This time Bob shakes his head.
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense. It would have been awkward to use his thumb to push the plunger, and there should be a thumbprint on the barrel.” I reach over and remove a pen from Bob’s shirt pocket, handing it to him. “Mimic what he did with your own hand, using the pen as the syringe.”
Bob, frowning slightly, extends his left arm straight out and holds the pen in his right hand like it’s a syringe, the writing end of it serving as the needle. His thumb is clearly on the barrel of the pen and when he realizes it, he shifts his hold until he has the pen in a fist-like grip. He hovers over the inside of his left elbow and pretends to plunge the pen into his arm, coming down at a ninety-degree angle. His thumb hits on the clicker of the pen, and when he touches the nib to his arm, he clicks the pen with his thumb. “Seems doable to me,” he says.
“Doable but not logical,” I say. “I’m not a doctor or a nurse, but I work in the ER a lot and I’ve watched enough of them insert needles and IVs into veins to know that you don’t enter the arm at a ninety-degree angle like that. It’s more like a thirty-degree angle with the barrel of the syringe almost flush with the forearm, like this.” I take his pen and show him, using his arm. Then I hand the pen back to him. “Now you do it.”
He does so, using the angle I demonstrated, and the fist hold he used before. When he attempts to push the plunger with his thumb he succeeds, though it’s clearly awkward. Only the edge of his thumb pad meets the clicker, and the writing end of the pen moves erratically with his efforts. He looks at me, frowning, his mouth skewed in dismay. “The kid was inexperienced,” he says. “Maybe he didn’t know how to do it the logical way.” He emphasizes the word “logical” in a manner that suggests he finds my idea preposterous.
I flip to a section of the autopsy report I saw earlier and tap it with my finger. “According to this, Toby’s initial puncture of the vein was successful. There was no evidence of hesitation marks or multiple puncture sites, and he managed to access his vein without going through the other side of the vein wall at all. That means his technique was perfect. Odd for a first-timer, don’t you think?”
“‘Odd’ isn’t evidence,” Bob grumbles. I don’t say a thing. I just stare at him, eyebrows raised. After a second or two, he sighs. “You think someone else did it for him?”
“I think someone else did it to him,” I counter.
Bob smiles tiredly. “But there’s no evidence of a struggle. If someone was shooting him up with drugs against his will, there would have been evidence of that.”
“Unless he was drugged ahead of time.”
“What do you mean?” he says irritably.
I don’t answer him right away. Instead I flip through the autopsy report again, searching for something. When I find it, I set the report down open to that page and point to the appropriate section with my finger. “They tested Toby for the presence of certain drugs. Here are the results. But there’s a drug they didn’t test for.”
“There are a lot of drugs they didn’t test for,” Bob says, his impatience growing. “They can’t test for every drug known to man. They test for the ones that are most likely to be present or most likely to cause the findings. Unless they have a reason to suspect the presence of other drugs, they won’t test for them.”
“Well, let’s think for a moment,” I say. “According to Toby’s mother, something happened while he was attending the university. He not only quit school, he left his fraternity. What drug do frat houses have a reputation for using?”
Bob looks at me like he’s considering a 51-15, the Wisconsin statute for the emergency detention of someone who’s out of their mind. But then his expression changes, and he squeezes his eyes closed. “Oh, hell,” he says.
Chapter Fifteen
“You’re thinking GHB, the date rape drug, aren’t you?” Bob says.
“I am.”
“And they didn’t test for it.”
“They didn’t. Not sure they could, to be honest. I dealt with a lot of date rape victims when I was in Milwaukee, and my understanding of the drug is that it gets metabolized very quickly and is hard to find with testing. Maybe we should run it by the ME’s office to see what they think?”
Bob gives me a grudging smile. “Okay. Hold on.” He takes out his cell phone, punches the face of it a couple of times, and then sets it on the table. I can see from the screen that he is calling someone named Arnie Toffer and that he has it on speaker.
