That sparked a thought for Izzie. “Speaking of which, Kono mentioned that Fuller may have started taking some kind of psychotropic.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m wondering what the lab techs had to say about those vials of white powder that CSI found in Fuller’s apartment.”
Patrick rubbed his palms together. “Let’s go find out, shall we?”
CHAPTER TEN
Back in the community room at the 10th Precinct station house, Patrick pulled up the Reaper investigation case files on a laptop computer while Izzie dug through the few remaining unpacked file boxes in search of the vials. She had to lift the three-foot-long narrow box to get at a stack underneath, and was struck by the weight of it. The label read simply “One (1) sword with 20-inch blade” along with an inventory control number and a bar code. A prosaic description for a deadly weapon that had been used to murder and dismember a dozen men and women. Izzie felt her skin crawl, and set the box aside.
“Looks like the CSI team used a narcotics identification field kit on the vials when they initially searched the apartment,” Patrick said, not looking up from the laptop’s screen. “But their findings were inconclusive and so a sample was sent to the Recondito PD’s Office of Forensic Science for analysis.”
Izzie opened another box, which contained some personal effects that the crime scene investigators had considered worthy of interest: receipts from hardware stores and outdoor supply companies, bank statements, a photo album, and so on. But no glass vials. She was sure that she had seen them in one of these boxes when they were sorting through them that morning, though.
“Aren’t narcotics normally destroyed after an investigation?” she wondered aloud as she opened the next box.
“After the trial is over, yeah,” Patrick answered. “But procedure is also to keep any seized narcotics in evidence until the lab results are in. And since the lab was still testing the samples when all of this was shifted over to long-term storage, the one procedure canceled out the other and …” He sat up, his expression brightening. “Ah, here we go.”
He scrolled down the page with the arrow keys, reading intently.
“Huh …” he said after a moment, a somewhat perplexed look on his face.
“Do you have something you’d like to share with the class?”
“Yeah, it’s just …” He sat back, scratching the raspy stubble of his five o’clock shadow. “Weird.”
Izzie put down the lid of the box, and fixed him with a look. “What? Spit it out.”
“The lab reports were fairly inconclusive. The chemical composition of the powder didn’t quite match anything on the USC’s schedule of controlled substances, but … here, I’ll read what they said. ‘The chemical compound in the provided sample is a methylated indoleamine derivative (indole alkaloid derived from the shikimate pathway) with a structure homologous to that of Dimethyltryptamine, most probably originating in a plant species of unknown origin, and there is a high probability that it functions as a serotonergic hallucinogen, acting as an agonist or antagonist of certain serotonin receptors.’ End quote.”
“That’s a mouthful,” Izzie said. “What does it mean?”
“Dimethyltryptamine is more commonly known as DMT,” Patrick explained.
“Oh, right.” She looked up from the box. “I read a book about it once. That’s the stuff that makes people see angels or machine elves or whatever, right?”
Patrick cocked an eyebrow. “Just what kind of books have you been reading, Izzie?”
She put her hands on her hips. “I’m serious. Look it up.”
He rolled his eyes, but brought up a browser window and tapped out a search string. Scanning the results, he clicked through to a few pages and read. “I’ll be damned. I thought it was just some synthetic drug that old hippies and rave kids took. But it says here that it occurs naturally in all sorts of different plants and in the human body.”
“Right,” Izzie said. “There’s a brew made from one of those plants that’s used in religious ceremonies in South America. My grandmother knew an Ialorixá from Brazil—a Candomblé priestess—who talked about it all the time. It’s called …” She looked up at the ceiling as she rifled back through old memories. “Ayahuasca.”
“That’s it.” Patrick nodded, still looking at the laptop screen. “There’s all kinds of results here about it being offered as part of ‘shamanic retreats’ in Central and South America, along with vision quests, firewalking, that kind of thing. And there’s … hang on a second.” He clicked a link. “It’s used in the States, too. I’m looking at an exemption on the Schedule I list for a church that includes it in their sacraments.” He sat back, thoughtfully. “Huh. My great-uncle used to brew up a foul-smelling sludge for his rites sometimes, using kawa roots.”
