Bitten By Regret (Just One Bite #2) (11 page)

"Well, I guess that makes sense. It's just, well, we
wanted your help." She tried to look vacant and thought maybe she'd
succeeded. Acting this young and dumb just wasn't easy for her.

Allsgood sat up straighter, pride filling his face.
"The police need my help with a case? Tell me more."

Lizbeth opened the case file in her hands, studying it as
though she wasn't positive what was in it. "Well, see, we have this case…
I'd need you to agree to keep quiet about it, though, before I can talk about
it with you. I have to read you the Miranda rights as well." He tensed up
and she hastened to add, "It's a formality. I have to before you can help
us."

"Oh all right," he muttered bad-temperedly.

 
Lizbeth read him his
rights and then smiled. "Thanks for that. I'd hate to get in trouble with
the commander." He gestured for her to continue and she did a mental
eye-roll. "Um, y'see, there's been a series of," she lowered her
voice, "murders."

"Really?" he said. "I didn't hear anything
about this on the news. Who's been murdered?" Allsgood was all wide eyes
and helpful attitude.

"Yes, well, so far we've been lucky and it hasn't made
the news yet. So far the murders have been fairly low-profile. A total of eight
heroin addicts have been murdered. That's why we need your help. Someone has
been manufacturing tainted heroin and we just don't know how they'd go about
it. We hoped you might have some… advice on how they might be doing this."
She smiled winningly, hating the charade but knowing it was necessary.

Allsgood harrumphed. "I'm sorry, Detective..."

"Snyder," Lizbeth said.

"Yes, Detective Snyder.
Anyway, I'm a doctor, not a chemist. I have no idea how someone would possibly
mix the arsenic in so that the heroin would kill," Allsgood said, frowning
slightly.

The door opened and Alexar entered the interrogation room.
"Commander Alexar Thompson entering the interview with Doctor Leonard
Allsgood at 1046 hours," Lizbeth stated formally for the record, all
traces of helplessness gone from her tone and posture.

"You've already helped, Dr. Allsgood," Alexar said
in a tight voice. "Detective Snyder never mentioned the arsenic. You
helped us a great deal."

Allsgood stood, panic written large across his features.
"This is bullshit. I want my lawyer, now." He attempted to sound
commanding but managed only a voice laced heavily with fear. Alexar shoved him
roughly back into his seat.

"That's fine," Lizbeth said calmly. "You can
have your lawyer and we'll discuss the charges with him or her- manufacture of
a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance, nine counts of
first-degree murder." She slammed the file down onto the table once more.

Allsgood paled. "What do you mean, nine counts? You
said eight deaths. How are you pinning nine on me?"

"Simple," Alexar said coldly. "Sergeant Jason
Robbins, one of our own, was beaten to death before being injected with a dose
of your tainted heroin supply."

Allsgood stood once again and this time Lizbeth pushed him
down forcefully. "No lawyer. I changed my mind. I don't want a fucking
lawyer. Just let me talk," he pleaded. Lizbeth was thrilled that the
pompous attitude he'd come into the room with had vanished. They had the right
man after all.

"Okay, so tell us how it happened, Dr. Allsgood."
Lizbeth sat down across from him once more and Alexar slouched against the wall
by the door looking menacing. Allsgood flicked his gaze at Alexar and then back
to Lizbeth.

"I work the ER. I see the worst of humanity. What they
do to each other, what they do to themselves. I see OD's all the time. They
swear they'll get help, they swear to never touch another dose. They come back
in on a gurney the next day, or next week, or next month. They always come back
and swear not to do it again." He paused and licked his dry lips. Without
a word Lizbeth handed him a bottle of water. He took a long sip before
continuing.

"A few months ago this junkie came in. I knew her,
recognized her. Hell, she'd been on the gurney in front of me, blue around the
lips just a month before that. I saved her life and she went back to using.
This time she left her stash lying out. She'd apparently been passed out and
her kid got a hold of one of the needles." His face flushed with anger.
"She brought her baby in and she died on my table. Not a damned thing I
could do to save her. She was only eighteen months old and she died because of
her junkie bitch mother."

