Jack Daniels Six Pack

by J. A. Konrath

  What was left to eat? Food in cans, and things I hunted and cooked myself. And I wasn’t even sure about the cans—the CDC found evidence that a can of chicken soup might have been dosed with BT.

  What the hell can contaminate canned food?

  I had half a roll of breath mints that had been in my purse for a year, and I wiped off the lint and ate those, along with water from the tap.

  The CSU had lifted a bajillion fingerprints from Willoughby’s. The crime lab, in conjunction with the CDC/WHO/HMRT, had confirmed that Roxy’s martini had been dosed with Tanghinia venenifera, known as the ordeal bean of Madagascar. It also grew wild in Hawaii. As few as ten drops of extract were fatal.

  Poor Roxy.

  I flipped through a few reports from witnesses at the restaurant, and three of them had put together a composite picture of a generic-looking guy. It was so featureless, it looked like a Ken doll with an eye patch. A hot dog vendor a block away had corroborated the sketch, adding that th. Chemist spoke with a Midwestern accent, stood about five feet nine inches, and was between twenty-five and forty-five years old. But even though he had extended contact with him, all he really had focused on was the damn eye patch. Basically any thin white guy could be our perp.

  I guessed the eye patch to be a disguise, because it hadn’t been mentioned in any of the scads of reports. We ran it through the registry just the same. Over two thousand guys in our database could fit the description. I put a team on it.

  The mints did nothing to curb my hunger, so I wandered over to Herb’s office, to apologize for being an ass and to see if he still had those antiqu. Twinkies.

  His office had been cleared out, and there was no Herb to be found. No food either. He’d even taken the wrappers.

  I passed the vending machine again, and paid special attention to the packaging. Chips—could be tampered with. Candy bars—could be tampered with. Mints—it would be hard to inject toxin into mints.

  I bought a roll, then spent five minutes turning them around in my hands, looking for evidence of tampering.

  Life is about taking risks, Rick had said. I opened the package and popped one in my mouth.

  I didn’t die.

  As I sucked on the candy, I went through the reports that Herb had compiled, and made some calls to get updates on the questioning of the victims, witness searches, security tapes, and Alger’s arrest record. None of it pointed in any specific direction. I took out my To Do list and stared at it.

  trace M44 purchases

  Alger-arrest record

  talk to neighbors

  question mailman who delivered letter

  security tapes at BT scenes

  witness search at BT scenes

  survivor interviews/background checks

  research IEDs

  I added to the list: gardener, fingerprints probably on file, disguise/eye patch, white Honda Accord, local, two million dollars.

  I stared at the new list. Why two mil? It was a lot of money, but not that much. He could have demanded more than that. Did it have some kind of significance?

  I also noted that question mailman was still on the list. I leafed through Herb’s folder and found the statement from Carey Schimmel, USPS. It was the shortest statement in the history of statements, amounting to: I delivered the letter. Carey also admitted that since the anthrax scare, he wore gloves, which explained his lack of fingerprints on the extortion envelope. I crossed that off the list.

  I was about to give Hajek a call to see how he was coming with the camera phone pics, when Rick came in, carry ing a bag of heaven.

  “Do you like Chinese?” he asked, eyes sparkling.

  “Are you kidding? I could eat Mao Tse-tung raw right now.”

  The smells were intoxicating. Sweet and sour. Rice. Soy. Beef. Veggies. My mouth filled with saliva.

  But wariness prevented me from tearing open the bag with my bare teeth.

  “Are we sure it’s...”

  “So far, the Chemist has only struck in the city, right? I got this in Cicero.”

  We dug in. I ate an egg roll in two bites, wondering how that might look to a guy, but not caring. Then I dug into some beef chop suey, some kung pao chicken, and a potsticker that had to be the single greatest thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.

