Cold Frame (8 page)

He set what the Marines had called a route pace, a gentle jog they used to settle out their packs, belts, and other gear. It was designed to cover the ground but not exhaust the troops. He loved his morning runs, but did not miss humping all that gear. The only things he carried now were his badge, pinned to the waistband of his running shorts under the overlong football jersey, and a .38 special S & W Ladysmith wheel gun in a cross-groin fabric holster. He still could hear the lines of doggerel the gunnies would chant, turning words into a nasal invocation to the running gods. Le-o-w-f-t, le-o-w-f-t, le-o-w-f-t right l-e-o-f-t, beedle l-e-o-w-f-t …

He became aware of two runners who'd fallen in behind him as if using him as the pace car. He kicked it up to full cardio speed and they appeared to follow suit. He didn't bother to turn around; some runners just did better with someone in front of them.

He turned around when he reached lock No. 5 and saw that his “pursuers” were two military-looking guys, with high and tight haircuts and typical runner's physiques. They were wearing reflective sunglasses, floppy camo hats, dark green tees over black nylon running shorts. He nodded to them as he retraced his steps. They nodded back.

Two minutes later he became aware of them again as they rejoined him for the jog home. Ten, maybe fifteen feet back, keeping perfect time with him. He wondered about it for a moment, thought briefly about doubling back to see what they'd do, and then dismissed them. This town was full of military people; he'd read somewhere that there were twenty-five thousand in the Pentagon alone. Add to that the Secret Service guys, the Bureau guys, who were rumored to run in place at their desks if they couldn't get outside, other cops, probably even some spooks from across the river. Having two guys who looked like that following behind you was hardly an uncommon sight. If he'd had that blonde as his running partner there'd probably be a small army behind them by now.

About a mile from his building, as he closed in on the passage under Key Bridge, he became aware that the two runners had closed it up. He could hear them breathing now, and their footfalls seemed to be no more than six or eight feet away. He assessed his speed, wondering if he'd slacked off, but he could run this pace all day if he had to. Just like people in a crowded room, every runner had his own sense of personal space, and they were just outside of his. He began to wonder if it was his cop sense that was getting worried. Cops were cops twenty-four/seven, and every cop he knew listened to the hairs on the back of his neck if he knew what was good for him. He slowed his pace fractionally, and the two guys behind him drew closer, now definitely inside his personal space, maybe four feet back.

They ran like that for another hundred yards or so, and then Av raised his right hand, palm out, and dropped into a walk. The two guys behind him kept coming, passing on either side, so close he could smell them. They didn't touch him, but if he'd swayed a few inches in either direction, they'd have bumped shoulders.

That was truly odd behavior, he thought, wondering if they'd been deliberately following him or were just screwing around. They trotted off ahead of him while he walked, never breaking pace or looking back. When they were fifty yards ahead, he went back up into his own jog pace to see what they might do, like maybe slow down to a walk until he passed them. They didn't, but then he became aware of a second pair of runners behind him, back about twenty feet, from the sound of them. Same deal: matching his pace, their footfalls distinct but not closing in.

His cop sense was definitely aroused now. Two guys ahead of him, two more behind him, and all of a sudden no other runners around in either direction. He was approaching Georgetown proper so he decided to fake a cramp where the canal bridged a stream that tumbled down to the river. As he came abreast of the bridge wall, he cursed and grabbed at his left hamstring, then stopped and hobbled over to the stone wall, where he sat down. This gave him a good look at the two runners behind him.

Two large black men this time, dressed a lot like the first two runners: floppy cloth hats, the same sunglasses, different-colored shirts and shorts. Av pretended not to look at them as they trotted by, but once they passed, he saw one thing different about these two: they were carrying, their weapons clearly outlined in kidney-bean-shaped black fabric pouches down low just above their hips. He wondered if they'd spotted his own groin pouch when he sat down, but his tee should have covered it pretty well. His weapon was half the size of what they were carrying. They didn't look at him as they went by, their legs keeping perfect time with each other. Definitely military, he thought. Into that left-right-left shit.

