The Trees Beyond the Grass (A Cole Mouzon Thriller) (5 page)

CHAPTER 8

“AND THEN WE
HAVE THIS…” Officer Hendrix motioned Leas over to an old Gateway tube-monitored computer sitting on a yellow table being used as a desk. Its screen was dark.

Walking over, the captain interjected, “Yeah, we don’t know what to make of this yet. It appears the vic was on the computer at the time of the murder. But we aren’t quite sure. The evidence is conflicting at this point. The hands were found on either side of this, placed there after their removal. Like the killer was trying to send a message.”

Leas looked down and saw the evidence markers placed in dried puddles of blood to the left and right of a worn keyboard and then looked at the computer. “What do you have?”

Hendrix pushed his small frame between the two men to stand facing the screen. It was obvious to Leas that Hendrix was used to having to push his way around the world to compensate for his height. With his slightly squeaky voice, Hendrix said, “Well, we know someone typed on the keyboard at the time the first blow was struck or during a struggle thereafter. Look at the keyboard—there’s a small amount of blood on the back side of the “z” key. We are all but certain the ultimate stabbing took place over near the door, some eight feet away. So it’s highly unlikely it’s splatter from that. So, either the first cut occurred over here, or the perp used the computer
after
the vic was down. We think Mr. Patrick lingered for a good thirty to forty minutes before ultimately dying of his injuries, bleeding out and all.”

Leas pulled his black half-frame glasses out from the inside pocket of his loose blazer and then slipped on a pair of latex gloves offered by Hendrix.

At forty-three, his sight had long since started to diminish from all those years with his head buried in murder books. The keyboard was dirty from being used by greasy fingers. Years of dirt and oil left a paste of black smudged on the tops of the most frequently used keys. The standard QWERTY design used in America and most of the English-speaking world placed the “z” key on the lower left row of the keyboard. Leas examined it closely. The area was dim even with the ceiling fan light in the center of the room on, its loose ticking echoing throughout the room. On the side of the table there was a cheap black desk lamp and a pile of what appeared to be bills. They were free of blood splatter. Leas grabbed the lamp, clicked the button on the base and it came on with its yellow light. He lifted the lamp and turned it toward the keyboard.

The captain and Hendrix watched in silence as Leas completed his inspection, clicking off the light, returning it to its spot and standing back up to face the two men.

Impatient for his insight, Hendrix pushed, “Well? What do you think? Perp or vic?”

Leas was careful to speak. This wasn’t his turf and he didn’t want to intrude. Bloodstain pattern analysis, known as “BPA,” used physics, biology, and other fields to determine what blood spatter shapes and sizes can tell about the violent event that caused their release. Leas had seen enough of the reports to understand that experts in the field can determine from the shape of a splatter mark everything from velocity, angle of impact, and source. If you have enough of these blood markers the experts can determine the “Area of Origin,” a fancy term for where the murder occurred in a space and possibly how it went down. Undisturbed splatter has relatively clean outlines on hard surfaces like the keyboard. When it doesn’t it means someone has disturbed it after being deposited. “Have you had a blood splatter analyst look at this yet?”

The captain responded, “Not yet. He got called out on another investigation around lunch and is due to hit here first thing in the morning.”

“I’m no expert but, and Captain I’m sure you’ll back me up on this, you learn some things when you’ve been at this game long enough.” The captain nodded his head in agreement with what Leas had just said as he took a glance behind him where there was a loud distracting conversation between officers occurring.

Leas continued, “From what I see, that isn’t blood splatter. Rather, it looks like a smear, as though the blood was on the user’s hands and accidently wiped off onto the key while typing.” Leas motioned the captain over to the keyboard and pointed. “See those edges? Splatter would not present that way; they’re too rough. Also, notice the top edge, there’s a ‘tail’ on the left-most top. Someone tried to wipe off the blood. They probably didn’t see that they missed a spot because this bit was on the back side of the key. If you don’t mind?”

Leas walked across the room to grab a photo evidence marker and placed it on the keyboard. Hendrix instinctively took several shots from different angles and then stepped back for Leas to finish. Withdrawing a white pen with some random hotel name stamped on it, he removed its plastic cap and placed its clip under the “z” key. A flick of the wrist and the key face popped off the keyboard. Leas carefully grabbed it as he clicked back on the lamp used earlier. Inspecting it for a moment under the light, he raised to face the two men waiting for him to speak.

