That’s what I figured. “So why—”
Davy stood behind the super, the smile on his face so wide, it touched his ears.
“Your approval rating is at eighty-three percent,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
Davy sat on the corner of the desk and gave me a friendly Dale Carnegie pat on the shoulder. I could feel his hot, moist palms through the silk of my blouse.
“The people of Chi-Town love you, Lieutenant Jack Daniels. You caught that crazy family last year, that brain tumor guy before that. Plus, the Gingerbread Man. Putting you in charge of this case will counteract some of the negative publicity we’ll receive when the story goes public. You’ll be giving hope to the hopeless.”
Unbelievable. I wasn’t the best qualified to run this case, but they picked me because I could smile pretty for the camera.
“Superintendent O’Loughlin—”
“The decision has been made. You have a blank check on this. Unlimited resources. If you aren’t competent, find people who are.”
The super hit the intercom button, asking the nurse to come in with the botulism toxin vaccines.
I looked at Herb. He was staring into space, either in deep thought, or unable to adequately process the situation.
I could relate. This wasn’t just a bad case. This was a career killer. They hadn’t caught the anthrax terrorist. Had he continued, he could have crippled the nation. And decades earlier, Chicago had been plagued by another tamperer, the Tylenol Killer, who had laced the pain reliever with cyanide. TK had single-handedly and irreversibly changed the face of over-the-counter drugs. Capsules to tablets. Tamper-proof bottles. Blister packs and double-sealed boxes. Seven dead, and billions of dollars in revenue lost. And he’d never been brought to justice.
Catching bad guys required evidence and eyewitnesses. Poisoners were the hardest perps to catch. A single, organized, motivated individual, with a basic knowledge of chemistry, could wreak more havoc on Chicago than all of the crime in the last fifty years combined.
I felt like hiding under the desk. O’Loughlin read my mind.
“Failure isn’t an option, Lieutenant. This is the second-largest police force in the nation. I’ve got 16,538 people under my command. Fewer than one-quarter of them are women. You fuck this up, you fuck it up for me and for every female who has busted her ass to be treated like an equal in this sexist, chauvinist-pig pen. Catch the guy, you’re a hero and we’ll give you a parade. Screw up, and your career is over.”
The nurse came in, toting a little white case.
“And if I refuse?” I asked.
O’Loughlin didn’t blink. “You can pick up your white gloves and whistle down the hall. We’ll start you at the intersection of Congress and Michigan. Make sure you brush up on your traffic signals before you report for work tomorrow at five a.m.”
She grinned, and it was chilling. “If you want to speak with your union rep, I have him on speed dial. Or I could voice your concerns when I have dinner over at his place tonight.”
I looked at Herb again, but he was still spacey. The nurse rolled up the sleeve of my blouse and dabbed my arm with an alcohol pad.
“Okay then,” I said. “Let’s get started.”
Chapter 3
THE SUPER HAD a table brought into her office, and Herb and I made a list of cops that we trusted. We picked from different areas so there wouldn’t be shortage in any particular district. When we were finished, we had a task force of a hundred cops. O’Loughlin added eight secretaries to the group.
“First thing we need to do,” I said, “is close every deli on Irving Park Road.”
“Be discreet,” Davy suggested. “Panic won’t help the situation. This city tends to riot when its sporting teams win a championship. They won’t react well to terrorist threats.”
Herb folded his arms, but his heart didn’t seem into it. “The public needs to know.”
Davy shook his head. “Not a good idea. The tourist business in Chicago is a billion-dollar industry.” Davy held up his fists and began ticking off fingers. “Hotels. Airlines. Taxis. Restaurants. Museums. Shopping. Who would go out to eat if they knew someone was randomly poisoning the city’s food?”
“That’s the point,” I said.
“We’re also talking thousands, tens of thousands, of jobs here. Plus Chicago might never recover from the stigma. Look at Toronto after the SARS scare. Hundreds of millions in lost revenue.”
