The Price of Innocence (31 page)

‘I need more chemistry.’

‘I don’t know about that.’ He moved past a bench with Nalgene jars of bodily specimens and the gas chromatograph, back to his lair, and left her to follow if she wished. No flashes of empathy here, to her relief. Coming so soon after Leo that would add one more layer of surrealism to her day. ‘You might be all right if you combed your hair, and got the proper amount of sleep. And stopped taking drugs.’

A response to this seemed quite beyond her present abilities, and in her silence he relented enough to say, ‘It shouldn’t be all that bad. You didn’t get the same stuff that killed Lily Simpson.’

‘Yeah, Frank said that. So he dosed me with plain old meth?’ Technically this violated Leo’s edict, but surely she had a right to know what she had been poisoned with?

‘I didn’t say that, either.’ Oliver took a large bite of what appeared to be an egg and sausage muffin, and not a feeble fast-food version, either. This muffin had at least a five-inch diameter. An oversized Styrofoam cup of coffee steamed next to it and she wondered when she had last eaten. Yesterday – lunch? Had she eaten lunch? ‘He – do you know who this mysterious
he
is, by the way?’

‘Um, no – not yet.’ Naturally she held out a tiny, foolish hope that David Madison had
not
tried to kill her, but circumstances refused to throw this hope a bone. Frank had immediately sent the local police to her home, but David and his vehicle were both gone. His children were, as he had said, at his sister’s and had not seen him since Friday after school. Frank issued a BOLO but so far neither the man nor his car had been sighted. ‘We’re working on it.’

Oliver’s eyes, surrounded by puffs of flesh, peered out from behind round glasses. ‘Uh-huh. Well, he used the same stuff he gave to Ken Bilecki. Plain meth, as you might say, none of the additional compounds that bind the neurotransmitters. Chemically, no different than any other meth that turns up in an unhealthy portion of the victims we see here.’

‘Not
chemically
different.’

‘No. The difference is in the purity. Most meth is not perfect to begin with and laced with unintended impurities, having been cooked by street thugs who barely made it out of grammar school. Then it is cut with some innocuous substance to add volume without additional expense – same way snack foods are often sold in boxes one-third larger than they need to be. It fools the consumer into thinking they’re getting more. So most meth is also laced with intended impurities.’

Her brain did not feel like following Oliver’s ping-ponging interests. ‘And the stuff I got?’

‘No impurities at all, intentional or otherwise. It’s the most chaste, most potent methamphetamine I’ve ever seen.’

She tried to assimilate this. ‘So he would not have had to add much to my flavored water. It wouldn’t alter the taste. And if a chronic user like Ken took the same amount he usually did—’

‘He’d be guaranteed to overdose.’

Ken and Lily, both killed by bizarre forms of meth – forms tailored for each of them. The killer didn’t only know chemistry, he knew his victims. He knew them well.

Of course this only added to the mounting evidence against David Madison. When this case ended she would lock herself in her bedroom and throw the key down to her mother lest she ever make the acquaintance of another man. And if she lost her job in the wake of this morning’s incident, it would only make hibernation that much easier to accomplish.

OK, move on. ‘Did you get anything from the samples I sent you from our Bingham victims?’

‘In indirect violation of federal instructions regarding the evidence? Oh yes, my dear, I know about that. What do you mean by anything?’

Oliver functioned as a particularly cranky form of Google. Make your search parameters too narrow, and you might miss some results. ‘Anything interesting?’

‘More residue of what you tried to kill me with, nitrogen triiodide.’ Oliver chewed, swallowed, flicked his ponytail back over his wide shoulder and added, ‘Found some phosphorus, too.’

Theresa had been staring at the mass spectrometer to distract herself from the sausage and egg combination, which, of course, was not permitted in the lab, but rules did not apply to Oliver, especially when no one else was around. Now she switched her gaze back to the portly toxicologist. ‘Phosphorus.’

‘Chemical symbol P, number fifteen on the periodic table. A multivalent non-metal. Surely you’ve heard of it.’

‘I have a theory,’ she said. ‘About why the meth lab blew up twenty-five years ago.’

