Grissom studied the report Hodges had handed to him. “And it can carry other chemicals with it, making it an efficient way to deliver a drug through skin contact alone.”
“Combined with an irritant,” said Riley, “that could produce an intensely painful reaction.”
“It could,” said Grissom, “but not in these amounts. I think we’re looking at cross-contamination, not something that was deliberately added.”
“I’d have to agree,” said Hodges. “The amount was minuscule. If, however, dimethyl sulfoxide was added to a powerful toxin like homobatrachotoxin-”
“You’d have a compound you could use to kill someone by applying a single drop to their skin,” said Grissom.
“Not great news, I know. Just don’t kill the messenger,” said Hodges.
After Hodges had left, the team turned back to what they’d been studying: a graphic of the Embassy Gold’s ventilation system on the flat screen on the wall.
“Up here,” said Grissom, tapping the screen, “is where we found the anisomorphal. As you can see, this area of the system directs air to the Canyon Amphitheatre.”
Riley leaned back in her chair. “The same place Athen a Jordanson is giving her debut performance.”
“Yes. The timer on the device was set to go off at the beginning of the concert. In the ensuing panic, people certainly would have died.”
“Sure,” said Nick. “But he would have killed even more if he’d just used the HBTX, especially if it were mixed with DMSO. Why didn’t he?”
“It wouldn’t fit his pattern,” said Grissom. “Just as sex is secondary to many serial killers, death is secondary to LW. For him, primary satisfaction is gained by manipulating people as if they were insects. It feeds not only his sense of power but his sense of superiority.”
Riley nodded. “So he wants them to react with blind panic.”
“Yes. But for the first time, we’re one step ahead; we’ve deactivated his device without his knowledge-and Athena Jordanson’s performance is tonight.”
A slow smile appeared on Nick’s face. “You think he’ll be on hand to watch the bugs scatter?”
“I do. But he won’t be foolish enough to be inside; he’ll be somewhere in the vicinity, probably in the crowd on the Strip. Brass will have plain-clothes officers posted, but one of LW’s demonstrated strengths is mimicry; I doubt we’ll be able to catch him from surveillance alone.”
“And if we d on’t,” said Riley, “he still has the HBTX.”
“He’s been careful so far,” said Grissom. “But his workers have made mistakes. The cross-contamination was probably due to an error on their part, not his. We need to take another look at the greenhouse and anything they might have come into contact with.”
“You really think we’ll find anything?” said Nick. “They may not have been prisoners, but he obviously kept them isolated.”
“Believe it or not, social insects have social problems,” said Grissom. “Parasitic species that invade the nest and pose as residents, even slave revolts. LW may consider human beings no more than glorified bugs-but even bugs can surprise you.”
Grissom went to see Doc Robbins.
Robbins was in the middle of performing the autopsy on the fourth and final vic from the greenhouse. Big Johnny had been identified as John Christopher Farsten, an unemployed laborer with a string of arrests for petty theft. He’d been a large, burly man with a full beard and a large bald spot on the top of his head.
“COD?” asked Grissom.
“Still waiting for the tox screen, but I’m going to go with HBTX poisoning. Signs of excessive salivation and cardiac failure consistent with poisoning by homobatrachotoxin, plus all the bodies were found in contorted positions suggestive of convulsions.”
“The syringes we found tested positive for a combination of heroin and HBTX. Looks like he gave them a going-away present.”
“Too bad they didn’t know they were the ones going away. I also found something a little unusual in this one’s bloodwork: an elevated level of O2.”
“Hyperoxygenation? What could cause that?”
“In someone in this condition? Almost certainly direct exposure-I’d say he was getting it from a tank.”
“We didn’t find any oxygen tanks at the site. Were there signs of respiratory illness?”
“No-his liver was in pretty bad shape, but he wasn’t a smoker.”
“Maybe not,” said Grissom. “But he was definitely inhaling something…”
Riley and Nick went back to the greenhouse. They’d already gone through it once; the only thing they’d found had been half a pack of cigarettes stashed under one of the mattresses. Now they expanded their search to include the surrounding area as well.
“Grissom said it himself,” said Nick as they walked an ever-increasing outward spiral that centered on the building. “They weren’t prisoners. And guys like that would get cabin fever quicker than most.”
Riley knelt and peered at the ground, then straightened up again. “So they must have spent some of their free time outdo ors. Makes sense.”
“Yeah. No matter how good the drugs your boss is giving you are, there are always going to be times you want to get away from him.” Nick gave her a wide grin. “Not that I speak from personal experience, you understand.”
“Right. You can’t get enough Grissom drugs.”
Nick laughed. “Whoa, that sounded a little bitter. You having a problem with our fearless leader?”
“I have no problem with fearless. I just wonder what other exemplars the ‘-less’ applies to.”
“Well, ‘brain’ and ‘heart’ definitely aren’t on the list. I know, he can take some getting used to-half the time he seems vaguely irritated and the other half he’s barely aware you’re alive. But you have to understand, Grissom lives in his head. And that’s a big, big place.” Nick stopped and stared at the water tower that occupied one corner of the property. “And after all the years he’s put in on this job, a pretty scary one. You can’t really hold it against him if he gets a little lost in there sometimes…”
“I’ve got cigarette butts,” said Riley. “They look fairly recent, too.”
Nick stopped and crouched down. “Same brand as the half-empty pack we found. Guess this is where one of them came out for the occasional smoke break.”
“There’s something else.” She pointed. “Wheel tracks, fairly close together.”
“Some kind of dolly or cart-and pretty heavy, too. They lead toward the water tower.”
They followed the tracks, which ended at the foot of a wooden ladder that ran up the side of the tower. “Interesting,” said Nick. “I can see a hatch from here.” He started climbing the ladder.
“Aren’t you worried it’ll be full of poisonous water bugs or something?” she asked.
“If it is,” he said, “tell Grissom I blame him.”
They’d both been to the diner enough times to not need a menu; Catherine ordered a salad, while Greg had the breakfast special. Both had coffee.
“You have to admit,” said Greg, “that this was a weird one.”
Catherine glanced around the almost empty diner. “You think? Meth addict does something stupid and winds up dead. Seems pretty straightforward to me.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. An artificial volcano? A cursed piece of obsidian? A string of events so unlikely that no one would believe they could actually happen…”
An old woman tottered in the front door and sank into a booth. Her hair was a wild white mane, and she wore an old sundress covered in bright red flowers. She carried a white shopping bag with the letters ABC on it.
“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” said Catherine.
“No? Then let me re-create it for you, via the magic of storytelling- because, let’s face it, there is no way we could ever actually duplicate the events that transpired.
“Okay, first of all there’s Kanamu’s injury. Happens as a result of taking a piece of obsidian from Hualalai, which he isn’t supposed to do. Despite this, he turns the rock into a necklace and brings it with him to Vegas-where he correctly predicts something so unlikely that the odds against it make him rich. And it involves a virgin.”