  Rick had also brought a six-pack of Tsingtao. My job would be in jeopardy if just one reporter with a long lens caught me through the office window, drinking beer. I took the risk anyway. I wouldn’t call myself a beer aficionado—I liked Sam Adams and I liked a local brew called Goose Island even more—but that Tsingtao went down quicker than any beer I’d had in ages. Rick popped open another for me, and then one for himself.

  “To catching the bad guy,” I said, raising my bottle.

  “And to making new friends.”

  We drank to that.

  When my stomach had distended to the point where my innie became an outie, I threw in the chopsticks.

  “So what is this lunatic using to tamper with the food?” I asked, kicking off my shoes and pulling my feet up under me in my chair.

  “I’m not a hundred percent sure, but it would explain the lack of needle holes or surface toxins, and I confirmed it with the deaths of the couple on the street, and several of the victims of the Sammy’s massacre yesterday. It’s called a jet injector.”

  “Which is what?”

  He dug into his satchel and took out a small blue object shaped like a phaser from Star Trek, only child-sized. It had a white plastic tube jutting out of the handle, which extended about eigh teen inches into a silver cylinder.

  “It’s a needle-less injection gun, used for mass immunizations. Invented years ago, to counter the cross-contamination caused by needles, along with the fear factor and high cost of sterilization. Diabetics also use them. This model can administer a dose of liquid up to three cc’s. Its orifice is many times smaller than a needle—less than the width of a human hair, actually—so the hole it makes is very hard to spot. And unlike a needle, it evenly disperses liquid once it penetrates the skin. It’s the perfect system to introduce medicine subcutaneously.”

  I looked at the thing with a mixture of dread and fascination.

  “How does it work without a needle?”

  “Air pressure. This one uses a spring. Other models use compressed gas, like CO2. You arm the device”—Rick turned a key on the cylinder—“then squeeze the trigger.”

  I flinched at the hissing sound, and saw a spray of vapor appear around the nozzle of the gun.

  “The pressure causes a jet stream, which forces the liquid through the skin and into the muscle. Smaller hole, less central concentration of fluid, less pain. Some of these models are tough too. You could inject insulin into a basketball.”

  “What about plastic wrapping, or butcher paper, or aluminum cans?”

  “Conceivable, yes. It would probably even work on thicker plastic, or cardboard. And look how small it is.”

  Rick turned his palm and closed his fingers. The gun was completely hidden by his hand.

  “I think this is what the Chemist used on his last two victims, on the street outside. They died so quickly there wasn’t even bruising, and the puncture wound could only be seen under a microscope. But I biopsied neck tissue where witnesses say he held his weapon, and found uneven concentrations of ricin, a toxin found in castor beans. I think he injected it directly into their throats.”

  Rick was smiling, and while I was happy to know what we were up against, I wasn’t able to share his enthusiasm. Truth told, the Chinese food was doing somersaults in my stomach. The thought of someone using a device invented for good to do so much evil gave me a giant case of the creeps.

  “Can we trace these things?” I asked.

  Rick’s smile faltered.

  “No. There are about two dozen companies that make them, and only six of them make a model small enough that it can be concealed, but that still gives us thousands of possibles. The guy might have picked it up at a garage sale, or on
the Internet, or stolen one.”

  He set the jet injector on my desk, where it coiled like a snake among the half-empty food cartons. Rick, so full of energy a moment ago, looked like he’d deflated.

  “This still helps narrow it down,” I said. “We’re looking for a white male, local, with a greenhouse and a jet injector.”

  Rick raised an eyebrow at me. “He’s local?”

  “He has to be. Roxy was just assigned to the case, and he got to her right after she appeared on tele vision. I’m guessing he was watching at home, then put together a quick disguise and went out after her.”

  “Why the greenhouse?” Rick asked.

  “He uses toxins, which are organic. I’m guessing he makes these himself, which means he has a garden somewhere. Some of the plants are tropical, so unless he keeps his house at ninety-five degrees, he probably has a greenhouse.”

