Patricia Cornwell - Red Mist

“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. Same day, right to your door, the promise on signs posted inside, and I wonder if Jaime had more than food delivered.

“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.”

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 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.”