“I’d say that the perp used the computer after stabbing Mr. Perkins, over there. So, the question is, what was the perp looking for? What did she want us to see?” Leas looked pensively at the computer’s black screen.

The screen had been dark since he arrived. Hendrix nudged in again, grabbing the mouse with his gloved hand and moving it around its worn pad. The computer popped and crackled as it awoke. Slowly the tube warmed up and revealed its yellowing screen.

In the center was an internet browser open to Facebook. It was on a man’s profile page, not the vic’s newsfeed. The profile was for ‘Cole Mouzon.’ From the looks of the page, the vic and Mouzon weren’t Facebook friends. The profile was locked, only showing his picture and name.
Who is this Mouzon guy and how is he related?

CHAPTER 9

SURROUNDED BY SEVERAL
other lookers-on to the crime scene across the street, Poinsett thought the computer was a nice touch. And cutting off Tony’s hands was deserved, after he touched her.
No one touches me.
She already knew Mouzon lived in Denver and that was her next stop.

Focusing back on the crowd of officers across the street, the presence of the man in a black blazer suggested the FBI had finally gotten involved. She didn’t care if they tried to stop her. They wouldn’t, couldn’t stop Mouzon from dying next. She needed the police and FBI to spread the word, to announce the deaths, if she was to ever get the Taker’s attention. He had lain quiet for almost thirty years and she needed him to reveal himself if she was to ever get answers. If that meant killing his prizes, she would kill all of them. Mouzon was the last, her last chance to draw him out. She salivated at the thought of her next kill. It was like dousing herself in scalding hot water, causing her skin to burn. She loved it.

She walked by the taped-off roadside like an innocent on-looker, to an area outside Tony’s house. It looked like an even bigger dump to her in the daylight. He was so excited to get her into his home that he never thought about whether he deserved it. She suspected he knew in the end that he deserved to die like the rest of them. Mouzon would soon have that reality, too.

She would return to her life in due time, but for now, she couldn’t avoid the deep need to kill them all, each and every one of them. What she would do when they were all dead, she didn’t know. That was to be figured out once retribution for the pain they had caused her as a young girl was delivered. She dreaded the idea of stepping back into her old life.

Why did it take me so long to come to this wonderful place where I am in control, not them?

She asked herself that every time she saw the fear in their beady little eyes and felt the last pump of their heart through her blade.

I have sacrificed too many years of my life being captive, submissive to what they had caused. But no longer.
It was their turn to feel what pain truly was, to fear their last breath escaping from their mouths.

She watched as the boys under the streetlight from the night before walked over to the officers.
I’ve been careful, right?
She’d covered her face that night, only allowing them to see her silhouette. She wanted them all to know it was a woman, not a man, who had taken down Tony. They looked around as Poinsett hid behind another spectator, acting as though she was talking to a nondescript woman in a red tee, jeans, and baseball cap. Poinsett had ‘dressed down,’ now wearing khaki capris and a yellow V-neck fitted tee, the sundress burned in a dumpster behind a warehouse. The blonde wig was still affixed to her head, just in case, and large Jackie-O sunglasses covered her gaze. She didn’t look like anyone surrounding her, but she didn’t care.

A few minutes later the boys were gone, apparently unhelpful in the officer’s investigation.

The FBI agent working the scene was Latino, and looked like he should be operating a bar in some Western town rather than managing the federal government’s response to what Poinsett had just done.
Is he going to figure out my next step?
She had all but written it out for him and the others. The large bags under his eyes told her he lived his work.

As she jumped in her rental and headed to the airport, she wondered.
Perhaps things are about to get more interesting
.

CHAPTER 10

LEAS HEADED STRAIGHT
from the crime scene to the medical examiner’s office, located at Dallas’s Institute of Forensic Sciences off North Stemmons Freeway. Dr. Grant had already performed an autopsy and sent fluid samples to the office’s toxicology lab by the time Leas arrived. Waiting on the results, Leas inspected the body with the doctor.