I didn’t know who I despised more, the homicidal killers or the bean counters. I gave the super my brightest us girls need to stick together smile.
“Second thing we need to do is lose the PR guy.” I jerked my thumb at Davy. “There’s a shark out there, and he doesn’t want to close the beaches.”
The super shrugged. “The mayor wants him here. He stays.”
Herb looked sour. “Are we going to tell the public?”
“I’ll pass along your recommendation to His Honor.”
My turn to look sour. “What about the lawsuits that are going to rain down when the public finds out we knew there was a threat and didn’t tell them?”
“We weigh that against destroying businesses, irrevocably hurting the economy, and yelling fire in a crowded movie theater and the resulting panic it would cause.”
“But there is a fire,” Herb said.
She wouldn’t budge. “There’s already been a lot of media speculation that a tamperer is involved. People are being careful.”
Davy smiled at me like the annoying little brother I never had.
“Not careful enough,” I insisted. “Let’s confirm the rumors. If everyone is on the lookout, maybe he’ll stay in his house and stop poisoning our city.”
Now the super folded her arms. “The decision has been made. We sit on it for now.”
You can’t fight City Hall. I changed gears. “How many other contaminated scenes have we found?”
O’Loughlin picked up one of the folders littering her desk. “None have been verified yet, but there are eleven possibles. The CDC is taking patient histories at area hospitals to pinpoint outbreak epicenters. We’re meeting with them later today.”
“Any evidence from the scenes?” I asked.
“That’s what you’re here for.”
“Have they been closed? Even the possibles?”
“Yes.”
I put Herb in charge of that.
“Also,” I told him, “interview the people exposed so far. The sick, and the families of the deceased. Plus the cops and the mail carrier who handled the letter.”
The super raised her eyebrow in a question.
“Sometimes big crimes are committed to cover up smaller crimes. Maybe the Chemist had a specific target, and the rest of this is all smoke and mirrors.”
“I’ll need more cops,” Herb said.
“Retirees,” I said. “Put them back on limited duty.”
The super nodded, then took a phone call.
The extortion letter had gone on ahead to the crime lab, and I dug out my cell and spoke briefly with my guy there, Scott Hajek. He’d confirmed botulism in the envelope and on the letter through the wonder of mass spectrometry. Postmark came from the post office around the corner, mailed yesterday. Stamp and seal on the envelope both self-adhesive, so no saliva. Eleven prints found on the envelope and paper. The letter had been printed on an inkjet, using Arial Black font, available on almost every computer made after 1994. No hairs or fibers or business cards revealing the Chemist’s address had yet been found, but Hajek was still on it.
“Priors,” Captain Bains said. He’d been silent for so long, I’d forgotten he was there. “I can get a team searching for anyone in our system with a past record of poisoning, product tampering, or extortion.”
“Keep it open to women,” I said.
O’Loughlin cut off her phone conversation in mid-sentence and gave me the eyebrow.
“Poisoners tend to be women,” I said. “It’s a crime that doesn’t involve physical
aggression or personal contact.”
“How about the botulism itself?” Herb asked. “Any way to trace that?”
“Maybe I can help with that.”
I looked over my shoulder, and in walked...a hottie.
While I appreciated a good-looking guy as much as any woman, my days of getting dreamy-eyed and giggly were thirty years behind me.
This man, however, made me feel sixteen again.
He was gorgeous. Early thirties, tall, broad shoulders and narrow hips, a Marlboro profile, and piercing blue eyes that were otherworldly. His suit wasn’t as expensive as Davy’s, but he filled it out a lot better. It was as if God had taken half of Bra. Pitt’s genes, mixed them with half of Sean Connery’s, and added more muscles and thicker hair.
“Special Agent Rick Reilly, HMRT.”
He did a round of hand-shaking. When his fingers touched mine I felt a shock, then spent the next few seconds wondering if I’d imagined it or not.
