Checkmate (Caitlin Calloway Mystery Book 2) (46 page)

“That’s a compelling argument,” Loomis finally said. “The first tip-off we had was the Marsden case. On the surface, it seemed like your usual random act by a group of thugs. The only hiccup was our thugs were all the way up in East LA. It just didn’t seem likely that someone would travel all the way down here just to attack a woman at random and then hightail it back up to LA with her car.”

“It does beg the question as to how they got all the way down here.” Ricky said while he made notes.

“It bugged me,” Loomis conceded. “The choir boys who were nabbed using her credit cards ended up having an alibi. That’s when we started looking into Ms. Marsden’s life.”

“What was their alibi?” Ricky asked.

“At the time Ms. Marsden was attacked, they were at St. Agnes attending choir practice.”

“Oh, so they were literally choir boys?” Ricky stifled a laugh.

“Uh-huh.” Loomis snorted. “They went from choir practice to the local skateboard park. Hung out there for a few hours. On their way home, they spot the BMW. Keys in the ignition, wallet in plain sight. They jacked the car. Dumped it at the local chop shop. The following day, they started their shopping spree. They got pretty far, until the system caught up with the cards. LAPD had them in custody by dinnertime.”

“What did you dig up on Ms. Marsden’s personal life?” Val asked.

“Marsden worked for a very conservative financial firm, and she was about to be fired.”

“Why?”

“She was about to be named in two sexual harassment suits. Both complainants were under her direct supervision. One was a married man, and the other was her female personal assistant. The old man who owns the company was not pleased.”

“I take it you looked at her disgruntled staff members?”

“Both of them had alibis, and the lawsuits were about to be quietly settled.”

“The case that caught my attention was Malcolm Fisher,” Dr. Hutchinson eagerly added. “He was already dead by the time the EMTs arrived, but he should have been fine. On the surface, the case did seem routine. I dug deeper than I normally would in a case like this one. One of the EMTs bagged the EpiPen.”

“Our labs guys ran some tests,” Loomis said. “Everyone expected to find nothing, other than perhaps the pen had malfunctioned in some way.”

“And what did the boys in the lab find?”

“Instead of traces of epinephrine,” Hutchinson said, “they found bee venom. I also found a substantial amount of bee pollen in Mr. Fisher’s tissue samples. In addition, there was bee venom in his blood work. Instead of receiving a shot of medicine, he was injected with the one thing in the world he was deathly allergic to. Very clever if you ask me. Detective Loomis retrieved the sports drink he had been drinking that day from his golf bag. The lab found large amounts of bee pollen.”

“According to his caddy, he was drinking from the bottle from the time he teed off,” Loomis explained while Ricky furiously scribbled on his notepad.

“The pollen set off a reaction,” Hutchinson excitedly told them his theory. “The pollen alone wouldn’t kill him, just make him uncomfortable as hell. When he was injected with the venom, that was what sealed his fate. The high dosage shot directly into his system caused his breathing to be obstructed and his heart to seize. His death was very painful but thankfully very quick.”

“What about Ms. Marsden?”

“It looked like a sexual assault,” Loomis grumbled.

“But it wasn’t,” Hutchinson said. “Her clothing was in disarray, but the only injury she suffered was the large gash across her throat. She bled out in a matter of minutes.”

“Detective Loomis, is there anyone you can think of that would go to such lengths to kill her and try to make it look like an attempted rape gone wrong?”

“Other than the trouble at work, nothing else was evident in her life.” He seemed to lose his patience. “Listen, tell me what’s going on, or get the hell out of my house.”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Ricky said. Val smirked when she spied the veins in Loomis’s neck bulge. “What did you discover when you performed the autopsy on Detective Brooks?”

“Back up.” Loomis slammed his fist against the table. “I want to know who the hell is behind this?”

“At this moment we don’t…” Ricky began to say.

“Bullshit.”

“They have one person in common.” Val decided to be up front. The theory was so farfetched Loomis would probably laugh them out of the state.

“Who?”

“A skell by the name of Fisher.”

“Fisher? Simon Fisher? He’s locked up.”

