Tippin nodded and grabbed his computer and began researching.
“If you need us, we’re at your disposal,” Wilkes said, looking to Parks. “But personally, this shit is too fucking weird for me. And what’s with all the bread?”
Parks shook his head and put on a pair of blue latex gloves. On the table next to the body was an open loaf of bread with another two dozen pieces scattered about the table. There were also a few pieces on the ground near the table, as if someone had simply thrown them around the room. Upon closer inspection, he could tell the stale pieces had been sitting out for a few days.
“Not sure,” Parks said, admittedly. “But it is intentional. It has to mean something.”
“There’s more in the kitchen,” Moore pointed out.
Parks walked over to the kitchen and saw that indeed there were several more loaves of bread scattered about the counters and floor. The kitchen sink was filled with water and pieces of soggy bread, most of which had soaked in the water and dissipated into pieces that either floated to the top or had sunk to the bottom, giving the water a filmy, clouded appearance.
“What the—?” Wilkes bit his tongue, appearing to be taking the crime scene personally. As much as Parks wanted tell him to keep it under control, he couldn’t disagree with his feelings.
“How about I have my team process the apartment and you have your team work the building,” Parks suggested. “Neighbors. Doormen. Manager. Video surveillance. Anything.”
Wilkes nodded and rounded up his team and left the apartment.
“All right, everybody, you know the drill,” Parks began. “Don’t touch anything on the body. Fairmont, keep getting pictures. The bread around the body, and in the kitchen. There’s something up with that. Not sure what. We’ll have it all tested.”
“What about the fish?” Fairmont asked.
“I said don’t touch a damn thing,” Parks repeated. “That includes that . . . whatever the hell it is. Don’t touch it. We don’t know what it is or what it means. You just photograph.”
“It’s a lionfish,” Tippin answered, looking up from his electronic tablet. “Don’t touch it. They’re poisonous.”
“Of course they are.”
“They’re one of the most venomous fish in the ocean,” Tippin said, skimming whatever website he was reading. “But they’re not deadly to us. Just stings. And painful as hell.”
“What about after the fish is dead?”
“Not sure,” Tippin said, continuing to scan. “Doesn’t say. I’d avoid it though.”
“So they’re venomous but not lethal?” Moore asked. “Then what—?”
“Just wait until Tanaka and Isley get here,” Parks ordered. “Probably another compound poison like Ian Harris with the methanol and snakebite. Everyone make sure to keep your gloves and masks on. Just work around the body. Whatever you do, don’t touch it.”
* * *
“Whoever the flip this guy is, no one can accuse him of being boring or unoriginal,” Tanaka said as she set down her kit and knelt in front of Jason Bollinger’s body, staring intently at the decaying man. He showed signs of having been one of those guys whose glory days had come and gone, having most likely peaked during his high school days, though that didn’t necessarily mean he was lacking. He was still fit and, regardless of his current complexion, was someone who enjoyed life with a beer or two in his hands. Tanaka looked from the man’s placid face to the fish he held rather protectively in his hands on his lap. “Scorpion fish?”
“Lionfish,” Tippin corrected from behind her.
“This is what killed him?” she asked, looking to Jackie.
“I don’t think so,” Jackie answered, sliding on a pair of latex gloves. “They’re venomous, but human deaths are rare from them. Mostly just result in nausea, stinging pain, and difficulty breathing. Few places carry any specific antidote, but then again some people are more susceptible to them than others. There is a possibility the victim here was one of those people and the fish did kill him. But we should run a full tox screen to check if he was exposed to something else.”
“I’ll put a rush on it,” Tanaka said as she moved the body, releasing both an intense odor and a clear liquid that leaked from the body to the floor. “There’s a crusty substance along the lower lip and chin. Looks like saliva. I’ll test it too. But I don’t see any physical signs of restraint or defense wounds of any sort. But, just so you know, this chair stinks.”
“Soaked with sweat before he died,” Jackie said.
