Chapter Thirty-three
Georgia opened her eyes. The room was dark, but a thin border of light flared around the shade. She rolled over and checked the clock. Ten AM. Over a week since she’d been suspended. Nine days of enforced idleness. Dragging herself out of bed, she raised the shade. Rays of sun so bright and brittle they seemed to have substance and form.
She shuffled into the kitchen. The only evidence Matt had come home last night was the red light on the coffee pot. A box of sugar cubes sat next to it. She picked one up and sucked on it. Matt liked cubes better than loose sugar – he claimed it helped him control how much he used. As the sugar dissolved in her mouth, it left a tiny glaze on her gums. She opened the refrigerator, full of milk, eggs, fruit, and cold cuts. It ought to be; she’d been to the grocery store yesterday. And the day before.
In the living room she turned on the TV, then quickly snapped it off. The talk shows were boring; the old movies in black and white melodramatic; the commercials relentless.
Throwing on a pair of sweats, she clambered down the stairs and outside. Her breath rose in little puffs as she stretched in the frigid air. She jogged to the corner and turned south. Sliding her tongue over her teeth, she felt the smooth, slightly itchy residue from the sugar cube.
She ran past manicured lawns, cleanly swept streets, and gardens put to bed for the winter. Everything looked so clean in the suburbs. Even the landfill, neatly graded with layers of dirt, masked its garbage from sight. It was all a charade. Behind the white picket fences and newly paved roads the same violence seethed; invisible, perhaps, but still ready to reclaim chaos from order.
Jogging down a tree-lined street, her shadow bobbed in front of her. Clawlike branches arched toward the sky. She’d ended up in the suburbs by chance. Raised in a lace-curtain Irish Chicago neighborhood, she’d planned to be a Chicago cop, but by the time she graduated from the Academy, they already had their quota of women. The sleepy suburban forces were just waking up to diversity, and she’d been at the top of her class.
She remembered her first meeting with Doyle, clutching his pipe like a surrogate male appendage, refusing to look her in the eye. She should have known it would be tough. But she was flattered when they offered her the job; she was only the second female officer to join the Glenbrook PD. The first quit to marry a commander.
Breaking a sweat, she turned around and headed back. As she skirted a paint store near the station, a commuter train rumbled past. She stared at the darkened windows, envying the passengers their escape to the city. It might be squalid and gritty, but there was less pretense there, less need to cling to a sanitized reality.
It was different when she met Matt. Back then the suburbs were a haven of hope and renewal. She’d been on the force a month, her uniform still carefully pressed, her shield burnished bright. Pulling up next to each other in the parking lot, they had climbed out of their cars at the same time and looked each other over. She’d felt an instant attraction but hid it until she saw the approval in his eyes.
It had been a bumpy ride. They broke up when Matt worked his first homicide. She still didn’t know why, but she was happy when he came out of it; happier still when he decided to resume their relationship. Except now he was up against it again, and it was worse: not one but three coolly orchestrated homicides.
And they were homicides, despite what the ME said. Someone had systemically killed three people, moved their bodies, then dumped them in the garbage. Made things nice and tidy.
Only in the suburbs.
***
Matt and Stone battled rush hour traffic on the Kennedy heading down to the University of Illinois. UIC was the headquarters for Toxicon, an academic toxicology consortium that served as a resource for poison specialists all over the state.
Stone munched on a bagel. Deanna made him give up his beloved donuts – among other things— and though he’d grumbled, he was in better shape. Gulping a swig of coffee to wash down the bagel, he started to brief Matt on Landon’s autopsy. “Preliminary cause of death was septicemia.”
Matt shaded his eyes against the sun. “What’s that?”
“Blood poisoning. Massive infection of the bloodstream. Caused by some type of pathogenic organism or toxin. It was a total meltdown, partner. Every major organ. Even I could see it. The kidneys were swollen and soft, his liver had turned a nutmeg color, and the heart —”
“I got it.”
“Sorry.” He braked behind a silver tank truck that had come to an abrupt standstill. “But we did find something interesting on his left thigh. A red, swollen area. When they looked more closely, they found a tiny puncture wound. The tissue around it was totally destroyed. Along with the lymph nodes.” He switched lanes and stepped on the gas. “Something was injected into his body.”
