Chapter 10
Ten
Cam pushed through the doors of the county morgue, not especially happy to be here again.
Even with the promise of evidence, the morgue wasn’t the sort of place one looked forward to visiting—the smell, the artificial lights, the specter of death that hid in the dark corners.
But he’d fought the early rush hour traffic to get here before Jong went off shift, her phone call making it clear she’d only give the evidence to him in person.
Nic’s orders.
After that interrogation today, after Bowers interrupted exactly when he did and showed almost all his cards, they were more convinced than ever that the US Attorney was dirty. They had to find the moles ASAP and tighten the information circles in the meantime.
So he was here to receive information, possible evidence on Nic’s father’s death, without Nic by his side.
Bowers had seen to it this afternoon that Nic was punished and distracted.
They’d been on a solid trail, tying evidence to motives for both Vaughn and Bowers when Nic had been yanked off it for an emergency motion—to do Bowers’s job for him.
Cam felt sorry for whoever was on the other side of that case and for the judge.
It was Nic being sidelined in the van all over again, except this time it was Bowers Nic was pissed at instead of him.
Small blessings, though waiting at the morgue counter for an attendant was starting to feel like a curse.
Finally, Coroner Jong herself appeared through the swinging steel doors, snapped off her gloves, and extended her hand. “Agent Byrne, I’m sorry for the wait. I went ahead and let everyone go for the day.”
Cam barely hid his shiver at her cold hand slipping into his. “Cam, please.”
“Elizabeth, then.” She smiled, tired yet friendly, then nodded toward the back. “Please, this way.”
“Nic sends his apologies for not making it,” Cam said as they walked down the hallway. “He’s stuck in court.”
“That’s what his text said.” Instead of entering the examination room, she walked another ten or so feet and turned into an office. Cam let out a relieved sigh, then sucked it back in at seeing two syringes on her desk. “Nic said to only give you this in person.”
“Give me what?”
She pulled out her desk chair and Cam moved his hand over his sidearm, ready to draw. He dropped it as she righted herself with two folders in hand, covering his motion with an adjustment of his jacket.
“What’ve you found?”
“This is the file on Harris Kincaid.” She held the top one out to him. “I rushed the toxicology.”
“Okay, what am I looking—” Cam paused at the third drug listed after the acid reflux OTC and allergy meds. It was a drug he recognized from kidnap and sexual assault cases. Cases where a victim went “willingly” with their attacker. Or so it appeared.
Scopolamine.
Legal when prescribed by a physician. On the street, when not, it was known as Devil’s Breath. A powerful, dangerous drug that could open a person to suggestions. Victims were often described as walking zombies. In too high a dose, it was deadly.
He studied the tox results again. “He didn’t technically die from the scopolamine, did he?”
“No, he died of strangulation. No question, he hung himself.”
“Because someone planted that suggestion in his head.”
“And with that drug in his system, it wouldn’t take much.”
Add in the other bargaining chip Vaughn had been holding over Harris—the house, lien free, to Beth—it had no doubt been plenty.
Jong tapped the other folder against her hand. “These are the toxicology results on Curtis Price.”
He traded with Jong and flipped open Curtis’s file, looking for scopolamine and finding calcium gluconate and potassium phosphate instead. “I’m not familiar with these.”
“Individually, in small doses, neither is deadly. Calcium gluconate is used to counteract too much potassium in a body and regulate heart arrhythmias.”
“But together in what does not look like small doses?” He’d read enough tox screens, seen enough syringes to know the one that had injected Curtis must have been full to the brim.
“Together, they mimic the symptoms of a heart attack. Severe hypertension and heart failure. The potassium phosphate speeds up the effects of the calcium gluconate.”
So why was the killer in a hurry? A question for him to consider for Nic.
He had another one for Jong. “Were they injected together?”
“No, they actually can’t be mixed. Let me show you.” She grabbed a petri dish off the counter behind them, set it on her desk, and picked up the syringes.
Cam took a step back, still not over every horror movie he’d seen as a kid nor the creepy vibe of the place.
But when Jong added the second liquid, he peered over her shoulder, intrigued by the reaction that was happening on the plate.
Unlike oil and vinegar, these two liquids combined to form a solid. “That’s what happens in the body?”
She set the syringes aside. “In the heart. We found one twice that size in Curtis’s.”
Cam whistled. No wonder it looked like a damn heart attack. “So that’s why there were multiple puncture marks?”
She nodded. “Side-by-side, in the mouth.”