“Kawa?”
He looked over in Izzie’s direction. “That’s the Te’maroan word for it. I’m not actually sure what the name in English is, but the plant grows all over the western Pacific. My great-uncle brought some seeds with him when he came to the States and used to grow it in his backyard. The whole block would stink to high heaven when he cooked up that brew, but he always said it was a vital part of his work. That he needed it to see what was hidden.”
Izzie moved the small box labeled “One (1) Face mask— metal” to one side and opened the last of the file boxes.
“I wonder …” Patrick broke off, musing.
“What?” Izzie reached into the box and pulled out a sealed evidence bag containing a pair of small glass vials, with an inventory control number and bar code on a white label on the outside. “You wonder … ?”
He pushed his chair back from the table, the casters rattling on the thin carpet, and then stood up with a weary sigh. “Just … what if Fuller was taking this stuff for the same reason? As part of some kind of religious ritual?”
“I don’t know, the image of him that I got from talking to Kono was that he was a pretty straitlaced science guy.” She paused, and then added, “At the beginning at least.”
He walked down the table, glancing at the confusion of items scattered there.
“Exactly. You said that the earliest examples of him writing notes in the margins were all scientific texts, right? But later there’s all of this occult stuff.” He picked up a book at random, Kenneth Grant’s The Magical Revival. “And Kono said that he was getting obsessed with comparative religion and history and that kind of thing. So maybe he picked up the idea along the way?”
“Possibly. Or maybe he started taking the DMT or whatever it was on a whim, and then had some kind of experience that piqued his interest in religion and the supernatural? I’m sure that vivid hallucinations of machine elves could do that to a person. But no.” She shook her head, a skeptical expression on her face. “It can’t just be that. The professor also said that Fuller became obsessed with geology and archeology towards the end, remember, but only in direct relation with Recondito.”
Patrick dropped the book back onto the stack. “But whether he took the drug and then turned religious or got religion and then started taking the drug, the question remains: where did he get it?”
Izzie held up the evidence bag with the vials to the light, looking intently at the contents as if the answer might be hidden inside. “I’m guessing you don’t get a lot of people tripping on ‘methylated indoleamine derivatives’ on the streets of Recondito? No handy nicknames for kids who wander around zonked on jungle plants seeing angels? I mean, if you’ve got one street drug that hasn’t shown up anywhere else in the world yet, there’s bound to be more, right?”
Patrick chuckled mirthlessly. “No, thank god. Aside from Ink, it’s just your garden-variety meth and crack and heroin and such.” He reached out and took the evidence bag from her. “Four years I’ve been working vice, and this is the only instance of this kind of stuff that I’ve run into. Like I said … it’s weird.”
Izzie leaned on the table. “But we are sure that Fuller was taking this stuff, rig
ht? Did the M.E. run a toxicology test when he did the autopsy?”
“That would’ve been standard procedure.” He nodded towards his laptop. “I can look it up, and worst-case scenario we could check with Joyce over at the morgue, see if she remembers anything.”
“Might be worth checking. I’m not sure that it would help us much to know one way or the other, but still …” Izzie lowered her head and sighed, feeling run-down and weary.
Her gaze fell on the riot of books stacked on the table in front of her, and one in particular caught her eye: The Guildhall: The Rise and Fall of the Recondito Robber Barons.
“Huh.”
She reached down and picked up the book, then held it up to show Patrick. She pointed at the cover, which featured a sepia-toned photograph of a mammoth building, with a stone archway over the main entrance.
“This is that same building you were telling me about, right?” she asked. “The one that burned down where the food carts are now?”
Patrick nodded. “I think so, yeah.”
