by LS Sygnet
Three voices rose in protest before Maya broke out in a wicked grin. "Stop tiptoeing around it, guys. I have cancer. It's not the end of the world. In fact it's barely the beginning of the fight. You wanna take my bet, Briscoe? Go ahead."
One curt nod, "You're on."
"Cassava is used to make flour, for one thing," Maya said, "but you're probably used to the name of its most famous incarnation, at least in this country." She held out one hand. "I don't take IOU's or credit."
"What is it already?"
"Tapioca."
Tony's jaw dropped. "That shit is made from cyanide plants?"
"They're not cyanide plants, Tony," I explained. "Cassava is a root, a starchy root, that is a basic staple in many parts of the world. South America, parts of Africa, Asia."
"And they all eat this shit and don't die? You're talkin' about some backwater places."
"If the root is properly prepared by soaking or drying, or even fermentation will release the hydrogen cyanide. Now, would you like to hear what else I can tell you about it?" I asked.
"I think you better make sure this is real simple to understand, Eriksson."
"Glad to do it. Right after you pay Maya what you owe her and we get out of here so she can get her rest."
"Helen, you don't have to rush off," she protested. "It's been a rather long and lonely day around here."
That finally drew a grunt and normal behavior – for Briscoe anyway. "You can sure keep a secret, can't you, Winslow? I can understand why you'd keep the cancer stuff under wraps, but this thing with Forsythe was a step too far. Hell, if we'd known you were lookin' –"
"Tony," I scolded him softly.
Crevan focused on the cyanide. "Exactly how lethal is this plant? Are we talking about one whiff of the stuff and you're dead, or is it more of a eat the whole spud sort of proposition?"
Maya shrank into her pillows. "Helen?"
"Drought makes the roots more potent. Processing cassava so it's safe to eat is fairly simple. It usually involves soaking it in water for a day or so or fermentation." I took the file from Maya's lap and reviewed Billy's results. "Maybe you can help me with this, Billy. It looks like what you found in Denton's stomach was unprocessed root."
"Yeah, diced, like onion."
"And the rest of his stomach contents looked like…"
"Ham, egg, onion, cheese, potato, some sort of pasty flour-like substance that had started to digest. I won't have the results for –"
"A breakfast burrito," Tony said. "Apparently, that's what was in the bag the guy on video in our cop's uniform delivered to Denton, though he must've figured out some way to remove what Denton didn't eat before he skedaddled on outta division. We didn't find jack in that cell other than some regurgitated food and the body."
"So not much of this cassava root will kill a person," Crevan said.
Maya's voice was weak. "Bitter cassava root produces more potent cyanogenic glucosides. It's an evolutionary adaptation to discourage pests from killing the plants. They don't feed because doing so kills."
"Exactly how potent is this stuff? I mean, you're all dancing around it. What? A nibble, a bite? A cup of the stuff?" Crevan's eyes darted from Maya to Billy.
"Roughly 40 milligrams will kill an adult cow."
I wasn't sure if Billy realized that his comparison hit home with those of us involved in the murder of Detective Cox and the homeless men, that it was a dairy farm where Denton worked.
"A cow weighs roughly what, a ton?'
"Eleven hundred to fifteen hundred pounds," I said. "Full grown. Some breeds are a little lighter, others a little heavier."
"And how much of the root would equal 40 milligrams?" Crevan asked.
I cleared my throat. "I'm thinking…what, an ounce, maybe two?"
"One point six ounces," Billy said. "A little more than three tablespoons."
"So we're talking about a negligible amount of this stuff in Denton's breakfast," Tony scratched his head. "If that don't beat all. What would you say Denton weighed, Helen? One forty if he had pockets full of change?"
"He weighed sixty-two kilograms," Maya said. "Remember? I observed the autopsy this afternoon."
"That's all well and good, but what does it mean in English?"
