Name Your Poison: Det. Lt. Nick Storie Mysteries, #18

By C. D. Moulton

A truly exotic poison is killing people. The only connection Nick can find is on the internet, and that's tenuous, at best. Does he have some new kind of serial killer here?

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. D. Moulton
• Release date: Jun 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201261702

Book preview

Prologue

Tiny Menthorne, ME, swore under his breath, sighed and drew yet another sample sliver from the liver of the woman's body laying on the dissection table.

To date, all tests are negative, he said tiredly into the microphone. There is a strange set of ... something very odd ... that shows on the gas chromatograph. I'll get a computer match if there's one to get – I sincerely hope! I am taking a third sample from the liver, as that is where the anomalous compounds appeared. While they are processing I will take another brain section. The cause of death seems to be that the brain simply stopped sending impulses to the heart and lungs, which is evidenced in many Alzheimer's deaths, but there is no evidence of Alzheimer's here.

He took the sample and set up the process, then went to ease his huge bulk (6'6 and 325#) into his special chair to pull the comp around to enter the data from the chromatograph and push the mop of thick brownish hair off his broad forehead. No match" came on the board, after the machine made its weird noises for about two minutes.

Dr. David Klein, Asst. ME, came in to ask if there was any progress. He hadn't come up with anything with his victim the night before, had worked on it for thirty hours straight, and was going to continue now. Maybe six hours of sleep would clear his mind. Klein was a sharp contrast to Tiny physically, being a small wiry man with salt-and-pepper hair in a GI crop. He wore gold-rimmed glasses, while Tiny wore horn-rimmed reading glasses at times, but not unless it was for very fine print. Mentally, they were much alike. Brilliant in their chosen field, alert, curious and stubborn to a fault about finding answers.

They chatted about their case(s) for a few more minutes until the buzzer on the automatics alerted Tiny that his samples were prepared and ready. He sighed and Klein went to drawer four to slide the body of the young man out and roll it to his table.

Detective Lt. Nick Storie, North Naples Violent Crimes Div., wandered in with ace forensics photographer, Frog Forest, and asked if he had a murder case or two on his hands or was it something else.

I'm damned if I know! Tiny complained. "It could be one of those odd ever-to-be-unexplained cases where someone literally just dropped dead –  if there was only the one. With two, I get awfully suspicious and wonder if there will be a number three and four. Something strange and disturbing is happening here, Nick. As a pathologist, it’s a puzzle and a challenge, but as a human being – no smart remarks – it scares the holy living hell out of me. I do not like being unable to identify at least something that says it’s environmental, pathogen, poison, either natural or applied or whatever.

If it's a poison – and that's our likely indication at the moment, neither the machines nor I can name it!

Chapter one

Three days since the first body. Harold Evans, male, 21 yrs, 5'10", 148#, med brwn hr., hzl eyes, sml scr ovr left eyebrw/semi-crscnt shp, Avg+ 2nd yr college student SWFU, PT emply Spectra-Cybernautics, sngl., mthr brthr svvrs, 1999 Honda Prelude, Dr. lic....

Nick looked at the clock calender on his desk. 6:14 PM, Fri. Jan. 4, 2002.

When the body was found on the second, after the (supposed) victim didn't show up for work, Nick had been working Lt. Jim Hill's shift, because Jim had the flu that was going around so had gotten the call when the body was found by Kathi Jorgens, a co-worker and friend. Nick had seen the body as found laying in the hallway between the bedroom and kitchenette by the door to the bath in his condo. Pangulf Lifestyles. Pangulf Drive. (Where do they get these names?) He didn't find any evidence of anything, except Evans had been going toward the bedroom from the kitchen and had suddenly dropped.

Nick had seen a case of alcohol poisoning that had happened suddenly, where the victim had died much like this one – no. That one was in the bathroom and had been vomiting. There was no sign here of — anything at all.

The tox screen showed no alcohol or drugs and Nick had learned from the mother and brother and from Kathi that he didn't use either. He was against them to an almost fanatic degree, seeing his father had died from the ravages of acute alcoholism.

Nick saw minor signs of asphyxiation, but not severe enough to cause such a ... casual death as this. Evans had been walking along the hall in perfect health and had dropped dead. Even cyanide wasn't that fast or that easy on the victim. This one had been alive and well, then was dead in an instant and the body didn't even have time to react to it. He simply dropped.

Tiny couldn't find a cause of death. As relaxed as this seemed, Nick asked about muscle relaxants and Tiny said that was not the cause. The body wasn't that relaxed and those things, while they could be fast, weren't that fast.

Not the ones we can name, Nick thought. He was remembering an old case when a professor had used inserted genes in celery to produce a strong narcotic effect and hemlock. The deaths from that were as – damn it! – casual as this. Nick had remarked at the time that it was probably a very pleasant way to go.

Nick sat back to think awhile longer, then picked up the next one. Just yesterday. Gloria Florence, 19, 5'6", 115 #, brwn hr, brwn eyes, college student FGCC Tech, brthr fthr mthr svvr, sngl, PT emply Target. Died appx 6:00AM January 3, 2002.