“Arnie here,” says a male voice after the second ring. “What can I do for you, Richmond?”
“I’ve got a question about a case you guys worked not long ago, a kid named Toby Cochran. Do you remember it?”
“Heroin overdose, right?” Arnie says.
“That’s right. I’m wondering if there’s any way you could do one more test on the kid for me.”
“Depends,” Arnie says. “The body has been released, but we have samples of most of the fluids and tissues. What exactly are you looking for?”
“GHB.”
“The date rape drug?” Arnie says. “Are you thinking he was trying to chase the dragon and injected it with the heroin? Because I can tell you . . .”
“No,” Bob says, cutting him off. “I’m wondering if he might have ingested the drug before he shot up.”
“Well, if he did, odds are it would have made it more or less impossible for him to shoot himself up, so . . .”
Several seconds of silence follow, and then Arnie says, “You’re thinking it was a murder, aren’t you?” There is a newfound level of excitement in his voice.
“I’m looking into some things,” Bob says vaguely. “Would you be able to test for GHB at this point?”
“Well, it clears out of the system pretty quickly,” Arnie says. “After two hours, more than ninety-five percent of the drug will have been excreted already. It depends on when he took it, how long before he died. Or if he peed afterward. It’s excreted in the urine, and whatever urine is found in the bladder is generally collected on autopsy. Hold on a sec.”
We hear the clatter of his phone being set down, and then the clicking of a keyboard. After several seconds Arnie says, “Yep, there is a urine sample for him in my lab. Want me to test it?”
“Yes, please,” Bob says. “Can you do it tonight and call me back?”
“I can. But understand that if the test comes back negative, it doesn’t necessarily rule out that the drug was used. We may be too far beyond the testing window. And if it comes back positive, it may not be usable as evidence. There are some studies out there that show the spontaneous production of GHB in refrigerated urine. As a result, the concentration of GHB in any urine that’s been refrigerated for a length of time can increase dramatically.”
“Got it,” Bob says. “Test it anyway and let me know what you find.”
“Okay. Give me half an hour and I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks,” Bob says, and then he jabs at the screen and disconnects the call.
“He sounds excited,” I say.
Bob rolls his eyes. “Arnie loves a good conspiracy. The chance to turn a routine, tragic drug overdose into a murder is what he lives for.”
“What does ‘chasing the dragon’ mean?” I ask, recalling Arnie’s comment.
“I think it originally referred to a means of inhaling vapor from heated heroin, opium, or morphine that’s placed on a piece of foil. But in this case Arnie is referring to the addict’s search for a better high, a stronger reaction to whatever their drug of choice is, wanting to repeat the thrill of that first high. But the more often they use a drug, the more it takes to get the same effect. When they can’t reproduce the original high, they try to achieve it by combining drugs. That’s how fentanyl ended up getting mixed in with heroin. Users want a bigger bang for their buck, but half the time they end up buying a death sentence instead.”
“What a horrible way to live.”
“Mere existence rather than living,” Bob says.
“These drugs are a scourge.”
I nod and turn my attention back to the police file. Over the next half hour, I read through more of the ME’s report, study the pictures of the scene, and then read the initial officers’ report, including subsequent notes that Brenda Joiner added after she talked to Sharon. The objective, sterile nature of this portion of the report is a stark contrast to what I’m sure was a highly emotional conversation.
While I’m doing this, Bob excuses himself for several minutes. When he returns, he is busy texting away on his phone.
“Did you guys trace where the nine-one-one call came from?” I ask.
“We did,” Bob says, setting his phone down. “It came from a burner cell bought in Ohio. A dead end.” He looks a little embarrassed and then adds, “Excuse the pun.”
“I’m okay with it,” I tell him, smiling. “Humor is a coping mechanism often used by people who work in high-stress jobs. I bet death humor goes back as far as the Neanderthals.”
He gives me that 51-15 look again and I turn my attention back to the file. I flip through some pictures and then stop on a digital copy of Toby’s fingerprints. The right thumbprint has a clear line running through it, and I remember finding that same line in the prints I recovered from his room. Then I realize what it means.