As suspected, the bruising along the wrists was consistent with the removal occurring while Mr. Patrick was still alive.
Why didn’t he fight?

The doctor picked up on Leas’ suspicion. “I suspect some type of drug, possibly a very strong muscle relaxant or sedative. I can think of no other way in which the killer could have held down this man and removed the hands while he was alive.” The pudgy man had a strong widow’s peak across his white hairline and rubbed the back side of his wrist across his forehead as he talked. Though the air could be heard rushing into the room, it was still steamy-hot. The white lab coat was clinging to the doctor and worked to enhance the man’s poor girth-to-height ratio, making him resemble an awkward ghost. A slight limp could be detected as he waddled around the sparse brushed-steel and white-tiled room.

Overlooking the body, Leas asked, “Doctor, have you seen any signs of bondage or injuries beyond the obvious?”

The doctor waved him over toward Tony’s head before responding. “Come here. See that? That’s a needle prick. He was injected with something. This was not voluntary drug use here. Someone took this man down and I suspect with something that worked fast. We are talking about a six-four, two hundred and twelve-pound man here.”

Leas eyed the slight purple pin-point mark to the back of Tony’s right ear. He didn’t recall any injection site in the Havex or San Diego cases.

Leas wondered if the cases were linked at all or was this just a very similar case by accident. “When is that toxicity report due back, did you say?”

Pulling the crisp white sheet back over Tony’s body, the doctor said, “Anytime now. Let me go check.”

Leas felt the twitch of whiskey hunger deep inside. It had been almost a day since his lips had tasted its amber sting and he felt the sudden need for a drink.
Shit, let’s get this on, doctor.

Trying to distract his hunger, he focused on the sheet-covered corpse that lay in the middle of the room, wondering who the killer could be.
Three bodies. Three types of killings. The last two missing a swath of skin from their lower backs placed there as children when they were all kidnapped. They are linked, but not in death at this point.

Halfway through his analysis, the doctor slowly wobbled back into the room, looking down at several sheets of paper that looked more like computer printouts then any report. As suspected, Mr. Patrick had been poisoned. Something called
curare.

Leas immediately reached in his pocket and called Quantico; he needed insight into poisons and fast. If the killer had switched to poison for taking down men, there was a chance she would do it again. Half an hour later he had a contact. Leas left the ME’s office in haste, leaving more questions than answers for the Dallas Police. He would send another agent to complete the FBI’s investigation into the Patrick matter. For now, he needed to get to Atlanta and talk to his new contact, a Dr. Winters, about the poison they found, before Mouzon died.

CHAPTER 11

ATLANTA

LEAS HAD SOME
experience with poisons. He had learned some time ago that poisons are handled by several different federal agencies. The Department of Agriculture studies them with an emphasis on livestock deaths, the Food and Drug Agency is charged with of warding off exposure pathways arising from food and pharmaceuticals. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta covers the rest, usually acting as a central hub for poisonings nationally and internationally.

Dr. Beth Winters held an impressive curriculum vitae; a fancy name for a resume in any other field. At thirty-five, she was the youngest person, much less woman, to ever head the National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry within the CDC. Her expertise, poisons, required her to be an expert in botany and toxicology. Working in conjunction with the FDA and its detailed poisonous plant database, she had become a ‘go-to’ expert where plant poisons were involved. Leas had been instructed to head to Atlanta and meet with Winters about what the agency was seeing in the murders.

He had flown into the busiest airport in the world on Sunday night and checked into his room at the Residence Inn on Peachtree Street carrying nothing more than his carry-on, originally packed just for Tulsa, and a fresh bottle of Knob he’d grabbed from Mac’s liquor store in the heart of Midtown, Atlanta. With the luggage thrown to the corner of the room, the bottle was promptly opened and tipped back as he loosened his tie. He passed out half-dressed, saved from the darkness of the memories that had returned in his sober state.

First thing Monday morning he jumped into another rental and weaved through the winding roads of the affluent neighborhood of Ansley Park, headed to the CDC on the north end of Emory University’s campus in the North Decatur area of Atlanta.

