The Poisonous Ten (3 page)

“I received an anonymous email with his personnel file,” Hardwick said. Parks immediately turned to the kid, kno
wing full well he had most likely hacked her email account, yet nothing could be or had been proved. “Let’s just say I was slightly impressed. Just because he’s not street-wise doesn’t mean he’s not helpful. You’ve got experience between everyone else on your team. He needs a start, and against my better judgment—which has never been wrong—I decided to be the one to give it to him. He looks too young? Then blame his family’s genetics, not him. We’re lucky whenever we can get new people on the force to help us out, especially in the detectives and CSI units. The process to get in here is long and tedious, and we aren’t exactly batting them off.”

“Yes, I know. I’m sorr—”

“I personally go over the files of every applicant that gets into this department. I know every person here, and I’d like to think I damn well know what I’m doing when it comes to assigning people to where I choose. That includes Tippin here. He’ll work well with your team. I don’t give a flying squat if you like this or not. The kid’s legit. You need him. Whether you want him or not. Detective Levinson’s gone. Detective Cain, as you all know by now, as well. So no more coddling you all like babies. We have to move on. For the good of the team and the job. Make it work. Now I’ve got to go outside and organize that zoo of reporters. Someone sure doesn’t know how the hell to keep their damn trap shut.” Hardwick turned and marched out the door.

Tippin was even more on edge, rocking from foot to foot, and Parks began to feel sorry for the kid. No sense in taking out his frustrations about the morning on him.

“Look, kid, it’s been one hell of a morning, and you’re not at fault for any of it.” Parks looked to Jackie and felt the same way. She was just doing her job as well. He had been thrown a lot on his first case in three weeks. He had been complaining of boredom at home, well, the universe was complying. “No one’s to blame. It’s just me getting the best of myself. And we have a dead body we need to process.”

“Um . . . not to be rude, but who are you?” Tippin was embarrassed by having to ask this question.

   “Sorry,” Parks chuckled, looking out the doorway where Hardwick had just disappeared. “I’m Dave Parks. Lead detective. It’s my job to try and keep this rag-tag group of people in check.”

“Though more often than not he’s the one who needs to be kept in check,” Fairmont joked, gathering a chuckle from Moore and a smile from Parks.

Parks needed to keep this light. His first impressions to both Jackie and Tippin weren’t exactly his most shining moments. 

“This is Rachel Moore,” Parks said as he nodded to Moore. “She’s my assistant supervisor. She’s been with the LAPD for almost twenty years now. And working on and off with this me for close to . . . what? Six? Seven years now?”

“In one way or another,” Moore agreed. “I started out a detective, then transferred over to the CSA division when they were short people. My main area of expertise is in trace. I find the hairs, fibers, fingerprints, and other little things that most people look right over and don’t notice.”

“She’s got hawk eyes. Don’t even try to get away with anything around her,” Fairmont joked. “She’s also our res
ident mama bear.”

“And that’s Jake Fairmont,” Parks said, keeping the i
ntroductions moving. They still had a body to examine.

“Photography’s my gig,” Fairmont said with the wave of his hand holding his camera. “I’m the one who’ll record ev
erything in this room for our reports. You need to look back and refer to anything that was here today, I’m the one you see.”

“Good. Our team’s sort of been out of commission for the past few weeks,” Parks admitted. “We’ve lost two members of our team due to our last case, which is where you two come in. Tippin. What’s your story?”

“I finished high school at sixteen. Then went on to Stanford, where I got degrees in Computer Science and Criminology. I’m of the generation that is practically born with a computer attached to their hands. They just come naturally to me, but I’d actually rather work with my hands in the field. I want to try and help make the world a safer place. I want to be here. A part of this team.”

“Good,” Parks said. “Then why don’t you follow Dete
ctive Moore as she begins on the hunt for fingerprints?” Parks looked to Moore, who nodded in agreement. “We’re a family here. We all work together. I prefer it that way. Everyone has their specialties, but we help each other out when needed. If someone asks for help, I have a strict policy that anyone that can help does so. If you have a problem with that, then I suggest you ask to be transferred to one of the other teams.”

Tippin nodded enthusiastically.

“Okay. And finally that brings us to our newest temporary member,” Parks said, turning to Jackie. “From time to time we get cases that have certain special qualities about them. Such as this victim behind us, a victim who appears to have been poisoned. So we’ve got ourselves a poison specialist to help out with the case.”

Parks stood silently while everyone stared at Jackie.

“Oh, right.” Jackie smiled as she realized what they were waiting for. “I’m Doctor Jacqueline Isley. I’ve been a forensic toxicologist with the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office for the past four years now, though I spend half my time with the CDC as well. Been working there for six years. Our victim was poisoned by cyanide, but the room is safe for us to be in. So that’s it. I suggest we start in on the body.”

