by Steven James
Yes.
Orange juice.
I grabbed the phone. “Aina. Check Hunter’s freezer.”
“His freezer?”
“Give it a shot.”
By the time I’d found my seat she’d finished her search. “Mr. Hunter must be a juice lover.”
“So, he’s got the juice,” I said softly. “Have one of your officers check the nearest dumpster to his apartment. Look for empty boxes of laundry detergent.”
“Concentrated orange juice and powdered laundry detergent,” she said. I could hear agitation in her voice. “Claro. I should have thought of that earlier. Mix them together with low-octane gasoline, make a paste. Burns hot enough to create full room involvement—”
“But slow enough to sustain sufficient oxygen in the room for the fire to spread.”
“So, you have worked arson cases before,” she said.
“A few.”
“Between the two of us we should have thought of it earlier.”
“Well, without any suspects I’m not sure it would have done us any good.” I downed some of my juice. “So, if he’s got his laptop and his cell phone, what does that leave us? Any snail mail there? Return addresses, postcards we can check on?”
I heard her shuffling through some letters. “All bills. That would have been too easy anyway.”
“OK, GPS. Track his cell phone or his car.”
“We tried. Nothing. Older models.”
“Ex-wife, fiancée, girlfriend? Someone he might have gone to stay with?”
“We’re working on it. He has a photo on the wall of him on the beach with an attractive young woman, late twenties, scuba gear beside them. Her hand is resting on his thigh so I think they’re more than just friends. We checked his phone records, found his favorite number to call, and sent some cars to her place. She’s a shark researcher. Works for the Sherrod Aquarium. Cassandra Lillo.”
“Cassandra Lillo,” I mumbled. “The aquarium, huh? OK. Email me whatever you pull up on her, and call me back if you find the detergent boxes.” As I hung up, I noticed that Tessa, who had been watching me carefully, let her eyes wander past me toward a couple of cute guys laughing in a booth nearby.
During the next few minutes, I ate in hungry silence but then I noticed Tessa’s long-sleeve T-shirt slide back from her wrist, exposing a red, inflamed streak beneath her bracelets.
“What happened to your wrist, Tessa?”
She pulled the sleeve back in place. “Nothing.”
Over the last year Tessa had struggled with cutting, and I wondered if maybe the rubber band snapping was her way of trying to break the habit, kind of like smokers who start to chew gum instead of lighting up. But it was still a bad habit, and obviously, since her wrist was raw, she was taking it too far. “You need to stop snapping that rubber band so much. You’re hurting yourself.”
“I’m all right.”
“I’m just saying—”
“I’m all right!”
Lien-hua, who had been eating quietly beside us, cleared her throat softly. “Anyone else want some coffee? I’m going for a refill.”
Tessa and I both shook our heads.
Lien-hua rose and I decided that now was as good a time as any to tell Tessa what I’d started considering while I was waiting in the lobby. “Hey, listen. I was wondering if maybe we should head back to Denver.”
“What? Why?”
“Well, I just thought that after last night, after that guy, well . . .”
“Killed himself? Ew. Yeah. That was totally disturbing.”
“Well, I thought if we went back to Denver, we could maybe, you know, deal with it together. Talk it through.”
“He’s dead, what is there to talk about?”
“I know. But it happened so close to us.”
“As if people don’t die in Denver. Besides, I want to stay.”
“You’re right, people do die everywhere, but . . .” I let my words trail off as I noticed Lien-hua pause beside one of the tables. A woman who appeared to be deaf was anxiously trying to communicate with one of the restaurant managers. Lien-hua stood between them, interpreting. She watched the deaf woman’s quick gestures, then spoke softly to the manager, listened to his reply, and let her own fingers fly nimbly through a series of words to the deaf woman. A sandy-haired boy, maybe eight or nine years old, sat beside the worried-looking woman. Lien-hua had mentioned to me a few weeks ago that one of her brothers had been born deaf, just like her paternal grandfather, so I wasn’t surprised she knew sign language, but this was the first time I’d seen her use it.