Matt’s stomach lurched. “They know what it was?”
“Not yet.”
Matt stared through the window. Stone switched lanes and came abreast of the tanker. A distorted image of the unmarked was reflected on the huge silver cylinder. “They won’t find anything,” he said grimly.
Stone maneuvered across two lanes, leaving the tanker behind. “Look, I know you’ve been working these cases, but I’m just starting. Play along with me just for a while. For laughs if nothing else.”
Matt smiled in spite of himself. He was pleased—relieved even—to be working with Stone again. He respected the way Stone’s brain worked: incrementally piecing together bits of data, then sifting and prioritizing until the accumulated bits led to an indisputable conclusion. No one in Glenbrook was as seasoned except Doyle, and he had a different agenda. Curiously, he wasn’t the only one who admired Stone’s methods. Doyle had popped in that afternoon to say that the Bureau backed off when they heard the cases were consolidated under Stone.
The street sign for Adams loomed ahead. “There is something I’ve been thinking about.” Stone shot across a lane of traffic, narrowly missing an SUV barreling toward the exit.
Matt tightened his shoulder strap. “What?”
“We found Landon’s body on Tuesday, but the ME thinks it was there for a while. It might have been dumped as early as Sunday.”
“We found Romano on a Monday. Simon too.”
“What do you make of it?”
“Our killer works nine to five. Off on weekends.”
“Or knows his victims do.” They drove south on Halsted, a block past the Greek restaurant where Stone’s wedding dinner had been. “People let down on the weekend,” he continued. “They’re ready to party.”
“So…”
“So our friend makes contact on a Friday, wins their confidence, and then— Hold on.” Matt stopped. “The woman with Simon at the East Bank bar. That was on a Friday.”
Stone flicked his eyes toward Matt. “What do you know about her?”
“Aside from having dark hair, not much. We can’t find her.” He changed the subject. “What did you find out about Landon?”
“The techs went over every inch. Wastebaskets, sink traps, garbage cans, medicine chest. The place was clean.”
“He have any visitors on Friday?”
“Not that we know about. His neighbors say he wasn’t around much. Consumed by work.”
At the southern edge of the UIC campus, Stone swung west onto Maxwell Street, cruising past a construction site with a sign proclaiming it would soon be a high-rise condo.
Matt gazed at the twelve-story skeleton of steel girders, cables, and mud-caked ground. For nearly a century émigrés and settlers had depended on the pushcarts and open-air stalls on Maxwell Street for their livelihoods. Now the wrecking ball was systematically destroying it, and the only ones turning a profit were the developers.
Stone gazed at the site. “I told you about the dog, didn’t I? At the Feldman site?”
Matt shook his head.
Stone explained about the dead puppy. “I took it to a vet, who thought the mutt had parvo. But the tests didn’t confirm it. At the time I thought it was part of all that CEASE bullshit.” He fell silent.
Matt shifted in his seat. “And now?”
“I don’t know.”
As they passed the dumpster on the construction site, Matt’s eyes narrowed. “You found Landon in a dumpster?”
Stone turned to his partner. “That’s right.”
Matt explained how they’d found Romano and Simon on RDM-owned property. “I talked to the owner of the place. And his son. But I didn’t find a connection.”
“But we found three bodies in garbage dumpsters and landfills,” Matt said. “There’s got to be a connection.”
***
Stone and Matt mounted the stairs to the Medical College. Ahead of them were a boy and girl, their bodies tightly glued together, large clumsy backpacks slowing their progress.
“You know where Professor Van Thorsen’s office is?” Stone asked as they got to the third floor together.
The boy blinked, but the girl giggled and detached herself from his side. “Doctor Doom? He’s down there.” She waved toward the end of the hall.
The Detectives exchanged glances and walked down a linoleum-tiled floor. Van Thorsen, an ER physician with a specialty in pharmacology, was on staff at Rush, and he consulted with the FBI from time to time. Vaughan had given them his name.
At the end of the hall was an open door. Matt peered into a small cramped office whose walls probably hadn’t been painted since the Vietnam War. Files, books, and monographs cluttered every surface. A computer on a credenza generated abstract shapes that uncoiled across the screen. Matt frowned. A discussion of lethal poisons seemed inappropriate in this environment, where the pursuit of knowledge was supposed to deepen the meaning of life.
