Dantes' Inferno (47 page)

But hell, a little bickering never killed anyone.

In fact, all in all, Dr. Doug Thomas was looking forward to his day. His thirty-five-minute commute—he lived in a sweet little river valley and the lab was on a mountaintop—allowed him to organize and prepare mentally for the work ahead.

He usually finished his PB&J sandwich before he reached the main highway, and he almost always swallowed the last of the Earl Grey tea in his thermos at the alpine tree-line where the view was awesome.

But this morning he'd forgotten to make his sandwich; the jar of Jif was sitting on the counter at home, as was the milk for his tea. And when Doug tried to open the thermos, his fingers felt stiff.

He spilled half of the contents into his lap; the other half tasted like bitter water, and it was
cold
, not hot. A sudden, fleeting bout of nausea hit—he managed to keep from vomiting—he did not remember that he'd been sick the night before.

In fact by the time he approached the main highway, Doug Thomas wasn't registering much of anything. He was functioning on auto-pilot. A faint internal voice warned him that he should take his foot off the gas pedal. The voice was meaningless because Doug could no longer respond to voluntary commands from his brain. He was traveling in a deep fog.

The thermos toppled, spilling the last of the tea onto his
thigh, but he didn't feel the liquid contact. Sunglasses couldn't ease the bright blinding light because it came from behind his eyes, an explosion of illumination. Fear came and went. Terror turned his skin cold—and then that emotion receded, too.

A weary sigh escaped his lips. A heavy calm slowed his body. He moved through molasses. His right foot grew heavy as it pressed down on the accelerator. The dark blue cross-trainer with the white laces seemed to belong to someone else.

As Doug Thomas drove his Subaru across four lanes of oncoming traffic on the highway, he did experience a moment of bewilderment:
You'd almost think I've been poisoned
.

The two-ton truck hit the Subaru broadside and Doug Thomas was killed almost instantly.

redrider: well done! bravo!

alchemist: have we met?

redrider: call me an admirer

alchemist: ?

redrider: I was impressed with the way you handled your associate

alchemist: sorry?

redrider: Dr.T—brilliantly done

alchemist: don't know what you're talking about

redrider: I'm still not sure how you managed the exposure

—

redrider: hello . . .

—

redrider: I know you're there

—

redrider: take all the time you need I'll be waiting

“One of the most problematic aspects of the case is the longitudinal factor; the deaths have occurred over a span of at least a decade,” Edmond Sweetheart said. He was standing on the balcony of his room at the Eldorado Hotel. Behind him, the New Mexico sky was the color of raw turquoise and quartzite, metallic cirrus clouds highlighting a blue-green scrim.

“Why did it take so long to put it together?” Dr. Sylvia Strange had chosen to sit at one end of a cream-colored suede sofa in front of a polished burl table, the room's centerpiece. For the moment, she would keep her distance—from Sweetheart, from this new case. Her slender fingers slid over the black frame of the sunglasses that still shaded her eyes. Her shoulder-length hair was slightly damp from the shower she'd taken after a harder-than-usual workout at the gym. She studied the simple arrangement of flowers on the table: pale lavender orchids blooming from a slender vase the color of moss. Late afternoon sun highlighted the moist, fleshlike texture of the blossoms. The air was laced with a heavy, sweet scent. “Why didn't anybody link the deaths?”

“They were written off as unfortunate accidents.” Sweetheart frowned. “Everyone missed the connection—the CID, FBI, Dutch investigators—until a young, biochemistry grad assistant was poisoned in London six months ago. Her name was Samantha Grayson. Her fiancé happened to be an analyst with M.I.6—the Brit's intelligence service responsible for foreign intelligence. He didn't buy the idea that his girlfriend had accidentally contaminated herself with high doses of an experimental neurotoxin. Samantha Grayson died a bad death, but her fiancé had some consolation—he zeroed in on a suspect.”

“But M.I.6 chases spies, not serial poisoners.” Sylvia stretched both arms along the crest of the couch, settling in. “And this is a criminal matter.”