“Clostridium botulinum is a bacteria that occurs naturally in the soil throughout North America,” Rick said. He had a rich baritone, with just a hint of Southern lilt. “It produces a toxin that has the honor of being the most poisonous substance in the world. A single gram could effectively kill a million people. Symptoms of food-borne illness can begin as early as two hours after exposure, or may be delayed for as long as two weeks.”
“What are the symptoms?” Herb asked.
Rick sat on the super’s desk, facing me and Herb. His crotch was just below eye level, and the very fact that I was even thinking about it meant my mind wasn’t in the game. I refused to look.
“Let’s say you ate some contaminated seafood. It doesn’t matter if it came straight from the freezer, or the microwave. Heat and cold might kill the bacteria, but the poison they produce is still deadly. The next morning, your mouth might be unusually dry. You might also have some abdominal cramps. Maybe even some vomiting. But no fever. It feels like a hangover. What’s happening is that your bloodstream is circulating the toxin to your neurological junctions, where it binds irreversibly, blocking acetylcholine release.”
“English,” O’Loughlin barked.
“It goes where your nerve endings meet your muscle fibers, and paralyzes them. You can’t walk or move. Your face droops. You get double vision and lose your gag reflex. And eventually, you can no longer breathe.”
I thought about the shots the nurse had administered the hour previously, and wondered if my dry mouth was the result of nerves or the result of a bad batch of vaccine.
“What’s the treatment?” I asked, my voice cracking slightly.
“Antitoxin and ventilation. It can take months to fully recover, and there may always be some residual paralysis. With effective treatment, there’s less than a twenty-five percent loss of life. If treatment is delayed, or if there’s a shortage of adequate equipment, the death toll rises.”
“Can people transfer it to each other?” the super asked.
“Normally, no. Botulism isn’t contagious. But we seem to be dealing with a weaponized form that may have inhalation properties, so if someone has BT on their hands or clothing, cross-contamination is possible. For example...”
He reached over and stroked the back of my hand. I felt another spark.
“...if I had BT on my fingers, I could have transferred a lethal dose to Lieutenan. Daniels. The toxin can enter the body many different ways. The lungs, the stomach, wounds, mucus membranes”—his eyes met mine—“or through sexual contact. The spores will remain on her skin until they’re washed off.”
“Bleach?” I asked.
Rick smiled at me.
“A bubble bath would be fine.”
Then he lowered his eyes, for just a fraction of a second, and eyed the tear in my skirt. I felt my whole body blush.
Thankfully, he hopped off the desk and walked over to the corner of the room, where he’d left his briefcase. He dug around inside and pulled out a syringe, a salt shaker, and a spray bottle.
“I’ve been with the CDC crew all day, and we’ve been trying to imagine a delivery system to contaminate food. A syringe would be able to penetrate food products and offer the highest likelihood of spreading the disease. A squirt bottle, used by someone polishing fruit in the fresh produce aisle, would work, but the toxin doesn’t last too long when exposed to O2. But if the Chemist is using dry spores, which last longer in an oxygenated environment, a salt or pepper shaker would do the trick.”
“Do you know which he’s using?” Herb asked.
“We don’t know yet. We’ve found contaminated food, but no needle holes. And we haven’t seen spores on the outside of food in quantities that would suggest a shaker. He might be soaking food in the toxin at his home, then bringing it to the stores.”
“Where would he get the toxin?” Bains asked. “Can it be ordered online?”
Rick sat on the desk again, his crotch again at eye level. This time I looked. Ay caramba. Rick didn’t lack in that area either.
“The toxin is available for sale at hundreds of locations throughout Illinois,” he said. “Anyone with a few wrinkles will pay big money to get their hands on some.”
“Botox.” Davy smiled, and I noted that he had no smile lines at all.
