Karin Slaughter - Faithless

“I guess that’s up to you.”

She sniffed, covering her face with her hands, letting out a long breath of air. When she looked back up at him, he could tell she wanted to cry but wouldn’t let herself.

Jeffrey stared down at his hand, picking at the tape on the bandage.

“Don’t mess with that,” she told him, putting her hand over his. She left it there, and he could feel her warmth penetrating through the bandage. He looked at her long, graceful fingers, the blue veins on the back of her hand making an intricate map underneath her pale white skin. He traced his fingers along hers, wondering how in the world he had ever been stupid enough to take her for granted.

“I kept thinking about that girl,” he said. “She looks a lot like-”

“Wendy,” she finished. Wendy was the name of the little girl he’d shot and killed.

He laid his other hand flat over hers, wanting to talk about anything but the shooting. “What time are you going to Macon?”

She looked at his watch. “Carlos is going to meet me at the morgue in half an hour.”

“It’s weird they could both smell the cyanide,” Jeffrey said. “Lena’s grandmother was from Mexico. Carlos is Mexican. Is there some connection?”

“Not that I know of.” She was watching him carefully, reading him like a book.

He slid down off the table, saying, “I’m okay.”

“I know.” She asked, “What about the baby?”

“There has to be a father out there somewhere.” Jeffrey knew that if they ever found the man, they would be taking a hard look at him for the murder.

Sara pointed out, “A pregnant woman is more likely to die as a result of homicide than any other factor.” She went to the sink to wash her hands, a troubled look on her face.

He said, “Cyanide isn’t just lying around on the shelves at the grocery store. Where would I get it if I wanted to kill somebody?”

“Some over-the-counter products have it.” She turned off the sink and dried her hands with a paper towel. “There have been several pediatric fatalities involving nail glue removers.”

“That has cyanide in it?”

“Yes,” Sara answered, tossing the towel into the trash. “I checked it out in a couple of books when I couldn’t sleep last night.”

“And?”

She rested her hand on the exam table. “Natural sources are found in most fruits with pits- peaches, apricots, cherries. You’d need a lot of them, so it’s not very practical. Different industries use cyanide, some medical labs.”

“What kinds of industries?” he asked. “Do you think the college might have some?”

“It’s likely,” she told him, and he made a note to find out for himself. Grant Tech was primarily an agricultural school, and they performed all sorts of experiments at the behest of the large chemical companies who were looking for the next big thing to make tomatoes grow faster or peas grow greener.

Sara provided, “It’s also a case hardener in metal plating. Some laboratories keep it around for controls. Sometimes it’s used for fumigation. It’s in cigarette smoke. Hydrogen cyanide is created by burning wool or various types of plastics.”

“It’d be pretty hard to direct smoke down a pipe.”

“He’d have to wear a mask, too, but you’re right. There are better ways to do it.”

“Like?”

“It needs an acid to activate. Mix cyanide salts with a household vinegar, and you could kill an elephant.”

“Isn’t that what Hitler used in the camps? Salts?”

“I think so,” she said, rubbing her arms with her hands.

“If a gas was used,” Jeffrey thought out loud, “then we would’ve been in danger when we opened the box.”

“It could’ve dissipated. Or been absorbed into the wood and soil.”

“Could she have gotten the cyanide through ground contamination?”

“That’s a pretty active state park. Joggers go through there all the time. I doubt anyone could’ve sneaked in a bunch of toxic waste without someone noticing and making a fuss.”

“Still?”

“Still,” she agreed. “Someone had time to bury her there. Anything’s possible.”

“How would you do it?”

Sara thought it through. “I would mix the salts in water,” she said. “Pour it down the pipe. She would obviously have her mouth close by so that she could get air. As soon as the salts hit her stomach, the acid would activate the poison. She would be dead in minutes.”

“There’s a metal plater on the edge of town,” Jeffrey said. “He does gold leafing, that sort of thing.”

Sara supplied, “Dale Stanley.”

“Pat Stanley’s brother?” Jeffrey asked. Pat was one of his best patrolmen.

“That was his wife you saw coming in.”

“What’s wrong with her kid?”

“Bacterial infection. Their oldest came in about three months ago with the worst asthma I’ve seen in a long time. He’s been in and out of the hospital with it.”

“She looked pretty sick herself.”

“I don’t see how she’s holding up,” Sara admitted. “She won’t let me treat her.”

“You think something’s wrong with her?”

“I think she’s ready for a nervous breakdown.”

Jeffrey let this sink in. “I guess I should pay them a visit.”

“It’s a horrible death, Jeffrey. Cyanide is a chemical asphyxiant. It takes all of the oxygen from the blood until there’s nothing left. She knew what was happening. Her heart must have been pumping ninety miles an hour.” Sara shook her head, as if she wanted to clear the image away.

“How long do you think it took her to die?”

“It depends on how she ingested the poison, what form was administered. Anywhere from two to five minutes. I have to think it was fairly quick. She doesn’t show any of the classic signs of prolonged cyanide poisoning.”

“Which are?”

“Severe diarrhea, vomiting, seizures, syncope. Basically, the body does everything it can to get rid of the poison as quickly as possible.”

“Can it? On its own, I mean.”

“Usually not. It’s extremely toxic. There are about ten different things you can try in the ER, from charcoal to amyl nitrate- poppers- but really, all you can do is treat symptoms as they occur and hope for the best. It’s incredibly fast-acting and almost always fatal.”

Jeffrey had to ask, “But you think it happened fast?”

“I hope so.”

“I want you to take this,” he said, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out the cell phone.

She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want that thing.”

“I like knowing where you are.”

“You know where I’m going to be,” she told him. “With Carlos, then in Macon, then back here.”

“What if they find something during the autopsy?”

“Then I’ll pick up one of the ten telephones at the lab and call you.”

“What if I forget the words to ‘Karma Chameleon’?”

She gave him a nasty look, and he laughed. “I love it when you sing to me.”

“That’s not why I don’t want it.”

He put the phone beside her on the table. “I guess asking you to do it for my sake wouldn’t change your mind?”

She stared at him for a second, then walked out of the exam room. He was still wondering if he was expected to follow her when she returned with a book in her hand.

She said, “I don’t know whether to throw this at your head or give it to you.”

“What is it?”

“I ordered it a few months ago,” she told him. “It came last week. I was going to give it to you when you finally moved in.” She held it up so he could read the title on the maroon slipcase. “Kantor’s Andersonville ,” she said, adding, “It’s a first edition.”

He stared at the book, his mouth opening and closing a few times before words would come out. “It must have cost a fortune.”