“You think our vic stayed put while he was dying?” Parks asked.
“Paralyzed.”
“What’s that?”
“He was paralyzed,” she repeated louder. “The killer injected the victim with a toxin that paralyzes but kept him alert. Our guy was alive during his death. He knew he was going to die.”
“What can cause that?”
“Some animal bites. Rattlesnake. Cobras. Shellfish. The puffer fish. Several plants and fungi. Fool’s parsley. Hemlock. Larkspur. Monkshood. Mountain laurel. Passionflower. And several nerve agents. Soman. Tabun. VX.” Parks’s eyes widened as his heartbeat picked up a beat. “Don’t worry, I don’t think it’s any of those. They would have dissipated by now anyway, and I’m not seeing any other concurring signs that it’s one of those.”
“You said he showed no signs of a struggle or defensive wounds. What about his hands?”
“Those punctures were made postmortem,” Tanaka answered. “I think our killer placed the fish in his hands after he died. See? There’s no blood. Just the punctures. His heart had stopped pumping already.”
“So our killer stayed around to stage the scene,” Parks surmised. “Just like the last two.”
“He’s done it three times now?” Jackie asked.
Parks nodded. “You’ve missed out. With Allison Tisdale he stayed to draw the circle around her with her blood. Ian Harris, he stayed to collect the snake and leave his marks. Speaking of which—”
“I don’t see anything visible at first glance,” Tanaka said, looking closer at the body for the killer’s calling card. “But on the first two vics they were more hidden from sight than out in the open. I have a feeling I won’t find it until I get the body back for autopsy. But you’re right.”
“What’s that?” Parks asked.
“If we do find the mark then this makes three. This guy’s a serial.”
“You could be right about the ten thing. The symbol I mean. Guess ten is going to be our lucky number,” Fairmont commented.
“These deaths are painful. No one should have to go like this.” Tanaka said as she stood up, having finished her initial observation.
“Hey,” Jackie said from Tanaka’s side as she maneuvered around her to lean in and get a closer look at the body. “What’s that? On the neck.”
“What?” Tanaka asked as she too leaned in.
Jackie moved to the side to avoid getting in the ME’s way, not noticing the thin layer of liquid that had accumulated under the corpse, placing one of her Cole Haan short wedge boots into the bodily fluids and immediately slipping. Tanaka noticed her friend going down and grabbed at her, managing to keep her up on one foot while her other swung around and brought her to her knees, causing her to land in Jason Bollinger’s lap.
“You okay, honey?” Tanaka asked, trying to get her friend to her feet.
“Ow. I’ll . . . oww . . .” Jackie started to stand up but froze when she saw the lionfish move with her, several of its spines sticking into her forearm.
“Oh, shit,” Fairmont yelled from behind Parks as his eyes grew wide. “Oh, shit.”
Jackie stared down at the fish that dangled from her arm, and tried to maneuver around the protruding spines to remove it.
“Hold on,” Tanaka ordered as she worked her way around to Jackie’s other side.
Tanaka removed a pair of metal tongs from her kit and reached up and, looking at Jackie who nodded back, grabbed hold of the fish and pulled it free fro
m her arm. Jackie let out a painful groan as she instinctively pulled her arm in close to her body as if to protect it. Parks let out a breath himself, not realizing he had been holding it.
“We need to get her to a hospital,” Tanaka said, looking to Parks.
“No. I’m sure I have something—”
“You’re going to a hospital and that’s final. I’ll take her,” Parks insisted. “You guys can finish up here and make out your reports just fine?”
“We got it, boss.” Fairmont nodded. “Go. Go. Go.”
“No problem,” Moore added. “Go take care of her.”
* * *
“I’m okay,” Jackie said for the tenth or so time. “Really. Doctor’s fixed me up. Gave me enough shots and antivenin to cure me from Death himself, and I have some really good painkillers to boot. I’ll be fine.”