He checked his watch. “You think he’s a no-show?”
“Let’s give him a few minutes.”
Five minutes later a tall man with carrot-orange hair and beard to match strode into the office with a sunny, open smile. “Detectives. Sorry to keep you waiting.” He held a plastic coffee cup with steam rising from the lid. “Have to get my daily dose of poison,” he chuckled.
The flap of his white coat fell away, and Matt caught a glimpse of faded Levis and a blue oxford button-down shirt. His eyes were as blue as his shirt. No gnarled wizard here, stooped and bent from years of studying noxious substances. Doctor Doom, indeed. The guy could probably bench press a Cadillac.
He started to wave them into chairs, then stopped when he realized they were filled with papers and books. “Sorry.” Setting his coffee cup down, he gathered the papers and dropped them on the floor. “There you go.” He beamed.
As Matt sat he noticed two photos behind Van Thorsen’s desk. One was obviously his family: a trim pretty blonde and three kids, all with flaxen hair and freckles. The other was Van Thorsen, grinning at the camera with his arm around another man. Both men, sweaty and disheveled, wore running shorts with paper numbers pinned to their tank tops. Van Thorsen followed Matt’s gaze.
“My brother,” he said. “He died two years ago. AIDS.”
Van Thorsen planted his elbows on the desk. “So. If Cecil Vaughan sent you, this must be serious.”
Stone leaned forward. “We think we have three poisonings. But we can’t prove it.”
“Tell me about them.”
When Stone finished, Van Thorsen pulled the sleeves of his white coat off his wrist, a bemused expression on his face.
Stone frowned. “What’s so funny?”
“Sorry. It’s just my aberrant sense of humor. Misplaced I know. But what you’re telling me isn’t anything new.” Stone looked puzzled. “See, I subscribe to the theory that all deaths with no visible signs of trauma are the result of some pathogen until the facts prove otherwise.”
Matt and Stone exchanged glances.
“I assume you’ve eliminated arsenic, cyanide, and strychnine. The Big Three account for forty-six per cent of all poisonings.”
Matt nodded. “We’ve done tox screens and cultures on two of the victims. Microhistologies too. But we haven’t come up with anything.”
“Of course not.” Van Thorsen sipped his coffee, then placed it at a precise angle to his blotter. “The problem isn’t the poison. It’s the process. If labs don’t have the right analytical guidelines, the pathogen will remain undetected.”
“Even with gas chromatography?” Stone asked.
“Garbage in, garbage out.” Van Thorsen said. “I’d be willing to wager your perpetrator knows that too.”
Matt looked over. “How do you figure?”
“When undetectable poisons are involved, you’re dealing with a very intelligent person. They know what they’re doing. Including how to get away with it.”
Stone raised an eyebrow.
“Let me give you some perspective.” He settled back in his chair. “In terms of poisons, you’re almost always looking at a chemical substance. Now these chemicals can be divided into three broad groups.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Agricultural or industrial, drugs and health care products, or biological pathogens.”
“Biological?”
“Poisons from plants or animal sources.”
Matt pulled out his notes. “One of our vics died from acute gastroenteritis, one from respiratory failure, and one from shock, probably through an injection.”
The doctor nodded, “You already know the weaponry is virtually unlimited. For example, take the gastroenteritis. You’re looking at so many different pathogens it would make your head spin. Heavy metals, caustic corrosives, bacterial toxins, bad mushrooms… the list is endless.”
“What about an aerosol pathogen? That you inhale?” Stone asked.
“Again, you could be talking about chlorine gas, other types of fumes, nerve gas, insecticides…” He laced his hands behind his head. “You won’t isolate poisons by elimination. Especially if an exotic plant or animal substance is involved.”
Matt slumped.
“I understand your frustration.” Van Thorsen ran his tongue around his lips. “But there is one interesting aspect. When you consider the cases as a whole.”
“What’s that?” Matt felt like he was grasping at straws.
“The most common venues to administer poison are ingestion, inhalation, and injection. You’ve got all three, now, don’t you? It’s almost as if they were orchestrated. Choreographed, if you will. As if someone wants you to know they have a choice.”