A blur of lights and faces. Tom stood on the front lawn and relayed events to a County investigator, but he was distracted by Heather Moss and her two daughters.
Heather was in the back of a police cruiser, the door ajar. Abigail sat in her lap as Olivia sat beside her, clutching her coloring book. The medical team had already looked them over. Not a scratch on the girls beyond a rug burn on Olivia’s knee.
Nearby, the deputy who’d been sprawled out in the driveway, Pierce, was back on his feet, talking to another investigator. Tom knew her.
Detective Felicia Machado watched him closely as he approached. “Tom. What a morning. Are you alright? Did they check you over yet?”
“I’m fine. How you been, Machado?”
“Good.”
Machado was friends with Katie Mills, the woman who’d walked out on him that morning. Tom could see something in the investigator’s eyes that betrayed knowledge of his personal life, but it disappeared in a blink. “Deputy Pierce was able to make the vehicle.”
“Yeah? Good.”
“Chevy Tahoe.” Pierce said.
“You’re sure?”
He nodded. “I’m sure. I wasn’t able to get the tags, though.” The deputy’s face fell with disappointment. “Car was coming toward me.”
Tom knew it wasn’t Pierce’s fault. Cops were trained to read license plates — getting the first numbers was particularly helpful since they were assigned by county. But Florida was one of nineteen states not requiring front plates.
“By the time I could have gotten a chance to read it, he’d opened fire,” Pierce lamented. “Should be pretty easy to locate, though, right? Had blacked-out windows.”
Tom stepped beside Pierce and put a hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
Police tape had been stretched out around the house and front lawn, forming a perimeter. Orange cones blocked street traffic, no one was allowed to drive through. Techs in white jumpsuits labeled “IFS” worked the scene, examined the rubber burns, placed yellow markers where spent shell casings lay glinting in the sun. A tech set down a marker numbered twenty-eight while Tom watched.
An estimated thirty bullets fired at Heather Moss’s home. A spray of ammunition that chewed up the house, damaged multiple vehicles, caused Sergeant Sanchez to see God. Heather Moss and her two daughters were shaken up, but safe. It was amazing no one was hurt.
Machado shook her head, incredulous. “Broad daylight, the guy just rolls right up, gangland-style drive-by — and you’re sure it was driver’s side? I mean I guess it had to be if he was coming from that way.”
“That’s right,” Tom answered. “I saw the gun come out.”
“Yeah,” Pierce echoed. “Driver’s side.”
“Sounds like a single shooter,” Machado said, “which is odd.”
“Odd, but not unheard of I guess.”
“Well, I’ll work with DMV on it, but we’re going to see thousands of registered Tahoes; we’ll see if we can narrow it down with the window tint. But even if we can, and we look at registrants with a record — felons — it’ll take days to chase down all those leads. I wish it could have been a friggin’ Packard Panther or an Aston Martin.”
Tom smiled but Pierce continued to look forlorn.
Machado nodded toward Heather. “And I already talked to her. She was in the bathroom, didn’t see anything, has no idea who this could be. No one has threatened her before today, nothing like that. What have we got going on, Lange? This woman doesn’t strike me as a murderer, or some contract killer.”
He looked at Heather Moss again. Her blonde hair was tousled, her eyes wide. She kept darting looks at the two people at the lawn’s edge, social workers with the Department of Family Services. The girls were going to be separated from their mother here at the house after all.
Moss had fled the scene at the jail before even knowing what had happened. She’d gone for them in a blind panic like she wanted them safe. Hadn’t packed a suitcase, just two tote bags for the girls, saying she’d been planning to go to the police.
But then whoever it was came after her anyway. Boldly, recklessly. Sheriff’s Deputies had been present, but it didn’t matter. An agent with the state bureau had been present, but that didn’t matter either. Like whoever it was sought to tie up loose ends, execute the person whom they’d either hired or suborned into murdering a potential witness.
It had to be Palumbo and his crew.