“Patrick, hello!” Tessa was waving her hand in front of my face. She didn’t look happy that Lien-hua had grabbed my attention.
“I’m sorry. What were you saying?”
Tessa’s eyes flickered toward Lien-hua, then back to me. “I was saying that they need you here. And besides, we only have a couple days, and what am I supposed to do at home? I’m fine. Really.”
The two guys in the neighboring booth had finished their meal and were now busy checking out Tessa, that is, until they saw me glaring at them. They looked at least three or four years older than she was. I leaned close to her. “You’re sure you don’t want to stay just so you can scope out those cute surfer guys at the booth over there?”
She purposely avoided looking at them. “What? I was not.”
“Yeah, right. They were checking you out too.”
Her eyes brightened and skipped toward the boys. “They were?”
“Watch out for those older guys. They’re nothing but trouble.” You’re getting off track here, Pat. Decide if you’re staying here or going to Denver.
“So, seriously, Raven.” My cell phone started to ring. “You want to stay?”
“Yeah,” she said. My phone rang again. “I want to stay here, see the beach, the aquarium. The sharks. All that stuff.” Phone still ringing. She stared at my pocket. “Are you gonna answer that already?”
I flipped out my phone.
“Dr. Bowers, it’s Aina. We found the boxes but no girlfriend. We contacted the aquarium. Ms. Lillo never showed up for work today.”
Hunter’s keys were gone from his apartment. Maybe they took off together.
“Aina,” I said. “That’s great. But I’m in the middle of something.”
“Her car’s still in the parking lot of the aquarium, though. Dispatch sent a team of criminalists to look through it.”
She told me that last part on purpose. I know she did.
“Thanks, Aina.” I hung up.
“OK,” I told Tessa. “I don’t want to argue with you here. If you’re good to stay, we stay.”
“I’m good to stay.”
“OK.”
“Good.”
Lien-hua returned with her coffee, and I asked her, “Was everything all right over there?”
She nodded. “The boy is allergic to peanuts. His mother saw him eating one of the cinnamon rolls with walnuts and pecans and was afraid it might contain peanuts as well. But the manager assured her that there weren’t any.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Tessa said, staring at the boy. She’s allergic to peanuts, so I knew she could relate.
“Good.” I really wanted to inspect Cassandra’s car and work space before the criminalists got to them. If Hunter was the arsonist, it was possible she was working with him, and we could wrap this whole thing up if we could locate her. I stood. “Tessa. I think Agent Jiang and I are going to go check—”
“Can I come to the aquarium with you?” Tessa asked.
I blinked. “I never said we were going to the aquarium.”
“But you are, and I want to come too, and don’t tell me it’s not safe or anything, because if Austin Hunter really is the arsonist and he was taking off with Cassandra, they wouldn’t hang out at the place she works; they’d get out of town. Right? Besides, it sounds like you should be looking for him at a Keva Juice or a Laundromat, not an aquarium.”
> Lien-hua and I just stared at her. Before I could say a word, Lien-hua said, “Tessa, how do you know all that?”
“I was listening to you guys. He talks loud on the phone, and you oughta know that when you whisper something it just makes people nearby listen more closely.” She pushed back from the table. “It’s a good thing you two aren’t spies.”
“But you only heard my side of the phone conversation,” I said.
“I filled in the rest.”
Forget college. I should send her to the FBI academy.
“Sharks are cool, right?” she said. “Remember? So, can I come?” Something didn’t quite jibe. “Hang on, Tessa, you’re always asking to go off by yourself, to do things by yourself, to be left on your own. But whenever I’m working a case, you want to tag along. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not consistent.”
“I’m a teenage girl. I’m exempt from being consistent.”
I looked at Lien-hua, who shrugged. “She’s right about one thing, they wouldn’t hang out at the aquarium.”
Well, that was helpful.
