The Poisonous Ten (15 page)

“Kozlov?” Hardwick said. “Still locked up. I’ve had him checked on three times since I got this call. It wasn’t him.”

“But he was behind it,” Parks said, getting pissed off. “We know that much.”

“And?”

“And what now? What does this mean for Kozlov? What does this mean for anyone else who might testify against him? And more importantly, who did this? Who’s helping Kozlov?”  

19

At quarter past eight, Monday morning, Dave Parks was fi
ddling with the LA Times’s daily Sudoku while his entire team, plus Jackie Isley and Amy Tanaka, sat on one side of the conference table, awaiting their instructions for the day. He was in a foul mood and knew he needed to get out of his funk. Everyone had heard about Natalie Kozlov by now and were keeping their distance, knowing full well that condolences weren’t what Parks needed right then. Hardwick stood near the entrance to the room as if waiting for someone to deliver some pressing news. Parks wasn’t sure why she had called the meeting for first thing that morning or why she had ordered his entire team on one side of the table, but he hoped the bad feeling he had about it was wrong. Something told him that after the public attack made on Charles Wyler on the Channel 10 news the mayor would be implementing a task force of some sort in the LAPD to help take care of the Palisades Poisoner. Los Angeles had local FBI headquarters within the city limits, but the LAPD was rarely ever “taken over” by the FBI, due to the already sizeable amount of manpower they had at their disposal. Mysterious men and women in trench coats, showing up out of nowhere, taking over investigations and blocking the LAPD out, were more the stuff of fiction than real life. Personally, Parks had rarely ever worked with the FBI, and on the few occasions he had it wasn’t anywhere near as territorial or intense as was often portrayed. An FBI-led task force was not one of his biggest concerns at the moment.

Someone behind Hardwick cleared his throat, and Parks looked up to see Detective Wilkes standing in the doorway.

“Your whole team here?” Hardwick asked without turning around and acknowledging the man’s presence.

Wilkes grunted, and Hardwick nodded to the empty side of the table. Wilkes made his way into the room followed by Detectives Ramirez and Hayward, each taking a seat at the table.

“Good. Right,” Hardwick said with a huff, walking to the front of the room, commanding the attention of everyone in it. “Now I want everyone to listen to me and listen good. We have one sick fuck out there killing innocent people with some seriously scary—and dangerous—substances. Our expert on the topic, Dr. Isley, has already been infected once, and we got off lucky on Saturday. It could have been a hell of a lot worse. It’s a fucking mess. And all on TV.”

Hardwick glared at everyone, driving the point home.

“I can’t afford to lose anyone in this room and yes, I’m saying this both professionally and personally. Now, with that out of the way, I’ve been on the phones and in meetings all weekend with both the mayor and the commissioner and every other person who outranks me in this damn town. Things are not looking good. We have four deaths already. And considering how he’s killing he’s being given a high priority. I’ve assured the proper higher-ups that we have the situation in hand and in return we have been given full cooperation by everyone you guys may need it from. FBI. CDC. Whoever. But this is also why I’m bringing in Wilkes and his team to help assist.”

There was an uneasy silence to the room as everyone looked around while keeping focused on Hardwick.

“You’re all familiar with Detectives Wilkes, Ramirez, and Hayward.” Each man nodded as his name was called out. “They begin their testimony on the Cosway murders this week, so I can’t have them in rotation to accept new investigations until they’re finished. So until that time comes when their entire team is ready to work again, they will be at your disposal to help with whatever you may need. I’ve also got members of Parks’s team being pulled and interviewed by the DA about the Kozlov case. So, if you haven’t noticed, we’ve all got quite a bit on our plates. This arrangement is nonnegotiable for anyone in this room. If you have a problem with this arrangement, then I will accept your resignation effective immediately. Lives are at stake here, ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake about that. This is not the time for petty office bullshit and hurt feelings. Understand? You all work as one team on this until it’s finished. Parks takes lead with Wilkes as his second-in-command. Dr. Isley is still our lead expert on the matter. Tanaka, I understand you work out of a different division and have your own set of protocols, and I’m not asking you to break them. You have been more than helpful with this case from what I’ve been informed of so far. I thank you for that and for being here, though this is more so you know what’s going on in this office in case you need to relay any further information about this case to anyone.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tanaka replied.       

