Stone leaned forward. “Assuming the same person was responsible for all three,” Stone said.
“Yes. Now, this is pure speculation, but there are toxins, that depending on how they’re processed, are versatile enough to be used in each of the ways you mentioned.”
“So one poison could be responsible for all three deaths?”
“Theoretically. Particularly with biological agents. Black locust, for example, is a source of robin, which can be processed in different ways. Rosary pea, which produces abrin, is another. And there are some non-plant substances too. Cationic detergents, perhaps, like fabric softeners. Or disinfectants. Even something like parathion, which is similar to nerve gas.”
Matt splayed his hands. “We can’t test for everything.”
“No, you can’t.”
“So what would you suggest?”
“What you’re already doing. Take it from the other end. Refine your victimlogies. Find out what they have in common. Who wants to harm them. Or had anything to gain from their death. But keep in mind who and what you’re dealing with.”
“What about trying to profile the killer?” Stone asked.
“I’m sure VICAP can help.”
“We’re interested in your take, not the Bureau’s.”
“I don’t want to tread on the FBI’s turf.”
“Okay.” Stone smiled. “Now that we’re done with the disclaimers…”
He smiled back. “You’re dealing with someone who’s cunning and highly motivated. But to the external world, they might seem reserved, even cowardly.”
Stone interrupted. “Is that why most poisoners are women?”
“Actually that’s a misconception, Detective. The majority of poisoners who’ve been discovered turn out to be men.”
“But what about those who weren’t—discovered?”
Van Thorsen aimed a finger at Stone. “Good point. We’ll never know how many women, or men, for that matter, got away with it.”
“What else?”
“Curiously, we’ve found that a lot of poisoners have an artistic bent. Actually, if you think about it, it’s not so strange. Their plans are designed in as much detail as if they were writing a script for a play. They’re methodical, they’re patient, and they’re sure they’ll get away with it.”
“So premeditation isn’t an issue.”
“Your murderer cleans up afterwards, right?” ‘
Stone nodded.
“You tell me. Anyone who takes the time to clean up afterwards has to be a pretty cool customer.”
“One more question.” Matt took off his glasses. “Do you have any statistics on solved cases? How many inconclusive deaths end up identifying the pathogen used?”
A shadow passed over Van Thorsen’s face. “It’s not good. Most of the inconclusive cases—if they ever are solved—take years. And,” he paused, “they usually require exhumations.”
Matt put his glasses back on.
Chapter Thirty-four
Georgia idled under the shower, hoping the hot water would purge her resentment. Toweling off, she pulled her hair back and threw on clean sweats.
Not even noon. The yawning emptiness of the day loomed, a black hole of time, with fat stolid hours curving back on themselves. Wandering into the kitchen, she thought about the quart of rum she’d stashed in the cabinet. The box of sugar cubes lay on the counter. She dug into the box and popped one into her mouth.
She sucked on the sugar, the sweet sensation filling her mouth. She shuffled back into the bedroom. She picked up the phone and called her answering machine. A ping of excitement shot through her when the digital voice said there was a new message. Whoa girl, she thought, as she punched in her code, thinking she must be hitting bottom if a phone message was the high point of her day.
The female voice was unfamiliar. “I—I hope I got the right number. This is Clark.” Georgia stiffened. “I’ve been thinking about you. Did you ever find the woman you were looking for? I’m—well, I’d like to hear from you.” She recited a number with a downtown area code.
Georgia slammed down the phone. How dare this woman call her, invade her privacy? Snatching up the phone, she started to dial Clark’s number. Half way through, she stopped. She was over-reacting. Just erase the message. Forget about it. She put the phone back on the base.
She ran her hands down her sides, as if smoothing out a wrinkled dress. The irony was that had she been in a relationship with anyone except Matt—even a woman—she’d still be a cop.
She threw herself onto the couch. The walls were closing in. Matt was working. She ought to be working too. God knows they needed the help.
Undetectable poisons. Ingested, inhaled, and now, possibly injected. Someone ought to be looking at all the possibilities. She raised herself on her elbow and gazed at Matt’s desktop computer on a nearby table. Now that he had his laptop, he rarely used this one.
***
Two hours later she was still hunched over the keyboard and mouse. She’d started with “undetectable poisons”, pulling down lists of poisons and crosschecking them against their characteristics and symptoms. The list was overwhelming. She wouldn’t get far that way. Refining the search, she entered “poisons—ingest.” That was better. She started to read. She did the same with “poisons—inhale” and “inject.” Slowly the list shrank. There were still hundreds to check, but a pattern seemed to emerge. The majority of toxins that fit all three criteria were largely derived from plant or animal sources.
One toxin in particular surfaced more than once. Biological. Easily available. Easily processed. She kept going.