He washed down his breakfast with approximately a pint of steaming coffee, taken all at once. ‘Oh, excellent. A biologist with a theory based on chemistry. I do have to hear this.’

‘Ken Bilecki told me DaVinci—’

‘Who?’

‘Long story. DaVinci mentioned ammonium hydroxide. They synthesized the meth using iodine and red phosphorus. One of the steps calls for the addition of sodium hydroxide, to bring up the Ph. If the dead student used ammonium hydroxide instead, maybe he wound up with a bunch of nitrogen triiodide crystals instead of meth in the bottom of his flask.’

Oliver considered this. ‘Hmm. Might be an interesting experiment. Though I’ll bet workers’ comp wouldn’t cover any maiming injuries, party-poopers that they are.’

‘As long as the crystals are kept cold and wet, nothing bad happens and he doesn’t know anything’s wrong. However, the next step in the meth process calls for heating the flask.’

Oliver licked his fingers. ‘Ka-blooey.’

‘Just so. DaVinci figures this out. Maybe the red phosphorus coordinates with the NI3 molecule, maybe displaces the ammonia molecule. And the phosphorus stabilizes the NI3.’

Oliver stopped licking, his eyes focused on another plane where protons and electrons combined and recombined. ‘But it still blew up. Rather forcefully, one might add.’

‘I didn’t say stabilized
completely
. It would still be a dangerous explosive, but a little easier to transport and store – or walk around with in a coat pocket without maiming oneself. It’s how he amassed enough of it in the Bingham basement to take it down before he finally screwed something up and triggered the reaction.’

‘So our chemist learned from his college days—’

She couldn’t resist an Oliver-like digression: ‘Which, after all, is the purpose of education.’

‘—to become a terrorist, or at least a supplier, today.’

It did not surprise her to hear him tie past and present cases to each other. She doubted anything could surprise her at this point.

Famous last words.

Her Nextel trilled, and she answered it. Leo, of course, who would rather call than walk thirty feet across the hall to get her.

‘Come back here right away. We have a call on hold for you, and you’re going to want to take it.’

‘Why all the drama? Who is it?’

‘I think,’ Leo breathed into the phone, ‘it’s your new boyfriend. The one who tried to kill you.’

S
he took the phone from the wide-eyed secretary.

‘Theresa? I caught a bit on the news and it said someone attacked you? Are you all right?’

She tried to speak, choked, tamped down her anger and tried again. ‘Yes, someone did. We all think it was you.’

A pause – of shock, or to regroup? ‘Me? How could it have been me? Didn’t you see him?’

‘Of course not, but—’ The police had indeed tried to keep the name of their oft-testifying expert witness and mention of drug intoxication from turning up in the same statement. To the media they had characterized last night’s event as an assault only. David was either innocent, or he was fishing. ‘Where are you?’

‘I’ve just been driving around, mostly. I don’t know where
to
go – the media is still camped in my driveway. Are you sure you’re all right?’

Then why hasn’t someone picked you up on the BOLO?
she had the sense not to ask. And there are no TV vans, no spectators in your driveway because your wife is news but not big news, and I know that because Frank has two officers parked around the corner from your house.

No, she’d have a better chance of convincing him to come in if she kept things cordial. ‘Yes. Look—’

‘Why would you think I attacked you?’

‘Well … when I went back home, you were gone. That seemed kind of suspicious.’

‘I heard you leave for work, so I got up. I’d already imposed on you enough and I didn’t want your mother to see my car in the drive.’

How thoughtful of him. ‘I need to see you.’

‘I’d like to see you, too,’ he said, with the correct amount of wistfulness in his voice, just enough to make her hope, with an intensity that brought tears to her eyes, that they were wrong about him. ‘I have to tell you something.’

‘About Marty Davis?’

‘Yes. I think I know who killed him.’

Yeah, you, she thought, the hope choking on its own naivety. ‘Really? Who?’

‘I need to explain this in person. Can I meet you at your house?’

Not a chance, she thought. Someplace public, but with a little privacy. She thought fast. ‘Are you downtown?’

‘Huh? Yeah, I’m on the Shoreway.’

‘Perfect. You know the Eastman Reading Garden at the public library?’

