“He might have had seconds, ten, fifteen, of awareness, and as he was a medical doctor may have realized he’d been exposed to a toxin. But he wouldn’t have had time to do anything but die. Minutes of agony—three or four, I’d say, given his height and weight. Perhaps five, as his muscle tone indicated superior fitness, but his internal organs were so compromised I can’t tell you if they were healthy prior to the exposure.”
“I’d say they were, from the evidence we have. He worked out regularly, was a runner. You said you can’t confidently ID the poison. You’ve got a guess, an opinion.”
“We want an expert on toxins and biologicals here, Dallas.”
“And we have them. I’d like your take first.”
He sighed. “I would have said sarin—which is extremely worrying. But my equipment and my observations don’t give that a hundred percent. He was exposed in a closed home—doors, windows.”
“It was hours before he was found.”
“Even with that, there should have been trace—enough to set off the special team’s alarms. And on the body itself. You, though sealed, handled the body, as did his unsealed spouse. But neither of you showed any sign of contamination.
“A sarin derivative, maybe. Though there’s a possibility of sulfur trioxide. His eyes, his skin, the burns there.” Morris shook his head. “The best I can conclude is a combination of agents and poisons, somehow released in vapor form, causing death within minutes, and clearing within hours—or less.”
“Somebody would have to know what they were doing, how to handle deadly toxins.” Eve walked around the body. “To know how to keep it contained, to set it up to release when and how they wanted. Somebody who works with hazardous materials, handles poisons. A medical who knows how they work, a researcher, a chemist, lab rat, military.”
“It’s doubtful your average Joe or Jane would know how to access or create something like this, and know how to disburse it without exposing themselves—or others. A package through a delivery service, for God’s sake. If it had leaked … I believe this was a small amount, and still, I would say it would have killed any living thing within twenty or thirty feet. And not yet knowing how long it would take to clear the air? Hundreds could have been exposed.”
“He didn’t want hundreds,” Eve murmured. “Just Kent Abner.”
Peabody came in carrying a surgical tray. On it coffee steamed beside a plate of bacon, eggs, hash browns.
“Food, too?”
“You said breakfast.”
“This is … That’s real bacon. Those are actual eggs. Food fit for gods.”
“God of the dead.” Pleased to help out, Peabody beamed at him. “Where do you want it?”
“Oh, just on the counter there.”
When she spotted the jars, blanched, Morris actually chuckled. “I’ll take it, and I can’t thank you both enough. I’ll be checking with the lab. I very much want to know what we’re dealing with.”
“We’re heading there now. I’ll make sure they send you a report.”
Nodding, he took a stool at the counter, laid the tray down. “Find this one quickly, my treasures. He may not be one and done.”
As they walked out, Eve saw him spread the napkin Peabody had provided on his lap, and prepare to have some breakfast with the dead.
Home away from home, she thought.
5
After Eve filled in Peabody on Morris’s opinion, her partner remained silent for several moments.
“I did okay in chemistry,” Peabody began. “I wasn’t like a whiz or anything, but I know what sarin is, and Jesus, Dallas.”
“He didn’t think straight sarin, which doesn’t make sense. If you have it, why wouldn’t you use it straight? Look up the other one he said. The sulfur trioxide.”
“Sarin’s banned—I know that, too. It can’t be a snap to … Okay, sulfur trioxide’s pretty damn bad, too. It can be colorless, can be liquid or solid—like crystalline. The fumes are toxic—he said fumes for Abner.”
“Fumes, vapor—airborne.”
“It’s bad stuff, too. I’m sorry, but I don’t understand a lot of the technical stuff, the chemistry stuff, but without medical intervention asap—and even with, if it’s direct exposure—you’re going to die pretty quick. You’ve maybe got a little more time than with sarin.”
“It’s not terrorism,” Eve said as they started into the lab. “Not in the traditional sense. At least not yet. If Abner was a test case … And that doesn’t make sense. If you’re testing it out, why go for a single person, someone alone in a house? Why not go for an office, a store, a public place? Get some impact. This was about Abner.”
She spotted Berenski at his counter, his egg-shaped head bobbing as he used those spider fingers to stuff a doughnut in his mouth.
Son of a bitch!
She stalked over, resisted knocking him off his stool. “Sorry to interrupt all your hard work.”
He swiveled around. “Kiss my ass. I’ve been here all night, got a couple hours down in my office. And I’m not the only one pulling all night on this.”
She saw it clearly now that he faced her. The bloodshot eyes, the dark circles under them. And the strain.
Dickhead, he might be, but at the moment, he was all in on the job.
“Peabody, how about getting Berenski some coffee to go with the doughnut?”
“Yours?” He perked up. “The real? Make it two large. We think we’ve got it. I want to call Siler out. He’s catching a couple z’s, but he should talk this through. He’s the expert on this around here.”
Eve held up two fingers, then turned back to Berenski. “You start.”
“We’ll start with the egg.”
“What egg?”
He swiveled again, brought up an image on-screen. Split-screened it. “You see there’s the container—the egg. We put it together from the pieces on the floor of the crime scene. The other’s what we’ve determined it looked like before it broke. You got a golden egg. Looks like cheap plastic, right? A piece of crap.”
“Okay.”
“And it is, except the inside of the piece of crap’s been coated with a sealant, lead based.”
“To beat a standard scan.”
“Sure. And there’s a seal—thin, airtight—around the edges. This here held the agent.”
“Sealed in, airtight.”
“Took awhile even with the comps to put it all together. Then we needed to identify the seal, the inside sealant. And see, it’s got the hook-and-eye lock on it, the back hinge? Simple—probably came that way. But the seal, that was added on. You unhook it, and you’d need to give it a little tug. Nothing muscular, right, but a good tug to break the seal. And when you did?
“That’s the end of that.”
“Morris said airborne.”
“Yeah, it hit the air when the seal broke, and the air—the oxygen triggered the agent. Inside the seal, it’s inert, get it?”
“So why wasn’t whoever put it in there, then sealed it up, on Morris’s slab?”