Toxins were classified by level, based on the amount needed to cause a fatal reaction. Marijuana and Tylenol, she learned, were low level, meaning it would take a shitload of each to do any harm. Surprisingly, aspirin was a level four, but this one was a level six—up there with doomsday material like plutonium and botulism. Six thousand times more toxic than cyanide, a cloud of it dispersed over a populated area could kill hundreds of thousands of people. It was considered the third most toxic substance in the world. She shivered.
Switching to a database of news articles, she entered the name of the poison. Over thirty articles popped up. She scanned them. The DEA and ATF were concerned that domestic terrorist groups were hoarding the stuff, and they had issued warnings to local law enforcement agencies about it. Saddam Hussein was apparently harvesting fields of it in Iraq. And the Army was supposed to be working on a vaccine, coincidentally in Chicago.
When she looked up, the sun had set and the windows were deep pools of black. She downloaded the articles, book-marked the websites, then called Matt at the station. “Call me as soon as you can,” she said to his voice-mail. “I have something to tell you.”
While she waited for his call, she paced the living room. The kicker was not only that it was undetectable, but there was no cure. Or antidote. No matter how it was administered, it was a slow, painful death. Just like Matt’s victims.
***
Carrie Nelson beeped Matt on his cell that afternoon.
“I got something.”
“Where are you?”
“In Glenbrook. At Louis Simon’s office.”
Twenty minutes later Matt was looking at a white envelope addressed to Dr. Louis Simon. According to the receptionist, it had arrived in the mail about a week before Simon’s death, but the receptionist threw it in a pile with the rest of the junk mail. Matt pulled on gloves, opened the envelope, and extracted a black and white photograph of an empty field. A steeple poked through the trees. He went cold.
***
Matt and Stone worked late in the conference room, honing their victimologies of Romano, Simon, and Landon. The discovery of the photograph confirmed that Simon and Romano’s deaths were connected. Matt was sure Landon was linked to them, too.
Stone wasn’t convinced. He’d searched Landon’s apartment, but he didn’t find any photographs.
“What about his office?” Matt said. “That’s where we found Simon’s.”
“We’ll go down to Feldman Development in the morning.”
“You know there’s another possibility.” Matt looked at Stone. “Van Thorsen says the killer is intelligent and cunning. What if they’re intentionally throwing us off?”
Stone frowned. “How do you mean?”
“Acting unpredictably. Establishing a pattern and then breaking it—just to keep us guessing.”
“Why would they do that?”
“To keep us from connecting the three deaths?”
“But we’re doing that anyway.”
“We’re still off the reservation with Landon.”
“You think they like watching us stumble around in the dark?”
“I do.”
Stone thought about the dead dog on the SGF site. No note, no claim of responsibility. What if it had been orchestrated by their killer—for no reason other than to confuse them? He stood and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Okay. Let’s say they are doing a head-trip on us. Dropping a clue here and there, planting a red herring for us to trip over. What does that say about our killer?”
“It’s a game. They’re daring us to catch them.”
“And if it’s a game, what’s the ultimate objective?”
“To win.”
Stone walked across the room. “Haven’t they already won? They’ve killed two, probably three people.”
He studied the documents taped to the wall. A map of the North Shore with pushpins flagging the locations of the bodies, the homes of the victims, and their places of work. A time line marking the days they’d found each victim. A list of interviews with family, neighbors, and others. Other leads in blue, including the dates they found the photographs and the day Matt found Brenda Hartman. Stone had added two dates: the day he found the dog shit and the dead dog on the site.
Stone turned around in front of the time-line. “What happens when you win?”
“You claim victory. You get a prize. You’re showered with honor and fame—” Matt nearly jumped out of his chair. “That’s it! Fame. Notoriety. They
want
us to figure out who they are.”
“
And
why they’re doing it.” Stone jabbed a finger. “But then why change their MO? That makes things tougher for us.”
“Because they’re not finished,” Matt said. “They want to keep us guessing until they’re finished.”
Stone turned back to the timeline and studied it. “Ten days.”
“Ten days what?”
He pointed to the timeline. “Romano was hit the third week of October, Simon the first week of November. Landon two weeks after that. Our killer hits in two-week intervals. We’ve got ten days until they strike again.”
***
It was after eleven when he opened the door, but the apartment was empty. Matt popped open a soda. He couldn’t imagine not being able to do the job you’d been trained for. At least Georgia was out having a good time. He was swigging seltzer when the phone rang.
“Yeah?”
“This Matt Singer?”
“That’s right.”
“This is Ed, bartender up at Italian Gardens.”
“Yeah?”
“I got your wife up here. She’s ready to go home.”
Matt hesitated a beat. “Thanks, man. I’ll be right there.”