Palumbo’s crew was drug-runners. Heroin, meth, a little grass, but the big product was cocaine. Palumbo also made millions on gambling, using the dog track in Bonita Springs to run his poker racket. They were underground enterprises that had pulled Nick, a guy who struggled to stay straight, into the thrall.
Tom had known Palumbo was a piece of shit, dangerous, but executions and drive-bys took it up to a whole new level.
Blythe pulled up outside the crime scene tape in the street, got out, looked around. She spied Tom through the chaos and started over, showing her badge to a deputy who lifted the tape and let her through. Then she was standing with them, surveying the scene.
“You alright?”
He held up his bandaged hand.
She gave it a sidelong look and said. “Lucky.”
“I should have gotten them out of here as soon as I showed up.”
“Nah. Nobody expected this.”
“We should have. If someone was willing to go to such lengths to get rid of Declan, we should have expected Heather Moss could be in danger, and that someone might come after her.”
“Tom, this whole thing happened in less than two hours. We don’t know anything.”
* * *
They rode together in Blythe’s car. Tom’s own department-issued vehicle, riddled with bullet holes, was being processed for evidence.
“And I just got that thing . . .” he muttered.
The cruiser carrying Heather was two cars ahead. Behind them was the DFS car, with the daughters strapped into their car seats in the back. It had been a difficult, emotional separation. There were promises made by Heather that she would see the girls tonight, tuck them into bed, but Tom doubted it.
“Okay,” Blythe said, driving. “What do we know about her?”
“We know she recently relocated to Florida. We know that her husband died and she moved here a little while after that.”
“Can she do that? As a social worker? Just pick up in a new state?”
“She’s a licensed clinical mental health counselor,” Tom said.
“That’s not a social worker?”
“Sort of; not really. Nick and I used to have a case manager — that’s a social worker. Mental health counselors like Heather have their master’s. So, she’s a clinician. I think there’s about thirty states she can work in and Florida is one of them.”
“So she saw a job opening and moved here from New York?”
“Maybe.”
Blythe followed the vehicles along the three-lane highway. The sky was clouding over, an afternoon storm impending. The palm trees along the median strip were lashed by the wind.
Tom glanced at his bandaged hand. He could smell the antiseptic the paramedic had swabbed over his glass cut. There was a bloom of blood in the white gauze, the size and color of a rosebud. “Lucky” barely touched it. It seemed miraculous.
“You’re still beating yourself up,” Blythe said. “You don’t have to do this right now, Tom. You can take the rest of the day. Take whatever time you need. You’ll need to speak to IAB tomorrow.”
With her dirty blonde hair drawn back in a tight braid, her tanned skin, light wrinkles around her eyes, Blythe was a perennial Floridian, born and raised. They’d had their ups and downs together. Mistakes had been made on their first case, and they’d been costly. Their second case was now off and running at full speed. He wondered how they would do.
“I’m fine, Lauren. Good to go.”
“Listen, if you and County hadn’t been there, the shooter
might have walked right up to her front door. So you can pat yourself on the back for a fast response time.”
Tom looked at the deputies cruising along the lane beside them, a veritable motorcade. Still, he kept scanning the highway, his heart speeding up with every intersection. When they stopped at a red light, he broke out in a sweat despite the Crown Vic’s cool, air-conditioned interior. He put his hand on the grip of his gun, ready to pull, imagining that blacked-out Tahoe barreling through the traffic, window rolled down, tip of an automatic rifle poking out . . .
The light turned green and they continued on. Tom watched the traffic going by in the other direction. All these people, living out their lives.
CHAPTER FIVE
They stowed their phones and weapons in the locker room, passed through security and were led to a control room. The captain greeted them, a broad-shouldered man named Aaronson who was the direct supervisor of the jail, and a corporal named Cordova. The control room featured a bank of monitors displaying various areas of the jail, and one main monitor with a frozen image. On the screen, Heather Moss was seated in a chair later removed from the room. She had her legs crossed and balanced a notepad on her knee. Howard Declan, still alive, sat on his bare cot.