“But you can’t drive,” Parks replied, tearing away at the wrapper of a Milky Way bar he had retrieved from one of the vending machines in the waiting room. He had felt a surge of adrenaline when Jackie was poisoned and could feel himself coming down from that high.
“No, I can’t,” Jackie said with concern in her eyes. “But I already called Ricky. He’ll be here any minute to rescue me. It’s okay.”
“I could have taken you home.”
“It’s okay. Besides, you have a case to get back to.”
Parks looked at his watch and finished off the candy bar.
“What’s with the chocolate bar? You hungry?”
“It’s the caffeine. Or the sugar. Or something. Just a—I just need a fix is all. Bet you’re regretting I called you earlier, now aren’t you?”
“What? About the case?” Jackie asked. “No. Not at all. Been waiting for your call.”
“You’ve been waiting for someone else to be poisoned?”
“No,” Jackie said, blushing. “I said I was waiting for you to call. Which I realize you were probably never going to do. But I’ll take another dead body as an excuse for you to do so.”
“What?” Parks looked confused.
“Nothing. Men. Go on. You have a case to work on. Go,” she said as she pulled Parks in and gave him a hug. She felt warm, and he wondered if it was from the drugs she was on or if it was just the way she was. He felt the softness of her skin as she held him, and he started to close his eyes as he took in her natural body odor, which was surprisingly potent for someone who had just been scrubbed down with cleaning alcohol. She started to back away from him, and for a second he could feel her lips about to grace his cheek when she let him go. “Go. I’ll be fine. But thanks for worrying.”
“I better not see you at the office again today,” he joked.
“Don’t worry.” She smiled. “I have a good excuse for my baby to stay at home and pamper me, so I’m going to milk every second of it I can. But I’ll be in early and ready to go tomorrow. No arguments there. You need my help.”
“Sounds good to me,” he said as he started to step back. “You’re sure you—”
“Go,” she ordered again. “I’m an adult. I’ll do just fine. Thanks for your concern. Go take care of business. We still have a killer to catch, remember?”
“Okay,” Parks said with a smile as he finally turned and headed for the elevator.
He pressed the button and noticed Jackie staring at him as he waited. The rest of the hospital seemed to disappear as he stared back into her deep, Irish-green eyes, and he felt his heart tug at him for leaving her exposed. He knew she was fine, there was nothing to worry about, but still, he wanted to stay, to make sure she was okay and protected. He wasn’t sure why he felt this strong about her, as he hadn’t felt this way about a woman in quite some time, let alone this quickly after having just met. He knew his track record with women, most of them never sticking around longer than a week or two. He liked the companionship but wondered if his need to be with another person had more to do with his addiction than an actual desire for a relationship. The elevator chimed, breaking the spell, and the doors opened and Parks stepped aside to make room for a young man who was frantic to get off. The kid’s square jaw was clenched and his brown eyes were large and filled with a combination of worry and fear, and he pushed past Parks without a word.
Parks pressed the button for the garage. Just as the doors closed he saw the young man rush to Jackie’s side, and he realized that he must have been her son. He felt a slight lift on his conscience as he accepted that she would be properly watched over now. The elevator descended, and when the doors opened on the ground level, he stepped out and headed for the garage, mentally preparing himself to get back to work.
13
“All right, everyone, let’s see what we have,” Parks said as he entered the conference room to find his team sitting around the table and chatting with one another. There were cups of coffee, most of them empty, sitting in front of everyone, letting him know not that they were tired but rather how long they had waited for him. “Sorry for my tardiness.”
He had decided to go to the gym after leaving the hospital, getting in a quick workout to help burn off the stress the case had been building in him. He focused mostly on push-ups and pull-ups before deciding to run on the treadmill for six miles. By the time he was finished, he was covered in sweat, and his muscles ached. He felt physically exhausted even though his mind still raced. He showered and changed at the gym, then made his way back to the station.
He then spent the next hour alone in his office going over the case files so far. He liked looking over the paperwork on his own, in silence, just his own scrambled mind to talk over the facts of the case.