“Did you know, Agent Leas, that adults aged twenty-four to fifty-six are more likely to die of poisoning than in motor vehicle accidents?” Leas was still slightly in shock from Dr. Winter’s youth and beauty as he was escorted into her office. She immediately grabbed a stack of files and opened a grey metal filing cabinet, and began thumbing her way through the drawer until she’d placed each manila folder. This placed her backside front and center into his view. By his calculations, she was five-eight; five-ten with her powder blue heels that perfectly matched her eyes. Her dark hair was collected in a ponytail and stood out against her white lab coat. As she busily moved around the room while still talking, the coat flashed open here and there to reveal what appeared to be a billowed black linen shirt and deeply-cut white blouse intended more for a cocktail party than a lab. This impression was only enhanced by the large string of pearls she wore around her neck.

Trying to refocus, Leas spoke. “Really? That’s a statistic you don’t hear a lot about. How many of those are intentional?” Leas observed several cultural masks and paintings on the walls of the otherwise white drywall of the office. From the corner of his eye, he thought he caught a picture behind her desk of the doctor with Obama.

Still moving about the room, she responded. “Well, that’s hard to say. Ninety-one percent of all poisonings are caused by prescription drugs. As it relates to murder, which is why you are here, the statistic has been for centuries that woman are more likely than men to use poisons to kill, which explains to some degree the fact that men are twice as likely as woman to die from them, though they also have a higher exposure potential to poisons because of their workplace conditions. A recent study by Shepherd at the University of Georgia actually reviewed mortality rates for homicidal poisoning. His findings were very interesting, showing that though poisonings accounted for less than one percent of all homicides, there is a clear up-tick in such deaths over the past decade or so. And, this really doesn’t help you, but homicide by poisoning is usually reserved for children and the elderly, not the age bracket you indicated you are dealing with in your case when you called.”

Leas didn’t know what was sexier, her body or her mind. She clearly was more intelligent then he would have imagined if he saw her on some Atlanta street. She continued babbling facts like an encyclopedia-fed brook. “Now, from what I understand from your guys at the FBI, there is a strong suspicion that poison is involved more often than documented in murder cases generally. There is a great deal of support for that suspicion. Coroners and their labs rarely consider homicide by poisoning unless the bottle is sitting right in front of them. Even where a poison is identified in the deceased’s system, there is an eighty percent chance the manner of death will be deemed ‘undetermined’ because poisons and their pathways are so misunderstood. Seventy-six point six percent of poison exposures are through ingestion. Other pathways include breathing in poison gas, bites and stings, and exposure to the eyes or on the skin.”

She paused for a second to catch her breath and look up from the fresh batch of files she had been shuffling around the office since Leas arrived. Smiling, she said, “I’m sorry, I can rattle on forever about this stuff. If this were a date, you would already be out the door. But tell me, Agent, why are you here again?”

Leas grinned and then described to the doctor the three murders he was investigating and the belief that more were to come. If the murders were related, the first appeared to be a test of sorts, and with each new murder the perpetrator was refining his skills and trademark. The last had signs of poisoning. The last two had the same mark of removal of a small patch of skin on the victim’s lower back. That patch contained a mark, a brand left there when all three of the victims were young. It appeared someone was collecting those who had been kidnapped all those years ago, and she was moving fast.

With Winters now seated behind her desk listening intently, Leas walked further into the office. “Doctor, in this case, it appears that the most recent victim was poisoned, injected with
curare
. Is there any significance there?”

She turned her head to the side like a parrot as she pondered what had just been disclosed. “Interesting. A plant poison…highly lethal.
Curare
is nasty stuff. Because it mimics total lock-in syndrome, where paralysis impacts every part of the body, including the eyes, it’s impossible for someone poisoned to signal they are actually alive. It’s the ‘trapped in your body’ drug.”

Leas shook his head in horror as Winters turned to a particle board, thrift store-looking bookshelf, withdrew a teal covered book and handed it to the agent. “You may want to take a look at Fronhne and Pfander’s book just to see what you are dealing with.”

His mind was still on the visual of someone being tortured while trapped in their body when he looked down to read the back of what had been handed to him and then turned it to reveal its cover: “Poisonous Plants: A Handbook for Pharmacists, Doctors, Toxicologist, Biologists, and Veterinarians.” Just the thought of reading a book made him sick, much less some scientific manual.