“So,” said Tessa. “Can I come? We were gonna go to the aquarium anyway.”
“OK. Look. You stay in the public section while we check out Cassandra’s office. You stay by a crowd of people. No sneaking around. You’re never alone. Got it?”
“Got it,” she said. “No problem.”
27
As Tessa went back to her room to get her satchel, she thought about the conversation she’d just had with Patrick. On the one hand he was right, it didn’t seem to make sense—she wanted to live her own life, but she also wanted to be part of his: to need him but also be free of him. It was kind of weird, or maybe it was normal, she didn’t know. She was still trying to get used to the whole idea of having a dad around.
Besides, Patrick wanted two things just like she did. He wanted to work on his cases but also spend time with her. Both were important to him, she knew they were. So what was the difference? Maybe she and Patrick weren’t all that different after all.
She grabbed her satchel, as well as the lotion to rub on her scar, and walked back to the elevators.
On my way to the car, the medical examiner returned my call but scoffed when I asked about an autopsy. “We already know how John Doe died—death by trolley. Besides, there wasn’t enough left of him to put in a Ziploc bag, let alone enough for an autopsy.”
You have to hand it to these MEs. They really know how to humanize a tragedy. “I was hoping we could look into this a little more,” I said. “There’s something here that doesn’t add up. Have there been any other suicides like this recently?”
“Bowers, this is the sixth largest city in the country. What do you think? The guy had no driver’s license, no social security number, no passport, and thus, no identity. As far as the system’s concerned, he doesn’t exist.”
“What about relatives?”
“No one showed up to claim the body, and no one will. This is a city of 1.3 million legal residents, plus nearly three hundred thousand illegal ones. What do you want me to do, interview each one of them, see if I can find someone who’s related?” He paused to catch his breath. “I need to get back to work.”
I thought maybe I could speak to one of John Doe’s relatives at the funeral, but when I asked the ME about the time of the interment, he said, “Unless someone claims the . . .” I could tell he was searching for the right word and body wasn’t it. “Unless someone claims the remains, there’ll be a public burial on Thursday. That’s all I know.” And then, in a tone bordering on compassion, he added, “So, why does this guy matter so much to you, anyhow?”
“Because he deserves to matter to someone.” I reached into my pocket and felt John Doe’s tooth, then the ME ended the call and Tessa arrived.
Trying to put the tragedy of his suicide out of my mind, I slid into the car next to Tessa and we headed to the aquarium, where Lien-hua had agreed to meet us.
At exactly 11:56 a.m. Creighton Melice discovered Randi’s cell phone in his car.
He’d decided to move the car eight blocks away from the warehouse so there would be no way of connecting him to it, or it to him. But when he opened the car door and saw a phone on the dashboard, he realized it was hers. A tight knot formed in his gut.
Where was the phone Shade had provided him? Creighton searched between the seats and then beneath them and then behind them, but the phone was not in the car.
Creighton remembered Randi grabbing a phone as he shoved her out of the car.
She took the wrong one.
Randi now had the phone Shade was going to call.
And in that moment, despite how strongly he felt about not blaspheming, Creighton Melice did exactly that.
28
Last year after Victor Drake had hired Geoff and Suricata and was considering the final two people for his team, he’d carefully researched Dr. Octal Kurvetek’s job responsibilities at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. During the vetting process, Victor had found out that the doctor oversaw the proper administration of the three-drug cocktail used for lethal injections at the time: sodium thiopental, to induce unconsciousness; pancuronium bromide, to induce paralysis; and potassium chloride to bring about cardiac arrest.
From 1986 through 2006, Dr. Kurvetek had been the on-site medical supervisor for 219 of the 369 executions by lethal injection that took place in the state of Texas. His experience at the TDCJ and his background in neurophysiology all seemed to make him ideal for the job that Victor Drake was trying to fill. So he’d hired him.