“Good,” Hardwick continued. “Copies of the murder book were made for each member of Wilkes’s team. I expect everyone in this room to know every aspect of this ongoing case, inside and out. Now, I want us to go over victim number four: Charles Wyler. What do we have from the attack on Saturday?”

Parks looked to Jackie and Tanaka and nodded. The two women stood up and began going through their notes.

“As we suspected from what’s happened on several of the other murders the death of Charles Wyler was a compound poisoning,” Jackie began.

“Meaning?” Wilkes asked.

“Meaning that Wyler was poisoned by not one, but two poisons that worked together. Like Ian Harris, who was poisoned with methanol, which slowed down his reaction reflexes for when he was attacked by the death adder.”

“And Wyler?”

“We figure the substance thrown in Wyler’s face was the second agent, which only had an effect on him thanks to the water he had been drinking for who knows how long.”

“Water?” Wilkes asked.

“Yes,” Parks piped in. He paused for a moment. He had to put Kozlov on the back burner. For now. He had another serious, more imminent threat to deal with. “Yes, Wyler has his own special brand of water, Kobra Water, flown in especially for him. Nothing special about the water other than the amount of filtration it goes through. Its origin is somewhere in the mountains of India. But again, nothing overtly special about the water. We’re checking the shipping history on his last few cases just to be safe.”

“Except in this case the bottles of Wyler’s latest shipment had been tampered with,” Jackie continued. “Each bottle had a high-quantity injection of both diphenylhydantoin and ba
rbital.”

“In English please,” Hardwick snapped.

“Dilantin and phenobarbital.”

“And those are the two poisons that killed him?”

“No. Wyler had already been drinking the contaminated bottles, though for how long we don’t know.”

“What do those two poisons do?” Wilkes asked.

“They’re quite similar actually,” Jackie explained. “Usually, both are given to control epileptic seizures. Sometimes as a sleeping aid. There are no outrageous effects or symptoms of phenobarbital other than chills and lowered blood pressure.”

“What’s its reaction time?” Parks asked.

“Immediate.”

“And the Dilantin?”

“This one’s a little nastier. Its symptoms can include fever, liver and kidney damage, anemia, slurred speech, confusion, and swelling of the gums.”

“So that’s what caused the scene you witnessed in the back of the van,” Hardwick said, more as a statement than a question.

“No,” Jackie said. “I think these two drugs served a different purpose.”

“Such as?”

“Phenobarbital can react with many drugs to speed up their half-life. Or the amount of time the drug remains active in the body. It also causes them to be eliminated more rapidly.”

“So the phenobarbital and Dilantin were mixed together to work off each other more rapidly and then dissipate wit
hout being noticed?” Hardwick asked.

“Kind of,” Jackie said. “To do that, yes. But not with each other. With the third drug that was introduced into the body.”

“What third drug?” Hardwick asked.

“The red chemical substance that was thrown in Wyler’s face by the homeless man.”

“So it was a poison?”

“Yes, quite. Sanguinaria canadensis. Or more commonly known as bloodroot.”

“And what does that do?”

“That does what we witnessed in the back of the van. Skin rashes. The poison reduces the heart’s action. Basically, death occurs after intense vomiting and cardiac paralysis. Generally, it takes one to two hours to take effect, but b
ecause of the phenobarbital, the reaction time was sped up.”

“So why was the Dilantin used as well?” Wilkes asked, confused.

“We’re not a hundred percent sure on that, but I believe it was used for the same reason that the bloodroot was used. They do many similar things, but where they really overlap as far as symptoms go is in the effect they have on the throat and mouth.”

A low murmur went through the room at this. 

“Keep in mind that it’s just a theory at this point,” Jackie said. “But I think I’m right. He basically bled from his mouth and then choked to death on his vomit.”