"Tony, he weighed about 136 pounds. Only a tenth of what was needed to kill an animal weighing fifteen hundred pounds would've killed Denton. If there was a teaspoon of raw cassava root in his breakfast, it would've been more than lethal."
"Right," Maya's head rolled with a pathetic nod. "But the amount of this that was in the stomach contents showed they wanted to make sure the dose was lethal. Plus, without additional testing on a root that hasn't been partially digested, it's hard to say if the plants were within the normal range of toxicity. Remember what I said. Drought makes these plants more poisonous."
"I don't get it, " Crevan started pacing at the end of Maya's bed. "We've got the manic scientist who claims he's researching telomeres, out hiring homeless guys to work for him at a dairy farm, some of said homeless men turning up dead with drug screens off the charts with methamphetamine, and a dead undercover detective who was overdosed against his will. It doesn't seem like any of this could possibly be related."
"Don't forget our dead biker who linked Denton to hiring the homeless men," I said. "But I see your point, Crevan. Now on top of everything else, we have poisonous plants."
"Do we have any idea what killed the biker informant?" Maya asked.
"They hadn't removed the body yet when we headed over here," Crevan said. "Helen climbed up to get a closer look and didn't see any obvious trauma."
"Maya, you need to rest and let us worry about the case for now. I'll come back tomorrow and fill you in as things progress if you like, but for now, I insist that we leave and let you get some rest." I reached out and squeezed her hand. "You're officially off this case, my friend. Your health must come first."
Lids fluttered shut. "As long as you at least keep me in the loop, I'll go along with that. Would you stay with me a little longer, Helen?"
"Of course." I pulled the keys to the Expedition out of my pocket and dangled them at Briscoe. "Could you bring it over here and let me know where you parked?"
"Sure, Eriksson. So long as you give me your absolute, under pain of death promise that you will not leave here and go back to Uncle Nooky's without proper backup," he said.
"Pain of death, eh?" I couldn't help grinning over his theatrics. "I promise. I will not go back inside Uncle Nooky's bar tonight without proper backup."
Then again, that promise didn't cover doing a little undercover observation on my own.
"Do me one favor, Tony. I still need to look at the photos you took at Dupree Farm this morning. Could you please email them to me before you go home tonight? I'm going to be here with Maya for awhile, but I can access my mail from the iPhone."
"You're stickin' to that promise, Eriksson. No interviews with Nooky's customers, no sneakin' out to Dupree Farm to get inside Denton's lab, no monkey business without us backin' you up. Right?"
I nodded. "Like I said, I won't enter a building or speak to a soul without you guys there."
"All right then."
Sometimes men are so stupid.
Chapter 32
Billy Withers sent me a text message around midnight, just after I slipped out of Maya's hospital room.
Are you still with Maya?
I dialed the number for the morgue.
"I just left. She's resting. What's going on, Billy?"
"Branch just emptied Batshit Crazy's stomach contents."
"And?"
"Cassava roots."
"That's a good enough link for me." I paced in front of the elevator doors on the surgical unit waiting for the car. "Did you tell Briscoe and Conall yet?"
"I figured you would. If you want me to call –"
"No, I'll take care of it. You should go home and get some rest too, Billy."
"Helen, you should know that Dr. Br
anch estimates the biker's time of death to the approximate time that Denton died. They might've been poisoned with the same tainted food."
"It makes sense that whoever is behind this would take out the two potential information leaks at the same time." It made me wonder briefly, if Denton recognized the man who delivered his breakfast, why would he eat it? Why not scream for help?
"I thought you should know. I heard you were pretty upset when the body was found tonight, like maybe you blamed yourself for not getting back to this guy fast enough."
The rumor mill in the city knew no bounds. I sighed. "The thought entered my mind, Billy, but in all honesty, Denton said something after we picked him up Friday night that made me realize that anybody who talks about whatever is going on, or anyone who learns too much is pretty much destined to meet a singular fate."
"And that doesn't worry you?"
I laughed softly. "I suppose that's the goal of all terrorists. Make people too frightened to act at all."