Much the same as Evans. Found in her apartment in the Coral Dream Arms (Oh, brother!) on Shellcomber Circle. She was sitting at the kitchenette table and had ... died. There was a very little alcohol in her system and a possible old trace of marihuana, but that could have been from secondhand sources. She went to a New Years party, had a beer or two and someone there was smoking pot.

She was found by a girlfriend from biology classes in school who came by to go to the school with her, Donna Krebs. It seemed Krebs worked part time at an analyst biolab, making deliveries.

There didn't seem to be a connection. A sales clerk and a comp nerd. Their apartments were about two miles apart. They didn't, so far as Nick knew at the time, know each other, either through school, business or socially. If there was no connection there was no murder.

Nick sat back and thought. Something was a bit scary about this. Nick had recently finished a case that involved a serial killer who was so clever and downright intelligent that he had almost gotten away with fourteen murders. This didn't have that flavor, yet it did.

Klein called to say he'd spent the whole day on this one and had found exactly and precisely zilch. He was going home. Evans had dropped dead from unknown causes on his way between his kitchen and bedroom at about 8:30AM on January 2, 2002.

Nick wondered, and asked Klein what, if anything, Evans had eaten immediately before he died.

Maybe a slice of toast and a glass of grapefruit juice, Klein replied. That was all there was in the stomach. No poison. No anything at all unusual.

Nick called Tiny as soon as Klein hung up and asked him what Florence had eaten.

Toast, coffee, eggs, bacon and orange juice, Tiny answered. "No poison of any sort we can identify. Nothing the least unusual in the stomach contents. The strange organic in Florence is not in Evans and there was so little found in Florence I can't find it now.

Oh, yes. It is very possibly the last trace of our poison, something that breaks down completely. That would mean it's a combination of things that are produced in the body normally.

Some combination that’s very unstable. Maybe a hormone or something?

"What hormone shuts down the brain that fast? I can show you a book-load of hormones that will speed it up, but none that will shut it down so suddenly.

"Nick, this is something that was able to shut off all electrical impulses from the brain, like shutting off a light switch, and there simply ain’t no such thing! There are things that shut it off like a slide switch, maybe, or a rheostat, but not that suddenly. There was no jerk or twitch or even a surprised look. On, off. It's over. It didn't take one to three seconds. It didn't take a quarter to a half second. It took no more than a hundredth of a second and there was no twitch or jerk because the impulse didn't have time to reach the muscles to cause the twitch or jerk.

What can stop an electrical impulse that fast? It has me in a fit, Nick. It very simply can't have happened!

Another opposing electrical impulse? Something like a magneto that can stop a car engine by stopping the spark?

No way! We'd have all kinds of things that would tell us an electrical device was used. The charge would cause certain ionic chemicals to be formed that we looked for from the first. They aren't there!

Maybe it wasn't that strong?

Then it wouldn't have worked.

Crap!

My sentiments, exactly. They talked a few minutes more, then Nick thought again. As Klein had said, one could be natural, two was murder. Find the connection and look for who else is involved. somebody else is definitely involved.

Nick kissed Jan goodbye and told Cole and Pip, his four year old son and one year old daughter (Andrea), to be good, for a change. (Actually, most people couldn't believe how good Nick's kids were. Everyone but Nick and Cole said Cole was a genius.) He was going to work dayshift, as Paddy James (Capt. of South Station) had a policy of letting his officers work the hours best suited to their investigations, and the night shift wasn't often the best time for Nick's work. Larry Feng would take Nick's shift until the case was finished or until Nick didn't see any advantage to working other hours.

Spcl. Aide Marsha Blevins (the one who really ran the station) had everything written up and ready for him, so he could start his chart.

Nick always made a box chart of his cases, putting everything he learned into boxes. When the victim and killer were in the same box the case was solved and ready for court.

Crap! He didn't have anything to put in the boxes yet, except the names of the victims!

It was legwork time. He went out to his car, then drove to Pangulf Lifestyles, where he went up to 412, Evans' condo unit, and in.

Evans had been neat, but not to an extreme. Nick had been in places that were so neat and clean they were sterile. This one was lived-in. An hour and a half later, Nick didn't have anything. No letters threatening him, no breakup with some possessive girl, no trouble with anyone over anything.

There was a list by the computer of people he met on several chat rooms and on forums. He gave advice about computers and archery (he had a few minor trophies for archery and a very good expensive competition bow) on the forums. There was a list of things to do about the Klez worm virus.

Nick wondered if there was anything in the comp, but didn't have a clue as to how to find it if it was there. He called their department’s computer expert, Dolly Forest, and she would come over to dissect the hard drive – whatever that meant.

Nick copied the chat rooms and forums and the list of people Evans exchanged e-mail with, then remembered he knew how to get and read e-mail, so turned on the comp and brought up the program. Evans had programed in the password to automatically insert, so he could use the program. He saw there was mail waiting and opened the