“Toby’s death was definitely staged,” I say, tapping the fingerprint page. “And whoever did it didn’t do a very good job. Toby’s mother told me how he sliced his thumb on the lid of a can, creating this scar you see here.” I point to the fingerprint image. “That scar is on his right thumb. And yet the print you took from the end of the syringe plunger doesn’t have that line in it.” I show him the page of partial prints that were found on the syringe. “While the thumbprint is only a portion of the whole, it’s plain to see from the whorl pattern that the part of it on the syringe includes the pad of the thumb where that scar was. And yet, there is no line on the print taken from the plunger.”
Bob runs a hand through his hair and scowls, though not at me. He’s staring at the pages. And then his phone rings. It’s still sitting on the table and I can see from the display that it’s Arnie calling back.
“That was fast,” I say. “Arnie really is eager.”
For a second, I’m convinced Bob is going to pick that phone up and put it to his ear, not letting me listen in. He’s angry, not at me directly, but I am the messenger and therefore a logical target. His hand hovers over the phone, his brows drawn down into a near V. Two rings, then three, then he lets out a sigh of perturbed resignation, jabs a finger at the screen to answer the call, and hits the speaker icon.
“Whatcha got, Arnie?” he says, forgoing any formal greeting.
“Your suspicions were spot on,” he says, and I can hear the excitement in his voice. “Toby Cochran was likely given GHB. I can’t tell you for sure how much or even when, but I’d wager it was given less than two hours before he died.”
Bob’s right hand goes up to his face and starts massaging the area between his brows. “Thanks, Arnie,” he says.
“No problem. Just doing my job. Anything else you want me to look for?” Arnie asks, his voice peppered with panting excitement, like a hound dog on scent.
“What about trace on the body?” I say, the first time I’ve spoken during either call. I figure the answer is likely buried in the file in front of me, but if Arnie knows the answer it might save me some time. However, my question is met with silence on Arnie’s end.
Bob stares at the phone for a few seconds as if also waiting for an answer, and then his brows arch with dawning. “Oh, sorry, Arnie. I forgot to mention I have someone else listening in on our calls. She’s a ride-along I’m taking for a bit. Her name is Hildy Schneider and she’s a social worker up at the hospital.” Bob gives me a grudging look of admiration. “The GHB was her idea.”
“Well, it’s a good one,” Arnie says. “As for trace, there wasn’t much. Some coconut oil on the soles of his shoes, traces of which were also found on the floor of the building where his body was found. It was likely tracked in by someone, but there’s no way to know when or who. It looked like the victim tracked some of it in, but there were other tread marks that didn’t match his shoes that had coconut oil in them. There was also dirt on the victim’s shoes, the sort of stuff you find in and around town here, but buried beneath that in his treads was a flower petal and some other soil, a dark clay with a lot of rotted vegetation in it, probably from a river or streambed. It contained CCA, or chromated copper arsenate. It’s what they used to use to treat lumber until it was stopped back in two thousand three. At some point there was a wood structure in whatever area that soil came from. It might still be there. Wood treated with CCA lasts a long time.”
“And the flower petal?” I ask.
“It was from a plum tree. From what I understand, there aren’t any around the kid’s house or by the building where his body was found. Of course, those things can get blown great distances, so who knows how relevant that is.”
“Thanks, Arnie,” Bob says. He’s scribbling madly in his notebook. “Can you send me an official report on that trace evidence? I don’t remember seeing it in the autopsy report.”
“It probably didn’t get included, because it was older soil stuck high up in the treads. There were other layers on top of it and there’s no way to tell when the kid walked in the clay stuff. Izzy might not have thought it was relevant.”
I reach into my briefcase and take out the laptop, setting it on the table. And then I remove something else and set it next to the laptop. It’s the picture of the footbridge from Toby’s room. I tap my finger on it and give Bob a pointed look.