It was only after Dr. Kurvetek had been on the team for six months that he told Victor his secret. “It was always more satisfying to let the convicts remain conscious while the pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride were administered. I didn’t do it all the time, of course. Just when the mood struck.” He seemed proud of what he’d done. “It’s prohibited by the Eighth Amendment, of course, which states that executions may not include ‘the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain.’ But I don’t necessarily agree with that provision.”
“And?” Victor had said, anticipating the answer.
“Let’s just say that administering those two drugs to a conscious person would cause . . .”—Dr. Kurvetek’s lips curled into a wormlike grin—“an unconstitutional amount of pain.”
In a nutshell, Dr. Kurvetek’s specialty was death.
Death by pain.
And now, Victor had to rely on this man not only to pull the Project Rukh research findings together but also help take care of the problematic Austin Hunter. Victor didn’t want to, but finally he dialed Kurvetek’s number. “Have you found Hunter?” he asked as soon as the doctor answered the phone.
“No,” Octal replied evenly. “Geoff even checked GPS for his phone as well as his credit card use. Nothing. It’s as if he disappeared.”
Of course it is. That’s his specialty! That’s one of the reasons he was hired, because he can disappear without a trace.
“All right,” Victor said. “I need you to focus on the test results, give me everything you can. I have a meeting on Thursday afternoon with the general and I need to make sure he’s convinced the device is operational. Have Geoff and Suricata find Hunter.”
And then he ended the call before Dr. Kurvetek could reply. After all, the doctor wasn’t calling the shots, Victor was.
That’s what he told himself as he went back to work managing his vast biotech empire.
29
As I drove to the aquarium, I asked Tessa to read me the Sherrod Aquarium brochure that she’d picked up from the hotel lobby.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No. Go ahead. I want to find out as much as I can before we get there.”
She complained for another minute or two, but at last she obliged me. “‘When it was completed in November 2008, the Sherrod Aquarium was the largest and most ambitious aquarium complex in the world. Boasting more than five hundred thrilling exhibits, this world-cla
ss vacation destination promises fun, educational, and memorable experiences for the entire family. Also respected around the world as a cutting-edge shark research facility . . .’” She stopped and mumbled, “Do I have to do this?”
“I know it’s not Pulitzer Prize–winning material. Just humor me.”
A sigh. Then, “‘When you arrive, plan to visit Poseidon’s Odyssey, an interactive 4-D adventure that will leave you stunned, and amazed!’” She paused. “There’s an extra comma in there that they don’t need, by the way.” Then she continued, “‘And don’t miss the world’s largest indoor aquarium attraction. The Seven Deadly Seas exhibit holds more than seven million gallons of water, as well as the world’s largest bull shark in captivity. Prepare to be awestruck and overwhelmed. But be wary! Sixteen vicious species of sharks roam its deadly waters—’ Patrick, puh-lease?”
“Just finish it up,” I said. “We’re almost there.”
Another impatient sigh. “I’m skipping to the end. ‘Spearheaded by entrepreneur and philanthropist Victor Sherrod Drake, the Sherrod Aquarium stands as a monument to his generosity to the people of’ blah, blah, blah. It just goes on like that for a while.”
“OK,” I said. “That’s good. We’re here.”
She set down the brochure, looked up, and uttered one word: “Whoa.”
The Sherrod Aquarium spread before us. The architects had made brilliant use of mirrored glass and expansive sweeping canopies, creating a breezy, windswept feel that made the three interconnected wings of the world’s largest aquarium look like giant glass sails billowing toward the sea. Sunlight and sky danced across the glass sides of the buildings, merging the aquarium seamlessly with the ocean that lay just beyond it.
A landscaped grove of towering palm trees and exotic flowers wove euphorically between the three buildings. Even the parking lot had been well planned, with shaded walkways, jogging trails, and small playgrounds containing interactive learning centers for children.
I fished out my ID, and the guard at the main entrance waved us through to the staff parking lot, where we found Lien-hua already waiting for us.
