“You’re kidding me,” I said.
“I’m not. This is definitely our drug, guys. Rodents given Marihypnol don’t respond to pain. No one understands the mechanism—the nerves are still responding, sending whopping signals to the brain to cease the pain-causing activity. But for some reason, when subjects are on high-dose Marihypnol, they can perceive pain but can’t respond to it. They know it’s there, but they’re unable to do anything about it.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I said, struggling to keep my jaw in place as everything we’d proposed regarding the modus operandi of the Snow White Killer clicked into place.
“This explains why the victims never struggled. If they were pumped full of Marihypnol, they couldn’t.” I let the words fall onto the rest of the group as they assimilated everything. It was an unsettling thought; the victims had still felt the pain, they just couldn’t do anything about it. The SWK had probably watched his victims like an entomologist watches an insect pinned to the foam of a collection board.
The young tech’s voice snapped me back to the present. “As Dr. Randall was saying, they’ve already done tolerability studies in humans. So we know what’s acceptable and what’s considered toxic.”
“And?”
Terry spoke up again. “And we’ve done a rough calculation—every single one of the victims had circulating levels of this drug well above the maximum tolerated dose.”
Woodson spoke. “So they were drugged intentionally with high-dose Marihypnol.”
“Looks like it’s time to find out which clinical sites in this part of the United States are involved in that phase three trial of Marihypnol,” I said.
* * *
We all went back upstairs. I walked to my office, while Raritan, Parkman, and Woodson set up a teleconference with Arrow Pharmaceuticals to find out more about their clinical studies. I desperately wanted to bring Mara in and follow up on the link to the gallery, but we were so close to an even more tangible break in the case with the Arrow Pharmaceutical lead that I forced myself to stay in the office until we knew the locations of their clinical trial sites in case we got a lead.
As I sat at my desk, I couldn’t shake the memory of my mother’s eyes in that portrait gallery. It all came back. I tried to steer my mind away from it. I tried to think about the geography of the kill sites, about the killer’s access to blood samples, about the ripper sequence as a road map, about the killer’s obsession with me, about the killer’s link to Mara.
On the surface, in the onslaught of facts and evidence, everything kept boiling down to one person, and I refused to believe it. It had to be someone else.
A few minutes later I heard footsteps coming down the hall. My colleagues hadn’t called ahead, which meant they wanted to talk to me face-to-face without giving me time to prepare.
One pair of heels, a pair of boots, and a pair of wingtips: each of them made a characteristic clack on the tiled floor, a trio of sounds I hadn’t heard since I’d been released from the hospital in Gulfport so long ago.
Woodson, Parkman, Raritan.
I wiped my face with my hands, opened my eyes, and gathered myself. I closed my eyes and took a final deep breath before they made it to the door.
“Come in,” I said, as soon as I heard the knock a few seconds later.
No one looked me in the eyes as I searched each of their faces, not even Woodson. She finally spoke, after Parkman closed the door. “Lucas. We found out the names of the principal investigators running the clinical trials for Marihypnol.”
“Oh? Good.” I pushed myself back from the desk and started to stand.
Raritan stepped forward. “Just stay seated, Lucas.”
“Uh, okay,” I said, feeling my legs go numb beneath me.
Raritan gave Woodson an imperceptible nod, and she sat in one of the chairs across from my desk. “It’s time for you to be off the case, Lucas,” she said.
“Why?” I asked, but the only image filling my mind was the face of my mother in that painting.
Woodson took a deep breath. “There are five investigators leading the clinical trial for Marihypnol. One of the centers is in Hattiesburg.”
I felt a tear coursing over my cheek and struggled to quell it. “I see.”
“The principal investigator in the Marihypnol trial is Dr. Tyler Madden.” She put her hand on mine from across the desk.
I looked up at her face, saw the strain and the sadness in it. I looked up at Jimmy, then to Parkman. I gazed at them all, helplessly, and only found grim visages in return.
“It’s a no-brainer, Lucas. I’m, I mean, we’re all very sorry.”