He waited until they were out of sight and two more runners, both attractive young women, had come by, and then he got up and walked the rest of the way back to his building.

So what was all that about? he wondered.

Absolutely nothing. But when he came out later to go to work, he found a pair of cheap reflective sunglasses that looked a lot like his folded over the waist-high cast-iron picket fence that fronted his building. They'd been bent in half—for a better purchase on the iron picket?

He looked at them for a moment. A message? Or someone found glasses and hung them on the fence for whoever might come back for them? No—they'd been mangled. Once again he felt his Spidey sense tingling.

*   *   *

Hiram settled back in his chair and watched the screens come to life with his partners in science, if not, occasionally, crime. Giancomo had called for the teleconference. He announced in his mangled English that he'd made a breakthrough regarding signal transmission paths in a monkshood plant. Then, mercifully, he turned it over to one of his assistants, a very pretty young Italian lady whose English was very good indeed. She gave them a highly technical PowerPoint presentation on what they'd come up with, and Hiram was impressed. So was Archie Tennyson, who commented that if this was true, it might now be possible to manipulate these chemical signals to affect the flow and strength of the plant's infamous toxin, aconite, or aconitine as it was sometimes called. Hiram observed that the monkshood alkaloid toxin hardly needed amplification. As they all knew, just touching the plant put an animal or a human in jeopardy of death.

“Yes, of course,” Archie said. “But remember, there are circumstances where one
would
want to concentrate it—because a concentrate takes up much less volume.”

And, Hiram thought, that makes it a much better agent for use as, say, a directed poison. He immediately thought of Kyle Strang and his fanatical boss, Carl Mandeville. Giancomo had also recognized the potential for deadly mischief, and commented that this discovery would be better kept “in the book,” as they called it.

“But that's a major breakthrough, Giancomo,” Archie said.

“We know, we know,” Giancomo said. “So maybe now we reproduce the experiment, okay? In something not so bad as monkshood. See if some of the other plants can do the same thing, yes?”

They kicked that idea around, but Hiram thought it was wishful thinking. It was the deadly plants—monkshood, belladonna, death cap mushrooms, castor bean pulp—that had the most sophisticated behaviors when threatened by predation, as viewed from the plant's perspective. At the same time, the discovery excited him, because it reinforced the notion that, at some level within the plant's physiology, it was reacting to external stimuli, just as if—it had a brain.

They took a vote, and all agreed to bury Giancomo's findings in their book of experimental data for now. Interesting stuff, but not for publication until one of them could find a way to render the process harmless, or, at least, controllable. And, he hoped to God that no one else had discovered the same thing. Not for the first time, he'd been having second and even third thoughts about what he'd given to the National Security Council.

Thomas, who'd been watching the conference, remarked that the society's fixation with the world's most dangerous plants might backfire one day.

Hiram acknowledged the point. “I know,” he said. “We could be viewed as master poisoners in some circles, I suppose, but then, some of our medical contributions would balance that out. Look at what we did with atropine, for instance.”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. “Didn't mean to criticize, of course. Shall we proceed with the vine-pool experiment this morning?”

“I still think it should be called the snake pool,” Hiram said.

Thomas gave him a there-you-go-again look, but Hiram just grinned back at him.

 

SIX

Two days later, not one, Av was able to get the court order and have it sent to OCME by messenger. He called them later that morning and was told by the Forensic Toxicology Lab that it might be sometime next week before the actual autopsy would take place. Av asked why so long. The secretary asked if Av's case was an active and urgent homicide investigation. Av said not yet, but that of course would depend on the results of the autopsy, wouldn't it? She told him to go get a book called
Catch-22
and then invited him to get in line.

Av went to Precious to bitch and moan. She promptly showed him the door. This is the Briar Patch.
Move
the tarbaby, Detective.

