Emily Kimelman - Sydney Rye 05 - The Devil's Breath (20 page)

Mulberry laughed and grinned. “None of us are dumb enough to think that you’re going to follow orders.”

“Do I get to give them?”

“It’s more collaborative than that.”

“Can we kill Bobby Maxim?”

“Maybe.”

I sat down next to him and we rested in silence, feeling the humid heat around us, sweat trickling down our bodies. I looked over at him. “I don’t think I can do it,” I said.

“Maybe not yet,” he answered.

My phone rang and I fished it out of my bag. It was Dan.

“Hey,” Dan said. He sounded excited. “Come over?”

“Over where?” I asked, watching two guys skateboard toward us, sharing an easy conversation. One of them laughed as they passed.

“My house, it’s only about a two-hour drive and I’ve got a lot of stuff to show you.”

“What kind of stuff at your house?”

Mulberry looked over at me, a question mark on his brow.

“You’ll see, just come over. I’ll text you the directions. Get here as soon as you can.”

We hung up and the text came through. “Looks like I’m headed down to the Keys,” I said.

“To see Dan?” Mulberry asked.

“Yes.”

Mulberry stood up, holding his jacket. “When will you be back?”

Looking up at the waning sun I answered, “By the time I get down there and hear what he has to say, I might just stay the night rather then drive home at that hour.” Mulberry didn’t say anything but his grip tightened on his jacket, twisting the fabric. “That’s not a problem, is it?” I asked.

“No, not a problem. I look forward to hearing his findings.”

“Maybe you should come.”

“Can’t,” he shook his head. “I’ve got cases besides Hugh’s I’m working on.”

“What’s up with you and Dan?” I asked, a lump of anxiety raising in my throat. “I mean, you guys are working on Joyful Justice together and…” I let the “and” hang in the air because I didn’t have the words for what was going on with me and them.

Mulberry shook his head, a small, rueful smile on his lips, eyes cast to the ground. “I don’t know,” he said, shrugging. “He had a right to be pissed at me, then he told you about Joyful Justice so I had a right to be pissed at him, but really,” he looked up at me, “I respect the hell out of him and if
you
weren’t his girl…” He ran a hand through his hair and it stayed on its end.

“I’m not his girl,” I said.

“Well, that’s just it, isn’t’ it?” Mulberry said, his words coming quickly. “You’re not either of ours so really there is nothing to fight about.”

“Right,” I smiled. “But you still want to punch him in the face.”

“So bad,” Mulberry admitted with a small smile. “But I still like him. I still think he’s amazing at what he does and Joyful Justice couldn’t happen without him.”

“So, you’re fine working together.”

He nodded but I could see a secret lurking behind his eyes. “What?” I asked. “What is going on?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Liar,” I said, angry again. I stood up and began to walk away but Mulberry grabbed my arm with his free hand.

“We just both agreed,” he bit his lip. “We agreed to stay away from you in that way. You know,” he smiled again, and there was something in his eyes that I’d never seen before, some kind of rock he was standing on. “For the good of the cause.”

“Ugh,” was all I could say.

D
an lived in a bungalow on Marathon Island in the Keys. His place was single story and painted white. The curtains were drawn and the grass that covered the small yard was yellow. The house was dwarfed by its more prosperous neighbors, which were raised on stilts above bright green lawns. I pulled into the driveway and parked in front of the garage door.

Climbing out I stretched my arms toward the sky and then bent down and wrapped my fingers around my ankles feeling the muscles around my spine and down the back of my legs release slowly. Blue jumped out of the car and sniffed the dying grass along the side of the driveway. When I finished stretching, I rang the front doorbell.

“It’s unlocked,” Dan call from inside.

I walked into a living room that was painted a cheerful yellow with white wood panelling up to shoulder height. A slouchy couch and matching armchairs faced a coffee table and flat screen TV. “In here,” Dan called. I followed his voice through the living room and into a kitchen with big windows looking out onto a canal. The back door was open and I walked out to find Dan over a grill. “Hey,” he said with a smile. “Who’s hungry?”

We ate giant shrimps marinated in Teriyaki sauce with grilled pineapple, onion, and peppers over white rice. He even had a steak for Blue. “You’re spoiling him,” I commented.