“Go ahead and play it,” Blythe said to Cordova.
Tom watched for a few moments before asking, “There’s no sound?”
“No.” Cordova turned a dial and the video jumped forward, several seconds at a time. Heather’s image made jerky gestures, and she uncrossed and re-crossed her legs. Declan remained virtually motionless.
“Hang on,” Tom said. “Can we just watch for a few seconds?”
Blythe nodded at Cordova who slowed the video back to normal speed.
Tom leaned closer. Hard to see Heather’s face from the angle, but he watched her body language. Her dangling foot tapped the air. She ran her hand over her face, smoothed back her hair. “Looks nervous.”
Blythe spoke to Cordova. “Okay. Let’s go forward.” Cordova twisted the dial. When Heather Moss rose from her chair, the corporal slowed the speed again.
Heather moved across the cell and sat on the cot beside Declan.
“Do they normally do that?” Tom looked from Cordova to Aaronson.
“The therapists are not supposed to have any physical contact with the inmates, no,” Aaronson said. “It’s unusual she would sit beside him, but it didn’t indicate anything to the deputy on duty at the time.”
They continued to watch as Heather and Declan talked in close proximity. About a minute passed. Then Heather made a move and Blythe pointed at the screen. “There. See? Freeze that. Okay, go back a little bit — good. Now play that at quarter speed.”
Cordova went through the commands and Tom watched as Heather appeared to reach behind Declan, just for a second. Then she stood up and crossed back to her chair.
Tom could feel Blythe watching him and he turned his head toward her. She raised her eyebrows.
The video continued. Heather Moss left the room. Declan sat for a moment, unmoving, then stood. It was impossible to say for sure, but it looked like his hand swept the bed, picking up a small item, like an envelope. He concealed it from the camera until, a few seconds later, the same hand went to his mouth.
“Okay, forward again . . .” Blythe said. Declan paced the cell at high speeds, going in circles, like a broken toy. When there was an aberration in his movement, Cordova slowed down. Then the corporal turned her head from the screen.
Tom didn’t have that luxury. He watched as Declan bent over, holding his stomach. The inmate dropped to his knees, in obvious pain. Deputy Rizzo appeared in the shot, got close to Declan, but the inmate held up his hand. Then he projectile-vomited. Rizzo disappeared from the cell.
“Deputy Rizzo left to get the jail doctor at that moment,” Aaronson said. Tom thought the captain’s voice sounded far away.
On screen, Declan shuddered and shook. He got unsteadily to his feet, his pants soiled. Then he dropped again and went into convulsions, sprays of blood coming from his mouth.
“And there he’s seizing, biting his tongue,” Blythe said. “Okay. That’s enough.”
Cordova returned her attention to the console and pressed a button, causing the screen to go dark.
Tom backed away from the monitor and stared off, thinking.
“I mean, we got her.” Blythe said. “There’s no getting around that video. She comes in, she’s not searched, she goes into the suicide watch area, meets Declan. Sits beside him, we can see her pass him something, she leaves, looks like he shakes open a small envelope, pops something in his mouth. A few minutes later, he’s vomiting, biting off his tongue.”
“Okay,” Blythe said to Aaronson. “Can we bring your people in now?”
Aaronson let out a breath and stood. “Alright. Give me a minute.”
He left and Blythe rolled her chair closer to Tom. They looked at each other, communicating the horror of what they’d seen.
* * *
The control room was big enough to contain all the deputies and corrections officers who’d been rounded up, but without enough chairs, so that half of them were sitting, half standing.
A muscular deputy with a bald head was seated, bouncing his knee — Rizzo. A corrections officer, her hair pulled back in a tight braid, gazed through a large reinforced pane of glass overlooking the common area. A few inmates were out there, watching television or playing cards.
“Good morning,” Blythe said. “Thank you all for coming. I know it’s a massive effort to keep this place running, we promise not to detain you long. And we appreciate the captain’s quick response to rally you together so we could talk.”
Blythe glanced at Aaronson, who crossed his arms.