Izzie took a closer look at the book. It had more dog-eared pages and Post-it markers sticking out from it than any of the other books on the table.
“Fuller clearly spent a lot of time with this one.” She opened the book and began flipping through the pages. Nearly every page was so covered in handwritten notes that it was sometimes difficult to make out the original text. And the notes had clearly been written over a long period of time, with later notes furiously scribbled in that crabbed hand on the same pages as older observations carefully written in neatly legible letters. “A lot of time. I wonder what he found so fascinating about it?”
In an insert in the middle of the book were photos showing the building in its glory days, with rooms full of important looking men with big mustaches and beards wearing old-fashioned suits, enormous banquets and society gatherings, receptions for presidents and potentates and other visiting dignitaries.
“Who were these guys?” Izzie muttered, turning the book over to look at the copy on the back cover.
“It was a private club of local bigwigs, I think,” Patrick answered, uncertain. “Like the Masons or the Elks Club or something like that, right?”
Izzie scanned the description on the back cover.
“Says here that the group presented itself to the public as a private civic organization,” she said. “And that legally it was. But that behind closed doors it was actually a cabal of corrupt politicians and crooked businessmen who spent decades rigging elections, monopolizing trade, and generally screwing over everyone in the city of Recondito who wasn’t a member.” She glanced up at Patrick before continuing. “I’m paraphrasing, of course.”
“But why Guildhall?” Patrick asked. “Sounds like something out of a fantasy role-playing game.”
“Because because because,” Izzie muttered as she turned to the index at the back of the book. “Because …” She ran her finger down the list of entries until she found what she was looking for, and then flipped to a page near the front of the book. “Because,” she said triumphantly, “quote, ‘the organization was initially founded in 1851 as the Recondito Mining Guild to settle disputed mining claims in the hills outside of town.’ Yadda yadda yadda, ‘founders included Samuel Marston, Josiah Aldrich, Matthias Swan, Brennan …’”
She lowered the book, head cocked to one side quizzically.
“What?” Patrick asked.
“I know that I just …” She folded the book and tucked it under one arm, and then started pawing through the others on the table. “This morning I was looking at another one that …”
Her hands closed on another book, Hidden City: Recondito from 1849–1900. It had nearly as many dog-eared pages and Post-it markers as The Guildhall book. She opened it up, fluttering through the marked pages one after another.
“Here it is.” She turned the book around and displayed the page to Patrick. On the page was a grainy reproduction of a daguerreotype depicting a group of miners with picks and shovels, with a printed caption explaining that the men were breaking ground on a new mine shaft in the spot marked on a small inset map of the Recondito hills at the bottom of the page. Fuller had circled the faces of each of the miners and written names beside each in his crabbed hand. Marston. Aldrich. Swan. O’Malley. Chang.
Patrick took the book from Izzie to see it more clearly.
“These are the guys who started the Guildhall outfit,” Izzie said, “and Fuller was straight-up obsessed with them.” She pulled the other book from under her arm and fanned through the pages. “Who knows why he was obsessed with them, but he clearly was.”
“I think I might know.” Patrick held the book open in one hand, and with the other starting pushing around the topographical surveys and street maps that were spread out on the far end of the other. He found the one he was looking for, and then pulled it out from under the pile, unfurling it with a shake. Then he sat the book down on top of it. “This mine shaft that they’re starting to dig?” He pointed from the book to the topographical map. “It’s this mine shaft.”
Izzie looked where he was pointing on the map, and saw a complex geometric figure of angles and jagged lines that Fuller had drawn in black ink on the spot.
“Undersight,” Izzie said, eyes widening.
Patrick nodded.
Izzie picked up the copy of The Guildhall again, studying the cover. “So this cabal of robber barons was started by the same guys who dug the hole that all of Fuller’s victims went down into.”
“Looks like it.”
She flipped through the book once more, noting again how many notes Fuller had made on each page, and how much time he’d clearly spent doing it. “So maybe it wasn’t the Undersight project he was obsessed with?”