“Come on, he deserves it,” Dan answered. Blue finished up his steak and came to Dan’s side, leaning into him and staring up into his face as though Dan were the king of the world and deserved all good things.

“I guess,” I said, watching them.

“Another beer?” Dan asked.

“Sure,” I stood up with him to help clear the plates. “I can do the dishes,” I offered.

“Really?” he said, looking over at me, an eyebrow raised.

“You cooked,” I said.

He laughed. “Sydney Rye acting domestic. I never thought I’d see the day.” Blue followed Dan back into the kitchen and sat attentively as he scraped his plate and put it into the dishwasher. I washed the few dishes that remained while Dan wiped down the counters and hummed a song I didn’t recognize. The kitchen and table cleaned up, Dan led me into his office. Three large screens took up one wall and a half-moon shaped desk faced them. On the desk was a keyboard and a half-drunk glass of water. Dan grabbed a stool from by the door and placed it next to the swivel chair facing the center of the desk.

“Sit,” he said. I hopped onto the stool and Dan sat in the chair. “Okay,” he leaned forward and tapped on the keyboard which brought all three screens to life. Using his mouse Dan guided an arrow to the first screen where a window displayed green numbers changing against a black background.

“Here I’ve been tracking cases where people woke up from committing crimes, anything from robbery to rape to murder, without any memory of the act. Also, people who were victims of crimes who have no memories of the event. Now, obviously, we can’t assume that every case where a person woke up without memory of their crime involved datura. It’s basically never tested for in this country. But I think it’s a good source of data to have.”

I watched as his fingers glided over the keyboard and windows on the screens changed. “I’ve also been looking deeper into Professor Nablestone. I read those papers he mentioned to us and found some really interesting stuff.”

Several articles popped up into the center screen. “Now, I’ve told you about the way they use the drug in Colombia to rob people and that most of the victims have no memory of the incident.” I felt a shiver run down my spine and goosebumps spread across my flesh. It was horrible and it was brilliant. Couldn’t this same drug that wiped your memory clean when used for evil do the same when used for good?

“Hey,” I realized Dan was looking at me. “You okay?”

I nodded. “Yeah, go on.”

Dan nodded. “But here is the thing. The drug doesn’t always wipe out any memory.  If you just ate the seeds right off the plant or brewed them into tea you wouldn’t be as pliable and you’d have, from all accounts, horrific, realistic hallucinations.”

“I guess that actually sounds worse.”

“From what I’ve gathered about Professor Nablestone’s research he is developing all sorts of datura-based drugs. They can make you pliable, give you intense hallucinations, and some of them can cause permanent brain damage.”

“And it’s just a white powder that can be blown in your face?”

“That’s right.”

“God, that’s scary.”

“In Colombia, prostitutes put cotton up their noses and then wipe it on their lips so that when they kiss their johns they just ‘fall away’.”

“I can see why you’d want to weaponize it,” I said.

“Yeah. So here’s the question. Who would pay for this research to be done?” Dan turned back to his keyboard.

“Didn’t Lawrence Taggert’s wife’s money come from her family’s pharmaceutical company?” I asked, my brain rotating the facts, trying them all at different angles.

“I was just getting to that,” Dan said, looking up at me with a smile. He tapped on the keys some more and a photograph appeared on the right screen of Professor Nablestone with his arm around Lawrence Taggert’s wife. They looked like they were at some kind of gala. Her hair was up and she wore a silk shift dress. Professor Nablestone had on a nice suit, gray and green with a white shirt and paisley tie that brought out the green in his eyes. Behind them, well-dressed people mingled, holding wine glasses.

“And look at this.” He zoomed in on the photograph, centering on a group of people behind them. “Recognize that guy?” Dan asked as the picture refocused.

“Holy shit,” I said. “That’s Robert Maxim.”

“The one and the same.”

“Where is this?”

“It was taken about six years ago at a fundraiser for Professor Nablestone’s research center in the Everglades.”

“The one in the pamphlet?”

“Right. And Mrs. Taggert’s pharmaceutical company is by far the biggest donator to Professor Nablestone’s research.”

I leaned back on my stool.