Ten minutes later waves of garlic-flavored heat eddied out as Matt pushed through the door. Georgia, dressed in a black turtleneck, jeans, and gym shoes, was slouched over the end of a polished oak bar, head on her arms.
Matt walked over. “Georgia, it’s me.”
She looked up. Her hair was disheveled, her make-up smeared. “You never called me back,” she said slurring her words.
“I’m sorry.”
“How ‘ja know I was here?”
Matt yanked his thumb in the bartender’s direction.
Georgia jiggled a finger at the bartender. “Naughty boy.” She pasted on a crooked smile. “You said you wanted my number for yourself.”
Ed looked at Matt and shrugged.
“Come on, Georgia,” Matt said. “Let’s go home.”
She shook her head, her hair flying from side to side. “I like it here.”
“They’re about to close.”
“No. You’re not closing, Eddie, are ‘ya?” Georgia looked up.
“That’s right, Georgia. We are.”
“Well,” She pointed her finger, “you can take me home, can’t you?”
“I have to clean up.” He shook out a white towel and started wiping down the bar. “Go home with your husband, honey.”
“He isn’t my husband.” Georgia pushed herself off the stool and swayed. She grabbed the edge of the stool to steady herself. “You know what a
shiksa
is, Ed?”
Ed’s face said he didn’t.
“It’s Jewish for whore.”
Matt’s jaw tightened. He tried to steer her out.
Stumbling forward, she called to Ed. “You got my number. You call me, okay?”
The bartender waved his towel.
“Thanks, man,” Matt said over his shoulder. “I’ll settle up with you tomorrow.”
“Forget it,” Ed said, stacking glasses behind the bar.
Matt settled her in the front seat of the car, but she slumped sideways. “Would you rather lie down?”
“No,” she mumbled. “Might throw up.”
“Okay. We’ll be home soon.”
“How come you didn’t call back?” she muttered when he climbed into the driver’s seat. “Called twice.”
“I was busy, Georgia. I’m sorry.”
“Too bad. Somethin’ important to tell you.”
“What?”
“You’ll ‘haff to wait.”
She hummed tunelessly, then lapsed into silence. Matt felt a pang of guilt. He’d seen her messages. He could have called her back. He’d chosen not to. Georgia’s problems were sapping him of the energy he needed to fight his own demons. As he drove down Waukegan Road, an image of Ricki Feldman came into his mind. Her slender body. Long silky hair. Luminous eyes. He blinked it away.
Chapter Thirty-five
Stone peered through the window high above LaSalle Street. Clear, brittle air sharpened the finely etched skyline. Days like this reminded him of his first few weeks in Chicago. After coping with the tired, inbred culture of Philadelphia, Chicago had energized him. You didn’t need to be in the old boy’s network to succeed. It didn’t matter where you came from. If you had a good idea, and were willing to work for it, you could make it here. He still believed that, and on days like this, with the city literally spread out at his feet, it felt like a sure bet.
“Gentlemen, if you’ll follow me...” The SGF receptionist, an elderly woman with white hair tightly curled around her face, cut into his thoughts.
He turned away from the window. The reception area, with richly upholstered low-slung furniture, a marble coffee table, and recessed lighting, made its own kind of statement—a statement that said we have money, we have power, and we’re not afraid to use them.
Matt rose from a nearby chair. He looked tired. Even depressed.
The woman led them down a thickly carpeted hall past walls flanked with oversized framed photos. Some were aerial shots of Feldman properties, others groups of smiling people posed in front of shopping centers, apartments, or office buildings. Each photograph had a name and date: Fieldcrest Mall, Park Forest Apartments, Frontage North. Stone had almost reached at the end of the hall when he realized Matt wasn’t behind him. Wheeling around, he saw Matt in front of one photograph, staring with wide eyes.
“John, look at this.”
Stone retraced his steps. The picture was a group shot of about a dozen people on a grassy field with a playground in the background. It was warm; no one wore coats. From the hair and sideburns on the men, the picture had to be at least thirty years old. He squinted at the title: Meadow City, 1978. But Matt wasn’t looking at the men. He pointed to a woman in the second row. She looked to be in her twenties. Dark hair, nice smile. Vaguely familiar.
“This woman—this girl—that’s Julie Romano.”
Stone froze.
Matt opened his backpack, dug out a copy of the Romano family, and passed it to Stone. The family photo showed an older, rounder face, but otherwise, it was the same smile, the same expression. Julie Romano.
Stone grabbed the photo off the wall. “Where’s Ricki?”
The receptionist pointed to a door at the end of the hall. Rufus Dorman, Ricki’s bodyguard, sat at a secretary’s station across from the door. Clutching the photo, Stone moved down the hall and threw open the door before Dorman could stop him.