“All right then,” Parks said. “Fairmont, you finish with the body so we can get Doc—I mean Jackie—working it. It’s time we find out what exactly happened here.”

3

“Hello, boys,” Medical Examiner Amy Tanaka called out as she walked into the room with a glow about her that made her coworkers wonder if she was pregnant or had just had morning sex instead of having just arrived from another crime scene. At her side she carried her examiner’s kit, which looked as if it weighed more than the small woman and often made observers wonder how she stood upright while holding it. “And women. I apologize. How are you, Rachel?”

Moore smiled
silently, focused on her task on hand.She was halfway through the room while Tippin looked intently over her shoulder to see how she worked the laser system that read for latent prints on the wall, scanning anything abnormal into the computer system.

Tanaka walked up to the dead woman and set her kit on the ground then stared at the body. It was a full minute b
efore she noticed Jackie next to Parks.

“Hey, girl,” Tanaka beamed. “Why, if it isn’t my two f
avoritist people in the world. So what do we have here?”

“A tardy slip with your name on it,” Parks quipped.

“Sorry, teacher, but the principal gave me a pass. I knew she was coming here”—Tanaka gestured toward Jackie—“so I knew I’d have some time before they let me in to see the body.”

Tanaka worked her way closer to the body of the dead woman in the chair and looked down at her. The woman’s eyes remained open, her deep-blue gaze forever staring off through the windows at the valley below while the skin around the eyes had a dark-purplish hue to them, as if she was wearing a lot of mascara. There was a sad look to the woman that affected the inspectors as they stared silently for a moment, giving the victim her last respects.

“Does she look familiar to anyone else, or is that just me?” Tanaka asked, breaking the silence.

“Can’t say that she does,” Parks admitted.
             

“Me neither,” Jackie said with the shake of her head.

“Probably just me,” Tanaka said. “There are slight abrasions on the wrists and ankles, proving she was held against her will. I’m not sure by what yet. No residue was left behind so I’d rule out duct tape, plus it appears thinner in circumference. More like small rope or wire. Kind of hard to see, so whatever it was, it was probably something soft to the touch. It didn’t cut through the skin when pressure was applied. So that probably rules out wire.”

Tanaka began shifting through the purple flowers in the victim’s hands and looked curiously at a gummy substance that came off the flowers, sticking to her gloved-hand.

“What do you have there?” Parks asked.

“I’m not sure,” Tanaka said as she brought her fingers to her nose and moved her head back in confusion. “But it
smells like . . . honey.” She motioned for Jackie to get something out of her kit. “I’ll take a sample and have it tested.”

“Honey?” Jackie asked, handing over a sample container. “Why?”

“Not sure,” Tanaka admitted. “But it appears to be all over the bouquet of flowers in our vic’s hands. You get pics already?”

“Roger Dodger,” Fairmont called from behind Tanaka.

“Thank you, hon,” Tanaka said. “Then I’m going to get this entire bouquet tested. Just to make sure. Maybe there’s something else in here.”

“Could that be how the poison was administered?” Parks asked as he scribbled into his notepad.

“No. The poison was in a gaseous form,” Jackie replied, not looking away from the body. Parks wasn’t sure how often she wound up at crime scenes or if she was used to seeing dead bodies, but she appeared in control of herself considering the situation.  

Tanaka finished wrapping up the flowers then handed them to Jackie, who set them next to her kit to be taken with them later. She then went back to focusing on the body, moving her attention from the woman’s hands to her face.

“She was poisoned? That was determined?” Tanaka asked, looking to Jackie.

“Cyanide gas,” Jackie explained. “The windows were closed throughout the entire house. And the door to this room was closed.”

“Are you sure, girl?” Tanaka asked. “I mean if you were locked in a room filling with gas, wouldn’t you be found dead at the door, claw marks on it, hoping to get out? Or why not throw the chair through the window and get fresh air in the room?”

“Because she was restrained,” Parks said, motioning to the ligature marks. “She was found in this chair, holding the flowers, behind an unlocked door becau
se she was posed this way. Postmortem.”

“True. But none
“And why’s that?”

Jackie pointed to the purple circle that surrounded the woman in the chair.

“He could have painted that before she died,” Parks repeated from earlier that morning.

“Nope,” Jackie disagreed. “That’s not what you think it is.”

“You mean purple paint? Then what is it? Grape juice? Prune juice?”

“The victim’s blood.” 

Parks looked down to the circle around the body with confusion and let out a deep sigh.

“
Urusai
,” Tanaka said in a whisper.

“You’ll have to have your team test it to be sure, but I a
lready know it is,” Jackie said. “Look. See the two marks on the side of her dress? That’s not paint. That’s where the killer cut her and drained her blood. Then he took her blood and painted the circle around her. The darkened discoloring of the blood is from the poison in her body. Cyanide can sometimes do that. That’s how I know the killer stayed here after she died. He had to have been here after she was poisoned in order for her blood to change like that.”