She was aware that Sweetheart was impatient. He reminded
her of a parent irritated with a sassing child. “So who gets to play Sherlock Holmes, the FBI?”

“As of the last week, the case belongs to the FBI, yes.”

She nodded. Although the FBI handled most of its investigations on home turf, in complex international criminal cases the feds were often called upon to head up investigations, to integrate information from all involved local law enforcement agencies—and to ward off the inevitable territorial battles that could destroy any chance of justice and the successful apprehension and prosecution of the guilty party or parties.

“And the FBI is using you—?”

“To gather a profile on the suspect.”

Sylvia shrugged. “Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last time I looked, you were a counterterrorist expert. Is there something you're leaving out of your narration?”

“There are unusual facets to this case.”

“For instance.”

“The suspect deals with particularly lethal neurotoxins classified as biological weapons. As far as we know, at this moment, there's no active terrorist agenda; nevertheless, more than one agency is seeking swift closure.”

Sweetheart had his full weight pressed against the balcony's railing. The carved wood looked too delicate to support his 280 pounds. “The suspect is female, caucasian, forty-four, never-married, although she's had a series of lovers. She's American, a research toxicologist and molecular biochemist with an I.Q. that's off the charts.”

“You've got my attention.”

“She received her B.S. from Harvard, then went on to complete her graduate work at Berkeley, top of her class, then medical school, and a one-year fellowship at MIT—by then she was all of twenty-six. She rose swiftly in her career, she cut her teeth on the big shows—Rajneesh, Aum Shinrykyo, the Ventro extortion; she had access to the anthrax samples after nine-eleven—worked for all the big players, including Lawrence Livermore, the CDC, WHO, USAMRID, DOD. As a consultant she's worked
in the private sector as well.” Sweetheart knew the facts, reciting them succinctly, steadily, until he paused for emphasis. “Two, maybe three people in the world know as much about exotic neurotoxins and their antidotes as this woman. No one knows more.”

Sylvia set her sunglasses on the table next the moss-colored vase. She rubbed the two tiny contact triangles that marked the bridge of her nose. “How many people has she killed? Who were they?”

“It appears the victims were colleagues, fellow researchers, grad assistants. How many? Three? Five? A half dozen?” Sweetheart shrugged. “The investigation has been a challenge; five days ago the target was put under surveillance; we both know it's a trick to gather forensic evidence in a serial case without tipping off the bad guy. Add to that the fact that she doesn't use mundane, easily detectable compounds like arsenic or cyanide. Bodies still need to be exhumed; after years, compounds degrade, pathologists come up with inconclusive data. Think Donald Harvey: he was convicted of 39 poisonings,
his
count was 86. We may never know how many people she's poisoned.”

“Who is she?”

“Her name is Christine Palmer.”

“Fielding Palmer's daughter?” Sylvia was visibly surprised.

Sweetheart nodded. “What do you know about her?”

“What everybody knows. There was a short profile in
Time
or
Newsweek
a year ago—tied to that outbreak of environmental fish toxin and the rumors it was some government plot to cover up research in biological weapons. The slant of the profile was ‘daughter follows in famous father's footsteps'.” Sylvia shifted position, settling deeper into the couch, crossing her ankles. She toyed restlessly with the diamond and ruby ring on the third finger of her left hand. “That can't have been easy. Fielding Palmer was amazing. Immunologist, biologist, pioneer AIDS researcher, writer.”

“Did you read his book?”

Sylvia nodded. Fielding Palmer had died of brain cancer in the early 1990s, at the height of his fame and just after the publication of his classic,
A Life of Small Reflections
. The book was a series of essays exploring the ethical complexities, the moral dilemmas of scientific research at the close of the 20th century. He'd been a prescient writer, anticipating the ever deepening moral and ethical quicksand of a world that embraced the science of gene therapy, cloning, and the bioengineering of new organisms.

Sylvia frowned. It jarred and disturbed—this idea that his only daughter might be a serial poisoner. The thought had an obscene quality.

