probable murder of Thaddeus Bushnell.
Hoping to come up with an explanation for the similarities between the deaths of John Doe and Loretta Leone, Eric had battled back the urge to tell her right then of the horrible error he might have made. Very soon, though, they would have to have that talk.
With a growing sense of urgency, he piled the texts on the corner of a table and began. Within an hour his list of toxins was at forty.
Aconite, curare, botulin, belladonna, sapotoxin, physostigmine, tetrodotoxin, cyanide, arsenic, acetanilide, antimony, barbiturates, bee venom, mandrake root, muscarine, amanita, picrotoxin, reptile neurotoxin, strychnine…
One by one on index cards he fisted the substances, their toxic doses, routes of administration, sources, and principal symptoms. Each of them was capable of causing death by neurologic or cardiac paralysis, and by inference, specific doses of each might induce a marked metabolic slowdown. The task of sorting them out seemed overwhelming. But so, too, Eric reminded himself, were the hundreds of organic chemistry formulas he was once faced with memorizing.
An hour passed, then another, as he worked his way through his cards.
Bit by bit the list grew smaller.
For a time, one toxin or another would catch his fancy, only to be discarded by the question- How could both victims have been exposed? or Could the effect of the substance possibly stop after metabolic paralysis and before death? Amanita, a mushroom poison, was one of the leading candidates. So for a time were strychnine and the toad poison bufotoxin. But again and again, as if daring him to refute it, one substance kept cropping up. tetrodotoxin, a product found in certain species of puffer fish, and believed by one researcher at least to be the long-sought-after zombi poison.
In Japan certain chefs were certified by the government in the preparation of fugu, a puffer-fish sashimi dish that straddled the line between food and drug. The chefs, some of whom occasionally died from sampling their wares, sought to preserve just enough tetrodotoxin to cause flushing of the skin, tingling of the lips and extremities, and a mild euphoria. But numerous cases of puffer-fish poisoning had been documented, the effects being, in part, pulmonary edema due to cardiac slowing, respiratory failure, and marked metabolic depression.
Could Loretta Leone and John Doe somehow have inadvertently eaten fugu?
The idea made no sense.
Outside the library the gray evening gave way to ebony night.
Inside, the pile of journals on Eric's table grew. Amanita mushrooms, fugu, aconite plant alkaloid. One by one, Eric pared his list until finally only those three remained. Each, in the proper dosage, seemed capable of inducing a state of metabolic slowdown that might be indistinguishable from death.
Behind him the library door opened, then closed.
Eric did not look up. Moments later he felt a massive hand on his shoulder.
' Dr. Subarsky, — I presume,' he said as he enated strychnine once and for all from his prospects.
'You are certainly a diligent little beaver,' the biochemist said.
'Surely you must have something more exotic to do with your free time.'
He dropped a load of books on a nearby table, settled. in across from Eric, and scanned the books he was using.
'Journal of Toxicology… Poisons of the World… Journal of Ethnopharmacology…
'See, I am doing something exotic,' Eric said, realizing only then how much time had elapsed.
'And what, exactly, is that?'
Subarsky leaned back and propped his gunboat sneakers on the table.
I 'I'm looking into the case of the lady that Reed Marshall pronounced dead Yesterday,' Eric said.
'Ah, yes, the talk of the town. Nasty mistake the man made.
Nasty.'
'I'm not so sure it was a mistake.'
'Res ipsa loquitur,' Subarsky said.
'what does that mean?'
'Roughly, 'the deed speaks for itself.'' 'David, how would you define death?'
Subarsky scratched at his beard. 'The usual, I guess. Cessation of cardiac and neurologic activity-that sort of thing.'
'What about all these reports I've been reading of people who had those findings for a time and then woke up?', 'I can find you reports of dinosaur sightings in the Grand Canyon,' Subarsky said.
'Well, I've been here for hours trying to put together a definition that fits all these reports, and you know what I keep coming up with?
Putrefaction.
That's what.'
'If it doesn't rot, it ain't dead. I like it, Najarian. I like it.
Although I can see how it could make for a bit of a space problem from time to time.'
'Seriously-'
'Seriously? Well, it seems to me that an M.D. degree and thirteen years of higher education qualifies you to use 'going to rot' as your standard.'
'But Reed Marshall used that, and Reed Marshall was wrong.'
'A fluke,' Subarsky said. 'One in a billion.
'I don't think so, David. Because you see, I may have made the same mistake.'
Eric pulled out the E.K.G tracings and went over the two cases.
'And where is this John Doe now?' Subarsky asked.
'I don't know. Do you have some time?'
'For you? all the time in the world.'
Piece by piece, Eric recounted his meeting with Laura, their visits to the Gates of Heaven and Thaddeus Bushnell, and their close call on the East Boston docks. Subarsky chewed on a pencil as he listened.
When Eric finished, his friend whistled softly.
'You have been into some shit, my man. I'll say that.'
'David, I have no idea what's going on, but I think the derelict and Loretta Leone were poisoned.'
'How?'
'Accident. Product tampering- Psycho. Define crazy any way You want, and I'll find you someone who fits the bill.'
'And you think you stopped too soon in resuscitating the guy who may have, been your new flame's brother?'
'It's possible.'
'I don't buy it.'
'I don't expect you to, yet. That's what I'm doing here.'
'And what have you come up with?'
'Lots of things. But what I keep coming up with is this.' Eric slid his notes on tetrodotoxin across. Subarsky scanned them in a minute.
'So,' he said, 'once again the zombi poison rears its ugly head.'
'You know about it?'
'Some. A few years ago there was a flurry of interest in it.
Even a best-selling book. But after a while articles began popping up in the scientific literature refuting most of the methods and claims.'
'I know. I've read some of them.'
'And you still suspect the drug?'
'Either alone or in some kind of combination.
Can a good toxicologist detect it?'
'Probably.'
'What about amanita and aconite?'
'Probably.
