Stuart Woods: Hothouse Orchid

“If you’re ingesting it in a drink, yes. But the perpetrator probably dissolved it in alcohol and injected it, so it would work much faster. I’m very pleased with myself for taking your blood as soon as you were admitted. The body metabolizes the drug quickly, and if we had waited, we might have gotten a negative result on the test. As it was, only a very small amount was detected.”

“Rohypnol is illegal, right?”

“Right. It would have to be obtained through a street dealer, like crack or pot, but it is available.”

“Or,” Holly said, “in a drug bust.”

“Pardon?”

“If the perp is a cop he might well have found the drug in a search of a suspect or a car. He could learn how to use it effectively from the Internet.”

“I guess you can learn almost anything from the Internet these days,” Josh replied.

“How much Rohypnol would it take to kill someone?” she asked.

“I’d have to look that up on the Internet,” he replied, “but I suppose it would depend on how it was administered: a lot, if ingested-it has the same effect as alcohol, only more powerful. It would take less if injected-even less, if it were injected into a vein or an artery.”

“Now there’s a thought,” Holly said.

“Come again?”

“This morning Daisy and I discovered the body of a young woman washed up on the beach not far from my house. I have a gut feeling she’s a victim of the same perp who’s doing the raping. Suppose he’s injecting Rohypnol and he accidentally finds the jugular vein or the carotid artery?”

“I get your point,” Josh said. “That could result in death instead of just unconsciousness.”

“Probably surprised the perp,” Holly said. “He was aiming for a neck muscle, but he hit the vein or artery instead, and she dies. He had to get rid of the body in a hurry, so he takes it out in a small boat, ties a weight to an ankle and throws her overboard. Only his outboard severs the rope, and she ends up a floater. Did I mention that she had a rope tied to a leg and that the rope had been severed?”

“No, but that makes sense. I suppose you must have a very rattled perp.”

“Maybe,” Holly said. “Or maybe he ended up enjoying the experience.”

“The experience of killing someone?”

“Maybe. Or maybe the experience of sex with a dead body.”

Josh gave a little shiver. “Creepy.”

“When you think about it, it’s not a very big step from sex with an unconscious body. Either way, she’s not going to fight back, and maybe he feels safer with his victim dead.”

“This is all outside my experience,” Josh said. “I mean, if somebody walks into my ER who appears to be psychotic, I just patch him up, then call for a psych consult and hand him off. Chances are, I never see him again.”

“Lucky you,” Holly said. “Eventually, the cops have to deal with him, and, like our serial rapist, they don’t even know who he is.”

“From what you said before about his finding the Rohypnol in a search, I take it you’re considering the possibility that your perpetrator is a cop?”

“He had a flashing light on his dashboard, and in the dark, a driver seeing the light wouldn’t see much of the car in her rearview mirror. The cop who’s investigating the crimes-you met him, Jimmy Weathers-brought up that possibility right away. He said he had already eliminated the men on the Orchid force as suspects, so he’s thinking of somebody in a neighboring jurisdiction.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Josh cocked his head and looked at her. “You enjoy this process, don’t you?”

Holly laughed. “It’s the cop in me, I suppose. Until a few years ago, I had never done anything but be a cop. My new work is very, very interesting, but it doesn’t involve much in the way of criminal investigation, and I guess I miss that.”

“My guess is, you’re not going to stop thinking about this until you’ve caught the guy,” Josh said.

“Until somebody catches the guy,” she replied, “and I guess it would be satisfying if it were me.”

Lauren Cade got out of Hurd Wallace’s car at the Indian River Marina and followed him across the parking lot.

“Here we go,” Hurd said, pointing at two Dumpsters. “You take the one on the right; I’ll take the left.”

They both donned lightweight plastic jumpsuits and latex gloves.

Lauren opened the lid of the Dumpster and peered inside. It was nearly full, and to judge from the smell, it hadn’t been emptied for a few days. She took a deep breath, grabbed the edge of the Dumpster and vaulted inside, landing on her feet, but immediately losing her footing and falling backward into the steel side. She struggled to her feet, glad of the plastic jumpsuit, then looked over at Hurd, who was having the same problem.

“We might get lucky and find some loose clothing,” Hurd said, “but they could be in a bag, so let’s toss everything out and work from the tarmac.”

Lauren began picking up plastic garbage bags and tossing them out of the Dumpster. During the process, she found one loose towel but no clothing. When the Dumpster was empty, she crawled out and stood on the tarmac, surveying her work. Most of it was small, kitchen-sized bags, which is what she would have expected from boats. “Are we just going to dump everything out of the bags?” she asked.

“Yes,” Hurd said. “I’ve already called for a garbage pickup from the county, so they’ll do the cleanup.”

“I’ve got one loose item,” Lauren said, holding up the towel.

“Bag it, and set it aside.”

She did so, then took a knife from her pocket and began opening bags, shaking the contents onto the bare tarmac and poking carefully through them before going on to the next bag.

“Look for anything like a wallet or purse, too,” Hurd said.

Lauren looked at every single item in every bag: tin cans, paper plates, condoms, tampons-everything. An hour later she stepped out of the refuse and onto clean tarmac, just as a garbage truck drove up and two sanitation workers got out.

“What a mess!” one of them said. “You had to open every bag?”

“Every one,” Hurd replied.

“We’re gonna have to bag all this again,” the man said.

“Well, you can put it back in the Dumpsters, then use your equipment to dump everything into the truck.”

“I guess that makes more sense. Get some pitchforks and brooms, Eddie,” the man said.

Lauren picked up her bagged towel and took one last look in her Dumpster. “Hang on!” she shouted. She vaulted back into the bin and peered into a corner. “Car keys,” she yelled, and tossed them to Hurd.

She climbed out of the Dumpster and went to take a closer look at them.

“Hertz,” Hurd said. “Ford Focus.” He read out the license plate number. Then they both started walking around the parking lot: not a single Ford Focus.

Lauren walked back to the parking lot entrance and looked up and down the road. “Hurd?” she called. “What color is the Focus?”

“Blue,” he called back.

“I’ve got one,” she said and began trotting down the road. She came up on the car and walked carefully around it, looking inside.

Hurd drove up in their car. “Anything?”

Lauren struggled out of the dirty jumpsuit and pulled on a fresh pair of latex gloves. “Rental folder,” she said, opening the car door and reaching for the folder, which had been tucked into a cup holder. She opened it and read the contract. “Patricia Terwilliger,” she said, “Atlanta address. Rented the car at Melbourne Airport three days ago. Here’s her Georgia driver’s license number,” she said, walking toward the car.

Hurd was already tapping computer keys. In seconds, the driver’s license was displayed on the screen. “Looks like our girl,” he said.