The Chemistry of Death

Chapter 49

Vivian watched the cops jostling for position ahead of her. She was stuck at the back of the pack with stone-faced Parker. Dirk was up there with them, giving orders and making himself useful. But if it weren’t for Dirk, they wouldn’t have been allowed to tag along at all, and they’d be standing in Leandro’s lobby instead of watching the cops get through his door.

Leandro lived in a pricey apartment building. The lobby was clean and open, with a doorman in gray livery and a bouquet of exotic-looking flowers. The concierge, also in a light-gray suit, had accompanied them upstairs after first checking the warrant Dirk had managed to procure with lightning speed.

The paramedic in front of Vivian checked her wristwatch and sighed. Clearly, the young woman had other places she’d rather be. It was Vivian’s fault she was there at all. Vivian had requested that Dirk bring a paramedic because Tesla had been drugged by Leandro, and no one knew with what. Assuming he was still alive — her stomach clenched at that thought — he probably needed medical attention.

Dirk took the key off the concierge and motioned that he step back. The concierge didn’t move until one of the cops grabbed his elbow and ushered him to stand by Vivian at the back of the line. Where the civilians stood. Five cops up front, four civilians in back.

As if he knew how much it chafed her, Dirk gave her a crooked smile before unlocking Leandro’s front door. Dirk pushed the door open, men on both sides with weapons raised, ready to go in.

A cloud of yellowish fog rolled out across the carpet like something out of a horror movie. The cops in front coughed and staggered back. Dirk slammed the door and caught one of his men before he fell. Vivian couldn’t remember the guy’s name. His face was red, and he slumped against Dirk. Yellow gas churned around their ankles.

The smell of bleach stung Vivian’s nose, and her eyes watered. She pointed to the east end of the hall. “Window.”

Parker was already moving. Vivian jogged to the window at the west end of the hall and smashed the glass with her elbow. A distant crash of broken glass told her Parker had opened his window, too. A cross breeze blew diesel-scented air down the hall. It smelled way better than the bleach.

That bastard had booby-trapped his apartment. Hopefully not with Joe still inside.

“Don’t anybody lie down,” called the paramedic. “It’s on the ground, probably heavier than air.”

Vivian wondered if she’d made things worse by opening the windows.

“Everybody out,” Dirk called.

He slung his arm around the red-faced man, who was making a wet, tearing sound when he coughed.

Parker had opened the door to the stairwell at the end of the hall, and everyone stumbled to the stairs, except for the paramedic.

“I wish I could test it,” the paramedic said. “It’d tell me what to do.”

No time for testing. Vivian’s eyes had teared up, and her throat burned. “It smells like bleach. Chlorine.”

She hooked her hand around the woman’s elbow and frog marched her down the hall to the door. Parker pulled the door closed behind them. It was a good fire door, and it had a tight seal.

Dirk and his team had climbed a flight of stairs and stood on the landing. Vivian let go of the paramedic’s arm, and they hurried to join the others.

Dirk was already on the phone requesting a Hazmat team. Vivian did a quick assessment. Parker, the paramedic, and the concierge seemed fine. Dirk wiped at tears with his sleeve, but his breathing seemed OK, except for a quick cough or two. Three of the four other cops were coughing, but only one seemed to be in real distress. He was sitting on the landing, propped against the wall. A female cop sat next to him, one hand on his shoulder.

The paramedic handed him a pocket inhaler. “Albuterol. Do you know how to use it?”

He nodded and took a quick puff.

“He’s got asthma,” the woman said. “He takes something to control it.”

The paramedic fumbled in her bag and pulled out a container of oxygen and a mask. She fitted it over the coughing man’s face.

“We need to go back in there,” Vivian said to Parker.

“Not without masks and gear.” How had Dirk heard her while in the middle of a pitched conversation? “Nobody goes in there.”

The two standing cops moved their hands to their weapons almost reflexively.

Vivian looked back to Dirk. “Tesla might be in there.”

The paramedic adjusted the oxygen mask. “If your friend is in that apartment, he’s already dead.”

Vivian recognized the truth in her words and slumped against the wall. She’d failed him. She’d known that he was in danger and had left him with Parker. She’d ignored Parker’s call to deal with Katrinka. If she’d been there, she would have stopped Leandro.

“Maybe he’s not in there, Torres.” Parker sounded like he wanted to believe that Tesla was still alive, that Santa was real.

“I don’t know where else he’d be,” Vivian said.

Parker shrugged his massive shoulders and looked up and down the stairwell. He needed to be going somewhere, doing something, trying.

Vivian closed her eyes to think. She wondered how many others Leandro had killed. She knew about Tesla and the women in the subway tunnels, but there could have been others. The faces of the women appeared in her mind’s eye — blond hair, blue-eyes, delicate features, and the vulnerable look of women who had been wounded.

“I have one more idea,” she said. “Another place to look.”