Did they want him to beg? At this point, he didn't have a shred of pride left. He'd beg, if that's what they wanted. Fucking cops.
His nose was running. He had no choice but to lift his parallel hands and wipe mucus on the orange sleeve of his jumpsuit.
Using some spooky, silent form of communication, the detectives nodded to each other and got to their feet.
Detective Sandburg leaned forward, hands braced on the table. "This is what we're proposing," she said. "If you cooperate with us, if you answer all of our questions, then I'll consider dropping the felony charge." She pushed away from the table. "We're going to leave you alone for a couple of minutes. Give you a chance to think about it."
"He could still be involved in the killings," Elise said once they'd stepped into the hall, and the interrogation room door had closed firmly behind them. "He could even be working with somebody else." "That's a possibility," David said. "We could have him released and put a tail on him," Elise suggested. "If he is involved, well find out fairly quickly while he leads us to his accomplices. If he isn't involved, he could actually help us with the case."
"Are you forgetting what he did to you?"
"It might be worth the risk. I'm willing to drop the charges in order to find out what he's up to."
"Maybe you won't have to." David turned toward the door. "Maybe the little shit will be ready to spill everything."
LaRue was exactly where they'd left him.
"Shall we continue our little chat?" Elise asked.
He stared silently at the shiny surface of the table.
She and David took their seats.
Rather than asking LaRue if he'd come to a decision, Elise took a less humiliating approach. "Why don't we start over?" she suggested in a friendly tone.
He didn't answer.
She began questioning him anyway.
Just normal, conversational things, to get him to relax. Where he was born. His education. Where he'd gotten his degrees.
Ego was a perplexing and amazing thing, and it always surprised Elise to discover how much people enjoyed talking about themselves even when being interrogated by the police.
There was usually a point when something fell away and suddenly the interview took on a life of its own. As soon as they got on the subject of LaRue's research, he tumbled through the hole and seemed to forget whom he was talking to.
Twice she'd seen killers reach that point and become so engrossed in telling their own story that they confessed without even knowing it.
"I expected to be famous by now," LaRue said. "Tetrodotoxin was going to be a new, better morphine, the answer to severe pain. A new way to sedate patients. Even a way to send astronauts into space in the state of suspended animation."
"What happened?" David asked.
"Budget cuts. My University of North Carolina funding got pulled."
"Ouch."
"That was three years ago. I can't believe I've been basically doing nothing since then."
He let out a heavy sigh. "My research was my life. All I knew. But I didn't realize how important it was to me until I lost it. I'm going through an identity crisis. If I'm no longer that guy, then who am I?
"Do you have any idea what it's like to spend years moving toward a goal, focused completely on that goal, certain that if you worked hard enough, it would finally be attained, only to have everything you've worked for taken away? It's fucking heartbreaking, that's what it is. It's a fucking tragedy."
"What about tetrodotoxin?" Elise said. "What can you tell us about it other than the obvious?"
"People are afraid of what they don't understand, and people were afraid of tetrodotoxin. That's why my funding was pulled. They blamed it on a lack of finances, but things were happening too quickly."
"Maybe they didn't appreciate the fact that you were using it to get high," David suggested dryly.
LaRue frowned at him. "I'll admit to taking it even then, but I couldn't get it stabilized enough for human trials. And I couldn't ask my students to be guinea pigs. My colleagues kept arguing that it would never be controlled enough to use on humans. I had to prove them wrong."
"We're going to need the names of everybody you know who's involved in this underground movement of TTX use. Every single person."
"Most of them are college students. Just harmless kids."
He was backpedaling, unwilling to turn anybody in. Actually, an admirable character trait.
"We just want to talk to them," Elise said. She slid a piece of paper across the table, followed by a pen. "Write down every name you can think of."
It took about five minutes. When he handed the paper back, there were six names on it. "Is that all?" Elise asked.
"All I can think of right now."
David stiffened. She could see he was ready to press LaRue for more names. She folded the paper. "This will give us a place to start."
Then he talked about tetrodotoxin, telling them things they did and didn't know.
"The poison attacks sheathed, peripheral nerves, but doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier, which means the victim's mental functions are unimpaired. In the wrong hands, TTX could be the perfect method of torture. Imagine being able to do and say anything to someone while that person remained fully conscious and aware."
"Maybe that's why your funding was pulled."
"TTX is everywhere. Anybody can get it. Anybody can produce it. I was doing something worthwhile. I was trying to harness it."
Elise opened her briefcase and pulled out a five-by-seven of Truman Harrison and placed it on the table in front of LaRue. "Recognize this person?"
"I saw his picture in the paper."
"Ever meet him?"
"No."
Next came the black-and-white of Jordan Kemp, taken in the cemetery.
"Oh, man. This is some evil shit." He pointed to the photo. "You don't think I had anything to do with this, do you?"
"Did you know him?" David asked.
"Was he someone you sold TTX to?" The question was slipped in on the sly. Elise suspected LaRue of selling the poison, and hoped she could trip him up.
"I never sold TTX to anybody. Let's get that straight."
"Did you know Jordan Kemp?"
"I saw him a few times."
"Where?"
"Black Tupelo."
"You go to Black Tupelo?" David asked.
"Not for the reason you might think."
"What about Strata Luna?" Elise pressed. "Have you ever met her?"
"No."
"Sure about that?"
"I tried to. I wanted to meet her. Who doesn't? I finally convinced the kid, Enrique, to call her for me."
"So you talked to her on the phone."
"Yeah."
"What about?"
"I'd heard rumors that she knew how to make zombies. Total bullshit, I'm sure, but I thought she might know something about tetrodotoxin that I didn't. It can be mixed with different ingredients with varying results. Depends on the cocktail. It's hard to regulate the dosage of straight TTX, since the strength is all over the place. But it always does one of three things: gives a person a buzz, paralyzes, or kills."
"So what's your professional opinion about the Savannah cases?"
"Not straight TTX. Straight TTX paralyzes, yeah, but not for days. With tetrodotoxin, the user wakes up after a few hours or dies."