A Long December

by Donald Harstad

  “That’s just in case,” said Judy. “But don’t stray on me, here. Is this the murder victim from the roadway? And if so, how could a gunshot make him contagious? Or was it suicide?”

  Just then, Henry stuck his head out of the lab doors. “Oh, hello,” he said to Judy and the cameraman. “I didn’t know you were here. Carl, Hester, could you come in here a moment?”

  We certainly could. “We’ll get right back to you,” I said to Judy. “Just a few minutes…” I thought it would be best to keep her in one place, instead of wandering all around the hospital and clinic, prying. I hoped it worked.

  Once in the lab with the door firmly shut, Henry just said, “How do they do it?”

  “Who?”

  “The TV people. They are here about the Gonzales case?”

  “Yep,” I said. “I don’t know. Tips, mostly, I guess.”

  “Amazing,” said Henry. “Anyway, I just got a call from the U of I labs. The good news is that it’s not contagious,” he said. “Not from secondary aerosol exposure, which is what you seem to have had.”

  That was a genuine relief.

  “The bad news is that they think it’s a toxic agent, one that is frequently mentioned in the chemical and biological warfare handouts.”

  “What? “That was from Hester.

  “I’m afraid so. They think it’s ricin, or something very like it, aerosolized, and with the Gonzales exposure within the last forty-eight to sixty hours.”

  I’d never heard of ricin. Hester obviously had.

  “That’s made from castor beans,” she said, “isn’t it.” A statement, not a question.

  “Yes.”

  “Is it only dangerous in aerosol form?” Hester’s background as a crime-lab technician was showing.

  “Well, I’ve got the info right here,” said Henry, and reached over and picked up a brochure. “It says that ricin’s also potentially fatal if ingested. But that the preferred method of distribution is airborne.”

  It took a second for me to realize some of the implications. “Gonzales works with food. Worked. Is that a big factor?”

  “Maybe,” said Henry. “I know he worked at the plant. We don’t know how he contracted the stuff. What kind of work did he do there?”

  “He carried swinging meat into the refrigerated trucks,” I said.

  “Then I suspect there’s a reason for concern,” said Henry. “Direct physical contact.” He picked up the phone. “There’s going to be a lot of activity around the plant,” he said. “A lot.” He began pressing keys. “Thank God it’s a mechanical vector,” he said, half to himself.

  “A what? “I knew what a vector was. I also knew what mechanical meant, but I wasn’t connecting.

  Henry looked at me and held up his hand, then began to talk on the phone. I looked at Hester. She’d started her career in the Iowa Crime Lab.

  “Whatever caused the condition,” she said, “won’t grow. Won’t change. Not like a mutating bacteria. More like a poisonous chemical.”

  “Good,” I said. “We only have one thing to deal with, then.”

  “Right,” she agreed. “But that should really be plenty.”

  Henry hung the phone up, and said, “U of I lab. Good news. They say that it has to be in a pretty heavy concentration for ingestion to kill somebody. The greatest risk is with the elderly or infants. Infants don’t eat much beef.”

  Better and better.

  “Now all we need to do,” said Hester, “is find out how Gonzales was exposed to the agent. That’s our key.”

  “Well,” I said, ever hopeful, “where do they use that stuff?”

  “Nobody uses it,” said Henry. “It’s toxic. No benefit whatsoever. It’s a natural by-product of the castor bean. Ricin is a small percentage of what you have left over when you make castor oil.”

  “Waste,” said Hester. “Or it should be. This stuff, if I remember, would only be used as a weapon, intentionally, and after some difficulty.”

  “That’s true,” said Henry.

  “Wonderful,” I said. “By who?”

  “Whom,” said Hester automatically. “Hard to tell. But if you thought that the 9/11 anthrax-in-a-letter stuff was a tough one, this is ten times worse to trace. Ricin doesn’t even require a particularly sophisticated lab to produce.”

  “Where does this stuff grow? Castor beans, I mean.”

