J. Konrath - Dirty Martini

Major Murdoch gave me a look that left no doubt I hated my country, then said, “Has there been any evidence that these compounds have been weaponized, or made more lethal?”

Rick snorted. “How can you make cyanide more lethal?”

“Please answer the question.”

Rick’s leg rubbed against mine under the table. I didn’t know if it was intentional or not. My heart rate bumped up a bit, but I blamed that on Roxy’s energy drink.

“No, Major. All evidence points to a single extortionist, not a sleeper al-Qaeda cell waiting to pop out of a cake and squirt you with Variant U.”

“What is Variant U, Mr. Reilly?”

“It’s Special Agent Reilly. Or Dr. Reilly. Variant U is a weaponized form of Marburg. And no, I haven’t found any evidence of that either.”

O’Loughlin focused on me.

“What have your teams uncovered, Lieutenant?”

I looked at the file before me, which I hadn’t opened yet. Now seemed like a good time.

Herb, ever the professional, had written a condensed version of what he’d discovered so far.

“We’ve deployed eleven teams to each of the known sources of the BT outbreaks. They’ve already collected several hundred prints, hundreds of food products, have interviewed dozens of potential witnesses, and have the names and contact information for over one hundred more. Background checks are in the process of being done on all known botulism victims, and the store owners and employees at each outbreak nexus.”

Major Murdoch leafed through the folder in front of him, and I noticed it actually had Top Secret stamped in red on the front. “How about the background of that cop Alger?”

“He’s come up clean. Two Internal Affairs inquiries. Both shootings, both times he was cleared. We’re looking at his arrest record for anyone who might have a grudge, which is just about everyone he’d arrested in thirty years on the force. The severed fingers in the refrigerator have been confirmed as belonging to Alger, and we suspect he’s been killed.”

“Maybe he cut off his own fingers to fool us,” Roxy said.

No one said anything, but the stares she received made her shrink down in her chair.

“We’ve located the deli on Irving Park that the Chemist mentioned in his letter.” I thought of Latham, and my voice caught. I coughed into my hand to cover it. “We’ve got a Crime Scene Unit there, gathering evidence, questioning the staff. It’s going to take some time to sort through everything.”

“We don’t have time,” the super said. “This nut wants an answer in tomorrow’s paper. To make the early edition, I need to get the personal ad in today by noon.”

“Are we paying him?” I asked.

“I have received authorization to meet the Chemist’s demands. It should go without saying that mum is the word on this.” The super zeroed in on me. “We can say the city is under attack, we can name the businesses that have been hit, we can tie in Alger, but no word about the extortion.”

I mulled this over. That was probably why the city hadn’t outed the Chemist yesterday-they had been considering paying him off. If that got out, every loony with a Saturday Night Special would be moving to Chicago, trying to extort a few bucks.

“Who’s in charge of setting the trap to catch him if we decide to pay?” I asked.

“We are, Lieutenant. You can start figuring out how right after the press conference. Plan on it at ten a.m.”

The super adjourned the meeting, and both Roxy and Rick stuck to my shoulders, accompanying me to my office.

“You’re cute for a Fed,” Roxy said to him.

“I believe that looks are superficial, and it’s what’s inside that counts.”

Roxy batted fake eyelashes. “Are you saying you’d like to get inside of me?”

“Sorry. I don’t date women younger than the scotch I drink.”

Score points for Special Agent Rick.

“You should date Jack. She’s like in her fifties.”

And points lost for the new partner.

“Have you ever done a press conference before, Roxy?” I asked, making my voice conversational.

“Who? Me? No. I was on TV once, at the MTV spring break bash in Fort Lauderdale. I never saw it, though. My friends told me about it. I was pretty trashed.”

“I think you should sit this one out.”

“Why? Are you afraid I’ll steal your thunder?”

“No. I’m afraid you’ll say something stupid that will get me fired.”

Roxy tugged my elbow and stared me in the eye, petulant.

“I’m a detective third grade. I didn’t get this promotion by giving blow jobs. I busted my ass. You, of all people, should know how hard it is for a woman to be taken seriously in this sausage fest.”

I considered all the things I could say, about professionalism, and attitude, and image. Instead I said, “Chances are this lunatic watches the news. If we put an attractive woman up there, he could become fixated on you.”

“Really?” Roxy grinned. “Cool.”

“No. It’s not cool. It’s the opposite of cool.”

“You think because I’m young I can’t handle myself?”

“No. I think because you’re young you can’t handle yourself as well as you think you can.”

Her grin disappeared.

“You know, you’re an inspiration to a lot of women in the department, Jack. It’s a shame that in person you’re such a bitch.”

I looked to Rick for support, but he’d taken an inordinate amount of interest in the bulletin board on the wall. Then I met Roxy’s glare. I wondered if I disliked her so much because she reminded me of me at that age.

No. I would have gotten along with me just fine. This girl was a Gen-X car accident waiting to happen. But we all have to learn sometime.

I took a deep breath. “Fine. You can do the press conference with me.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m serious. But I’ll do most of the talking. And we need to go over everything beforehand. Rule one, think before you speak. Don’t repeat yourself or say um or uh a lot. Rule two, if you can’t answer a question, say no comment . Rule three, always appear in control. Reporters can sense fear, and they pounce on it.”

“I can do all that. How do I look?”

I gave her a once-over. “Do you have anything else to wear? That outfit is… cute, but it doesn’t look very professional.”

“Let me check my locker,” she said, and hurried off down the hall.

Rick nudged me. “Is this a good idea?”

“We’ve all got to learn sometime.”

“After this conference, how about lunch? I want to go over some points about the case.”

“Lunch? I’m going to need a few drinks.”

“We can do that. I need to check in with Washington and Quantico. I’ll probably miss the conference. Can I meet you someplace?”

What is it about physical beauty? If Rick were average looking, I would immediately take him up on lunch. But because he was handsome, I didn’t think I should spend any time with him outside of the office. It seemed like betraying Latham, even though we might be able to make some headway on the case.

It’s only lunch, I convinced myself.

So I named the place and the time.

What was the worst that could happen?

THE CHEMIST WATCHES the press conference with a frown on his face. He hadn’t expected them to go public. Though this doesn’t alter the Plan in the least; the city has followed his trail of bread crumbs quicker than he’s expected.

They aren’t showing his letters. They admitted that they did receive letters, but say they’re keeping them under wraps to rule out bogus confessions. They also neglected to mention anything about his demands. Which means they’re planning on paying him.