Lizbeth and Alexar exchanged glances. "So you decided
they had to die, huh?" Alexar said, venom dripping in his voice.

Allsgood glared at the man before dropping his eyes to the
table in front of him. "It was easy. I treat junkies all the time. I just
kept pocketing their stashes as they came in. After a while I had a good supple
built up. I keep arsenic on hand to kill the rodents that nest in my basement.
I found a chatroom online that told how to cut the supply. It cautioned not to
use a certain measurement or the user would die. So I made the supply up in
those doses." He shrugged, taking another pull from the bottle of water,
his Adam's apple bobbing as he drank deeply. "I knew who a lot of these
people bought from. It was easy to slip a package near the spot these men deal
from. Some of them sell to other dealers so I knew it would get around. I'd
rather have a junkie die than attempt to save another innocent child."

"Did it ever dawn on you that a junkie might go home
and use it there? That maybe they would die and their child would pick up one
of those needles and die, too?" Lizbeth's voice sounded calm but Alexar
heard the anger running underneath it. "That's what happened with Natalie
Johnson after her mother Eva died. Natalie was three years old when she played
with the needle and injected herself.
Both mother and
daughter dead from your supply."

Allsgood's mouth opened and closed, no words coming out.
"I didn't know," he said finally. "I just dropped the heroin off
to the dealers. One guy came out and saw me. I lied and told him I was a dealer,
too, just getting out of the business.
Wanted to drop off the
rest of my supply without drawing attention to myself.
He seemed to buy
it."

Lizbeth nodded- it fit with what the dealer in question told
them. "So why are so willing to talk now? I doubt we can get you a deal.
You have nothing to offer us."

"I didn't kill the cop, Detective Snyder. I swear to
God I didn't kill that guy. All I did was
make
the
stuff, I didn't actually inject anyone, and I certainly didn't beat a cop to
death. I just wanted the junkies to quit using. I thought if word got out about
the bad shit on the streets they'd stop." He held his hands up, pleading
for understanding. His eyes were full of tears and he struggled to keep them
from falling as he tried to make them understand.

They interrogated him for hours but couldn't shake his
story. They came at him from different angles, changing the tempo of the
questioning, reworded questions he'd already answered dozens of times. He never
changed his story and he never lawyered up.

"I think he's telling the truth, Commander,"
Lizbeth said, careful to keep it formal in the precinct. "I don't think
he's responsible for Robbins. It doesn't fit his pattern, and his story isn't
changing."

Alexar ran his fingers through his hair with a growl of
frustration. He'd taken time to comb it before entering interview but had
mussed it beyond repair in these last few hours. "I know, I know. I
believe him, too. I'll get the ADA down here and see what she says."

As Alexar stalked off down the hallway, Lizbeth headed the
opposite way towards her office. Sitting at her desk with her feet propped up
on its edge, one question repeated over and over inside her head. If Allsgood
didn't kill Robbins, who did, and why?

Chapter Seventeen

Lizbeth waited impatiently for the assistant district
attorney to show up. She and Alexar had waited for an hour before he gave up
and wandered to his office, mumbling under his breath about lazy people having
no sense of time. Lizbeth went to her own office to complete her report so all
the facts would be available when the ADA finally showed up. Her report
written, she started tidying up the office, something that she never seemed to
have the downtime for. While she finished filing the paperwork that had
accumulated in her in-basket there was a knock on her door. A moment later
Alexar walked into the room with District Attorney Giles Carson behind him.

"Detective Snyder, it seems the DA wants to handle this
case personally. I'm sure you don't object," Alexar said, giving her a
look of warning.

Lizbeth flashed back to the night she'd been held captive in
the warehouse. She remembered his fangs, remembered him flying up and out the
high, thin window, and Jonah's revelation that Carson had changed him by
accident and left him to die. Suppressing a shiver she maintained eye contact
and held out a hand for Carson to shake. He looked startled for a moment before
grasping her hand and that pleased her.

"Lizbeth, it's a pleasure to see you again. I must say,
you're looking better than when I saw you last," Carson said with a small
smile. Lizbeth shivered involuntarily but refused to draw her hand away or
break eye contact first. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alexar's look of
puzzlement. "But whatever happened to your arm?" he said, voice full
of concern that nearly sounded sincere.