  Henry held up his brochure again. “This thing is a gold mine. It says that the plant originated in Africa, but it grows throughout the southwest United States. For example. Anybody manufactures castor oil, they probably have the waste that contains this protein.”

  “It’s a protein?” High school biology and chemistry were a very, very vague memory. I knew that meant something, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember what.

  “That it is,” said Henry. “It’s just a whitish substance. But it’s very toxic.”

  “So, I’m trying to remember anything about proteins…”

  “It’s synthesized by living things,” he said, keeping it simple. “But it isn’t alive itself. So it’s biologically produced, but can’t reproduce. That’s good news, by the way. We’re dealing with finite quantities here. Not a rapidly expanding and mutating organism.”

  “Okay.” Sometimes a simple response is best for changing the subject, and at the same time concealing ignorance. “Do we know anybody who manufactures castor oil?”

  “Well,” said Henry, “nobody springs to mind. It can be used as a medicine, to treat constipation…and I think as a lubricant and as a replacement for other hydraulic fluids in machinery…”

  “But the oil itself isn’t harmful, is it?” said Hester.”

  “No.”

  “So, even if they used it as machine fluid at the plant, the ricin wouldn’t be present…”

  “True,” said Henry.

  “It’s a kosher plant,” I said. “Very high standard for cleanliness. And they’re even careful about what lubricants are used in the machines.”

  “The whole plant?” asked Hester. “I mean, is there some sort of nonkosher processing, too?”

  “Well, Ben told me that they only use about the front half of the beef in kosher stuff, and that’s the half that gets the full treatment. The back half is used for nonkosher, but the plant’s the same, really. The difference is that the nonkosher stuff doesn’t get soaked and salted, that’s all.” I’d asked Ben about that stuff a while back.

  Even while I told them all that I knew about kosher, I was beginning to get a very bad feeling about the case. I think it had something to do with the “front half/back half” part of my explanation. My mind works that way. But if somebody wanted Rudy Cueva dead, and did him…and the same somebody wanted Rudy’s good buddy Jose Gonzales dead, and did him—very likely over a drug deal—and we had a Colombian connection, which we did…and castor beans were grown in southern climates…

  “This ricin stuff’s really hard to trace, isn’t it?”

  “That’s pretty much what we’ve been saying,” said Hester.

  I ignored that. “So, let’s say you wanted to poison somebody, and you were from a warmer area where castor beans can grow, and you had access to ricin…”

  “You think our two cases here are connected?” Hester raised one eyebrow. “Well, sure. Sure, I think you might be right. Which takes us back to a dope connection…”

  “Which,” I said, with some relief, “takes the case away from the connection with the packing plant, and gets us out of that little problem.”

  “Not quite,” said Henry. “Noninvolvement with the plant has to be confirmed. That’s a very urgent requirement. Very urgent. If he was exposed at the plant, there could be lots of people at risk. We have to know for sure.”

  He was right. But I was now prepared to have most of the interviews done by the Iowa Department of Health. That would free us to interview those who could do double-duty as witnesses in the firming dope connection and the death of both men.

  “Would this
stuff be good for popping somebody, though? Real world, I mean. Not in theory.” I just tossed it out, more than half expecting a vague answer.

  “Oh, sure,” said Henry. “That’s how the Soviets got a KGB defector in London years back.”

  We both looked at him.

  “Hey,” he protested, “I watch the History Channel.”

  Judy was waiting right where we’d left her, cameraman in tow.

  “So,” she said, “what can you tell me?”

  Hester gestured for me to go ahead. “Okay, look,” I said, “in the first place, it’s not the victim from the roadway. That was one Rudy Cueva. This guy, as far as we know, was accidentally exposed to a toxic substance. We don’t know where, and that’s what we’re looking for. His name is, or was, Jose Gonzales. We’re very interested in his whereabouts for the last several days, to see if there’s a possibility that anybody else could have been exposed.”

  That was probably one of my most concise and very best statements to the press, and I caught her with the camera off. Just my luck.