She saw that Sweetheart had his eyes on her again—he was
reading
her, gleaning information like some biochemically-sensitive scanner. Well, let him wait; she signaled
time out
as she left the couch, heading for the dark oak cabinet that accommodated the room's mini-bar. She squatted down in front of the cabinet, rifling the refrigerator for a miniature of Stolichnaya and a can of tonic. From the selection of exorbitantly priced junk food she selected a bag of Cheetos.

“Join me?” she asked, as she poured vodka into a tumbler.

“Maybe later.”

Sylvia swirled the liquid in the glass, and the tiny bubbles of tonic seemed to bounce off the oily vodka. She turned, holding the glass in front of her face, staring at Sweetheart, her left eye magnified through a watery lens. She said, “That's the beauty of poison—invisibility.”

“Toxicology protocol is much more sophisticated than it used to be,” Sweetheart said. “But there will always be undetectable poisons. Even water is toxic in the right dose. You have to know what you're looking for—there are new organisms, new compounds discovered all the time—you have to know what to culture, what to analyze, which screens to run.”

When Sylvia was settled once more on the couch, she balanced her heels on the table, and she tore the snack bag open with her teeth. She ate a half dozen of the orange puffs before
tossing the bag onto polished wood. “Okay.” She held up her index finger: “Why you?” Her middle finger: “Why me?” Her ring finger complete with precious stones: “Why now?”

“The FBI has a problem—their strongest tool is a psychological profile because there are no eye-witnesses, no secret poison cache has been found in Palmer's basement—all the evidence is circumstantial. The purpose of the profile is two-fold: to track her patterns, her m.o., to look for a signature—and to prime investigators for the interrogation process. I'm their profiling consultant, I've got carte blanche.”

“And you want me because—”

“Adam Riker.”

The answer in a name.

Sylvia nodded, not surprised, but discomfited all the same. Months after the investigation, she still had nightmares about the Riker case. Adam Riker had been a nurse, a hospice specialist, who'd worked at nursing homes and V.A. hospitals in Texas, California, and, most recently, at an Indian hospital in New Mexico. He'd had another speciality in addition to nursing—serial murder. He'd poisoned at least thirty-five victims, ranging in age from an unborn child to a ninety-nine-year-old war veteran. And Sylvia had been part of the profiling team. In they end they'd brought him down—but not before more victims died.

“The Riker case is fresh in your mind,” Sweetheart said, interrupting her thoughts. “You know better than I do that poisoners have their own special
tics.”

Sylvia didn't respond; she was looking straight at Sweetheart—not seeing his face, but the faces of Riker's victims, instead.

“You'll work with me on the psychological profile—that means some intensive travel, interviews, assessment of the data we've already got, and the retrieval of new data. It will be down and dirty, no time for anything
but
down and dirty. We'll stay in close touch with Quantico—running our data past their guys—and our local contacts will be the field agents on
surveillance and their SAC. It's a short list—intentionally
short
—to avoid attracting attention. We'll have to give the investigators the tools they need for interrogation. We'll give them her stress points, her soft spots, her jugular. Once they have enough to bring her in, they're going to have to break Christine Palmer.”

“A confession?”

“As I said, so far all the evidence is circumstantial.”

“They'll need hard evidence.”

“What they need is a homicide on U.S. soil.”

“Are you certain she's your poisoner?”

He barely hesitated. “Yes.”

“So Palmer had the expertise and the access, the method and the means. What about motive?” Sylvia thought Sweetheart's energy belonged to a caged cat—behind steel bars he was pacing a path in concrete.

He turned his head, avoiding her scrutiny, and said, “Before Samantha Grayson's death, she confided in her fiancé—the analyst; his name is Paul Lang. Samantha said she'd been spooked by Palmer. There was an incident where Palmer criticized Grayson's protocol—she flew into a rage and threatened Grayson. At the time Lang encouraged his girlfriend to go to someone with more authority to mediate the dispute. Grayson said nobody had more authority than Palmer.”

“That's unpleasant, but it's not motive.”