The Chemistry of Death

Chapter 33

Joe leaned back in his chair and tried not to think about his foot. It hurt worse than it had the night before. All signs pointed to broken bones. He quailed at the thought that it might need to be operated on. They’d have to take him outside to get to a hospital. He’d have to live in a hospital room, probably without Edison, for days. And the killer would claim his second victim. He took a deep breath. No sense in panicking in advance. Plenty of time to panic later.

Marnie tapped on his office door. She sat down in front of him and waved her coffee cup toward the boxes of food. “Preparing for a siege?”

He brushed the crumbs from his chocolate croissant into his garbage can. “I need to get the food in those boxes tested, to see if it’s been poisoned.”

“Howard Hughes much?” she asked.

He sighed. Not flattering to be compared to the eccentric, paranoid millionaire who’d ended his life confined to his house, collecting his bodily fluids in jars. Unfortunately, the comparison was more apt than he wanted to admit. “My security cameras filmed a guy breaking into my house.”

Her brows creased in concern. “Why was he there?”

He gave her a quick summary of the events of the previous days. If she was near him, she was taking the same risks that he was, and she deserved to understand why.

When he finished, she let out a low whistle. “Things were a lot easier back in California. Corporate espionage. FBI lawsuits. Easy stuff.”

“You can always go back there,” he said. “No hard feelings.”

“Do you know why I came out here?”

He knew a trap when he saw one. He wasn’t going to guess. “Why?”

“Because I believe in you, as a scientist and a person. You want to make a difference in the world, make things better.” She sipped her coffee. “Back in the Valley, I could help make some app that undercuts taxi drivers or makes photos look retro or whatever. Here I can help people through some of the toughest experiences of their lives, make a real difference. This work matters. You’ll make it matter.”

He was touched. “I don’t—”

“Plus the shoe shopping,” she said. “This city is lousy with amazing shoes.”

She held up one shoe. It was wine red, with a long heel and a delicate pattern worked into the leather.

“Nice.”

“They ought to be with what they cost.” She stood and tapped the boxes. “I’ll call around and find a lab for these.”

“What about the work you came in to catch up on?”

“How important can it be if I left it to Sunday?” She stood to go.

Edison went over and licked her hand as she walked out. A better thank you than Joe’s.

Joe called Dirk.

“Norbye.” His voice was hoarse with exhaustion. Joe bet that the young policeman hadn’t gone to bed.

“Tesla here. Wondering if there was anything new.”

“Vivian said you had a break-in. Should we send someone by?”

“Not much point. This guy was wearing gloves. I’ve checked the surveillance footage, and there’s nothing to see. The lights were out.”

“I’ll come by later,” Dirk said. “Never hurts to look around.”

“Thanks,” Joe responded automatically.

“We do have some interesting news.” Dirk cleared his throat. “Vivian asked me to get more tests run on the blood and tissue samples that we retained from Sandra Haines.”

Joe was impressed by Vivian’s thoroughness. “And?”

“She asked us to check for a certain substance, a drug based on scopolamine. It’s not standard, so we never would have looked otherwise.”

Joe’s stomach roiled. His coffee thought about coming up and spreading itself all over his desk. Edison nudged his leg. “And?”

“They found a fairly high concentration. The medical examiner said it’s a designer drug, not one he’s seen before. He looked through the database and found it had only showed up in a test once.”

“Mine,” Joe said.

“Yeah.”

“So, the guy who poisoned me has also been poisoning these women?” Joe was impressed that Vivian had thought to look for the drug. He’d mentioned it to her, of course, but he hadn’t thought to make that connection himself. Too close to it. He made a note to tell Marnie to have his food tested for that same substance.

“All we know for sure is that the same poison was used in two cases, during both of which the victim spent time in the subway system.”

“Is there any way it could be a weird fungus that grows down here? Or a pollutant?”

“It’s artificially manufactured, and it was probably ingested, either as a pill or hidden in food or drink. So, no.”

Joe thought back to that long-ago party in his underground house. He’d learned of Celeste’s ALS and had gotten hammered. Anyone could have slipped him anything. “Do you think he intended to kill me?”

“Maybe.”

“Vivian escorted me home the night before my agoraphobia presented. She said I was stumbling around, basically incoherent. At least drunk, maybe more.”

“She may have saved your life.”

“I’ll add that to the tally.”

“We all have a tally with her,” Dirk said.

Joe listed off the names of everyone who’d had access to his food and drink on that final day, names he’d long since committed to memory. Co-workers at Pellucid, his former company, but not Marnie because she hadn’t come out to New York with him. Two FBI agents against whom he’d won a legal battle for control of Pellucid’s software. Two investment bankers who’d been helping with Pellucid’s initial public offering. Leandro and his socialite party guests.

Dirk interrupted him to get the spelling right, and Joe answered mechanically. His mind whirled. A killer had given him poison. The killer had been in his house. That same killer had prowled the subway system for years, preying on women. Joe might have passed him a hundred times in the tunnels without knowing it. What plan had Vivian interrupted when she dragged him back to the hotel all those months ago?

“Mr. Tesla? Joe?” Dirk’s voice came from far away. “Everything OK?”

Joe pulled his attention back to the phone. “Fine.”

“Is that everything?” Dirk sounded tired and ready to go.

“One more thing. Are there additional patrols in the tunnels for the A line?”

“There are,” Dirk said. “It wasn’t easy getting the overtime authorized, but you and Vivian built a compelling case that this was the work of a serial killer and that another woman is at risk there in the next few days.”

At least there was that. “I have a… system that monitors tunnel access.”

“Is it authorized by the MTA?”

“In a way.” It was their cameras he was monitoring, after all. “Could I have the name of someone to contact if I should see the killer heading back into the tunnels with another woman? That could get the patrols to her faster.”

Dirk rattled off names and phone numbers that raced by Joe in ribbons of color. Usually, he’d memorize them, but today he wrote them down. The pain in his foot was distracting him, and he didn’t want to forget them. Dirk promised to call them and explain Joe’s role.

“Should I have Mr. Rossi send someone over to provide security for your office?” Dirk was speaking as Joe’s sometime-bodyguard, not a policeman.

“Vivian already did,” Joe said. “But the terminal is full of cops, soldiers, and people. I don’t think anything can happen to me up here.”