Lisa Gardner - Live to Tell

“History of seizures?” the medic asked, trying to check vitals.

“Unknown,” Karen answered, just as Lightfoot said, “No. Not seizures. Spasms. Muscle… spasms…”

The medic glanced at Lightfoot’s towel-draped face, then back at Karen. She shrugged.

“The dark…” Lightfoot groaned. “I’m filled with the dark. So, so cold… it burns…”

“Hallucinating,” the medic muttered. He straightened, nodded to his partner. They grabbed a backboard and looked ready to get to work.

“Wait a minute,” D.D. called out. A case she’d read once. Lightfoot’s uncanny consciousness, even during what appeared to be a grand mal seizure. She strode over to Lightfoot’s table and sniffed his bottle of iced tea. Nothing. She touched her fingertip to the top edge, where a drop of moisture rested. She brought it cautiously to her mouth and, with a bolstering grimace, stuck out her tongue. It tasted…

Teaish. Grassy. Lemony. Then, beneath it all, a slightly bitter aftertaste.

“You need to get this tested immediately,” she informed the medic. “But I’m guessing strychnine.”

“Rat poison?” Greg spoke up from the hallway.

“In his drink?” Karen echoed, frowning. The staff looked at one another, then down at Lightfoot’s churning body.

“Symptoms fit.” She looked at the medic. “Hypersensitivity, muscle spasms, initial consciousness…”

“Yeah.” The medic nodded. “Now that you mention it… Well, we gotta motor, then, ’cause next on that list is respiratory failure. Come on, buddy. Hang in there with us. If you’re ever going to get poisoned, a hospital is the place to do it.”

With help from the MCs, they got Lightfoot’s body onto the gurney. Then they raced out of the unit for the elevator banks.

The elevator arrived with a ding. The doors opened, and Alex strode out, bearing a steaming tower of boxed pizzas. He looked at the medics, Lightfoot’s strapped-down body, and the shell-shocked staff, all staring at him.

“What happened to the healer?” he asked.

“That,” D.D. replied, “is an excellent question.”

Karen and her crew might be crack medics, but there was still a reason they paid D.D. the big bucks.

“Where did Lightfoot get the tea?” she demanded, the second the medics disappeared into the elevator.

“I don’t know. I think… I assume he brought it with him.” Karen looked at her staff. They milled about the half-lit common area, kicking at towels, staring at hastily rearranged furniture. Several were rubbing their arms, as if fighting a chill.

“Sure there’s no iced tea in the kitchenette?”

“No. We don’t stock it here.”

“Downstairs cafeteria?”

Karen shook her head uncertainly. Danielle piped up, “Andrew’s tea, the Koala brand, is one of those all-natural, all-organic, keep-the-planet-green products. I don’t think you can buy it around here.”

“Thank heavens for small favors,” D.D. muttered, as shutting down a hospital cafeteria and calling poison control was not high on her list of things she wanted to do right now. “Lightfoot arrive with any stuff, maybe a lunchbox, briefcase?” D.D. had a fleeting image of a brown leather strap over Lightfoot’s shoulder when she and Alex had first spotted him by the elevators. “Maybe a manbag,” she mused. “I want it.”

Karen dutifully led D.D. into the Admin area, where Lightfoot had stowed a brown leather satchel. D.D. flipped it open to find a container of Greek yogurt and a bag of sunflower seeds. She took the food for testing, then returned to the common area, where she could see the staff eyeing one another nervously for imminent medical collapse.

“Anyone else have iced tea?” D.D. asked.

One by one, they shook their heads.

“Who’s eaten here tonight?”

Four staff members slowly raised their arms. D.D. noted that Greg and Danielle were not among them.

“What time?”

The MCs had started at seven p.m., taking a snack break between nine and nine-thirty.

“Good news,” D.D. informed them. “Strychnine is one of the fastest-acting poisons, with symptoms emerging within five minutes of ingestion, so if you’re vertical now, you’re probably going to be vertical later. Timeline fits what we saw tonight: Lightfoot opened his drink, took a few sips, started the meditation, drank a bit more, and I’d say about eight minutes into it…”

“Collapsed in full convulsion,” Karen filled in, her voice subdued. Everyone stared at the table that Lightfoot had been sitting on.

“Strychnine is odorless,” D.D. informed the anxious staff members, “but has a bitter taste. So if you run across anything that tastes funky, set it aside immediately. I’ll phone the lab, have them send someone over to test the water, as well as everything in the kitchen, but that’ll take some time. When are the kids due to eat again?”

“Not until breakfast,” Karen supplied, “though some of the kids need a middle-of-the-night snack.”

D.D. thought about it. “Stick to food or drink items that come from sealed packages. Snack-sized cereals, that sort of thing. As long as the seal hasn’t been broken, they should be okay. Make sense?”

Everyone nodded mutely.

“All right. Who saw Lightfoot with the iced tea?”

The one with the short-cropped hair raised her arm. Cecille. “Um, I was one of the first people to take a seat. Andrew wasn’t here yet, but the iced tea was already on the table, like he’d maybe just opened it, then went to get something. Or maybe he went to throw away the cap.”

“The cap!” D.D. agreed. She marched over to the trash can. Right on top, one white lid stamped Koala Iced Tea. D.D. snapped on gloves and fished it out. Metal, for sealing a glass bottle. Not the kind of container that could be easily tampered with-say, penetrated by a syringe. Nope. Cap came off. Poison went in.

Now, possibly, the product had been poisoned at the warehouse level, part of a massive terrorist act. Or possibly, Lightfoot’s barky little dog had plotted revenge and spiked her master’s tea on the home front.

But D.D. was willing to bet Lightfoot’s distinctive beverage took the hit while sitting exposed in the common area.

“How long was Lightfoot gone?” she asked Cecille.

The MC shrugged. “I’m not sure. Not long. A few minutes. Five minutes maybe. People were starting to gather. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

D.D. looked around the room. One by one, everyone dropped their gazes.

“I was with a kid,” Greg volunteered softly. He glanced at Danielle. “She was with me. We came late.”

Establishing alibis. D.D. liked it. And they thought the milieu of the unit had been compromised before.

“I don’t understand,” Karen spoke up. “Why would someone poison Andrew? I mean, this whole thing… This is crazy.”

“Good question.” D.D. considered it. “Maybe because you brought him here to fix the unit. Calm it down. Following that logic, maybe someone doesn’t want the unit calmed down. That person wants you all jumpy and edgy and chasing after exploding kids. Lightfoot’s poisoned. You’re all freaked-out as hell. Mission accomplished.”

Karen gaped at her. “That’s insane.”

“Twelve dead and one injured. All connected with this ward. You’re right-can’t get much more insane than that.”

“Stop it! We are not those kind of people-”

“What kind of people?” D.D. asked with interest.

“Murderers. Dr. Deaths or Angels of Doom.”

“Medical caretakers who convince themselves that their patients-i.e., their troubled young charges-would be better off dead?” D.D. volunteered helpfully.