Her office, large and airy, was dominated with a clear acrylic desk, bare except for an expensive looking pen set. Abstract prints on the walls, thick mauve carpeting, and a window with a spectacular view of LaSalle Street. Ricki was on the phone but fell silent when she saw Stone. “I’ll get back to you,” she said into the receiver and hung up.
“You’d better look at this,” Stone said.
“Good morning to you too, Sergeant,” she said. Rising from her chair, she began walking around her desk when Matt came in, with Dorman at his heels.
“I’m sorry, Miss Feldman,” Dorman said, his face full of anger. “They just --But Ricki wasn’t looking at Dorman. “Detective Singer,” She said. Her cheeks colored.
Matt’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Good morning, Ricki.”
Stone, watching their reactions, stepped in front of Matt to block their view. “Ricki, who’s in all those photos in the hall?”
“My father liked to commemorate his projects with pictures of employees, contractors. You know, the people who made it all happen. He’d make a lot of copies and give them to everyone in the pictures.”
“I see.” Stone motioned to the photo of Romano. “Take a look at this. Do you know this woman?”
Ricki forced her eyes from Matt to the photo. She squinted, then shook her head.
“You sure?”
A look of irritation came over her. “I told you no.”
Stone raised his eyebrows. “So you did. That’s Julie Romano.”
“And Julie Romano is…”
“The dead woman Matt found in the dumpster.”
Ricki reeled back. She looked at Stone, then Matt. “Oh my god.” Her irritation vanished, replaced with a look of fear. Even Dorman sucked in a breath.
“I—I’m sorry. I didn’t…” Ricki swallowed. “What do you need from me?”
Stone glanced at Matt. His partner’s face was unreadable. Stone looked back at Ricki. “Her personnel file.”
She hesitated for a moment, then nodded at Stone. She headed across the room. At the door, she turned around. “Matt, will you give me a hand?”
Matt was already halfway across the room.
***
Matt followed Ricki into a room with stacks of file cabinets, a vending machine and shelves of office supplies. She bent over one of the cabinets and opened a drawer labeled “Personnel”. As she thumbed through the contents, Matt stood at the vending machine, watching her back, feeling awkward and clumsy.
“Why don’t they ever file things the way they should? How many times have I told them...” She threw a look over her shoulder. “Could you help me, please?”
Inside the drawer were file folders with brightly colored labels, but he couldn’t make out the words. She closed the drawer and opened another. This time he could see names, alphabetically arranged. As he drew closer, a whiff of perfume filled his nostrils. Sweet and tangy. Not the flowery stuff Georgia wore.
“Matt—I don’t ...” She twisted around, and as she did, her hair brushed his cheek. Her voice trailed off. He noted how her jaw flexed when she swallowed. The way she blinked her eyes. The smile lines around her lips. He felt heat on his face and saw it on hers.
Her features softened, and she tilted her mouth up. He felt a dizzying wave of desire. He was aware of dangling on the precipice, about to dive into a dangerous ocean. Then he thought about Georgia. His eyes flicked away.
The silence thickened. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he lowered his head. He wasn’t sure what to expect. A slap, an insult, a curse? Instead, she flashed him the barest hint of a smile. He returned it, grateful she wasn’t angry. In fact, he thought he saw a glint in her eyes. A glint that spoke of triumph. He must be mistaken.
“
Bashert
,” she said in a throaty whisper. “It’s just a matter of time.” Then she bent over the drawer. “Got it.” She pulled out a file.
***
Julie Romano had been the bookkeeper for SGF Development. It was her first job out of school.
“Would anyone still remember her? “Stone asked when they regrouped in Ricki’s office.
“My father,” Ricki said. “But he’s not here.”
“Who are these people?” Stone held up the Meadow City photograph.
She shrugged. “Construction workers, contractors, staffers. Daddy liked to take pictures of everyone who worked on his projects. Made it seem more like family. See, here’s Paul.” She pointed to a young Landon with thick dark hair and a broad smile in the back row.
Stone took the file and the photograph and started to put on his coat. “Where are you going?”
“To Lake Forest.”
“You can’t talk to my father. He’s pretty broken up about Paul. And he’s not well.”
Stone turned a cold eye on her. “I’m sorry. But this is a murder investigation, and he might have material information about one of the victims. We need to talk.”
Her eyes were equally cold. “What about those CEASE people? Or the monster that left the dog at the site? Why are you so anxious to zero in on my father?”
“Why are you so anxious to keep us away from him?”
She looked at the floor. It occurred to Stone that she knew something– something she didn’t want to reveal. He shifted. What was she covering up? He glanced over at Matt, but he hadn’t seemed to pick up on it. Stone felt his temper spike. He was losing patience with them both.
The phone rang. Ricki jumped and went behind the desk to answer it. “What is it?” A pause. “No!” Another pause. “I’ll be right there.” She dropped the phone. “They’re taking my father to the hospital. They think he had a stroke.”