"She sprained it tackling Dr. Allsgood," Alexar
cut in, breaking the eerie mood that had settled over Lizbeth's office.

"Impressive. You just seem to be everywhere, don't you,
Detective?" Carson murmured, shooting her a speculative glance before
holding out his hand. "And the case file?" Alexar passed it to him
and without hesitation the man sat himself regally behind Lizbeth's desk.
Alexar started to say something but she shook her head at him in warning. She
knew what this man really was and she didn't want Alexar to make an enemy of
him, especially on her behalf. Instead she perched in one of the visitor's
chairs and after a moment he followed her lead.

They sat quietly as Carson looked over the file, making
occasional notes in a pad he'd removed from the breast pocket of his suit
jacket. Lizbeth used the moment to study him. Not a single strand of his thick
black hair out of place, he looked fresh and pressed in his beige linen
pantsuit. He appeared young, somewhere in his mid-thirties when he was changed,
she guessed. His eyes were the green eyes you saw most often on a cat, only
lacking the elliptical pupil. The eyes were cold and calculating like those of
a feline guarding a mouse hole. She shivered a bit, feeling like prey. He
wasn't much taller than Lizbeth, only about 5'10", but his shoulders were
wide and she was sure that under his dress shirt his upper body was more
muscular than that particular suit cut showed.

Carson flicked a glance at Lizbeth, letting her know he knew
what she was thinking, before he turned his attention to Alexar. "It says
here that this Dr. Allsgood is only being charged with eight murders, not nine.
What death are you omitting?"

Alexar swallowed hard enough for Lizbeth to hear it before
answering. "It's our opinion after interrogating him that while he's
guilty of the heroin production he was not the person who murdered Sergeant
Robbins." He held himself stiffly as though he were waiting to be rebuked,
or maybe waiting to ward off a blow. Although both were possible, Lizbeth was
nearly certain the DA wouldn't risk outing himself as the monster he truly was.
No one had ever seen through his mask- he was so good at being careful.

"Oh? And how did you come to this conclusion?" His
tone was friendly but Lizbeth knew it was all an act. He was unhappy with their
exclusion of murder charges for Robbins' death.

"He knew nothing about the man and got genuinely
distressed when we attempted to get him to confess. He said nothing about a
beating, and it doesn't fit this guy's profile," Alexar answered promptly.

Carson raised an eyebrow. "That's beside the point. The
fatal blow was not a physical one. Jason Robbins was murdered with a dose of
the fatal heroin. Therefore, as its manufacturer he's guilty of the
murder." He smiled at them, teeth sparkling in the fluorescent lighting of
Lizbeth's office. It was a condescending smile and it sent fear playing the
xylophone across Lizbeth's spine. She shivered, wishing her arm wasn't
sprained. She wished desperately to be able to put on her coat and escape the
chill this man struck in her.

"No. He didn't actually murder him. Someone else beat
him to a pulp, and this man's build is nowhere near strong enough to do it. I
want the actual killer behind bars for this." Alexar rose to his feet as
he spoke, anger laced through his words.

Carson merely glanced at him before flicking his eyes to
Lizbeth. "You may never catch the man who actually beat Sergeant Robbins
to death you know," he said conversationally, never taking his eyes off of
her. "In the meantime, he will be tried for nine murders in addition to
the drug charges."

Lizbeth stared back, maintaining the eye contact even though
he made her skin crawl. "I will not give up looking for the monster that
did this." A sickening feeling ran through her as she considered a new
possibility.

Carson grinned, nodding once to let her know she was on the
right track. "Oh, I should certainly hope not. We want this… monster
punished for his crimes, of course. In the meantime this man is just as guilty
as the one who actually injected Robbins."

Lizbeth's blood felt like ice, as though somehow the mere
thought of this beast that masqueraded as a man was enough to crystallize her
insides. She knew as surely as she knew her own name that she was looking at
Robbins' actual murderer. Somehow, for some reason, Carson had murdered the
cop. She may never know the reason why and she certainly could never hope to
prove it but she knew the truth now. A dark light flashed in Carson's eyes and
she knew he read her thoughts.