The Poisonous Ten (22 page)

“Come on, dammit, pick up,” Parks hissed into the phone.

He brought his focus back to Caroline and noticed her breathing had slowed down as if she was having trouble getting air into her lungs. She continued to lie in the chair, her face a mask of nothingness—no pain or fear showed upon it. It was as if she had been paralyzed from displaying any emotion, something her career had always depended upon.

“Jackie!” Parks shouted when the line was answered. It took him a few seconds before he realized he was listening to a recording. “Dammit, Jackie, where are you? I’m with the next two victims. They’re dying before me. I don’t know what to do. We called for an ambulance already but I don’t know if they’ll be able to help us. Call me back. Immediat
ely.”

Parks hung up when he saw Moore stumble toward him, a look of defeat across her face.

“Is she—” Parks stopped when he noticed the first tears streaking down Rachel’s face as she shook her head from side to side. The girl from the photo, whom they had yet to properly identify, had died before her very eyes while she could do nothing but stand back and watch the woman succumb to death. 

Parks felt bad for his partner and realized he was most surely about to find out exactly how she felt. Caroline su
ddenly let out a gut-wrenching yell as her body jerked up, and her face contorted in pain, as if her fingernails were being torn off. Parks went to grab the woman when she stopped and fell back, her breathing becoming even more labored.

“Did you call an ambulance?” Parks asked.

Moore nodded frantically, unable to say anything, scared that whatever toxin was attacking the women may possibly be airborne.

Parks turned back to Caroline’s body and noticed the look
of fear in the woman’s eyes as she lay there, her breathing picking up its pace, though her face had become more porcelain-like, as if she were a living doll. Caroline breathed quicker and quicker, her eyes revealing the pain and terror she was experiencing while her body refused to move.

“What’s wrong with her?” Moore asked from behind Parks.

“I have no idea,” Parks said when his phone began to ring.

He answered his phone without looking at the ID. “Jac
kie?”

“Dave? What is it? I didn’t hear your message. I just saw that you—”

“Stop. Stop. Stop. We’ve have another victim here,” Parks spat into the phone. “She’s still alive, but it looks bad. Been screaming in pain. Convulsing. Having trouble breath—” He stopped when Caroline’s body jolted as if she had been electrocuted and her breathing suddenly stopped, her body stiffening then relaxing.

Parks grabbed the woman’s wrist and felt for a pulse. He stared at the living idol while her pulse, as well as her breathing, both stopped functioning right before his eyes.    

PART

FOUR

27

Parks stood off in a corner of his bedroom, staring out through the window at the Hollywood sign resting atop the hill north of the city. The sun was beginning to disappear over the horizon, taking with it all evidence of the smog that had attacked the city during the day. Everything was covered in an orange glow, as if a giant fire was blazing in the distance, just waiting to consume the world.

It was Friday night, three days since Caroline Maddox and her assistant, Nina Mendola, had succumbed to horrific and painful deaths right before his eyes. The depression had hit him. Mostly it had manifested itself in him physically, as he slugged around, his head and shoulders hanging heavy
—while he did practically nothing. His eyes had become large and glassy, sinking into his face, bags forming under his eyes. When he wasn’t with Jackie, he was in his office—both at the station and at his home—the door closed, with the lights on and papers rustling about. She knew he was working the case, without anyone’s help—his own personal, macabre murder puzzle.

He wasn’t alone though. The knowledge that the killer was sticking to the time table embedded itself in everyone’s mind as the countdown to Sunday’s inevitable death loomed closer. They were no closer to figuring out who was commi
tting the murders than they were to figuring out who was going to be killed next.

In the days that followed Caroline Maddox’s and Nina Mendola’s, deaths most everyone at the station was letha
rgic, only speaking when spoken to, and only when necessary. It was as if everyone was afraid to talk, the only words to come out of their mouths the admittance of defeat and failure. It wasn’t rare that a murder went unsolved. It happened. More often than one cared to admit. But this was different. The team effort seemed so hopeless. They had tried so hard. Had put so much into the investigation. This killer was different. They had to stop him.

But how?

“Monkshood and haloperidol,” Jackie had said at the meeting the day after the deaths of Caroline and Nina. “Or more commonly known as haldol. That’s what those two women were poisoned with.”

“What are those?” Fairmont had asked.

“Haldol is a major tranquilizer and is often used for people in highly psychotic states. It’s a depressant that attacks the central nervous system. From what we could determine, the killer injected a box of chocolates with the substance, and Nina Mendola, Caroline Maddox’s assistant, had been eating them over the past two weeks. This would account for her sickly complexion. Her drowsiness, blurred vision, headaches, confusion, and skin rash. Her difficulty breathing. There was no hope for her once she finished off the box of chocolates. I’m sorry, Dave, but there was nothing you could have done to save her.”