“What do you mean?” Patrick asked.
She looked up and met his gaze. “Maybe it was the mine shaft itself? Or something else down there? Is that crazy?”
“Is that crazy?” He repeated with a snort. “Izzie, remember who we’re talking about here. This guy was nuttier than a—”
A knock at the door to the community room interrupted whatever metaphor he was about to employ. “Tevake?”
Izzie turned to see a man in a rumpled suit with a police badge hanging around his neck standing in the open doorway. She wasn’t sure if his mustache was meant to be ironic or not, but either way she didn’t approve.
“Hey, Harrison,” Patrick said, straightening. “What’s up?”
“Chavez and I managed to track down the guy that your dead dealer was meeting with in that surveillance footage, and we think we’ve got a solid lead on the Ink supplier.” He leaned against the door frame, casually. “The judge signed a search warrant so we’re good to go. We’re heading out now to meet with the search team, and then we’re hitting it. You want to come with?”
“Yeah, I do,” Patrick said, after considering it for a moment. He glanced at Izzie. “Want to tag along?”
“Sure.” She shrugged, putting the book back on the table and reaching for her jacket. “Why not?”
Patrick was putting his own suit coat back on as he walked towards the door. “Harrison, this is Special Agent Lefevre with the FBI. She’s assisting me with my investigation.”
“Pleasure,” the detective said, his tone flat, and stuck out his hand.
When Izzie shook it, he squeezed harder than was necessary. She wasn’t sure if it was just a macho thing or some kind of intimidation play, but it didn’t matter. She just smiled and squeezed back, and her smile broadened when she saw him wince in discomfort. If he thought that Quantico was in the habit of graduating shrinking violets, he was deeply mistaken.
“What’s all this mess?” Harrison said, glancing with disdain at the evidence piled on the table.
“Background on our investigation,” Patrick said as they stepped out into the hallway, then locked the door to the community room behind them.
As Patrick continued down the hallway, Harrison glanced back past Izzie at the
community room. “Just what kind of case are you two working?”
Izzie shrugged. “Honestly, I wish I knew.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The search team of uniformed officers in tactical gear was waiting in a commandeered storefront when Izzie and the others arrived. While Patrick and his fellow plainclothes officers strapped themselves into bulletproof vests with “POLICE” stenciled on the front and back, Izzie glanced out the window onto the street. They were in Hyde Park, not far from where she had been jogging early that morning. The shop was a neighborhood gardening supply store, and the owners were in the back having coffee and surreptitiously glancing at the unexpected excitement at the front of the shop when they thought no one was looking. The Closed sign on the door deterred the occasional passerby from entering, and the straggling fronds of hanging plants and racks of clay pots obscured the view of the shop’s interior from the sidewalk outside.
The police sergeant in command of the search team raised an eybrow at Izzie’s nylon jacket with “FBI” printed on it in bright yellow letters. He turned to Harrison, who was going over the latest surveillance photos on a tablet computer with his partner and Patrick. “We’re bringing the feds in on this one, sir?”
Harrison shook his head, dismissively. “She’s not my date.”
“Think of it as a ride-along,” Patrick said, glancing up from the tablet.
“I’m just here to observe,” Izzie offered, while checking that her semiautomatic’s magazine was fully charged.
The sergeant shrugged, and Izzie went to join Patrick and the others.
“Speaking of observing, what are we looking at?” she said.
“Harrison and Chavez identified the other man in our surveillance video as this guy.” Patrick handed her the tablet, on which was the mugshot of a man in his late thirties with a scowl and a neck tattoo. “Malcolm Price.”
“He’s got a list of priors, mostly narcotics-related,” Chavez explained. “Did time for a felony possession with intent to distribute, got out on parole last year. The commission just terminated his supervision, and the PO said that he was a model parolee.”
Firewalk Page 9