“I can’t say I’ve ever seen that before,” Parks said. “But should be easy enough to test.” Parks looked to Tanaka, who nodded that she would get samples.

“I didn’t find identification on the body anywhere,” Fairmont said. “We’ll have to take her prints and check IAFIS. Hope we hit something there.”

“Thanks,” Parks said
. “Any thoughts on the clothes she’s wearing?”   

“No idea.” Jackie shrugged. “Not within my budget, so not really my area of expertise.”

“They’re expensive,” Tanaka said, placing goggles over her eyes, before beginning to inspect the victim’s mouth and eyes. “The dress is worth close to a thousand. The shoes are Jimmy Choo’s. That’s seven hundred, easy. And the necklace is a Stephen Webster studded collar worth probably around a grand and a half.”

“You’re telling me she has
on around three thousand dollars’ worth of clothes?” Parks couldn’t believe it, and had the information come from anyone but Tanaka, he wouldn’t have.

“Hey,” Tanaka huffed, “just because I can’t afford it doesn’t mean I can’t look. And try on. And admire. And dream about.” Amy looked up at Jackie and winked. “I b
elieve in following the Boy Scout motto. Maybe one day I’ll find me a man who can afford them. You never know.”

“Uh-huh,” Parks replied. “Been perusing the pages of s
ugardaddy dot com again, I see.”

“Well, since I didn’t see your face anywhere on there, it must have been. Speaking of older, well-to-do, who’s the twink?”

“The what?” Parks looked around the room wondering what she was talking about, before he saw her looking at Tippin.

“You mean the kid?”

“I said twink, didn’t I?”

“What the hell’s a twink? And you were talking about sugar daddies. I was looking—oh, never mind. That’s Milo. Newest member of the team. Milo Tippin, this is Amy Tan
aka, our resident smart-ass and chief medical examiner.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Tanaka smiled up at Tippin.

“Since I don’t see your assistant, if you need any help don’t hesitate to put him to work,” Parks said, looking back at his notebook and the few notes he had taken so far. “We’re still finding him his niche.”

“Oh goodie,” Tanaka said. “Young buck like him should have eyes like a hawk. Why don’t you come over here and give me a hand. Unless you’re still using him, Rachel?”

“Put him to work,” Moore said, waving Tippin on.

Tippin started for Amy’s side when she stopped him. “Grab one of those containers in my kit and get the tweezers.
You’re going to help me get samples and collect what’s under the vic’s fingernails. Got it?”

“Got it.” Tippin nodded.

“Oh, lookie at him. He obeys. I like him already.”

“Just like Amy to get into the groove of things by orde
ring a man around,” Parks mumbled.

“I thought you might have wanted a break,” Tanaka re
plied as she got back into the dead woman’s face and continued her examination. “But then again, if you’re feeling left out I can always—”

“Hardly. Where is Robert anyways?”

“Sent him back to the lab with samples from this morning’s double shooting in Koreatown. Figured I could handle this one on my own since your team was here.”

“Oh my,” Tippin called out, interrupting Tanaka and sta
rtling everyone in the room.

“What is it?” Parks asked.

Tippin stared quizzically at the dead woman. “I know who she is.”

Parks and the rest of the team moved in closer to get a better look at the woman.

“Told you she looked familiar.” Tanaka said with a smile. “Twink’s on my team. Already called him.”

“Who?” Parks asked.

“Him,” Tanaka said, pointing to Tippin.

“No. Not—who is
she?
”

“Allison Tisdale,” Tippin answered. 

“And who’s that? Some movie star?” Parks asked, hoping he was wrong. The last thing they needed on their first day back was to get a celebrity. In this town they were treated like royalty, making investigating a case that much harder to maneuver through.

“Really?” Tippin asked. “None of you?” He turned from one person to the next, all of them shaking their heads.

“Who is she?” Parks asked again.

Tippin motioned for Parks to follow, and he led his boss out of the room and through the hallway to the front door. Along the way Parks noticed that both Moore and Jackie had also followed. Tippin continued out the front door and hea
ded toward the end of the driveway.

“Where are you taking us?” Parks asked as he glanced over toward the news vans that seemed to be multiplying by the minute like vultures
surrounding a recently expired piece of carrion. He wondered how they had even gotten in past the security guard and figured the man was most likely making up for his lackluster salary today. That made him wonder who else might have also gotten in past the gate, and he made a mental note to check it out.  

Tippin turned toward the lawn and pointed. “See?”

Parks turned and shielded his eyes with his hand as he stared back into the sky-blue eyes of Allison Tisdale, her face plastered across the realtor’s FOR SALE sign planted in the front lawn of the very house her body had been found in.