The words registered, but still I refused to believe them. “No. You’re all wrong. It’s not Tyler. It can’t be.”
Jimmy held out his hand, and cut me off. “You’re off this case, Lucas. End of story.”
I ceased speaking and simply nodded.
“If you’re up to it,” he said, “you can stay here and help Woodson round up the case files and take them over to the Jackson field office while we find your brother.” He looked at me. “If you can’t handle that, we’ll just have Woodson stay here with you and send somebody over for the case files later.”
“I can handle it.”
“Okay. Agent Woodson,” Raritan spoke her name in good-bye fashion, but the implication of the unfinished statement was clear.
If he tries anything, stop him.
Raritan and Parkman called the police department in Hattiesburg and left to meet several members of the local force at Tyler’s offices.
After they left, Woodson simply sat and waited across from me in silence, allowing me the time I needed to recover from the shock.
“Woodson,” I finally said. “I know how bad this looks. But it’s not him. Somehow, he’s being framed for this.” Even as I spoke the words, I realized the fallout that would inevitably come. How was I supposed to explain this to Katie? Or my father?
Woodson shook her head. “Let’s just see what he has to say.”
I picked up my phone and dialed a number.
“Lucas, you can’t call him. Raritan said—”
“I’m not calling him. I’m calling my sister, to make sure she’s okay. I’m not calling my brother and telling him to make a break for Mexico.”
“But you can’t say anything to your sister, either.”
“Woodson, I’m checking on her. I won’t say anything to her about Tyler. After I talk to her I’ll ask for Faraday and get him up to speed, just in case Tyler should happen to show up over there. Okay?”
Woodson peered at me for a couple seconds. “Okay.”
I resumed the dial, and my sister’s voice answered. “Hello?”
“Katie. It’s Lucas. Just checking in. How’s everything going?”
“We’re fine,” Katie said. “Just fine. But how about you? You sound like you have a cold; you’re all stuffed up.”
“Yeah, a cold. Okay, I won’t keep you. But before I go, can you put Faraday on the phone?”
“Sure. Take care, Lucas.”
“Will do. You do the same.”
Faraday’s voice came over the phone. “Agent Madden?”
“Hi, David? I need you to listen carefully, and I need you to do me a favor. Just in case. I can’t answer any questions you’ll have, but this is of the utmost importance. You can’t let my sister know about anything we talk about here. Okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay. Keep your eyes out for my brother. You remember what he looks like from the stadium, right?”
“Yes, sir. What’s the matter?”
“Just keep an eye out for him. If he shows up, arrest him on the spot. Don’t let him near Katie or the girls. Okay? Let Tucker know, too. And this is just between the three of us for the time being.”
“Agent Madden, I’m not sure—”
“I’m not sure about much of anything, either, but I’m certain that I’m the agent in charge and you’re supposed to follow my orders without question. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay. Just do this if Tyler shows up. I want you to arrest him on sight, then call me immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And David?”
“Yes?”
“Just be careful.”
“Yes, sir.”
I hung up and looked defiantly at Woodson, who still regarded me with sad eyes. “It’s not Tyler, Woodson. I just don’t want anybody shooting him just because he might go over to visit Katie and the girls. Do you see how crazy this is? It’s not Tyler.”
“Lucas. These things are always difficult.”
“Oh yeah? Well, I have news for you. This isn’t one of ‘those things.’ So it’s not difficult at all. Except for my jackass colleagues in the FBI, unwilling to listen to reason.”
“Lucas, if you were being objective here, you’d probably be amazed that Jimmy didn’t put you in a jail cell until this is all over. I essentially talked him out of it. But we need to round up the evidence and take it to Hattiesburg. Are you ready for this?”
I started to tell her to take it herself and to shove it up Jimmy’s ass when she got there. But then I envisioned having one last chance to sift through the evidence during the ride to Hattiesburg, and possibly find anything that might exonerate my brother. The wheels were in motion, and I couldn’t stop them. If I continued to fight the Bureau, I’d find myself on the outside looking in. It would work better if I could do it from the inside. “Absolutely, I’m ready. Let’s get that evidence rounded up.”