Nestling back into her black cloth office chair, she told him, “It’s pretty straightforward book on plant-derived poisons, and can at least tell you what symptoms and etiology you can expect. I would give you my own book, but I’ve been told its sedative effects rival that of Ambien. It’s a bit technical.” The doctor flashed a smile to reveal teeth as white as her pearls, breaking her otherwise focused appearance.

Leas smiled back in kind, looking up from the book to respond. “No, no… ‘Poisons for Dummies’ will do for now. But I might have to hit you up on that book if my insomnia keeps up.”

She playfully tightened her eyes and said, “Fair enough. But, as I was saying, the use of raw plant poisons is extremely rare today. I say raw because a large percentage of our pharmaceuticals are derived from plant chemicals. In fact, some chemicals like digitalin—which comes from the flower
digitalis
, also known as foxglove—are high highly poisonous in even small doses. But when used in minute amounts the chemical helps with cardiac conditions such as atrial fibrillation and congestive heart failure. And that’s just one example.”

Leas shook his head as he leaned into the wall beside him. “Wow, when I was told you were the person to talk to down here, they weren’t lying. And, again, thank you. My understanding is you just came back from some trip to collect samples or something. The Amazon?” His eyes caught what looked like a hand-held GPS under some files.

Noticing his glance at her desk, Winters leaned back into her chair and crossed her legs, revealing firm, tanned legs. “Ha, yeah. I may appear like a simple
Southern belle
, Mr. Leas, but inside, I’m a warrior and certified witch doctor.” She flashed a playful ‘don’t mess with me’ face when she emphasized the words ‘Southern belle.’

“I was down in the Balsapuerto area of the Upper Amasonas region, deep in the headwaters of the Amazon, studying the use of plant-derived poisons used by the indigenous people. My research was focused on
strychnos
, a plant whose resin is used in dart hunting by the local tribes. Think poison dart frog, but this one is plant-derived.” Winters looked to her desk and the still remaining files.

“It’s a shame really. I had another month of research planned down there, but in the middle of the night about a week ago, there was a raid by a Protestant fundamentalist group who’ve been killing the shamans, local witch doctors, for years in the area, accusing them of being ‘possessed by demons.’ My shaman survived, but he lost his wife and a son to axes by the time it was all over. His son’s head was ravaged, just
ravaged
, by the blades.” Winters grabbed her wrist. “I was pretty lucky; I had a metal bracelet given to me by a woman in the tribe on at the time that prevented a machete from completely slicing right through my arm.” She pulled back the white tape and gauze to show a clean cut with several black stitches. “It took two days to get me up the river to Yurimaguas for medical care.”

Leas stood in awe, eyebrows raised. “Wow. Warrior indeed, Dr. Winters. I’d say that would go head to head with any story I could offer in my career.”

SHE LOOKED UP.
“I doubt that, Agent.” There was a slight pause before she continued.

“You know, it’s interesting that you mention
curare
. Like
strychnos
, it’s used in hunting. It paralyzes the body, while the prey remains conscious until suffocation kicks in. The thought of dying that way; well, that’s just rough to swallow.”

Leas agreed. “Yeah, as you mentioned, the pathologist couldn’t rule out the poison as the cause, but with the cuts, it was hard to say.”

Winters stood up from her desk and began slipping off her heels before maneuvering her feet into what looked like cheap white nurse’s shoes. With her back still to him she said, “Let me do this, Agent Leas… I need to step into the lab and complete some tests and check on the progress of research I have neglected while in the Amazon. But, I’ll think on this and what you’ve told me. If I come up with anything, I’ll let you know. Here, let me give you my cell phone number. I’d be interested to see how this plays out. So, call me anytime, day or night. I’m at your service.”

Leas couldn’t resist focusing on the shortness of her charcoal skirt and how it formed a perfect outline of her obviously firm ass as the doctor bent over her desk to write the note on a yellow sticky. A bit too slow in refocusing, he was caught. The doctor smiled as she smoothed out the back of her lab coat.

“Be careful out there, Agent Leas. Poisons are dangerous business. I look forward to our next meeting.” After a quick flash of her smile she exited the office and disappeared down the hall. Leas regained his focus and turned to leave.
Yep, Obama.