She resumed, “So, some of you we’re going to speak to individually, but for now we wanted to brief you as a group. As you may know, Howard Michael Declan was recently arrested for disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, and assaulting an officer. That all landed him here. His initial mental health screen was high, and he was placed in the on-watch area where he awaited further evaluation and arraignment.”
She turned towards a bank of monitors, showing camera views all over the jail, including the security checkpoint.
“At 8:51 this morning, Heather Moss, a therapist from County Mental Health, came to evaluate Declan for continued suicide risk. She entered the east wing through the main doors and approached security.”
Blythe stooped over the controls and said something to Cordova, who rotated the dial. On the main screen, an image jerked to life, and Tom watched as an overhead camera captured Heather Moss as she stepped up to the table beside the metal detectors. She had a green bag over her shoulder which she set down as a female C.O. approached her with a smile. They had a short conversation as the C.O. scanned the ID badge pinned to Heather’s chest.
Tom watched along with the others as a deputy, the same one who’d escorted Tom through security over an hour before, led Heather to a door off to the side of the metal detector, keyed it for entry, and they stepped through. Heather’s bag was left behind; she carried only a notepad with her, probably a pen.
Tom asked, “You let clinicians in — therapists — with writing utensils?”
“Not to booking,” Aaronson said. “There are pens attached to the tables in there. But therapists — they gotta have something to write with.”
By this point, Tom thought, she must’ve had the small envelope in her pocket, or maybe tucked between the pages of her notepad.
Cordova pushed a button and new image displayed on the main screen. Heather walked down a corridor to another door, on her way to the east wing.
Blythe said, “You can see that she’s entered the jail and passed into the on-watch area without any sort of search. Just like that, she’s on her way.”
Cordova grabbed the dial again. Heather Moss froze in motion on the screen.
Blythe faced the group: “We believe Mrs. Moss had something on her person whic
h was then used to kill Howard Declan.”
The first to speak up was the female C.O. with the braid. Her nametag read Howser. She’d been the one on screen, chatting with Heather Moss, scanning her ID: “Mrs. Moss has been coming in to see inmates for over a year. We just streamlined it. I mean . . .” Howser looked around as if to find support among the other guards. All Tom saw were hangdog expressions.
Blythe held up a hand. “We understand the reasons why you’d let in someone like Moss without the full range of security checks. Why we’re here is because that convenience was exploited, and ostensibly resulted in someone’s death. I’ve spoken with the medical examiner, and we’re close to determining that Declan died from—”
“Who is he?” It was another corrections officer, McNeill, with a blond buzz cut and a dusting of freckles. “He someone important? Murder witness or something?”
“Let’s just hold those questions for now, okay? Declan likely died from potassium cyanide, probably a dose of over three hundred milligrams, wrapped in a fast-dissolving shell. Brain death occurs within minutes, and the heart stops beating shortly after.”
“That’s true?” McNeill glanced around the room. “I thought that was from movies or something. Spy fiction.”
“If you want, you can look up its uses in the military and yes, espionage organizations. Or read about the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka’s civil war, who wore potassium cyanide necklaces they could eat in case they were captured by the Sri Lankan Army.”
McNeill’s mouth snapped shut.
Blythe continued, “For our investigation, we’ll consider its availability online, for one thing, via the deep web. It’s probably obtainable on the street, too, if you know where to look.”
Howser spoke. “It causes people to throw up like that? That’s awful . . .”
Tom gave Rizzo another look. The deputy was pale, his eyes searching the floor, probably reliving the moment he watched Declan drop to the floor. Which one of them was working for Palumbo? McNeill? Rizzo? Anybody? Or had letting in a mental health counselor just become routine, like Howser said?
“Symptoms of the poisoning can vary to a degree,” Blythe continued. “But typically within a few minutes, the person loses consciousness, suffers convulsions. Death is caused by cerebral hypoxia. Potassium cyanide basically starves your blood of oxygen until you die.”
Special Agent Tom Lange Box Set Page 32