  “Smart. That could mean hydroponics, special lamps, fertilizers. Chicago is a big town, but it shouldn’t have that many specialty gardening stores.”

  My turn to frown. “You’re forgetting the Internet. All that stuff can be purchased online.”

  We were quiet for almost a full minute. It didn’t surprise me that Rick looked adorable while deep in thought.

  “You’re paying him?” he finally asked.

  “That’s the idea.”

  “You’ll try to make the arrest when he picks up the money?”

  “Of course. But I’m sure he’s anticipating that.”

  Rick rubbed the stubble on his chin. I liked stubble. I liked the feel of it, against my cheek. Between my thighs.

  Dammit, Jack, quit it. So, he’s pretty. So what. Get over it.

  “Two million isn’t a lot,” he said.

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  “Might be using that small number because it’s easier to handle, easier to carry. Even using hundred-dollar bills, it makes a pretty big pile. About the height of your desk. One person couldn’t carry it all.”

  “Which means, what? A drop-off point? He’ll ask for the money in a big metal box and then swoop down in a helicopter carrying a big magnet?”

  Rick grinned. “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “We know all the tricks. Transmitters. Tracking devices. Exploding ink packs. Consecutive serial numbers. Coating the money with spy dust.”

  “What’s spy dust?” Rick asked.

  “An invisible powder that shows up under UV light.”

  “You use that stuff?”

  “No. I saw it on a TV show.”

  We shared a laugh.

  “I guess we won’t know what to do until we hear from him,” Rick said.

  “Which should be tomorrow, once he reads the paper.”

  I looked at my watch. Visiting hours at the hospital were until eight p.m. I needed to get going.

  “Jack, you have something on your cheek.”

  Rick did the mirror reflection thing, wiping his own cheek off. I wiped in the same spot.

  “Did I get it?”

  “No. Here.”

  He reached for me, caressed my cheek, and our eyes locked and I couldn’t believe I fell for that stupid trick, but I didn’t pull away, even when he moved in and placed his lips against mine.

  I didn’t kiss him back.

  Well, not at first.

  His lips were warm, soft, and when the tip of his tongue entered my mouth, something snapped in me and a little sigh escaped my throat and I put my hands behind his head and pressed his body against mine.

  He grabbed me by my waist and picked me up out of the chair like I weighed nothing, and then his hands were on my ass and mine were on his ass and—damn, did he have a great ass.

  As our mouths fought for better purchase, his hand came around my hips and undid my front button, or perhaps just tugged it off, and then his fingers touched the top of my pan ties and he was a few inches away from seeing how excited I really was. Then common sense overrode hormones and the World’s Worst Fiancée pushed him away.

  “I...can’t,” I said between deep breaths.

  “Sure you can. I bet you’re really good at it.”

  I wanted him, but a small voice inside me said I was just using sex to cope with all of my problems. Then another small voice tried to convince me that there was nothing wrong with that, sex was a perfectly acceptable way to cope, and that voice was louder than the first. And then a third voice, louder than both of the others, reminded me about a boyfriend on a ventilator whom I was afraid to marry because I feared making mistakes.

  And then it all made sense.

  “I’m afraid to get married because I’m afraid I’ll screw it up,” I said, surprised at the self-realization. “So I’m subconsciously trying to sabotage that.”

  Rick reached for me again, but I kept him at arm’s length.

  “I...I fear failure,” I said to Rick. But it wasn’t really to Rick. It was more to myself. “So I’d rather cop out of a situation than take a chance. I mean, look at me, I’d rather sabotage a good thing instead of giving it a try.”

  I stared at Rick, who somehow had his shirt open—had I done that?—revealing as nice a chest as I’d ever seen outside of a movie.

  “I’m going to see my fiancé,” I told him.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. I’m really sure.”

  Rick smiled. “He’s a very lucky man.”

  I checked my pants button, and saw that he’d also gotten the zipper down. I zipped them back up, suddenly embarrassed.