“And Caroline Maddox?” Parks asked to keep the co
nversation going, though he hadn’t lifted his head.

“Caroline Maddox was poisoned with monkshood,” Jac
kie continued. “The entire plant is deadly, especially the leaves and roots. You saw the signs almost immediately. It works fast. After the initial symptoms and pain, you get paralysis of the facial muscles and rapid breathing followed by paralysis of the heart. She ate enough so that her death occurred within ten minutes of finishing the salad.”

“The salad?” Moore asked.

“Yes. Monkshood is often mistaken for radish. The leaves were put into her salad. She never even noticed it with the dressing on. You never would. If either of you two had eaten any of it yourselves . . . she ate her death. There’re no known antidotes for monkshood either. There was nothing you could do about it. Our killer knew this. He knew all you could do was watch.”

The knowledge of this did little to ease anyone’s co
nscience.

On the plus side, the death of Nina Mendola had led to identifying one of the girls in the photo found at the Kyle Oni crime scene and therefore had limited the timeframe Tippin and Hayward were looking at to identify the blonde girl in the photo with her. Unfortunately, the blonde girl hadn’t been shown in the class photos the same year as Nina
Mendola, leaving Hayward with a list of thirteen girls who hadn’t been photographed. He had tried to track them all down through the DMV, but of the thirteen girls, eight of them were not the blonde-haired girl, and the five others did not have driver’s licenses. It was as if this one girl had been chosen simply because the Poisoner knew it would be next to impossible to locate and identify her. Or had he erased her trail himself?

Parks had spent his days in the station tearing through files and reports, while nothing filled him with any sort of satisfaction as he tried to stop a killer he did not know, to save a victim he could not yet identify. At night he went with Jackie to her place, neither one wanting to be alone, though neither finding the energy to do much more than fall asleep next to each other, rarely touching one another throughout the night.

Earlier that day, Parks had called it quits for the team and sent everyone home to recharge before returning for the last forty-eight hours before the next inevitable attack. Jackie had followed him back to his place, where they made love for the first time since the first night at Jackie’s place. Now, an hour later, Parks stood at the window while Jackie stared at him. The usual sounds of the city could be heard behind the pane of glass that separated him from the outside: cars running, sirens wailing, people wheeling and dealing. No matter what happened, no matter how traumatic or euphoric, the city would always remain a hustle-and-bustle metropolis that would continue to move on. No matter what pain any single person felt, Hollywood was more than that. The city was a survivor and knew how to keep on thriving.

“Is there something you want me to do?” Jackie asked. “Something you need me to do?”

He didn’t answer. She sat up in the bed, the sheets falling to the side, and held up her arms.

“Come here,” she cooed. “Come on.”

He worked his way across the room and fell in the bed on top of Jackie. He wrapped his arms around her and lay naked on top of her and the sheets. The warm summer air had worked its way into the room through the open window, mixing with the sweat that had built up on their bodies from the hour of lovemaking they had just finished. 

“I know I’m not in the same department as you,” Jackie said, playing with his hair, outlining patterns on his head. It was still short, yet long enough to show the scars on the top of his scalp. “Not officially. Nor the same . . . job, really. I may think I know what it’s like for you, but no one really knows anyone else’s pressure. I’m sorry. I wish I could help. I wish there was something I could do to relax you and help you focus. Concentrate. Spark some immediate . . . som
ething or other that would help you solve this case. But I can’t. And I’m not sure what you want me to do, because you won’t talk to me.” Jackie held his face and positioned it so that he stared into her eyes. “You have to talk to me. No matter what. I don’t know what it is exactly that we have here. Maybe something. Maybe nothing. Maybe as soon as this case is over I’ll never see you again.” Jackie paused when she felt his body tense. But she had been here before, and they were both adults. She knew the rules of life just as he did. “I can handle it. All of it. The falling for a co-worker. Being impressed not only by his gorgeous, physical being but also by the way he conducts himself in life. The way he interacts with others. The way he thinks. But along with all that can come heartbreak. And it’s all right. I’ve been there before, and I expect to be there again. But that’s not what you need to worry about right now. Right now we have the case. That’s your focus. My focus is on you. And what I can do to help you with this case.”

Jackie stopped. She wasn’t sure if this was what she had meant to tell him but had lost track of what she was saying and wasn’t sure where to go next.

“You know I don’t look at you like that,” Parks said calmly. “As an accessory. To this case, I mean. You’re valuable here. Very. We couldn’t have done as much as we have without your help.”

“But what have we really done?”

