CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kate sat in the passenger seat, looking at the picture she had taken of the business card in the Rodriguez house. "Michael Torres - Handyman Services," she read aloud, then dialed the phone number printed below the name.
The phone rang four times before going to voicemail.
A man's voice, slightly accented and professional-sounding, delivered a brief message: "You've reached Michael Torres.
I can't take your call right now, but please leave a message with your name, number, and a brief description of the work you need done.
I'll get back to you within six to eight hours. "
Kate waited for the beep, then kept her voice casual and businesslike.
"Hi, this is Kate. I got your number from a friend who said you did some excellent work for her recently.
I have a few repairs that need attention at my house, and I was hoping we could set up a time to discuss them.
Please give me a call back when you get a chance.
" She left her cell phone number and ended the call.
"Smooth,” DeMarco said with a sly smile. “Think he'll call back?"
"If he's innocent, probably," Kate replied. "If he's our killer, he might be suspicious of unfamiliar numbers calling for work.”
DeMarco nodded and then hitched a thumb toward the back seat. “Grabe the smart pad and see what you can find on Michael Torres in the system."
Kate did as she was asked, grabbing the small case DeMarco had for the iPad and the small personal WiFi device she carried everywhere.
She hadn’t used the smart pad all that often, and it took her a bit longer than it would have taken DeMarco to access the database.
But once she was in, it all came back easily enough.
She typed in the name and waited for results to populate.
After a few moments, the information she was looking for began appearing on the screen.
"Here we go," Kate said, scanning the results.
"Michael Torres, age forty-three, last known address on Maple Street in Richmond… and it looks like he’s been in the city for at least eight years.
No criminal record, but there are a few minor traffic violations.
Looks like he's been running his handyman business the whole time he’s been in Richmond. "
"Any family information?" Kate asked.
"Married to Carmen Torres, with two children. And here's a home phone number." She considered it for a moment and said, “Maybe I should try calling the house?"
"Might as well."
Kate nodded and started punching in the numbers. "I don't want to identify myself as FBI just yet, though. If his wife tips him off that law enforcement is looking for him, he might disappear."
Kate dialed the home number and waited. On the third ring, a woman answered with a slightly harried voice. "Hello?"
"Hi, is this Mrs. Torres?" Kate asked, injecting a note of urgency into her voice.
"Yes, this is Carmen. Who's calling?"
"My name is Kate, and I'm trying to reach Michael about an urgent repair situation. I called his work number, but only got voicemail."
"Oh," Carmen said, and Kate could hear the sound of a child in the background. It was a young girl, laughing about something. "He's out on a job right now, but I'm not sure exactly where. He had several appointments today. That’s likely why he didn’t answer the phone."
Kate felt a flutter of concern. If Torres was currently at another client's house, he might be in the process of selecting his next victim or tampering with more medication. Or, there was, of course, the possibility that he was simply a very busy and sought-after handyman.
"It really is quite urgent," Kate pressed. "Is there any way you could try to reach him? Maybe call or text to have him contact me as soon as possible?"
Carmen hesitated. "Well, I could try calling him, but he doesn't always answer when he's working.
He gets pretty focused on whatever project he's doing." She hesitated and, doing her best to sound pleasant (Kate could hear the effort in the woman’s voice), she said: “If it’s this urgent, is there no one else you could call?”
“Oh, I’m sure there is, but a good friend of mine simply raved about your husband’s work on her back porch. I thought I’d give him a try.”
"Okay. I'm sure he'd appreciate that. Let me see if I can get a hold of him. What's your number?"
Kate gave Carmen her cell phone number, then added, "Please ask him to call me back as soon as he possibly can. I'll be available all afternoon."
"I'll try to reach him right now," Carmen promised. "If I get through, I'll have him call you. But depending on what he’s up to at the moment, I can’t guarantee when he’d get back."
"I understand. Thank you so much," Kate said, ending the call.
DeMarco glanced over at her. "Did it seem like she'd be able to reach him?"
"I hope so. But now all we can do is wait." Kate settled back in her seat, feeling the familiar frustration that came with being unable to take immediate action. "In the meantime, we should head back to the field office and see if we can find more information about Torres's business practices."
DeMarco nodded, though a frown tugged at her lips at the idea of needing to wait.
Upon leaving the Bennett house, she'd pointed them in the direction of the field office anyway, so it wasn't like it was going to be out of the way.
However, as it turned out, they'd made it less than another two miles toward the field office when Kate's phone rang.
DeMarco was stopped at a red light when it started buzzing.
Kate looked to the ID, assuming it would be Torres. She was quite surprised to find that it was, instead, the number of one of the forensics labs. Hoping for a break in the case, she answered it immediately.
"This is Agent Wise."
"Agent Wise, this is Dr. Martinez from forensics. I have the results from those pill tests you requested."
Kate felt her pulse quicken as she sat straight up in her seat. "Excellent. What did you find?"
"Well, it looks like your theory was correct.
We tested all the pills in both medication bottles, and in each case, it seemed, at first, that it was legitimate Lorazepam, exactly what Dr. Chen prescribed.
But there were other pills mixed in with it…
just three or four, enough to be mixed in without anyone really noticing. "
"So someone added poisoned pills to each bottle," Kate said, feeling a mixture of vindication and horror.
"That's what it looks like. The pills in question contain a concentrated dose of potassium chloride mixed with a fast-acting sedative. It would be enough to cause rapid cardiac arrest in someone of the victims' ages and health conditions."