  “If it doesn’t work out...” Rick said, letting his voice trail off.

  But I knew it would work out. I’d make sure it would work out. I loved Latham, and I’d do everything within my power to make our marriage succeed.

  “We’re not going to happen,” I told Rick, pointing at him and me. “I’m sorry.”

  Rick sighed, then buttoned up his shirt and left my office, closing the door behind him.

  I adjusted my blouse and realized he had unhooked my bra as well. How the hell had he done that so fast?

  The phone rang, and I knew deep in my heart that it was Latham, and he was conscious again, perhaps even well enough for me to screw his brains out.

  But it wasn’t Latham. It was Hajek at the crime lab.

  “I’m a genius, Lieutenant. A certifiable genius.”

  “What happened?”

  “I got the license number. And even better, I traced it.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning we’ve got the bastard’s address.”

  Chapter 19

  WHAT’S THE ADDRESS?” I asked. “Don’t you want to know how I did it?”

  Hajek spoke with the same enthusiasm as a child showing off the construction paper snowflake he made in school.

  “Give me the quick version.”

  “JPEG compression didn’t work, and neither did resizing or noise reduction, so I used a program that could change the blur width by —”

  “You’re a genius,” I said, interrupting. “What’s the address?”

  “But changing the focus points wasn’t enough. I had to rearrange the pixels using—”

  “The address, Scott.”

  He sighed. “Vehicle belongs to a Tracey Hotham. Her apartment is on Thirty-first and Laramie in Cicero.”

  “Did you run priors?”

  “Of course. No records. I checked DMV, and her license had expired. So I tried Social Security, and found out Tracey died six years ago.”

  “How?”

  “I didn’t dig that deep. But you can ask her parents. According to 411, they’re still living at the Cicero address.”

  Two scenarios came to me simultaneously. Maybe they no longer had the car, or maybe a member of Tracey’s family was the Chemist.

  I yawned. Not from boredom—my lack of sleep was catching up with me. “Nice work, Scott.”

  “Thanks. Maybe we could discuss it over dinner.”

  “Sure. I’ll call you tomorrow, during dinner.�
��

  I hung up, my fingers pressing the speed dial for Herb before my mind remembered he and I were no longer a team. I hit the disconnect button.

  Abruptly, I felt very alone.

  I could get in touch with Bains, have him assign me a new partner, but that wouldn’t happen today. I wasn’t even sure I wanted a new partner on this case. I didn’t like wearing a bull’s-eye, and didn’t want to hang one on anyone else.

  Calling Rick wasn’t an option. I didn’t want to see him again unless I was wearing a suit of armor. I could tr. Scooterboy Buchbinder, but going solo was preferable to hearing him wax prolific about the World’s Largest Road Apple. Before leaving Willoughby’s, he had taken me aside and confessed that right before the unfortunate collision, he’d sworn the manure pile looked exactly like the Lincoln head on Mt. Rushmore.

  “I keep seeing it. President Lincoln’s face, getting cleaved in half. And that haunting, squishing sound...”

  The guy had issues. More than issues—he had a whole subscription.

  So I had no choice. I’d be going stag to Cicero.

  On my way to the car, I called the Cicero police, and was bounced around until I connected with a sergeant named Cooper.

  “You think the Chemist lives in our burg?”

  “I have no idea. As of now, the Hothams are persons of interest. It’s your jurisdiction, if you want someone there.”

  “We’ll meet you at the apartment. You need a warrant?”

  “I just want to ask some questions. Don’t...” I thought about walking into Alger’s house. “Have your people wait for me before they go in. This guy likes to set traps.”

  And then I hopped in my car and headed for Cicero.

  The drive only took fifteen minutes. Cicero bordered Chicago on the west, blending into it seamlessly. Mostly Hispanic, a population of around eighty thousand, middle class, blue collar, more like a neighborhood of Chicago than a distinct town.