“You’ve helped a lot. Identifying the poisons. Helping us with the symptoms. Helping us avoid getting killed ourselves. We couldn’t have done this without you, Jackie. I mean it. You’re valuable to us all.”

“It hasn’t shown,” Jackie replied. “Not you personally. I mean on the case.”

“By the end, it will all pay off. Somehow. Some way. It will all be worth it. I’m not sure what it is just yet, but it will be. You’ll see.”

“We’ll all see,” Jackie corrected.

He kissed her and then lay back down.

“You know I’m not sure what comes next,” he added. “After all this, I mean. I do like you. I’d like to see where this goes. But you also have a son.”

“A wonderful son,” Jackie corrected him again with a smile.

“A wonderful son, who doesn’t much care for me.”

“He’s just protective of his mother. That’s all,” Jackie said. “Realistically, he wants what’s best for me. But it’s not up to him to like or dislike you. He won’t be home in a few years, if not sooner, and then what? I’m all alone? Why shouldn’t I have someone? I wish I had found someone earlier. A father figure for him. He deserved that much at least. If there was any area where I failed as a mother, that would be it. Not that he needed it. At least if you ask him. He did just fine on his own. Puberty. Girls. High school. Sports. All of it. He appears to have gotten through it just fine without a father. So who knows? Maybe he and I alone are enough.”

They were both silent for a while, again letting the time pass though neither was aware of just how much had come and gone. Parks lay face down in Jackie’s lap, and she cal
mly drew her finger along his shoulders, subconsciously outlining the patterns of ink that had been permanently etched into his body. She had stared at the tattoos for what seemed like hours now and had only begun to put the pieces of the literal puzzle together. Starting in the center of each shoulder was the outline of a three-inch puzzle piece. From the one piece on each shoulder there were connecting pieces, forming a sleeve of ink on each arm, each piece outlined in a different color. Where the two sides differed were in the detailed and colorful pictures in the center of each puzzle piece. Each piece held a lone, symbolic picture, a part of Parks’s history. Jackie had put together that the pieces on his left side told the story of his personal life while the pieces on his right told the story of his professional endeavors. In the center piece on his left shoulder was the sign for Pisces, which Jackie took to be Parks’s astrological sign. Next to that was a picture of an A+, which she took to be his blood type (something she knew men who served in war often did in case they were injured on the field of battle, though she couldn’t recall Parks ever having served), followed by one of a baseball, most likely a link to his high school days. The names Peter & Kelly were written in a bright red font on a third piece, though she wasn’t sure who the two people were or what their connection to Parks was (possibly his aunt and uncle?). On the professional side there was a picture of a razor blade half hidden in a piece of candy, symbolizing his recent tangle with Peter Kozlov, the tattoo no doubt obtained during his three week vacation from work. Next to that were the letters SLS in bright blue, though again, Jackie had no knowledge what the initials referred to. The main difference between the left and right sides was that on the right side, the center piece on his shoulder, from which all the other pieces stemmed out, was still blank. Jackie wondered what that piece was being saved for.      

“We still on for dinner after this?” Parks asked, startling Jackie.

“Why not now?”

“You feel like going out?”

“Not really.” Jackie smiled. “But I’m sure you have something here we can eat so we don’t have to leave.”

Jackie left the room. Parks heard her poking around in his kitchen, and the next thing he knew he was jerking awake. He had fallen asleep, though he couldn’t remember closing his eyes. He had to be more tired than he thought. He knew his sleep over the past few nights had been sporadic and u
nfulfilling, filled with tossing and turning—the thought of another victim weighing on his conscious. And it wasn’t just attacking his sleep. He could feel his insides becoming wracked with a physical guilt that was just as exhausting as the mental kind.  

“All I could find was breakfast foods,” Jackie said. “So we have cereal, grapefruit, toast, orange Juice. And coffee’s percolating. What’s with that anyway?”

“With what?”

“With just breakfast food?” Jackie said. “I’ve noticed that. You mostly only eat breakfast foods. I’ve actually never
seen you eat anything but breakfast foods, now that I think of it. No matter what time of the day. Only breakfast. What gives?”

Parks smiled to himself. “I don’t know. I’ve only recently noticed it. But I am aware of it. Don’t know why I do that. But for some reason that’s all I eat. I don’t know for how long I’ve done that. Long as I can remember, I guess. Ever
ything else just makes me physically sick for some reason.”

“Might want to have Doc Black take a look at your brain while you’re in the station one of these days,” Jackie joked.

“Been seeing Doc Black on a weekly basis for weeks now,” he admitted. Jackie looked confused and he explained. “I’m not quite as perfect as you paint me to be.” Jackie stayed quiet.

“Sure about that?” The look on her face wasn’t one of an accusation, rather of genuine concern.