Chapter twenty-three #2
Her hand tensed under his. He hated this for her, even as it didn’t surprise him to hear her take a deep breath and rally.
“I should thank her then,” Amber said. Out of respect for her and what she went through, the room fell quiet.
“She’s probably the reason I was able to carry Zoe to twenty-nine weeks without him noticing. His attentions were fixed elsewhere.”
On Amber’s other side, Clara reached over and gave her hand a pat. “I’m grateful for that, too, but I wouldn’t mind if he caught the clap or herpes or something extremely itchy and uncomfortable with the way that man slept around. It’s the very least he deserves.”
Juan bit his lip, but when Amber snorted a laugh, he joined in. As did the rest of the room.
“There was a charge for a doctor’s visit in Maryland. I didn’t look into it, but I will if you want me to,” Callie offered with a grin.
“Let’s see how the night unfolds. I’ll let you know later,” Clara responded, drawing a few more snickers.
“So Anthony starts seeing Johanna on the side and about six months later, her research facility is going through more scopolamine than can be explained,” Grace said. “It’s not hard evidence, but it’s certainly interesting.”
“We have a lead on some potential hard evidence,” Leo said.
“Not evidence linking Anthony to the excess scopolamine, not yet, but we might be able to tie the deaths to the drug. Or at least to four of them. The two suicides, Masterson’s mother, and the man who turned into a bank robber,” he explained.
“In each of those cases, the police collected evidence that contains bodily fluids. Blood to be exact. The department that handled Masterson’s mother was happy enough to turn it over.
The chief suspected something wasn’t right, but a higher-up—he wouldn’t say who—pressured him to close the case.
Sucks for him, but he’s motivated to keep our request quiet, which is good for us.
The other three were a bit trickier since they were handled by the department in your former hometown,” Leo said, directing the comment to Amber.
“And let me guess, the chief of police is a buddy of Anthony’s?” Grace said.
Amber inclined her head, her long hair brushing his shoulder. “He cultivated relationships that were useful to him. Being poker buddies with the chief while out committing crimes was, is, exactly his style.”
“Please tell me HICC has their hands on the physical evidence?” Juan pressed.
Leo grinned. “Of course. We have a blood spatter expert on staff who happens to be married to someone very high up in the Virginia State Police agency. We took the matter to him, protecting the names of the innocent, of course,” he said, his gaze sweeping the room.
“And he authorized the request to release the evidence. The department is being told it’s for research purposes, but our contact knows the true reason.
He’s had no indication of any problems with them, but did acknowledge the procedural anomalies in those cases.
Specifically, how the bodies were handled and autopsies conducted.
He’s a good guy and wants to know if there’s an issue he needs to address, even if it turns out to be something as minor as conducting better training. ”
“Speaking of the autopsies, did you look into the ME? Georgia Lansing?” Juan asked.
Leo made a face. “I did. She’s not as interesting as I thought she might be. She ran all the right protocols during the process, just didn’t bother looking into anything deeply.”
“But the timing of them wasn’t standard. You just said that,” Juan pressed.
“It wasn’t, especially not in that county since they aren’t exactly overloaded with autopsy requests,” Leo conceded. “But it might be more an issue of laziness and bad training than anything intentional. The VSP will investigate that avenue more thoroughly.”
“What about her connection to Anthony?” Amber asked.
“We found no indications that they’ve been in contact recently,” Leo replied. “Not saying it couldn’t happen, but we haven’t found anything.”
“If there’s something there,” Callie jumped in, “it may be one of those things that comes out once a formal investigation kicks off.”
“Meaning when the authorities, whoever that ends up being, start questioning people, someone may talk? Assuming we get to that point,” Daphne said.
Callie nodded. “When HICC gets to the point of making a case, it will have all the relevant information we’ve gathered in it. The authorities, which will probably be the FBI but may be the VSP, will pursue all leads. I can assure you, Stella wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Juan exhaled. He didn’t like leaving threads unpulled, but understood that sometimes, the effort wasn’t worth the potential gain. Especially not when Dr. Lansing’s name remained part of the files. “Okay,” he said. “Back to the evidence, to the blood. Is it in HICC’s possession now?”
Callie nodded. “It reached our lab this evening. Our techs will look at it tomorrow.”
“Given what Kara said yesterday about how fast it metabolizes in the body and how it, what was the word? Redistributes after death? What are the chances of them finding anything?” Amber asked.