He looked over to Amy Tanaka and recalled the conversation they’d had in the hallway minutes before the meeting and figured it might be best if she said what she was there to explain so she could get back to her lab. “Amy. Why don’t you start by telling us what you found?”
“All right,” Tanaka said, standing up and looking at the open file in front of her. “It’s official. Jason Bollinger was poisoned. But he was poisoned by a different poison than either of the other two.”
“The lionfish?” Fairmont asked, reading his own notes.
“No,” Tanaka said, shaking her head. “The lionfish did release a poison into the victim’s body, but it was post mortem. What actually killed him was a lethal dose of a poison called Tetradontoxin. Tetradontoxin affects the nervous system and in particular the nerve impulses. Symptoms can include involuntary muscle spasms, weakness, dizziness, and loss of speech. Again, I’m not a hundred percent sure about this stuff, but I called Jackie and this is the CliffsNotes version of what she told me. She said she’ll work up a full profile and make sure we have it by tomorrow. There was also excessive saliva and sweating, which would account for the smell and condition of the body and the seat around it. The secondary set of symptoms includes increased paralysis. This is followed by cardiac arrhythmia. There have been reports of people being completely aware of what’s happening to them during the entire event of being poisoned.”
“What’s the reaction time once someone is affected with this?” Moore asked from her end of the table while scribbling notes into her pad.
“Ten minutes.”
“And where is this Tetra-whatever . . . where can it be obtained?”
“Not sure about that yet. Jackie’s working on it. But most cases have it coming from what is commonly known as a puffer fish.”
“Isn’t that that fish they eat over in Japan?” Parks asked.
Tanaka nodded. “The poison is found in the fish’s ovaries and liver. But the fish is usually harmless if the poison sacs are removed before cooking. It’s considered to be ten thousand times more lethal than cyanide.”
“Shit,” Fairmont said
“That’s not all,” Parks added. “Now, these may be pointless but I thought they were worth noting. The toxin is often used in zombie-making rituals in Haiti and West Africa. Because the toxin affects the nervous system—what it does is it inhibits the ability of the nerv
es to send messages to other parts of the body—well, because of this, it puts people in a zombie-like state.”
“I highly doubt our killer is looking to bring his victims back from the dead,” Fairmont threw out. “But that would be awesome.”
“Now this one is a little more relevant. Possibly. There’s a company in Canada that is attempting to develop the poison into a drug.”
“What for?” Moore asked.
“There’re two reasons. One is to help cancer patients suppress pain.”
“And the other?”
“Help heroin addicts wean off their habit by relieving the symptoms of withdrawal.”
“What?”
“It’s called TTX, or Tectin, and apparently it’s two thousand times more potent than morphine but without the side effects, and it’s not addictive, which makes it better for longer-term use. It’s still in the clinical development phase with protocols being filed with the Food and Drug Administration. But back to the pain-suppressing use, currently opioids are the number one standard for severe pain treatment, representing a more than seven-billion-dollar intake each year. Worldwide. TTX, or Tectin, could seriously challenge and change that figure.”
“Damn,” Fairmont said.
“You’ve got to be kidding, right?” Moore asked. “I mean we don’t really think this killer is killing people in some twisted attempt to stop a new drug that might possibly challenge a seven-billion-dollar industry. A drug that might or might not even get FDA approval. Or am I the only one who thinks this is way too out of left field? I mean, why not go after the manufacturing company directly? Or else why not kill each victim with this Tetra-whatever?”
“I agree,” Fairmont seconded.
“Me too,” Parks added. “But we should still look into it. How did this stuff get into him?”
“I found a small needle mark near the C3 and C4 cervical vertebrae,” Tanaka said, holding up an x-ray and showing on the picture where it was done. She then held up another picture that was a blown-up view of the needle mark. “I’m not sure how much was injected, but I’m assuming it was at least half to a full vial. We’re talking anywhere between ten to twenty-five milliliters.”
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