Dan turned to me. “So,” he said. “What we’ve got are some connections but no motive. Why would Professor Nablestone or Taggert’s wife, or anyone with access to the datura kill Lawrence and set up Hugh to take the fall?”

“Lightning,” I said.

“Meaning?”

I sat forward and looked at the image of Robert Maxim on the screen, he was smiling at an attractive woman, holding a glass of red wine loosely in his hand. “Hugh was saying that he thinks violence might be like lightning. If it strikes you once, you’re more likely to get hit again.”

“All right,” Dan said. “So let’s say we take Hugh out of the equation. Say he was just an innocent bystander, not actually the one under attack.”

“Your search,” I said, glancing at the green numbers dancing across the black background. “You’re looking for victims, too?”

“Yes.”

“Did you check out how many were last seen at one of Ivan’s clubs?”

“Of course,” he said with a smile. “Five so far, and that’s only the ones who admitted it, remember.”

“You have a theory?” I asked.

“What if Ivan was somehow getting ahold of some of Professor Nablestone’s stuff?”

“You don’t think Nablestone would have sold it to him?”

Dan shook his head. “Guy is fastidious. He wouldn’t expose himself like that.”

“Fastidious?”

Dan sat forward and smiled. “I’ve searched through a lot of computers,” he said. “And I’ve never seen one like this. Deep deep encryption. Took me a long time to get in. And then what do I find?”

I leaned forward, excited. “What?”

“Nothing. Perfectly organized nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“His internet activity, not only cleared, but when recovered, totally boring. He reads professional sites, streams a little opera, and looks at occasional vanilla porn.”

“Okay?”

“That’s just weird. Here’s a guy seemingly obsessed with his research, yet virtually nothing of that nature is on his computer.  Plus, he appears to have almost no social life and his car spends all its time either at the university or in the Everglades. Maybe he keeps everything interesting on paper,” Dan laughed. “But more likely he’s got a computer that is never online. And that would mean there is a very small group of people involved. They can’t be on a network or I’d find them. So if he’s that careful just with the notes about what he’s making, do you think he’d sell the actual product to a thug like Ivan?”

“So you think someone was stealing it?”

“And selling it to Ivan.” Dan said.

“Ivan said that Lawrence provided what no one else had. Do you think he was talking about Datura? Was Lawrence providing it?”

“It’s possible,” Dan said.

“So who killed him? Who is the puppet master?”

Dan’s fingers returned to the keyboard and windows began to pop onto the left hand screen. “I think it was Nablestone, himself.”

“Really?” I thought about the footage from the front of the restaurant. The man behind the umbrella, the expert at staying hidden. The man who didn’t flinch. It could be Nablestone. The way he’d adjusted his cap, moved his body, it was certainly fastidious, I thought. But that was just grasping at straws.

“I don’t think he’d trust anyone else with it. And, I think this guy is a real sicko.”

“Because of the computer?”

“The vanilla porn.” His fingers kept typing.

“Excuse me?”

“He just went to those sites in order to create the veneer of normality, his computer was complete fiction. I don’t think he gets off on sex. I think it’s power.” Dan pointed to the screens. “I think he did it before.” When he saw my expression he hurried to add, “Not killing someone. But look.” I flicked my eyes to the screen. A news story with the caption “President of University Streaks Football game.” The picture showed a naked man, his intimates pixelated for decency, overweight and grimacing with effort as he ran across a field. Several football players were in the shot, stock still, all eyes on the nude figure. “Dr. Nablestone’s former boss,” Dan said. “Has no memory of the incident. Came to within minutes of being tackled to the ground by security.”

“That’s circumstantial,” I said. “But kind of compelling.”

“I bet I find more.”

His fingers returned to the keys. “All reports,” Dan said, “of men waking up with their last memory at one of Ivan’s clubs,” he said as files opened on the screen.

I nodded my head, pressing my lips together. “Were any of them tested for datura?”

“They were tested for Rohypnol but nothing came up. I sent these over to Mulberry to see if there were any samples left to test. If we could match what was in Hugh to them, then we’ve got more evidence.”

“Do you know if Nablestone has an alibi?”

“According to his calendar he was at the opera,” Dan answered. “He has a subscription.”