“Most assuredly so. In fact, it may be remarkable enough to send us to prison, Lucian.”
Just then a pounding on the door and shouting from outside indicated that Leare's arrest was now imminent. “Damn,” muttered Jessica.
“What the devil is all this?” asked Locke.
“I think I know, Lucian,” said Leare. “I believe they have come for me, not you. Sturtevante's behind this, isn't she?” she asked Jessica.
“I… I couldn't say.”
“Couldn't or won't?”
“Just know that I was against it.”
“Shall I thank you now?”
Locke answered the door, protesting, but the uniformed police, followed by Parry and a pair of his agents, rushed in with a warrant for Leare's arrest. On seeing Jessica and Kim, Parry said, “I thought you had more sense than to get in the way, Jessica.”
She pulled him aside, whispering, “And I thought you had more sense period, Jim. You know this arrest is not warranted. You haven't enough to hold her.”
“She's a photographer as well as a poet, Jess, and Quantico just came back with our killer poison, something used in photo processing and filmmaking.” They isolated it?”
“Selenium.”
“Selenium.” Jessica repeated the word.
“Highly toxic concentration of it in the ink, and it's used by photographers in developing film. It's one more nail in the proverbial coffin.”
Parry stepped away from her and walked toward the uniformed men, one of whom had just finished reciting Leare's Miranda rights to her. 'Take her to PPD headquarters for interrogation,” he barked.
“This is pure, unadulterated madness!” Locke shouted after them as his home emptied of police and FBI agents.
Distraught, Harriet Plummer swooned and fell into an overstuffed chair. Jessica and Kim took their leave.
“I want to see the lab report Quantico came up with on the poison,” Jessica told Parry as he rushed away from her.
“Copy will be in your mailbox.” He climbed into his car and sped away.
True to his word, James Parry had the report waiting for Jessica the following morning. “Happy reading,” he told her on his way out, “and quite revealing of our killer.”
“Oh, and how's that?”
“Like I told you yesterday, she is into photography as well as poetry; the poison derives from a chemical used quite heavily in photography work.”
“That still doesn't make Leare the Poet Killer, Jim.”
“It will suffice until a better choice comes along, Jess.”
She gritted her teeth and watched him waltz off, smug and secure in his and Sturtevante's action. She turned her attention to the folder he'd dropped on her desk. 'Time to read up on selenium,” she told herself.
The toxicology report from Quantico read: H/2SeO/3-Selenius acid-colorless crystalline poisonous acid, formed by oxidation of selenium to easily yield the element by reduction. Selenite is a salt or ester of selenius acid. A brick-red, water-soluble powder in one form, a brownish, thick glossy mass in another, a metallic crystalline mass in a third form; mixing with ink for the purpose of “writing “ into a victim's epidermis requires liquid form, a form readily available for a number of industrial jobs as well as a staple in any photographic darkroom.
The substance bums with a bluish flame, and in its metallic form, it conducts electricity much more readily in light than in the dark. In fact, the higher the intensity of light, the faster it burns. It is used in photoelectric devices such as movies, photometry, and in coloring glass and enamels red.
As to symptoms when ingested/injected: a reddish rash is caused, tingling at the extremities, dizziness, a sulfuric smell, and a metallic taste in the mouth, followed by stomach cramps. Eventually leads to delirium and heart failure, as well as a shutdown of electrical impulses from the brain. Harmless in small doses, lethal in large doses. Some might mistake its actions for those of sodium cyanide, as it appears extremely similar both in chemical makeup and the physical symptoms it induces.
“So, we can infer, the longer the poem, the deadlier the dose,” Jessica mused aloud, recalling how the poems snaked along the backs of each victim, from neck and shoulders to pelvis. She knew the toxicologist Anderson Turner back at Quantico well enough to guess that he had more thoughts on the poison than was described in his official report. She dialed the number and got him on the line, asking him to tell her everything he had failed to put into the report. “All the good stuff, Anderson. Out with it. I need your input here.”
“Well, to begin with, selenium is an element of a type we call an 'inhabitant of the seasons.' “Meaning what, precisely?”
“As in, it waxes and wanes with the moon.”
“The moon? It's somehow cued into the moon?”
“Its movements at least, like many minerals.”
“I see. Anything else?”
He sighed. “You might find it interesting to hear what it was named for… from, that is.”
“And it derives its name from?”
“Selina, goddess of the Moon, who sprang full-blown from the head of Hecate or Artemis, depending on whether you're an ancient Greek or Roman. Each culture had its own version.”
“I see… I think.”
“You do?”
“May tie in with our killer's thinking.”
“Yeah, I heard you guys have someone in custody already. Way to go.”
“Hold your accolades, Anderson. I'm not so sure we have the right person in custody.”
“Bummer.”
“Yeah, I think so, but we're not interested in locking up the wrong man-person-for the crime.”
“She's a she-killer, is she? I might've known. Why're you all sitting on that information?”
“We're not on solid ground with the arrest. You know how that goes.”
“Yeah, guess I do know about spongy cases; hope this one doesn't turn all mushy on you. Good luck, same to the others for me.” Will do, and thanks, Dr. Turner, for this. We've been working blind too long here.”
Jessica put the phone down, stared again at the toxicology report, and her mind played over the victims once more, and the poems inked onto their backs, all linked by identical lines and a unifying theme… but exactly what that theme was remained a mystery.
Still, armed with the new information about the poison used by the killer, Jessica felt somewhat fortified. Now, if they could get a fix on the DNA makeup of the tearstains, the noose would tighten about the neck of the real Poet Killer
EIGHTEEN
The greatest poetry does not exist in a physical world, but inside desire and despair.
The information on selenium pointed to someone with a background in photography, as the chemical was heavily used in film processing. However, a little more research, and Jessica learned that selenium was also found in battery casings, and the report out of Quantico added that shavings from batteries could have been pounded down and liquefied before being mixed into ink, but it seemed much easier to obtain the substance in liquid form, the form found in vats in darkrooms.
Jessica recalled the beautiful “photo paintings” on the walls at Darkest Expectations that had turned out to be computer-generated, and realized that their production would not require normal photo processing, and, therefore, would not involve the element selenium. However, she also recalled that Marc Tamburino, the current owner of the bookstore, had bragged about being a photographer; making money at weddings and wakes, he'd put it. Leare had joked about his doing a wake, she seemed to remember. Perhaps Tamburino processed photos on the premises, in which case he would have a supply of selenium.
She confided her thoughts to Kim, who thought them sound. “Perhaps you and I maybe ought to have another chat with this fellow Tamburino,” she suggested. “Yeah, if nothing else, he could shed some light on just how readily available our poison is.”