"But this isn't terrorism."
"No." Or was it? Thoughts started bumping together in my brain, pieces that didn't seem to fit making odd connections. Had I seen any of this before? Seemingly random and unconnected clues that really pointed to a specific source…the large infusion of cash Briscoe and Conall witnessed, a research scientist trotting out a bogus project that an eccentric employer was gullible enough to buy, drugs and men willing to do just about anything to get their supply…did it point to a deeper motive? And the cassava root, it didn't really fit into the context of any of it.
"Helen?"
"Yeah, sorry. I must be more tired than I realized."
"You should go home and get some rest too. I don't know how you guys do this all the time. One all nighter this week, and I'm spent."
"Let me know if Branch finds anything else during the autopsy."
I clicked off the call and checked my email again. Briscoe finally sent the pictures he'd taken from Dupree Farm. I scrolled through them quickly. Nothing particularly unusual jumped out at me right away.
The elevator was half way to the lobby of the hospital when a chilling similarity descended. I pulled out the phone. The pictures were too tiny for close details to be observed, but even on the small screen one thing was obvious. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed it before. In a way, I had noticed but…
The guards at Dupree Farm, the man who threatened me at Uncle Nooky's bar, the one that Demetrius Kostas described as dumping Batshit Crazy's body, the man caught on video at Downey Division with the bag of poisonous food – they shared a few similar features. I stared at the photographic evidence in my hand.
Skinheads?
It couldn't be.
The elements of my conversation with Billy lingered. I thought of the Kostas family, terrorized because they were Greek (or Italian as the biker's epithets had presumed). The entire neighborhood was locked down in fear.
A cop was killed with no regard for the consequences. The whole case started, not to mention quickly became cold, because homeless men died and were discarded with the neighborhood's refuse.
Uncle Nooky's words rippled through my memory: Honey, those guys are invisible to the whole world outside these neighborhoods. Why the hell would we notice more'n where to step over the drunks in the gutter?
"Cassava root," I muttered. How in the world did that fit into this scenario in any way? The two varieties of the root – bitter and sweet – derived their designation because of two-fold circumstances. One was literally bitter and the other literally sweet. Bitter was the more lethal of the two, and oddly, the preferred variety for cultivation because of its inherent built in pesticide.
"Shouldn't Denton and Batshit Crazy have been able to taste something bitter in their breakfast food?"
I dialed the morgue again.
"Billy Withers."
"It's Helen again. Shouldn't these men have tasted the cassava in their food?"
Billy didn't respond for a moment. "Uh…you'd think."
"It bothers me that two men willingly ate this stuff without the first clue that it didn't taste right."
"Maybe if it was prepared with the other ingredients, the bitterness was masked. This isn't exactly something we can test, Helen. I don't know anybody who would willingly sample lethal food just to find out if it tastes funny."
"Of course not. We already established that there wasn't a lot of cassava in Denton's stomach, right?"
"Enough to identify it, but there wasn't more of it than the onion or pepper."
"Was it cooked?"
"Uh…"
"You're not sure?"
"I guess that didn't occur to me at the time. It looked a little different than the onion, which was why I was able to identify it so quickly, but yeah, it seemed…sautéed, I guess. Does that matter?"
"I'd think cooking would reduce the toxicity of the plant."
"So that would mean there should've been a greater amount of the root present in the food versus the smaller amount that was found," Billy said. "Is it possible that this root was produced under such dry growing conditions that it might've been more potent than the average crop of cassava?"
"It's probably more than likely, Billy, but until we find the source of the poison, we won't be able to answer that question. Will you call me when you get the analysis back on the unknown substance in Denton's stomach?"
"I can check right now."
"Really?"
"Sure," Billy said. "I figured it wasn't high priority since we already identified the source of the poison."
I listened to his fingers clacking over the keyboard of his computer while he called up the results of additional testing.
"Huh," he grunted. "Now how in the world did you know this?"