  “What poison are we talking about? “asked Judy, as the cameraman signaled he was up and running.

  I noticed that it was “poison” and not “toxin.” Ratings.

  “You’ll have to ask Dr. Zimmer here,” I said. “I don’t know much about toxic materials accidents.” I was kind of pleased with myself, getting that on tape.

  “I have to do rounds,” said Henry, heading back up the hall toward the main hospital floor, trailing media behind him. “But I’ll be glad…”

  Hester and I went the opposite direction, towards the parking lot and away from the intrepid Judy. We had lots of people to talk to and soon, and sure didn’t want to waste time.

  Hester said she had to check on something at our office, so we went there first. The “something” turned out to be Big Ears. She did an admirable job of faking it, though. While she stood by Sally, ostensibly getting some information from Des Moines via teletype, she just sort of incidentally picked Big Ears up and held him in her arms, scratching him behind the ears.

  “You are so hooked,” said Sally.

  I’d never worked a case with Department of Health involvement, so I wasn’t even sure who was supposed to do what. As soon as Hester was off the phone, she explained it to me, with one caveat.

  “I never have, either,” she said. “My office says that the medical people do the medical stuff, the safety and health people to their thing, and we just assist with things like warrants if needed.”

  “Sounds easy,” I said.

  “They also said that we conduct whatever interviews are requested by the health people, but we don’t give interviews with anybody.”

  “Damned good advice,” I said.

  “They also say that the AG’s office will be involved directly, but they want the local county attorney to be involved, too.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “That’s what I said. But they insist. It’s policy.”

  “They have to realize that the county attorney would be a loose cannon, don’t they? “As an elected official, the county attorney was answerable only to the voters, not to the attorney general’s office or anybody else. I mean, it was a fine idea and had a sound basis, and all that. But in this particular case…

  “I expect,” said Hester, trying to allay my fears, “that they’ll snow him under with facts, scenarios, potential law suits, and”—she grinned—”tales of lynchings. He should be so nervous, he’ll just go along with the flow.”

  “That assumes that he’s bright enough to understand the implications.”

  She considered that for a moment. “You’re right. Well, we’ll just have to watch him.”

  I sighed. “Okay. So, where do we start with the health stuff?”

  “We wait until they get here and we meet with them,” she said. “Until then…”

  “We can get on with our murder?”

  “Don’t see why not.”

  “Excellent!” I said. “Okay, look, let me bring Lamar up to date, and then we go to Battenberg.”

  I figured I’d better tell Lamar about the health and the safety people about to hit the county. That sort of attention was bound to stir up some political stuff, and Lamar had to be aware of what was coming. We talked for only a minute or two on the phone. He was pretty much okay with all of it. Except the bit about the county attorney being involved.

  “He’s gonna be a problem, Carl.”

  “Maybe not ours, though,” I said.

  “My ass.”

  Lamar sort of tends away from optimism.

  CHAPTER 12

  THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2001 09:31

  WE DECIDED THAT OUR NEXT MOVE WAS going to be to pay the late Rudy Cueva’s girlfriend, Linda Moynihan, a return visit. Driving separate cars because we were probably going to have to be in different places throughout the day, we got to Linda’s apartment in Battenberg at 09:30. No luck.

  I called Terri on my cell pone.

  “This is Houseman. You know where Linda’s at?”

  “She’s at her place.”

  “That’s where I am,” I said. “No response on the phone, no answer at the door.”

  “Holy shit! She was sleeping when I left, but…look, over on the wall across from her door, there’s a fire extinguisher. There’s a key to her place wired to the bracket, behind the thing. I’ll be right there…go ahead and go in. She might have ODed or something…”

  “On what? “But I was talking to dead air.

  Hester and I held a very brief discussion. This was fairly shaky ground, since Terri couldn’t give us permission to enter Linda’s apartment. She had, however, provided grounds for some concern as to Linda’s well-being. That, and we had our own grounds for concern, as her boyfriend had just been murdered. Who knew?