He went to complain to Howie Wallace, who offered slightly more sympathy and said, since he didn't have anything special to do, why didn't they go out to that French restaurant and do some interviews. Av couldn't really see the point of that, the EMS reports being fairly complete. Howie said he wanted something different for lunch. Av hadn't told Howie about the four runners or the little memento he'd found on his front-yard fence. He still thought he might be imagining the whole episode, or at least the notion that someone was trying to threaten or scare him. But if so, over what?

They checked out an unmarked and went up Connecticut Avenue through the usual lunchtime traffic. Av wondered aloud about the wisdom of eating at a restaurant after they'd questioned the staff about an unexplained death.

When they arrived at the bistro, however, they got a surprise.

“Closed?” Howie said. Av double-parked, got out, and went up to read the sign.

“This is a health department sign,” Av pointed out. “Food Safety. City shut 'em down.”

“Just because some guy croaked? Way I read it, he hadn't eaten anything.”

A taxi, pinned behind their slick-back by traffic, started laying on the horn. Av badged him and told him to shut up. The Lebanese driver threw up his hands in disgust and darted back into traffic, provoking even more horn blowing. Av got back into their Crown Vic.

“Let's go around back,” he said. “I thought I saw a light on in there.”

“We can do that,” Howie said. “But it ain't gonna get me any snails.”

“Tragedy,” Av muttered. As far as he was concerned, snails were something he dug out of his running-shoe treads after a run on the towpath.

He steered the car around the corner and found what he was looking for, a service alley behind the row of buildings that included the bistro. When they got to the back of the restaurant, they found a door open. Two men dressed in kitchen white utilities were sitting on trash cans, having a cup of coffee and a cigarette. The open door revealed a brightly lighted kitchen. They got out and approached the two men. Av identified himself as Metro police.

“Now what?” one of the men said, belligerently. He was the younger of the two. Superskinny, an international orange blaze in his spiky hair, earrings in both ears. The older guy was giving Howie's outfit the once-over. Howie was sporting what he called his official middle-aged Mau-Mau look: an untucked white shirt shaped like a sixties dashiki, mirrored shades, the dreads, of course, all worn over jeans and sandals. Av thought he looked like any well-dressed bank robber.

“‘Now what?'” he said. “Not sure I understand your question.”

“You people have already shut us down for no good reason. So, like, yeah, now what: you back to rub it in or something?”

“You've got us confused with someone else,” Howie said. “We're detectives. We're investigating an unexplained death in this restaurant a few days ago. We're the police, brother, not the health department.”

“You're the District government,” the older sniffed. “What's the difference? Place is shut down and we're out of work.”

“We'd like to speak to the proprietor of the Bistro Nord,” Av said. “Is he here?”

“Jacques? Hell, no. You people took him away.”

Av and Howie looked at each other. “Sorry, man,” Howie said. “We don't know what you're goin' on about. Sign out front says Food Safety shut you down for some kinda violation. They don't take anybody anywhere.”

The younger man pitched the remains of his coffee into the alley. “Tell that to Jacques,” he said. “These four guys come in, buncha suits wearing, like, Matrix sunglasses? Took Jacques out front to a black SUV and then slapped that fuckin' sign on the door. Told us to shut it down and go on vacation for a while.”

“When was this?” Av asked.

“Day after it happened,” the man said. “Came in here like the fuckin' gestapo, man. Front and back, like it was some kinda roust. This is a respectable restaurant here. Been in business for, like, eight years, no problems with nobody, and sure as hell no health department violations. Never had a score under ninety-eight.”

Av knew that eight years was a lifetime in the restaurant business. He was completely baffled. “Either of you guys here the day the dude croaked?” he asked.

The younger guy nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “We catch that scene on a regular basis—middle-aged paper pusher chasin' some hottie. We all figured her for bein' something special on the side, older dude like that. She was new, but he was a regular. Nice people, you know? He was a good tipper, knew his French cuisine, too.”