"The tortilla wasn't corn flour, was it?"
"No," he said. "It's cassava, and it's full of cyanide."
"They weren't taking any risks."
"But Helen," Billy began, "if the processing of the root removes the toxic glucosides, how can the flour be so full of poison?"
"It's a very good question, Billy." One for which an answer was starting to crystallize in my mind. Staking out the bikers at Uncle Nooky's Bar and Grill would have to wait. "Thanks for your help."
I disconnected the call and made my way to where Briscoe left the Expedition earlier. Another call confirmed that Darnell was still in the office.
"I need that warrant, Chris."
"Already?"
"Yeah, can you help us? I have a specific interest in Denton's lab now. We're looking for cassava root."
"Related to his murder?"
"And the biker found in Downey tonight. Billy Withers from the ME's office just told me that he was poisoned in the same way Denton was, at approximately the same time. Cassava root isn't indigenous to the United States save for one endangered variety found in Texas in the 1990's, Chris, nor is the root stable long enough to endure the time it would take to import it and get it through customs."
"So the farm, with it's automatic weapon-armed security guards, suddenly appears to be a candidate for where this stuff is grown. Do you believe that this is what Jake Cox discovered?"
"I suspect it could be the tip of the iceberg. We need that root so I can have it tested and confirm my theory. In order to do that, I need to find the plants."
"Let me call Judge Hathaway. Are Briscoe and Conall with you?"
"Not yet. I'll call them when we're finished."
"You didn't ask earlier, but obviously, I got this Seleeby character delivered back to D.C., Helen."
I cringed and imagined the earful of evidence he likely spewed on the long cross country flight. "Chris, I'm sure he said –"
"A load of bullshit. The man has no evidence, Helen, nothing beyond circumstantial stuff that wouldn't hold up in court. He doesn't have enough for a warrant to search for anything related to you at this point, particularly since the one he executed in Washington turned up nothing. I wish you had told us what was going on from the beginnin
g. We could've put an end to this nonsense long ago."
"You didn't know me. Why would you be compelled to help a stranger who for all you knew, shouldn't be trusted based on the open FBI investigation?"
"Because people in the know in Washington had and I suspect still have faith in your character. You proved yourself to me in short order, wrapping up that business with Jerry Lowe so quickly. It was a big deal to the people in this city."
Guilt overwhelmed me. My hands shook. I gripped the steering wheel tightly. "Call me when you get the warrant, Chris. I need to call Briscoe and Conall."
Before I made the next call to rouse my partners, I tried to push the guilt away. In all of Dad's lessons, not one time could I recall him imparting any wisdom that diminished feelings of remorse. It still wasn't an emotion evoked from what I did to Rick. That still was a blessed emotional blank. What gnawed at my gut was the faith people kept expressing in me, in my so-called character.
I would truly be despised if the truth was ever revealed. The mere thought of being caught by Seleeby or anybody else made my skin damp and my heart flutter with stabbing palpitations. Maybe that was Dad's greatest lesson of all. Make sure you don't get caught. Even as brilliantly careful as he'd been, in the end, he failed to follow his own rules.
Conall and Briscoe could distract me from the private hell that plagued me better than anything else. "Focus on the case. Finish putting the pieces together."
They hadn't left Downey yet when I called Briscoe first.
"We're still hanging out here, Eriksson. Puppy and I decided that we ought to give those pictures more than a once over after I sent 'em to you, and realized that those bags we thought looked like they were from the bank contained a consistent misspelling."
"Oh?"
"I think, and my partner agrees, that this whole money delivery was staged to look legitimate in case anyone ever came across the transaction. Darkwater Municipal Trust was spelled municipal with an E at the end. Those bags didn't come from the bank."
"But at first glance, they looked like they did," I agreed with their assumption and brought Tony up to speed on the warrant Darnell was seeking. "I figured we could head over to OSI's pod at the state police headquarters and pick it up on our way out to the farm – that is unless you guys would rather serve it in the morning."