  About fifteen seconds after Terri hung up, we were in Linda’s apartment.

  We searched thoroughly and quickly, with Hester taking the bathroom and bedroom while I did the rest of the place. Nobody home.

  “Her closet’s got some big gaps in it,” said Hester form the bedroom. “I think she might have packed.”

  I checked the kitchen and living room for notes of any sort, telling somebody she had gone. Nothing.

  I heard somebody running up the steps and down the hall, and before I could get through the living room, Terri came flying through the open door. “Is she… is she…” she gasped.

  “She’s left,” I said. “No OD or anything. Just gone.”

  Terri was in sweat pants and a hooded sweatshirt, no socks, and old tennis shoes. She’d hurried all right. She was panting and bending over to put her hands on her knees. “My damned”—she took a deep breath—”old car”—and another one—”wouldn’t start.” She took two more deep breaths and straightened up. “I hate that car,” she said. She gasped again. “How cold is it?”

  “About twenty, I think.”

  She nodded. “Original battery.” Another deep breath. “So? What’s up?”

  Hester emerged from the bedroom. “Hi, Terri. Where do you think she went?”

  “Boy, God, Hester, it beats me. You think”—and she took one last really big breath—”you think maybe they took her?”

  “Who’s they?”

  “I don’t know. Whoever killed Rudy.” She began looking about the place. “I don’t know.”

  “If they did,” said Hester, “it looks like they let her pack. You have any idea where she might go?”

  “Boy. Well, not right offhand. Maybe her mother’s house? Shit, I don’t know.”

  That sounded pretty good to me, except that Linda’s mother lived right here in Battenberg. It didn’t seem to me that she’d have to pack to go four blocks.

  We let Terri make the call to Linda’s mom. Zip. She had absolutely no idea where Linda might have gone. She was just getting ready to come over herself, to see how she could help, in fact.

  Terri hung the phone up, having had the presence of mind not to mention us, and
said, “So, then, her car’s gone, too?”

  “What’s it look like?” I could also call Dispatch, and have them run all vehicles registered to her, but Terri would be much faster.

  “Old wreck of a red Datsun pickup,” said Terri. “It’s always parked out back.”

  Hester said, “I looked out the back windows while I was in the bedroom,” she said. “There’s no vehicle at all parked back there.”

  Well, then.

  A teddy bear caught my eye, sitting upright on the couch. “She left her teddy bear,” I said. “I wonder…” and reached for it.

  “Don’t,” snapped Terri, grabbing the bear. “She wouldn’t have him with her.” She paused. “It was a loaner. He’s mine.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s good, then.” I looked around. No sign of any sort of disturbance, none at all. “It sure as hell looks voluntary,” I said. “You gotta think, Terri, there’s gotta be a place she’d go.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Think about this first,” said Hester. “Why did she go? Think if she’s gone because she just can’t handle it, or if she’s gone because she’s running from somebody.”

  “Hell,” said Terri, “I don’t know. I mean, you know I always thought Rudy was into dope pretty deep. I can’t prove that, but the dude sure acted that way…”

  “What way’s that?” I asked.

  “You know. They didn’t have much money, but he always came up with what he needed to get things. The stereo. Clothes. He’d take off and come back a couple of days later, always had money for that.” She gestured at the new TV. “That thing. Paid cash at my cousin’s store for that. Didn’t even have to go to Wal-Mart. Yet they couldn’t afford a decent car. I heard him tell her that.” Terri leaned against the kitchen counter. “He was always going to meet somebody, but wouldn’t say who. For ‘business.’ That was all. I mean, I wasn’t spying, but I saw him once, when he told Linda he had ‘business,’ and he was just driving around with some of his Mexican buds. You know.”

  “How long ago?” asked Hester.

  “Four, maybe five, six weeks. At the Pronto Market. It was cold. I don’t remember exactly when. It was after Halloween, though, because the candy was on sale.” She shook her head. “Best guess is five weeks. Three, or for sure two, other guys in the car with him. Rudy was in the front, passenger side. I waved.”