Cam rested back against the counter, as he worked out what Vaughn and his henchmen must have been thinking. Normally he’d do that with Nic, but without him here . . . “Did they think these drugs, either in Curtis or Harris, wouldn’t be detected?”
“We wouldn’t have found the drugs in Curtis without the autopsy and full tox screen that Attorney Price ordered.”
“But you would have found the scopolamine in Harris’s system?”
“Not necessarily. That was clearly a suicide. If the FBI hadn’t already been looking at him in connection with another matter, we probably wouldn’t have run a tox screen.”
So had Vaughn known by then that Harris was working for them?
Or not yet? By the sound of it, the latter.
Or maybe Vaughn just didn’t care? Or didn’t think the drugs could be traced?
Vaughn didn’t shy away from threats, and he was good enough to cover his tracks.
Was Cam’s team better? He knew two hackers who could find anything.
“Can I get copies of those files?” Cam asked.
“These are yours.” Jong slapped both in his palm again.
“Thank you. And you’ll let us know if you find anything else.”
“Of course. I’ll ring you both.”
Jong walked him back out to the lobby. “Please tell Attorney Price his father’s body will be released by the end of the week.”
That took the excitement out of the leads a bit. “I’ll do that.”
Outside, he stopped next to Nic’s truck and took a picture of each tox readout. Faster than fighting with autocorrect over the spelling of drug names. That done, he opened the secure call app Jamie had loaded on all their phones and dialed Lauren.
She answered on the first ring. “We’re probably going to be late getting to Gravity.” They’d planned a meetup there tonight. Out from under the watchful eyes of Vaughn’s spies and with the added benefit of beer. Thank fuck.
And Cam would need it to soften the blow he was about to level on Lauren. “I’m about to make you later.” She groaned, and Cam could picture her falling dramatically back in her chair. He laughed, then asked, “Jamie in there with you?”
“Yup.”
A click, the blast of background noise, fingers striking keys, then a “Hey, brother.”
“Coroner found drugs in both Harris’s and Curtis’s systems. Sending you tox screen results now.”
Cam lowered the phone, inserted the pictures in a new text to them both, and hit Send. Twin dings sounded on the other end of the line as he brought the phone back to his ear. “We’re looking particularly at the scopolamine, the calcium thing, and the phosphate thing.”
“Real precise there, buddy,” Jamie said.
Lauren was already ahead of them both. “Vaughn’s not stupid enough to purchase them himself. He’d have paid or leveraged someone. We’ll run it against the segmented lists Nic had us create. This will narrow them.”
“Start with whether they were in evidence lockup, and if so, who had access and when. Focus on FBI and USAO.”
“On it,” Lauren confirmed.
“You think it’s Bowers, don’t you?” Jamie asked.
Cam fucking hated to think it—that Nic’s own boss had had a hand in his father’s death—but it would explain the intense reactions, the increasing desperation, and his single-minded focus to crater this case. “I think Vaughn has him by the balls, and I want to know why.”
Cam fished the last glass out of the dishwasher, set it on the bar towels with the others, then lifted the bar flip for Eddie to roll through a keg. “Whatcha got there?”
Eddie grinned, smile bright in his light brown face. “Your favorite, as I hear tell it.” He shuffled the keg under the taps, moved the hand truck out, then crouched, pompadour of jet-black hair just missing the back bar lip as he reached back to hook up the keg.
“Imperial?” Cam asked.
Eddie straightened, wiping his hands off on his Coast Guard tee. Another stain added to the streaks across his six-pack visible through the skintight cotton. “Finish drying those”—he nodded at the upside-down pints collecting condensation—“and I’ll give you a taste.”
“Fuck yeah.”
“One for me too,” Lauren called from the other side of the bar where she and Aidan were pushing tables together.
“Me three,” Aidan added, with Mel chiming in, “Make that four.” Jamie asked for water, and Cam filled him a glass from the sink while Eddie filled pints.
On the last glass, Cam’s, Eddie paused. Palm resting atop the tap handle, his dark eyes sparkled with mischief.
“There’s something else I should get you a taste of, but Nic’ll kill me. ”
“My boss first, you second,” came a voice behind them, sharp enough to cut glass. Nic stormed in, jacket bunched in one hand, yanking his tie loose with the other.
Eddie had a pint of the pilsner ready for him by the time he reached the bar. “Drink.”
Nic grabbed it and chugged, the beer snob guzzling his precious liquid gold. That good a day, then.