Tanaka nodded in agreement with this explanation.

“He was being silenced,” Parks muttered.

“More like shut up,” Wilkes replied. “The killer didn’t want him talking. But what did Wyler know? I think if W
yler had known anything pertinent he would have said something on air about it.”

“Maybe it wasn’t to shut him up for the reasons we’re thinking,” Parks surmised. “Maybe there’s another meaning as to why this was done to him. What about the other mu
rders. Did any of those poisonings have any specific targeted effects on the human body?”

Jackie peered back down at her notes to look over the names of the victims.

“Allison Tisdale, no. Nothing specific with cyanide. Ian Harris, n—actually, yes. He bled from the eyes. There are multiple symptoms to the two toxins that were introduced to his body, but where they overlap is in the effect they have on the eyes. With Bollinger, I’m not sure that I can tell. The poisons used on him are paralyzing agents, but neither are specific to any particular portion of the body like Harris’s and Wyler’s were.”

“All right,” Parks said. “But that’s something. Maybe Harris saw something and Wyler was going to say som
ething. Maybe not. But it’s an angle to check into.”

“What about the homeless man?” Hardwick asked.

“No sign of him since the attack,” Parks said. “We searched all of the area, issued a BOLO for him. Used pictures of the man from the live video feed. Nothing so far. Witnesses at the attack saw the man but no one saw where he disappeared off too. No one was watching him. Just the show Wyler was putting on. We’ve got some patrol officers in the downtown area who say he’s a local on the homeless scene but they haven’t been able to locate him so far. We’re still searching. My guess is that he’s dead somewhere. Not that we’ll ever find a body. But we’re still looking.”

“All right,” Hardwick said with a sigh. “Keep on it.”

“What about all of these poisons that have been used so far?” Wilkes asked. “This bloodroot and phenobarbital? Are they traceable? How’s this guy getting all this stuff?”

“Not sure, but we’re working on it,” Jackie said. “Blo
odroot is found in and around North America, in the southeastern states and Canada. But it’s not in season right now, so whoever this guy is, he’s either been storing it all this time or manipulating the plant. Either way, it takes precision and caution.” 

“Keep looking into it. See what you can find,” Parks said.

“What else are we working on?” Hardwick asked.

“I’m working with Fairmont on processing the crime scenes to see if there’s anything we overlooked,” Moore b
egan.

“Actually, I walked through each one again yesterday. I didn’t spot anything new so I’d like Wilkes and his men to go over them since they have to review them as it is, and to get a fresh pair of eyes on them,” Parks said.

“Yes, sir,” Moore replied.

“You two work with me on the timelines of each of the victims, and we’ll try to determine a connection between them,” Parks said.

“I have something,” Tippin said raising his hand.

“Yes?”

“Well it might be nothing. I mean it probably is nothing. But if we’re checking every little thing—”

“What is it, Milo?”

“You remember Ian Harris’s pictures that you had me pick up?”

“Yeah?” Parks wondered where Tippin was heading with this.

“I was looking through them again. And besides the pictures of the Bollingers there are also the few of you.”

“Yes,” Parks said, nodding. “We actually haven’t e
xplored what that means. We know Harris doesn’t do freelance work like that anymore. Following people around and the such. So why does he have those pictures? If it wasn’t for personal reasons then obviously it was for a job.”

“Someone hired him,” Milo said, agreeing.

“You mean to follow you around?” Hardwick asked, looking to Parks.

“It’s a possibility,” Parks said.

“Why?”

“Couldn’t tell you. No idea.”

“Could it be related to this case?”

“It’s a possibility. Not sure why. But we should consider every possibility.”

“But then that means—”

“There’s a possibility that whoever hired Harris to follow me around is our killer. Like he knew I would be on this case. In which case the timing of these murders is more than intentional. As was Harris’ murder. To keep him silent. Again, there’s no proof of this. But it is a theory. I’ve thought of this.” Parks turned to Tippin. “Was that what you wanted to bring up?”