“Yes, I know.” Val didn’t even blink when he waved dismissively at her. “His original alibi was Billy Ryan wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, we could have saved some lives if that little junkie had told us the truth,” Loomis growled. “Didn’t ’fess up that he couldn’t account for Simon for the whole weekend until after Fisher was locked up. Junkie putz. All he had to do was tell us he was partying all weekend and we would have looked at Fisher right off the bat. Instead, we were chasing shadows.”

“Ryan’s dead. Overdosed.”

“What a surprise.” Loomis snorted with disgust. “This is what you’ve got?”

“Brooks thought Fisher was worth looking at,” Val said coldly. “Now he’s dead. Doctor what did the autopsy reveal?”

“It was troubling.”

“Because?”

“He had a heart attack.” Hutchinson shifted in his chair. “But, thanks to living a much cleaner lifestyle for the past few years, he was in very good health. I couldn’t find any sign of heart disease.”

“He died of a heart attack, but his heart was healthy?”

“Yes.”

“Did you find anything else? Toxins or some other explanation?”

“Nothing except a blemish on his neck.”

“Blemish?”

“A bruise consistent with an injection, but I can’t be certain.”

“By his carotid artery by any chance?”

“Yes.”

“Air embolism?” Ricky rubbed his face.

“I can’t prove it.”

“That’s the beauty of an air embolism,” Val groaned. “Just inject a bubble of air in his carotid artery, and there’s no trace evidence to prove that it was murder. What about the tox screen?”

“Nothing except traces of diazepam.”

“Let me guess. There was just enough to knock him out?” Val felt as if she were trying to swim upstream. Nothing made sense. On the surface, all of the so-called cases could easily be explained, until you lined them up next to one another and took a good hard look.

After another hour or so of going over the case files, Val didn’t feel any better. When they announced they were finished, Loomis couldn’t wait to rush them out the door.

“We don’t have a case,” she growled as Ricky hurried to catch up with her.

“It’s just too much of a coincidence,” Ricky tried to argue.

“Why don’t we touch base with Calloway and head up to San Francisco? Dr. Logan has agreed to meet with us.”

“Fisher’s father, Marsden, Ryan, Sampson, and Brooks. If it is this punk, I don’t get his motivation. Seriously, what’s the point?”

Val silently reviewed what little they knew all the way up to San Francisco.

*   *  *

“Thank you for meeting with us, Dr. Logan.” Ricky shook the athletic-looking doctor’s hand. Val followed and allowed Ricky to take the lead.

“I’m afraid I don’t have much time,” the doctor apologized. “I am intrigued that the FBI decided to pay me a visit.”

“We’re involved in a case that may or may not pertain to Elizabeth Pryce’s death.”

“Speaking of intriguing, Ms. Pryce’s passing is the most interesting case I’ve worked on in a very long time. I was clueless as to what caused such a painful death in an otherwise healthy woman. I was convinced that she had come in contact with some form of poison. All the tests I ran for the usual toxins came back negative.”

“I understand,” Ricky said. “Unless you know what you’re looking for, you can’t test for it.”

“Thankfully, her home hadn’t been touched since her death,” Dr. Logan continued. “Truthfully, after the way she passed, no one was anxious to go near the place. There was a fear of coming in contact with something contagious. The only things that had been removed were her body and her cats. The cats were in perfect health. Which further convinced me that it was poison. I went back with the CSU team suited up and prepared for anything. We took anything that she might have touched or tasted. I tested everything, and I found it. The tissue samples I had saved confirmed my findings. She was poisoned.”

“With?”

“Hemlock and white oleander.”

“That’s a bit old school,” Val noted with surprise. “How did someone manage to slip her that?”

“We found the culprit in the form of a gift box of tea and honey. The tea had white oleander and the honey was laced with hemlock. Very effective and extremely painful,” Dr. Logan said.

“Who sent the gift?” Val asked.

“It was traced to a nonexistent company. No prints and the only clue we have is that the postmark was from Los Angeles. I hope this helps. I want to see whoever did this to that poor woman get what they deserve.”

Dr. Logan broke protocol and gave them copies of all the lab reports and his notes. Val and Ricky downloaded the information onto their tablets.

“Remind me again what Elizabeth Pryce’s connection is to Fisher?” Val asked once they had checked in at the airport.

“His girlfriend’s roommate,” Ricky said. “Your buddy Brooks discovered that Janie dumped Fisher to be with Elizabeth.”