Kate absorbed this information while DeMarco listened intently from the driver's seat. "Dr. Martinez, can you tell me anything about how these pills were manufactured? Were they professionally made or homemade?"
"They appear to be professionally manufactured capsules that were opened and refilled with the lethal substances. My guess is that whoever did this had access to pharmaceutical-grade materials and knew what they were doing."
"Thank you, Dr. Martinez. This is extremely helpful."
“Glad to help,” Martinez said. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
Kate ended the call and turned to DeMarco. "A few pills in each bottle were poisoned. Maybe just two or three to blend in with the others. The rest were legitimate."
"But that means they have no control over when the victim takes the fatal dose."
"Exactly. It could be days or weeks before the victim happens to take the poisoned pill. The killer has no way of knowing when their target will actually die... just that they will eventually, if they continue taking the pills that were prescribed to them."
The light turned green, and DeMarco pulled through, closing in on the field office. "That's a pretty risky method. What if the victim noticed something different about one of the pills?"
"These are people over fifty taking medication for anxiety," Kate pointed out.
"They're probably not examining each pill closely, especially if they're in a hurry or stressed. And the killer chose a medication that people typically take as needed, not on a strict schedule. And you know… this method tells us something important about our suspect.”
“What’s that?”
"They're patient, methodical, and willing to wait for results. They're not looking for immediate gratification."
"And they don't seem to care about the specific timing of the deaths," DeMarco added. "They're content to set the trap and wait for it to spring." She shook her head and said, “God, there’s no way to know how many pill bottles are out there right now with a little poison surprise.”
Just a few minutes later, DeMarco parked in the field office parking garage.
They walked through the building toward the elevator together, Kate's thoughts churning with the new information.
Would a killer with this sort of patience and dedication be more dangerous?
Maybe even more difficult to catch? If they'd planted poisoned pills in an unknown number of bottles, knowing those they wanted dead would die within a matter of days or weeks, then they could be long gone by now.
Kate's phone buzzed with a text message as she and DeMarco neared the elevators. She looked at the screen and saw an unfamiliar number. But she understood what it was right away.
“A text from Michael Torres,” she said quietly to DeMarco.
DeMarco came over to stand closer to Kate, and they read the message together: This is Michael Torres.
I got a message that you called about some repair work.
Urgent stuff, apparently… since you called my house?
LOL. What kind of job are you looking at?
“The use of LOL makes me think he’s a creep from the get-go,” DeMarco said with a smile. “Definite serial killer vibes.”
Kate chuckled, but was too locked in to really appreciate the comment. "Let me see if I can set up a meeting without making him suspicious."
She thought about her response for a moment and then typed back: Thanks for getting back to me so fast. I really appreciate it.
I have some issues with my bathroom plumbing and possibly some electrical work.
Would it be possible to meet this afternoon to discuss the project?
Need it done quickly so I can pay extra if necessary.
“You’re an exceptional liar, Agent Wise,” DeMarco said as she pressed the Call button on the elevator.
“Well, if he is our killer, I really want to lay it on thick.”
They took the elevator to the third floor and as soon as they stepped off, Torres send a response. It read: I could probably swing by around 4:00 if that works for you. What's your address?
Kate felt a moment of hesitation. Meeting with a potential murderer required careful planning and backup, but she also didn't want to spook him by suggesting they meet somewhere other than a residential address.
"We need to be smart about how we handle this meeting," she said out loud.
"We could set it up at a safe house," DeMarco suggested. "Somewhere we can control the environment and have backup nearby."
Kate's phone buzzed again. Another message from Torres: "Also, do you have any idea what your timeline is for getting the work done? I'm booking pretty far out right now."
"He's definitely behaving like a legitimate handyman," Kate observed. "Asking about timeline, availability, the normal business questions. There’s no eagerness to make sure he nabs the job right away."
"Which either means he's innocent, or he's very good at maintaining his cover," DeMarco replied.
Kate made a decision. "Let's set up the meeting, but we'll take your recommendation…we’ll use a bureau safe house and have a tactical team standing by. If Torres is our killer, we need to be prepared for anything."
She typed back: 4:00 would be perfect. I’ll send you a map pin with the address. Before she could even place a call to secure a safe house for the meeting, DeMarco was already doing it. Kate smiled, amazed at just how in sync they appeared to be, even though she was no longer full-time.
As they walked down the hallway toward Demarco’s office, Kate listened to her partner quickly push the matter through.
They had an address within thirty seconds, which Kate then sent to Torres.
It was all very fast and exciting, and the little spike of progress had her feeling that they were finally closing in on their suspect.
The forensics results had confirmed the method, Jake Bennett had provided the connection, and now they had direct contact with Michael Torres.
But something still bothered her about the structure of the case.
The patience required for this killing method, the careful selection of victims, and the professional way the poisoned pills had been manufactured.
It all suggested someone with medical knowledge and access to pharmaceutical supplies—whether legitimate or not.
When they stepped into DeMarco's office, the clock on the wall showed 2:45 PM.
In just over an hour, they would come face to face with the man who might have murdered Carol Bennett and Thomas Rodriguez.
And in the meantime, she figured they could use the database to get as much information as they could on the man.
And even if they came up with nothing—as Kate's preliminary search in the car suggested—she still felt that they were on the right track and this case might be closed before dinner.