“I see,” said Grissom.
Jake Soames met Grissom’s gaze without flinching. He seemed just as relaxed in an interview room as he did on a bar stool, the kind of easy acceptance of his surroundings that Grissom had never mastered.
“We caught the Bug Killer,” said Grissom.
Jake smiled. “Is that right? Congratulations all around. Too bad Nevada doesn’t use the electric chair-serve the bastard right to meet his end in a zapper, wouldn’t it?”
“He’s already dead, Jake. Poisoned by an organophosphate insecticide-not as flashy as being electrocuted, but just as ironic.”
“Parathion.”
Grissom studied Jake’s face. The smile had faded, leaving only a look of weary admission.
“You killed him,” said Grissom. It wasn’t a question; Grissom had known before he called Jake in.
“I won’t deny it. I snuck into his hotel room, the one he was staying in after he killed the real Quadros, and put it in a water bottle.”
Grissom wasn’t surprised. Nick and Riley were executing a search warrant on Soames’s hotel room as they spoke, looking for the parathion. Grissom had no doubt they’d find it, too.
“How did you know?” asked Grissom. “He had everyone else fooled.”
“I did some investigating on my own, Gilly. I we nt out drinking with the man.” He paused, then leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “You know, there’s some things you just can’t quantify, mate. Human nature’s one of them. Charong’s a pervert and Vanderhoff can be an arrogant prick, but neither of them’s a killer. Quadros-well, the psycho dressed up as him-was different. Get a few drinks in him and you could see that under all that bluster was nothing but contempt-contempt for the whole human race. If it was any of us, it was him.”
“So you decided to kill him?” Grissom shook his head. “That’s…”
“Cold? Inhuman?”
“I was going to say impetuous.”
“Ha!” Jake grinned. “That’s what I love about you, Grissom-I’ll bet you have a heart tattooed on your bum with science on the banner. But give old Jake credit for a little intelligence; I didn’t act without testing my hypothesis first.”
“You had proof he was the killer? Why didn’t you come to me?”
“Because the way I got it might have run into a few difficulties in court. It was enough to convince me, but a jury is another matter.”
“Would it be enough to convince me?”
“Judge for yourself.”
After they had taken Jake Soames away to be formally charged with the murder of the m an known as LW, Grissom joined his colleagues in the break room. They had all finished eating but hadn’t gotten up to leave yet; they were waiting for their boss.
Grissom sat down at the head of the table.
“Well?” asked Catherine.
“Braconid wasps,” said Grissom.
“Sorry?” said Greg.
“It’s how Jake Soames determined LW’s guilt.”
Nick leaned forward. “How?”
“Soames suspected that Quadros was the Bug Killer. He’d been working with braconid wasps in his own research and decided to see how effective they were. He surreptitiously sprayed one of the training chemicals on Quadros, then waited to see if there was another attack.”
“That’s why he showed up at the greenhouse,” said Riley. “The wasps. He wasn’t using them to sniff out explosives-he was seeing if Quadros had been there.”
“Yes,” said Grissom. “And the wasps told him that he had.”
“I get it,” said Nick. “Not really that much different than planting an explosive dye pack in a bag of stolen money-except the dye’s invisible, it works by smell instead of sight, and it leaves traces behind detectable only to wasps… Okay, maybe it’s not that similar. But I understand the concept.”
Greg shook his head. “So at that point he knew the killer had been posing as Quadros-something we’d already figured out. But how did he find him?”
“The same way. He knew that the killer would have changed his appearance-including his clothing-but had noticed earlier that his shoes were rather expensive. That’s what he sprayed with the training chemical-he gambled that the killer would keep them.”
“Undone by comfortable footwear,” said Nick. “Warrick would have been proud.”
“The rest was persistence and luck. He took the wasps up and down every hallway of every hotel on the Strip until he got a hit. That told him where LW was staying-he convinced a maid to let him into the room while it was unoccupied.”
Greg nodded. “Which is when he slipped LW the insecticide. But why didn’t he come to you instead of going the vigilante route? I thought you two were buds.”
“We are. I asked him the same question.”
“And?” prompted Riley.
“He didn’t want his interference to screw up our case. The braconid method is still very new and has never been tested in court. He worried that his data would be misunderstood or distorted if we went to trial-damaging not only our case, but the credibility of the method. Especially since he wouldn’t be around to defend it.”
“Why not?” asked Greg. “I’m sure the LVPD would spring for airfare from Australia if the case called for it-”
“He’s dying,” said Grissom.
There was a moment of silence.
“Pancreatic cancer,” said Grissom. “His oncologist tells him he has a few months left, at most.”
“Wow,” Catherine said quietly. “And now he’s going to spend it in a prison hospital.”
“He was repulsed by what LW did,” said Grissom. “Jake has always been… a little larger than life. When he encountered someone who had nothing but contempt for everything he reveled in-everything he was about to lose-he felt it was appropriate to take action.”
“So he took the law into his own hands,” said Riley.
Grissom paused. “I can’t say I agree with what he did. But he didn’t try to hide it; he told me everything. I’m sure he could have covered his tracks well enough to at least return to Australia and die at home.”
“Why didn’t he?” asked Greg.
“Because,” said Grissom, “a scientist uncovers information; he doesn’t hide it. He wanted the last investigation he ever performed to be part of the public record, not a deception motivated by self-interest.” Grissom got to his feet. “Or as Jake put it: the Bug Killer was wrong. Humans may act like insects some of the time, but we understand that our actions have consequences, good or bad. We get to choose accordingly.”
Grissom paused. “And that’s exactly what he did.”
Nick shook his head. “No offense, boss, but-what is it with you and serial killers? I’m starting to think you attract them the way honey attracts flies.”
“Honey isn’t the only thing that attracts flies,” said Grissom. “So do corpses.”
“Speaking of which,” said Greg, “Do we have an ID on LW yet?”
“No,” said Grissom. “His prints and DNA aren’t in the system. He didn’t leave anything behind that might indicate his true identity. Even though he claimed to be superior to the mass of humanity, in death he’s become as faceless and anonymous as any member of a beehive or ant colony. His history, his true motivations, will likely remain unknowable, as frustrating as that sounds.” He paused. “I suppose that, in the end, it’s what we leave behind that defines us.”
He nodded once, as if to himself, and then got up and left the room.
About the Author
DONN CORTEZ is the pseudonym for Don DeBrandt, who has authored several novels. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.