Bob nods back at me—rather begrudgingly, I think—and then thanks Arnie again before disconnecting the call.
“Soil by a streambed, preserved wood, and a plum tree,” I say, pointing to the water, the footbridge, and the trees in Toby’s drawing. “A coincidence? I don’t think so. We need to find this bridge.”
“Easy enough,” Bob says. “That aerial view we found on his laptop had the latitude and longitude of the location.” His mouth skews sideways as he chews the inside of one cheek, staring at the drawing. Finally, he tosses his pen down and leans back in his chair, looking at me. “Okay, Hildy,” he says. “You’ve proven your point. The kid’s case is officially open again and being investigated as a homicide. Happy?”
“Well, I kind of am, though I have to admit it doesn’t feel quite right to be happy about such a thing, does it?”
Bob huffs out a laugh, shakes his head, and rakes his fingers through his hair. “You’re an interesting piece of work, Hildy Schneider.”
Chapter Sixteen
“We need to start with the bridge location, but I think we also need to pay a visit to the fraternity Toby belonged to,” I say to Bob, eager to keep our momentum going. “I have a feeling it has something to do with why he quit school, and even if it doesn’t, it’s likely some of his frat brothers will know something about what was going on with the kid back when all this happened. It might give us some leads.”
“Hold on,” Bob says, putting up a hand as if to stop my flow of words and ideas. “You’ve done good so far coming up with thoughts about this case, but you need to remember you’re not a cop.”
“But I’m doing a ride-along, right? You’ll take me with you to see the bridge and when you go talk to the frat boys?”
“I haven’t agreed to any of that yet,” Bob says irritably. “And anyway, I’m not going to do it tonight. I suggest you go home and we start fresh in the morning.”
“Tomorrow is good,” I say. “It’s a Saturday, and that means the frat boys might be around during the day, since most of them won’t have classes. What time should we meet?”
“Are you forgetting our other arrangement?” Bob says.
For a moment I think perhaps he’s hinting at some sort of sexual rendezvous, the cues for which I obviously missed. Then I remember. “Oh, right. The gym.”
“
Yes. Try to sound a little more enthusiastic about it. It’s fun. You’ll see. It’s easier when you have a partner to work out with. Let’s plan to meet at the gym at five in the morning, okay?”
I don’t want to. I really, really don’t want to. Exercise simply for the sake of exercise is a form of torture, in my opinion. And getting up that early on a Saturday seems like cruel and unusual punishment. But if I renege on the gym deal, I’m pretty sure Bob will blow off my ride-along.
“Fine. See you at five.” I start to pack up the laptop, but he stops me with a hand on my arm.
“Listen, Hildy, I know you figured out how to get into the computer and it’s your find. Kudos to you for that. Seriously.” He beams a smile at me that is obviously forced. “But now that the case has been reopened officially, that laptop is evidence. And if you muck around with it and find something else that could be useful, or better yet, incriminating somehow, it won’t be admissible as evidence. Would you want to be responsible for letting a killer go free on a technicality because you let your pride get in the way?”
I narrow my eyes at him, cocking my head to one side. “What are you suggesting?” I ask, though I know perfectly well what he’s suggesting. And I have a strong suspicion it isn’t a suggestion at all. He’s just being kind for now, letting me save face before he wrestles the thing away from me and throws me in jail on an obstruction charge. Suddenly, I feel very vulnerable, and I start to wonder if this whole evening has been a sham, a show to get me to play along just enough for him to shove me out of the way.
Perhaps sensing my suspicions, Bob makes another appeal. “I want to turn in the laptop to my evidence tech, Laura. She can look through it tonight while we’re sleeping. That will not only speed things up; it will better ensure the evidence chain if she finds anything useful.”
“You’re not going to ditch me tomorrow, are you?” I ask. I hate being so paranoid, someone who always suspects the motives of others as nefarious, but my experience, both in the foster system and as a social worker, bears it out. I’ve been lied to, ripped off, and manipulated by some of the best.
Needled to Death Page 12