“Right, broke the case open.” Val reviewed her notes. “Brooks said it was Calloway who steered him in that direction. When was the last time you heard of someone being poisoned with hemlock?”

“Socrates.”

“The killer had a good shot of getting away with it.” Val carefully began. “He could have grown the hemlock himself and mixed the yellow resin in with the honey to mask the bitter taste. According to Dr. Logan’s notes, it takes one gram per kilogram of body weight. Elizabeth weighed just over one hundred twenty-five pounds, but the killer used sixty kilograms. Enough for a person at least twelve pounds heavier. The symptoms include nausea, emesis, and abdominal pain. Due to the rapid onset of symptoms, treatment is rarely successful. Add the white oleander that was mixed in with the tea, and the poor girl didn’t stand a chance. Does this bolster Calloway’s theory? What do we know about Elizabeth’s personal life? Did she have an ex-lover from hell who liked to garden?”

“Worth looking into.”

“I never thought I’d be anxious to get back to Boston,” Val grumbled. “I can’t shake the feeling that all hell is about to break loose.”

Chapter 38

CC didn’t know how to feel about how eager Leigh was to assist her. They commandeered one of the conference rooms and went to work. CC’s fingers had black smudges from the magic marker she had used to write on the whiteboard that resembled the ones she had at home.

“I can’t believe it.” Leigh studied the work. “When you lay it out side by side like this, it seems obvious. Still…”

“It’s a far-fetched theory, and we have no proof,” CC concluded for her. “How do you conk Max on the head and make it all the way to California to kill Brooks? I always knew the little bastard was smart. I just never suspected he could have pulled something like this off.”

“How and why?”

“If I had the answer to that, I’d be sleeping at night.”

“They’re starting to arrive,” Leigh noted looking towards the hallway. “I know I’m not Max. I just want you to know that I’ve got your back.”

“I appreciate that more than you know.”

CC organized the photocopies she had prepared. She had made over two-dozen phone calls before checking in to the station. Now that everything was laid out, she felt certain of two things. First, she was right, and second, almost no one was going to believe her. The stellar reputation she had developed over her long career would only go so far.

“This is quite the little powwow you’ve gathered,” Rousseau said as he took a seat.

“Yes, sir.” She nervously looked around the room.

She had managed to gather her boss, Mills, McManus, Palmucci, and Wayne. She had Dr. Richards waiting on the speakerphone, and Val and Ricky had just arrived. CC couldn’t shake the feeling that this was one of those moments that could sink a cop’s career.

She felt a twinge of guilt when she saw both Val and Ricky were dressed casually in street clothes. At her insistence, they came to the station directly from the airport. She guessed that sitting in a squad room was the last thing they had planned on doing.

“I’m sorry for this,” CC meekly apologized while Leigh made certain that everyone had a copy of the files CC had put together. “I’ll tell you what I’ve got, then all of you can tell me I’m nuts. Or help. Your call.”

She felt her stomach clench. “Up on the board here, I’ve made three charts. The first is reported sightings of Albert Beaumont, the child molester that the Fugitive Task Force caught last week. Next to that is a list of dead bodies, or in Max’s case, presumed dead. Last is the connection between the victims and Simon Fisher.”

“Fisher?” Rousseau said. “You can’t be serious.”

“I wish I wasn’t.”

“Hear her out, sir,” Leigh asked. “I know it sounds crazy, but people are dying.”

“I get it,” he said. “If this proves that Max was set up I’m all for it.”

“Oh, please,” Palmucci scoffed. “Then explain the fifty grand.”

“Here.” CC shoved a sheet of paper across the table. Much to her annoyance, Palmucci didn’t bother to look at it. She ran her fingers through her hair and took a calming breath before she dared to speak. “Let’s start at the beginning.” She pointed to the boards. “Malcolm Fisher died of anaphylactic shock. Supposedly, he was stung by a bee. Ricky, you and Val talked to the medical examiner in San Diego. Can you tell everyone what you found out?”

“Malcolm Fisher did indeed die of anaphylaxis,” Ricky said while flipping through his notes. “The troubling thing is his caddy gave him a shot of epinephrine. According to the medical examiner, there were no traces of epinephrine in Malcolm Fisher’s system. However, although the amount of bee venom in his system would lead us to believe he was attacked by a swarm of bees, there wasn’t a mark on him.”