Woodson eyed me suspiciously. “Really? You’re sure? Just a second ago…”
“I’m sure.”
She kept looking at me and said, “Okay, then. Follow me.” I followed her out of the office, down the hallway, and down the elevator, without another word. In the basement we walked through a maze of overstuffed, dusty shelves of cold case files until we came to the room where we stored the case files for all ongoing investigations.
“Here it is,” I said, pulling a box from the shelves. “Evidence files for case four-four-three.” I was struck by the lightness of the cardboard box and its contents. I’d expected it to weigh a hundred pounds when in actuality it only weighed a few.
“Is this everything?”
“Yep.”
“Okay then. I’ll drive,” Woodson said, waiting to see if I would agree to it.
When I didn’t protest, she turned and walked back toward the elevator. Hefting the box under my arm, I hesitated a moment longer, then followed her.
* * *
A little later we were driving along the bridge toward I-10. It was hot and humid, but the clouds bore a dark, angry, gray color, and the radio stations warned of an evening of tornado watches and flash flood warnings. It was going to be a rough night.
I reached into the backseat and lifted the evidence box into my lap just as a few scattered raindrops began to plunk the windshield. I opened the lid of the box and began to flip through the manila envelopes and folders inside.
“What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know. Something … anything, I guess, that could clear my brother.”
Woodson didn’t reply, but her silence was deafening. I pulled out a stack of brown paper envelopes and continued flipping through the folders stacked in the box. I noticed a folder bearing my own name that I didn’t recognize. Opening it, I saw the letter that the presumed Snow White Killer had left for me at the football game. A white flash of lightning crackled down on the horizon, and a second later a tremendous boom of thunder rattled the inside of the car.
I refocused on the SWK’s note to me in the plastic bag and reread it. The question “A TAN CAT CANT WHAT, DR. MADDEN?” still mocked me from the page. He’d posed a question to me, addressing me as Dr. Madden. As I looked at the paper from the unknown printing press I also remembered that Terry hadn’t gotten any further with finding the paper’s origin based on the strange watermark we’d examined in the lab that day.
I looked at the page with the certainty only a brother, albeit an estranged brother, could possess. Tyler hadn’t written this note. I couldn’t articulate exactly how I knew, but I knew my brother hadn’t written it. Maybe it had to do with the appellation. Tyler would have never sent a letter to me addressing me as “Dr. Madden.”
At least I didn’t think he would. Unfortunately, at the very same moment, I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that I for one definitely did
not
know what to think anymore.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened my eyes, willing myself to think clearly. I fished around in my jacket to remove a penlight and held it over the note with the watermark to illuminate it better, since the dark clouds had darkened the afternoon sky all around. The watermark bore an oval shape with squiggly lines inside it. Strangely, as Terry had pointed out, this watermark was almost the size of a nickel, whereas most watermarks were closer to the size of a half dollar.
I stared harder. The letters
TAK
sat in an arc above a second T shape, with a series of barely discernible loops surrounding the base of the bottom
T.
I studied the
T
beneath the three-letter word. Something about the overall shape reminded me of something I’d seen before.
After a few more moments I realized what the bottom
T
was—it wasn’t a
T,
but rather was the caduceus, the symbol of the medical profession. The bottom
T
was a light impression of the crosslike object bearing snakes twisting around it.
A medical school? A press?
But something was still wrong. The indention was so small—perhaps it wasn’t a watermark?
I took a moment to rub my eyes, and I laid the letter on my lap. When I looked back down, I focused on the three letters at the top of the mark. TAK. It made no sense.
I looked more closely. There was a small indention just to the left of the
T,
near the bottom.
Perhaps not a
T,
but a
J
?
And when I considered
JAK
as the potential three letters of the watermark, I almost screamed aloud as the reality of who’d written the letter slammed into me like a fist.
“Woodson,” I spoke as calmly as I could, fighting the urge to scream it, “I need to share a theory with you, and I need to ask you to just listen, okay? Pull over up here, just for a second.”