'What can you tell us about tetrodotoxin?' Detective Sandburg asked.
LaRue would have crossed his arms if it had been possible. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, hands in his lap. He stared from one to the other. 'Nothing.'
'Nothing?' Detective Gould asked in mock disbelief.
'I don't want to talk about tetrodotoxin.'
Gould tensed up again. He leaned forward. 'What you want has nothing to do with this conversation.'
'I'm not going to talk about tetrodotoxin,' LaRue said, shrugging his shoulders.
'What would I have to do to convince you?' Gould asked.
'Is that a threat?'
'Of course not,' the guy lied, glancing up at a corner camera. 'I would never threaten someone who poisoned my partner.'
'My expertise has a price,' LaRue said.
Gould made an impatient sound.
'I'm the most knowledgeable person in the country when it comes to tetrodotoxin,' LaRue said smoothly. 'And you should be taking advantage of such expansive knowledge. My education wasn't cheap. This is the U.S. We thrive on capitalism. I have a product. I sell the product. You buy the product.'
'You want money?' Gould asked incredulously. 'People are being murdered, and you want money?'
'Oh, and I suppose you're a volunteer detective.'
Elise crossed her arms. 'He wants the felony charge dropped.'
LaRue smiled at her. She was a doll. A complete doll.
'Your ego is awe-inspiring,' Gould said. 'But you aren't the only tetrodotoxin expert in the country. Don't you think we've been in touch with other specialists? You have no bargaining power. Nothing to stand on. You can't tell us anything we don't already know or can't find out from someone else.'
He was bluffing. Either that, or misinformed. Nobody knew as much about tetrodotoxin as LaRue. He looked up at Gould through his lashes. 'You don't know anything about tetrodotoxin. Nothing. You think you do, but you don't. There's a secret society, a huge underground network of people who are addicted to TTX.'
'Why would someone take poison for entertainment?' Detective Sandburg asked.
'At first, it's for the thrill. Like somebody else might go skydiving, or drive too fast. But then…'
He ran his tongue over his lips, then inwardly berated himself. They would think he wanted out because of his own addiction.
'It's not a physical addiction,' he quickly said. 'It's a mental one. It's a high like nothing else, because it is one step away from death. I understand that. I know all of the sweet corners, the stages TTX takes a person through.'
He shifted in the slick chair. 'You know what it's like. You know what I'm talking about,' he said, addressing Detective Sandburg. 'Don't you feel as if you've cheated death? You've mastered death? Doesn't it give you a feeling of power in a world where so much is beyond our control?'
'You know, Mr. LaRue, I wouldn't have described it as a pleasant experience. But maybe it's because it didn't involve free will.'
Would she ever let that go? 'I was a mess that day. A total mess.'
'That should never be an excuse,' Detective Sandburg said.
He was losing them.
'I have an idea,' Gould said. 'Why don't you stay here, and if we need your help, we'll know where to find you?'
This wasn't working. Not working!
Tears of fear and frustration welled in his eyes and everything got blurry. He couldn't end up in prison with creeps watching as if he were some tasty morsel they hadn't yet sampled. Or worse, had sampled. Why had he turned himself in? Why hadn't he seen where such action would lead? God, he was as naive as a ten-year- old.
He leaned close and whispered, staring directly into Detective Sandburg's eyes-because he felt that was where any chance of sympathy lay. 'Can you imagine what it would be like for me if I go to prison? Where the animals are running the zoo? Look at me! I'm a scientist! I'm a geek! I haven't any street smarts.'
Did they want him to beg? At this point, he didn't have a shred of pride left. He'd beg, if that's what they wanted. Fucking cops.
His nose was running. He had no choice but to lift his parallel hands and wipe mucus on the orange sleeve of his jumpsuit.
Using some spooky, silent form of communication, the detectives nodded to each other and got to their feet.
Detective Sandburg leaned forward, hands braced on the table. 'This is what we're proposing,' she said. 'If you cooperate with us, if you answer all of our questions, then I'll consider dropping the felony charge.' She pushed away from the table. 'We're going to leave you alone for a couple of minutes. Give you a chance to think about it.'
'He could still be involved in the killings,' Elise said once they'd stepped into the hall, and the interrogation room door had closed firmly behind them. 'He could even be working with somebody else.' 'That's a possibility,' David said. 'We could have him released and put a tail on him,' Elise suggested. 'If he is involved, well find out fairly quickly while he leads us to his accomplices. If he isn't involved, he could actually help us with the case.'
'Are you forgetting what he did to you?'
'It might be worth the risk. I'm willing to drop the charges in order to find out what he's up to.'
'Maybe you won't have to.' David turned toward the door. 'Maybe the little shit will be ready to spill everything.'
LaRue was exactly where they'd left him.
'Shall we continue our little chat?' Elise asked.
He stared silently at the shiny surface of the table.
She and David took their seats.
Rather than asking LaRue if he'd come to a decision, Elise took a less humiliating approach. 'Why don't we start over?' she suggested in a friendly tone.
He didn't answer.
She began questioning him anyway.
Just normal, conversational things, to get him to relax. Where he was born. His education. Where he'd gotten his degrees.
Ego was a perplexing and amazing thing, and it always surprised Elise to discover how much people enjoyed talking about themselves even when being interrogated by the police.
There was usually a point when something fell away and suddenly the interview took on a life of its own. As soon as they got on the subject of LaRue's research, he tumbled through the hole and seemed to forget whom he was talking to.
Twice she'd seen killers reach that point and become so engrossed in telling their own story that they confessed without even knowing it.
'I expected to be famous by now,' LaRue said. 'Tetrodotoxin was going to be a new, better morphine, the answer to severe pain. A new way to sedate patients. Even a way to send astronauts into space in the state of suspended animation.'
'What happened?' David asked.
'Budget cuts. My University of North Carolina funding got pulled.'
'Ouch.'
'That was three years ago. I can't believe I've been basically doing nothing since then.'
He let out a heavy sigh. 'My research was my life. All I knew. But I didn't realize how important it was to me until I lost it. I'm going through an identity crisis. If I'm no longer that guy, then who am I?
'Do you have any idea what it's like to spend years moving toward a goal, focused completely on that goal,