“Exactly. In small doses, the same toxin that paralyzes your diaphragm can paralyze the tiny muscles in the face that cause frown lines and crow’s-feet. But pharmaceutical Botox sprayed on food wouldn’t cause the kind of epidemic we’re seeing here, and because Botox uses the toxin, not the bacteria, it can’t be cultured. A much easier source of botulism is honey.”
Rick waited for a response. I bit. “Honey?”
“Yes, darling?”
Bains thought this was hilarious. No one else laughed.
“Sorry.” Rick gave me an aw, shucks look that made my hormones gush. “Serious topic, thought some comedy might help. Honey contains botulism spores. That’s why it carries warnings on the label, not to feed to children under the age of one. Their intestinal bacteria aren’t mature enough to handle it.”
“You can culture botulism from honey?” Herb asked. He didn’t look happy.
“It isn’t easy, but it’s possible. Even from pasteurized honey.”
“So there’s no way to trace the bacteria strain?” Herb again.
“Anyone with some basic lab equipment and a few biology books could learn to culture botulism. Weaponizing it would be more difficult, but there’s a wealth of information on the Internet. This particular toxin has been identified as type E. It’s common to this area.”
O’Loughlin grunted, then said, “Botulism cases are monitored by the CDC, right?”
“They keep track of all reported cases, and hospitals are required by law to report them.”
“Is it possible the Chemist contracted botulism at some point? We could track past cases to find him.”
Rick nodded. “Good thinking, but there are fewer than one hundred cases of botulism reported every year in North America, and all have highly detailed patient histories. I’m guessing the Chemist hasn’t been infected with botulism. He’s probably being extremely careful. You don’t develop an immunity to BT, even if you’ve been exposed before.”
“I thought we all got vaccines,” Bains said.
“Those are experimental, and it’s unlikely that the Chemist has access to the vaccines. So far the public sector can’t obtain them.”
“What if he works for the government?” I asked.
“It doesn’t really matter. The only vaccines in production are for type A and type C strains.”
A little alarm went off in my head.
“You said we’re dealing with type E.”
“Correct.”
“So these vaccines won’t protect us from this illness?”
I watched Rick’s confidence slip a notch. “They may offer some protection.”
“Really?”
Rick frowned. “No.”
“How about antibiotics?” Bains asked.
“Works on the bacteria, not the toxin. The toxin is what kills you.”
Herb asked, “How about that antitoxin you mentioned?”
“That can halt advancing symptoms, but can’t reverse them. Once the nerve ending is paralyzed, it’s paralyzed forever. Which is why recovery takes so long—you have to grow new neurological junctions. But right now we’ve got two pharmaceutical companies working nonstop to supply Chicago with more doses. They should be able to provide us with a thousand by the week’s end.”
“We’ve already had three thousand reported cases,” I said, my stomach clenching. “What are we supposed to do?”
Rick looked at O’Loughlin.
“The federal government doesn’t make deals with terrorists,” he said, just as my cell phone buzzed. “But if I were you, I’d give the guy his two million dollars.”
I excused myself and answered the phone.
“Hi, Lieut. Hajek here. We’ve traced a print. It’s strange, though.”
“Cut the drama and spill.”
“Jason Alger, sixty-three years old, lives in Humboldt Park.”
“Record?”
“No. He’s one of ours. CPD, retired. I’d ask if maybe he came into contact with the envelope somehow, maybe visiting the station. But except for the super’s secretary, all of the prints are his, and one is beneath the adhesive stamp. He has to be the one that sent the letter.”
“Good work, Officer.”
I explained the situation to the room, and we were out the door thirty seconds later, off to interview one of our own.
Chapter 4
Four Hours Earlier
HE CALLS HIMSELF the Chemist, but he isn’t a chemist. He isn’t a botanist either, although the extensive greenhouse that takes up his entire backyard makes his neighbors think otherwise.
He’s just a simple government employee, unhappy with the system. But unlike the thousands of other government employees, punching their clocks, hating their lives, he’s devised a way to make the system pay.
Jack Daniels Six Pack Page 76