“We need to consider every possibility we can think of, and we need a careful inventory of everything in this apartment,” I reiterate. “The last thing we want to do is overlook a potential poison that gets left behind and hurts or kills someone else.”
“You’re thinking suicide’s a possibility.”
“I’m not thinking that.”
“Or that maybe she accidentally got hold of something.”
“I have a feeling you know what I’m thinking,” I answer him. “Someone poisoned her, and it’s deliberate and premeditated. My overriding question is poisoned her with what?”
“Well, if something was put in her food,” he then says. “Any ideas what could cause the symptoms you described? What might you put in someone’s food that within hours would kill them from flaccid paralysis?”
“There’s nothing I would put in any person’s food.”
“I didn’t mean you personally.” He continues to photograph every item in the bathroom, every toiletry and bath product, every beauty aide, even the bars of soap, and he is jotting notes in his notebook, and I know what he’s doing.
Buying time and gathering information, methodically, painstakingly, patiently. Because the more time we spend, the more I talk. I’m not naive, and he knows I’m not, and the game plays on because I choose not to stop it.
“And a neurotoxin would be what? Give me some examples.” He probes for information that might tell him I murdered Jaime Berger or the others or know who did.
“Any toxin that destroys nerve tissue,” I answer. “The list is long. Benzene, acetone, ethylene glycol, codeine phosphate, arsenic.”
But I’m not worried about any such thing. I don’t believe Jaime was exposed to benzene or antifreeze, or that some household product like nail polish remover or a pesticide was laced in her sushi or mixed with her Scotch or that she got into the cough syrup. Those types of poisonings are usually accidental or irrational acts. They aren’t the stuff of my nightmares. There are far worse things I fear. Chemical and biological agents of terror. Weapons of mass destruction made of water, powder, and gas, killing us with what we drink, touch, and breathe. Or poisoning our food. I mention saxitoxin, ricin, fugu, ciguatera. I suggest to Sammy Chang we should be thinking about botulinum toxin, the most potent poison on earth.
“People can get botulism from sushi, right?” He opens the door of the shower stall.
“Clostridium botulinum, the anaerobic organism that produces the poison or nerve toxin, is ubiquitous. The bacterium is in the soil and the sediment of lakes and ponds. Virtually any food or liquid could be at risk for contamination. If that’s what she was exposed to, the onset was unusually fast. Usually it takes at least six hours for symptoms, and more commonly twelve or thirty-six.”
“Like when you have a can of vegetables that’s bulging because of gas and you’re always told not to eat something that looks that way,” he says. “That’s botulism.”
“Food-borne botulism is commonly associated with improper canning and poor hygienic procedures or oils infused with garlic or herbs and then not refrigerated. Poorly washed raw vegetables, potatoes baked in aluminum foil and allowed to cool before they’re served. You can get it from a lot of things.”
“Shit, well, that just ruined a lot of foods for me. So if you’re the bad guy …”
“I’m not a bad guy.”
“Saying you were, you’d cultivate this bacteria somehow and then put it in someone’s food so they die of botulism?” Chang asks.
“I don’t know how it was done. Assuming we’re talking about botulinum toxin.”
“And you’re worried we are.”
“It’s something we need to consider very seriously. Extremely seriously.”
“Is it common to use in homicidal poisonings?”
“It wouldn’t be common at all,” I answer. “I’m not aware of any cases. But botulinum toxin would be very difficult to detect if you didn’t have a history and a reason to suspect it.”
“Okay, if she couldn’t breathe, was having all these awful symptoms you’ve described? Why wouldn’t she call nine-one-one?” He photographs bath salts and candles on the side of the tub. Lavender and vanilla. Eucalyptus and balsam.
“You’d be surprised how many people don’t,” I reply, as I indicate I’d like to examine the prescription drugs, and, of course, he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t care what I do as he continues to lead me down the path he wants me on. “People think they’ll be okay or can help themselves with home remedies, and then it’s too late,” I add.
I open the bottle of Ambien, and information on the label indicates the prescription was filled ten days ago at the same pharmacy near the prison where I stopped by yesterday after using the pay phone. Thirty ten-milligram pills, and I count them.
“Twenty-one left.” I return the pills to the bottle, and next look at the Ativan. “Filled at the same time and by the same pharmacy as the other, where she purchased most things in here, it seems. Monck’s. A pharmacist named Herb Monck.”
Possibly the owner, and I remember the man in the lab coat I bought the Advil from yesterday. A pharmacy that does home deliveries, it occurs to me.
“Eighteen one-milligram pills left,” I inform Chang. “Carl Diego is the prescribing doctor for both.”
“Most people who want to kill themselves take the whole bottle.” Chang takes off his gloves and reaches into a pocket of his cargo pants. “Let’s see who Dr. Diego is.” He has his BlackBerry out.
“Nothing to indicate a suicidal overdose,” I emphasize.
I open drawers and cabinets, finding perfume and cosmetic samples Jaime must have gotten free at a department store or more likely from shopping online. Things delivered. Life brought to her door, and then death handed over in a take-out bag. Handed to me.
“We don’t want to get hung up on thinking she caused her own death when there’s someone out there who might do it again,” I say to Chang. “Multiple deaths already. We don’t want more.”
I’m suggesting rather bluntly that he doesn’t want to make the mistake of getting hung up on Marino or me. If Chang looks too hard at us he won’t look anywhere else.
“A doc in New York on East Eighty-first. Maybe her GP up there, who called in her prescriptions down here.” Chang is checking the Internet, and what he’s really doing is giving me plenty of room to get trapped. “If something was put in her food deliberately, it would have to be odorless and tasteless, wouldn’t you assume? Especially in sushi?”
“Yes,” I agree. “As much as we know about what’s tasteless.”
“What do you mean?”
“Who tastes a poison and lives to report on it?”
“Examples of really strong poisons that would be odorless and tasteless?” As if I have a malignant truth he can coax out of hiding. “Tell me what you would use if you were a killer.” He pushes harder.
“There is nothing I would use, because I wouldn’t poison anyone, even if I might know how.” I look him in the eye. “I wouldn’t help another person poison someone, even if I thought we could get away with it.”
“I didn’t mean literally. I’m just asking what you think would have done the job. Something you can’t smell or taste, and you put it in her sushi. Besides the bacteria that causes botulism. What else, for example?” He returns his BlackBerry to his pocket and pulls on fresh gloves, tucking his used ones in an evidence bag and sealing it so they can be disposed of safely.
“Hard to know where to begin, and these days it’s also hard to know what might be out there,” I say to him. “Really scary chemical and biological agents made in labs and weaponized by our own military.”
28
We step back inside the bedroom, where Colin is pacing as he talks on his cell phone, giving instructions to the removal service. He has covered Jaime’s body with a disposable sheet, an act of kindness and gesture of
