. He might as well take the call.

“Bad news or worse news?” Vivian never bothered to sugarcoat anything.

“Let’s start with bad.”

“I think it’s not just a single death. I think ten women have been murdered in the subway tunnels over the course of the past five years. Every October, within a week of each other, two women die.”

Colors flashed through Joe’s head ten (cyan, black) women, five (brown) years, and two (blue) at a time. “Why do you think it’s murder?”

“Check your email.”

Joe switched over to his email and skimmed the attached report. Vivian had been thorough. All the women had died in October, in pairs about a week apart; they’d all been hit by trains between stations; and they’d all been depressed before their deaths. “What did the police say?”

Vivian made a noise that sounded like a growl. “That’s the worse news. They said it’s probably a coincidence. Probably some weird moon cycle or something.”

“So, the autumn moon causes blondes to jump in front of trains?” Edison stopped sniffing and trotted over to Joe, alerted by his tone.

“Yes.” Vivian’s answer was one syllable of tightly contained anger. “The accident reports show that no one has ever seen anyone else in the tunnels where the women were struck, so how could they be being pushed onto the tracks? Or at least that’s the theory.”

Joe threw the tennis ball. Edison cocked his head as if to ask for permission, and Joe nodded. The dog leapt after the ball.

“Depending on where you are, it wouldn’t be that difficult to push someone in front of a train and then escape down a side tunnel.” He’d visit the locations where the victims died and see if he could find a place where an assailant could slip away. “It’s like a maze down here.”

“There’s one more thing.” She paused. “The reports say the women were standing still and facing the train when it hit them, as if they stepped in front of the train of their own volition, not as if they were pushed.”

Joe looked at the ten (cyan, black) sad faces of the dead women. They looked so much alike. “Even so, it feels wrong.”

“Does that mean I have your permission to follow up, talk to the family and friends of the women who died? Look for connections between the women?”

“And see if you can get a thorough toxicology screen on their bodies, if the coroner kept samples. Maybe they were drugged. Also see if you can match them up to those lipsticks.”

Vivian ended the connection, and Joe whistled to Edison. They started off at a jog. They’d take the tunnel for the seven (slate) line west, get through the Times Square tunnel, and then head north on the A. Joe’d already mapped the locations in his head. Every woman in Vivian’s report had died on the A line.

Unfortunately for Joe, it was the longest line in the system — thirty-one (red, cyan) miles. They’d check out the Manhattan tunnels tonight, north to the 207th (blue, black, slate) Street train yards. That was about ten (cyan, black) miles one way, but they could take the subway back. Tomorrow they’d go south and east, into Brooklyn, to check out the rest of the line. He wanted to see where each woman had died. Maybe he could figure out the escape route a killer might have used. Maybe even find evidence.

Edison fell in behind him. The dog seemed to sense his determination. Together, they loped along in silence, legs eating up the distance. After a mile and a half, they reached their first destination: the tunnel between the 59th (brown, scarlet) Street/Columbus Circle Station and the 72nd (slate, blue) Street Station.

The tunnel was dimly lit but bright enough for him to see without a flashlight. Trains thundered past every few minutes, breaking his concentration and forcing him and Edison back against the tunnel wall. Steam tunnels branched off around the main tunnel, their mouths a darker shade of black. It would be easy to push someone in front of a train here and then fade into the background. The train driver would be more concerned about the woman he’d hit than about looking for other people lurking in the tunnels.

Joe stepped into a steam tunnel and checked the ground for tracks. Lots of people had been here before him. It’d take someone with more forensic experience than he had to puzzle it out, and there was no telling if this was the right tunnel. He counted two (blue) other tunnels that would provide useful escape routes.

Edison sniffed and peed on the wall.

“Another rat, boy? Or do you smell something else?”

Edison looked at him.

Joe sprayed the spot. Edison couldn’t smell the killer. Sandra Haines had died at this spot almost a year before. No scent trail could last that long. He’d have that problem with most of the evidence. If any traces had been left, they would probably have dried up and blown away by now.

Almost a year before. Joe’s mind snagged on the phrase. It was October already. If Vivian’s data was correct, two (blue) women were going to die somewhere along this line in the next two (blue) weeks. He’d see if he could get the transit police to step up patrols and walk the tunnels with Edison himself.

He wasn’t going to let the killer end one more life in his backyard.