‘Yeah. But—’

‘Half an hour.’ She hung up, clamping the receiver on to its body and holding it there. To Leo she said, ‘If he calls back, tell him I left and you don’t know my cell number. I can’t give him an opportunity to change the meeting place.’

‘You aren’t going there alone, are you?’ Her boss actually seemed concerned for her safety, and she smiled in response.

David had been lying to her from the first moment. About why he had attended Marty’s funeral, about knowing Lily Simpson or Ken Bilecki, about why he needed to stay at her house yesterday.

‘I may have been born at night,’ she said to Leo, ‘but it wasn’t
last
night.’

The Eastman Reading Garden, decorated with adorable bronze figures by Tom Otterness, lay enveloped in dusky shadows as the main branch of the public library blotted out the sinking sun. Theresa perched on the edge of the small fountain, shivering in a thin sweater.

‘She should have a coat on.’ Frank, at the window, spoke to no one in particular. As if Theresa catching a cold wasn’t the least of his concerns at present.

‘He should be here any minute,’ Angela said, with an uncomfortable breath. ‘If he’s going to show at all.’

Frank glanced sideways at the stiff way she held her damaged torso. ‘
You
shouldn’t be here at all.’

‘Of course I’m here. This is Theresa.’

His cousin had picked a good spot, more or less. The garden was nestled in the seventy-five foot space between the original library building and the modern Stokes wing. The doors from the garden into the library were already locked for the evening so that Madison would not be able to escape into the library, still full of civilians. The iron gates at each end, opening on to the sidewalks of Superior and Rockwell, remained the only way in or out. The walls of this new wing were made of glass, so that Frank and ten other cops could watch every inch of the Eastman garden. Library staff stood at the ready to open the doors and let them spill out in an instant. They would not loan out the keys. Librarians could be quite firm on certain matters.

Five other cops were stationed along each of the two streets to the north and south, watching for Madison’s arrival. This represented a lot of manpower for one stake-out, but Frank didn’t fool himself that the men had been assigned out of concern for either Theresa or himself. No, Frank had told his boss he could – tentatively – link David Madison to the Bingham building explosion. That pulled a handful of strings. Theresa would be safe.

He kept telling himself that.

Unless Madison pulled out a gun as soon as he stepped inside the garden, or got close enough to use a knife. They could grab him the moment he appeared, as they had more than enough to hold him for questioning … but Frank felt curious to know what he planned to say to her. Catching people in lies played well to a jury. It might put Theresa at risk, but they needed to know if Madison really
could
be connected to the Bingham explosion.

Why would Madison show up at all? Theresa had told him they suspected him of the murder attempt and then refused to let him come to her house. He either thought he could get away with her poisoning and planned to brazen it out with a posture of innocence, or he planned to finish the job.

But why? Theresa didn’t have any evidence to connect him to the Marty Davis murder, and she had already told Frank about Madison’s connection to the meth lab explosion. Madison might not know that for sure, but again, he would have to assume it at this point. So what exactly did he hope to gain by silencing Theresa?

Unless she knew something she didn’t yet know she knew. Some connection she hadn’t made, but would eventually.

Either that, or the cuckold really was innocent.

Two black teenagers ran through the garden, hand in hand, weighed down by heavy backpacks. Theresa’s gaze followed their path, head swinging from north to south.

Frank watched her shiver again. Madison should have been there fifteen minutes ago.

A screech of brakes came from Superior. Had one of those kids gotten hit by a car?

Frank saw Theresa stand, craning her neck to see what had occurred. At that moment, David Madison appeared at the north end, the side bordered by Rockwell. He wore dark clothes and an unzipped hoodie. He hung on the open gate until it swung shut behind him. His mouth opened.

Theresa turned immediately. Don’t go near him, Frank thought.
Make him come to you.

She began walking toward Madison.

Theresa
! What was she doing?

Frank did at least register the shapes of his two fellow detectives coming up behind Madison, outside the iron gates, but still found himself pounding on the glass exit doors. A slender librarian hastily unlocked the door, her keys flying as Frank burst through it. While he banged his shin on one of the iron tables, he saw his cops pulling the gate open as Madison lurched forward and grabbed Theresa.