“Blood deteriorates over time, but not that rapidly,” Juliana said.
“If they know what they are looking for and have the right tests, they’ll find it.
I wouldn’t say that if we were looking for the regular prescription dosage, but it takes a lot, for example, to convince someone to rob a bank.
And based on what Leo found in the reports, it’s likely that all of these people died, or were killed, near the peak of their delusion. ”
“Meaning the drug was still strong in their system when their system stopped working?” Juan asked.
Juliana nodded. “Gruesome, but yes.”
“If they find it in those four, can we make a case to dig into the others?” he pressed.
“There’s nothing to test of the fire victim,” Leo replied. “But I’m looking into whether the lab kept samples from the other autopsies that we can retest. I’ll know more tomorrow.”
“But even if it’s just those four, if we can find similar financial patterns between Anthony and all the victims, it might be enough circumstantial evidence to lay all eleven deaths at his door. So to speak,” Callie said.
“Meaning if we prove that those four victims did in fact have overdose levels of scopolamine in their systems and we find a tie between the beneficiaries of those deaths and Anthony, then you can apply the same financial deduction to the other seven deaths, even without the lab tests, to show the likelihood of those seven suffering the same fate as the four being tested?” he clarified.
“Wow, that was a lot of words in one go,” he added on a chuckle.
“Feels a little like a logic game,” Amber said. “One of those ‘if this then that’ strings.”
“It pretty much is,” Callie agreed. “It’s not as tight as having blood work for all of them, but it would still be strong circumstantial evidence. Especially when we throw in the pictures Clara and Adrian have of the comings and goings at Anthony’s house.”
“How long will the lab tests take?” Adrian asked.
“They do it in-house, so no more than twenty-four hours once they have a viable sample,” Callie replied.
“How long will it take to know if a sample is viable?” he asked.
“They’ll take multiple samples from each piece of evidence,” Leo said. “We should know something within the next two days.”
“While we wait for that, I’m shifting my focus. We’re assuming Anthony is being paid. I want to know how and into what accounts,” Callie said.
“And I’m going to dig into Johanna Milvela. When the shit hits the fan, I want to know what our chances are of turning her against Anthony,” Leo said. “Oh, and our lab said they’d have the DNA results to your lawyer tomorrow, too,” he added, with a nod to Amber.
Zoe’s parentage was undeniable, but even so, the specter of the test results coming back sent a tiny, but sharp, lance of panic through Juan. A legacy from his childhood when expecting the worst helped him survive.
As if sensing his trip down trauma lane, Amber squeezed his hand, her delicate fingers brushing over his skin in a soothing stroke.
“I guess I’ll be spending the day with him, figuring out how to get her a birth certificate and file for sole custody,” she said, her matter-of-fact acceptance of what they knew the results would be calming the irrational flutter of doubt in his chest.
“Any other updates we want to go over?” Callie asked, her gaze skimming the room, pausing on her sister.
Slowly, Daphne looked at Amber. Their eyes held for a beat before Amber turned and looked at him. Shit, she knew. They all knew.
His eyes shot to Scipio, who shook his head. He hadn’t said a word about their call with Toni.
“Anything you want to share, Juan?” Callie said, her voice dripping with a creepy sort of sweetness, making him feel as if he’d just been caught stealing the last piece of Dottie’s famous coffee cake.
All the women except Grace narrowed their eyes at him. Philly, Lovell, Viper, and Mantis grinned. Shit, he should have known better than to assume his brothers wouldn’t tell their partners. Or that the women wouldn’t talk.
“What?” Grace said.
“You won’t want to hear this,” Juan replied. Now Grace’s eyes were narrowed, too. He sighed. “Fine. Not sure why I need to say anything since it seems like everyone already knows,” he grumbled.
“I don’t know,” Grace pointed out.
“And they don’t know the update,” Viper said.
“What update?” Mantis demanded. “You didn’t mention an update earlier.”
“She’s going in tonight. She’ll have stuff in place tomorrow,” he said.
“Who’s going where?” Grace demanded.
“A, uh, friend of ours,” he answered, although calling Toni a friend felt a little like taunting the devil. “Her name is Antonia Ewing. Or Toni.”
Grace blinked, then went pale. “Oh god, please tell me you didn’t call Toni.”