respect that wasn’t necessary, and I’m struck by the irony. He has shown Jaime far more consideration than she ever showed him.
“You’re going to want to double-bag her at least,” he is saying over the phone, as he paces past the windows, the drapes still drawn. It is hard to know what time of day it is, and I realize it’s raining just as hard. I can hear rain drumming on the roof and spattering the glass. “That’s right, just use the same precautions as if it’s infectious and we don’t know that it isn’t, and we always treat every body as infectious, anyway, right?”
“Fentanyl and the so-called date rape drug Rohypnol, nerve agents such as tabun and sarin, oksilidin, anthrax,” I go down the list with Chang. “But some of these are very fast-acting. If someone put Rohypnol or fentanyl in her food, for example, she wouldn’t have made it through dinner. I think the priority is to screen for clostridium botulinum.”
“Botulism. Wow, that’s scary. Why are you thinking of that as opposed to something else?” He places his bagged contaminated gloves on the foot of the bed.
“The symptoms as they’ve been described.”
“It’s just strange to think of poisoning someone with a bacteria.”
“Not the bacteria but the toxin produced by the bacteria,” I explain. “That would be the way to do it, and it’s what the military has in mind. You don’t weaponize the bacteria. You weaponize the toxin, which is odorless, tasteless, as best anybody knows, relatively easy to get hold of, and therefore difficult to trace.” I add to his suspicions about me. “We don’t have time for a mouse assay. Not a nice thing to do to a mouse, by the way. Injecting it with serum and waiting days to see if it dies.”
Colin covers the phone with his hand and says to me, “What about botulism?”
I tell him we should screen for it.
“You got a place in mind?”
I tell him I have an idea about it.
He nods and gets back to the removal service. “Exactly. The regular way with a removal cot, bags that don’t leak. I know all of them do, let’s be honest, but double or triple up and autoclave or incinerate them after the fact, along with soiled protective clothing, gloves, whatever’s contaminated. The same drill if you were worried about hepatitis, HIV, meningitis, septicemia. For God’s sake, don’t reuse the bags, is what I’m getting at, and wash everything down, disinfect really good. Bleach … Yes. I would.”
“Your idea?” Chang asks me.
“An aggressive one. A blitz attack,” I reply. “Screen for anything that is a reasonable possibility, and botulinum should be first on the list, all serotypes. And do it as quickly as possible. I mean immediately. Two people have died in twenty-four hours, and a third is on life support. We don’t have the luxury of waiting days for an old- fashioned assay when there are newer and faster methods. Monoclonal antibodies or using electrochemiluminescence, ECL, which I know is being done at USAMRIID, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick. I’m happy to contact them and see if I can help facilitate testing if needed. But I think it would be more practical and expeditious to deal with the CDC. That’s my vote. A lot less red tape, and I’m sure they would have an analyzer that can test for biological agents such as botulinum neurotoxins, staphylococcal enterotoxin, ricin, anthrax.”
“USAMRIID?” Colin says, as he gets off the phone. “Why are we thinking about the military, and what the hell is this about clostridium botulinum, and did I just hear anthrax?”
“I’m simply suggesting possibilities based on not just this situation but others,” I reply. “Three cases, and the reporting of the symptoms is similar if not the same.”
“You thinking this is a national security issue or terrorism? Because USAMRIID’s not going to help unless it is. Of course, I realize you probably know people.”
“The accurate answer at the moment is we don’t know what this is,” I reply. “But what’s going through my mind is the other cases you’ve told me about. Barrie Lou Rivers and other inmates who died suddenly and suspiciously at the GPFW. An onset of something and people quit breathing. Nothing is found on autopsy or on a routine drug screen. In those cases, you didn’t have specimens tested for botulinum toxin, I assume.”
“Wouldn’t have been a reason for that to occur to me or anyone,” Colin replies.
“I’m just going to say it. Right now I’d be worried about a serial poisoner. Nobody hopes I’m wrong more than I do,” I tell them, and I go into more detail about the delivery person who rode up on a bicycle last night as I was about to enter this building.
I describe the impression I got that Jaime might not have placed the order for the sushi and that the person who delivered it mentioned the restaurant had Jaime’s credit card on file. She said that Jaime had food delivered regularly.
“As I look back on it,” I add, “the person offered a lot of information. Too much information. I’m vaguely aware of having an unsettled feeling at the time. Something seemed strange.”
“Maybe trying to convince you she was a delivery person because maybe she wasn’t,” Colin considers. “Someone who placed an order, picked it up, poisoned whatever it was, and pretended to be a delivery person for the restaurant.”
“If someone who works at the restaurant is responsible, that won’t be hard to track,” Chang remarks. “That would be really risky. Stupid, in fact.”
“I’m more worried it wasn’t a restaurant employee,” Colin says. “And that it’s going to be hard as hell to track. If this is someone who’s been doing it for a while, the person is anything but stupid.”
“Certainly would have to know her patterns.” Chang looks at the sheet-draped body on the bed. “Have to know where she orders food and what she likes and where she lives and all the rest. Has Marino mentioned her having any other associates or friends in the area?”
I reply that he hasn’t and insist that sushi didn’t appear to be on the menu last night. By all appearances, Jaime had no intention of eating sushi or serving it to us, and in fact would have known that neither Marino nor I eat it. I describe arriving at the apartment and being told that Jaime had walked to a nearby restaurant for take-out, and when she returned it was with more than enough food for the three of us. Even so, when she was presented with the option of having sushi, she joked that she was addicted to it and said she had it sent in at least three times a week, and she ate the take-out delivery and was the only one who did.
“Kathleen Lawler also ate something that wasn’t on the menu,” I remind them. “Her gastric contents indicate she ate chicken and pasta, and possibly cheese, while the other inmates were served their usual meals of powdered eggs and grits.”
“She didn’t buy chicken and pasta in the commissary,” Chang says. “And her trash was missing, plus there was something weird in her sink. If it was poison in her sink, though, it wasn’t colorless and odorless.”
“Unless she was escorted somewhere for a special meal, obviously somebody delivered chicken and pasta, and possibly a cheese spread, to her cell,” I tell them. “You probably noticed Jaime had security cameras installed, out front and outside her apartment door. Question is whether they record, and Marino will know the details. I think he helped her with the installation or advised her about it. Or I suppose you might find the digital video recorder somewhere, if there is one.”
“It’s her cameras? The one out front in particular is hers and not the building’s?” Colin asks.
“They’re hers.”
“Perfect,” Chang says. “Do you remember what the person looked like?”
“It was dark, and it happened fast,” I tell him. “She had lights on her helmet and a bicycle and some type of bag or backpack that the take-out food was in. White female. Fairly young. Black pants, light-colored shirt. She gave me the take-out bag, recited what the order was, and I handed her a ten-dollar tip. Then I went inside and took the elevator up here to Jaime’s apartment.”
“Anything unusual about the take-out bag?” Colin asks.
“Just a white bag with the name of the restaurant on it. Stapled shut with the receipt attached, and Marino opened it, placed the sushi in the refrigerator, and Jaime served herself and ate most of it. Various rolls and seaweed salad. There should be one seaweed salad left that I placed inside the refrigerator when I helped her clean up last night, or more exactly, after midnight, around twelve-thirty, quarter of one. We need to get the containers out of the trash, gather up all of the leftovers.”
“Including the bag and the receipt,” Chang says. “I definitely want those going to the labs for fingerprints, DNA.”
“I’m estimating she’s been dead at least twelve hours.” Colin finishes packing up his crime scene case. “So
