"It really is quite urgent," Kate pressed."Is there any way you could try to reach him?Maybe call or text to have him contact me as soon as possible?"
Carmen hesitated."Well, I could try calling him, but he doesn't always answer when he's working.He gets pretty focused on whatever project he's doing."She hesitated and, doing her best to sound pleasant (Kate could hear the effort in the woman’s voice), she said: “If it’s this urgent, is there no one else you could call?”
“Oh, I’m sure there is, but a good friend of mine simply raved about your husband’s work on her back porch.I thought I’d give him a try.”
"Okay.I'm sure he'd appreciate that.Let me see if I can get a hold of him.What's your number?"
Kate gave Carmen her cell phone number, then added, "Please ask him to call me back as soon as he possibly can.I'll be available all afternoon."
"I'll try to reach him right now," Carmen promised."If I get through, I'll have him call you.But depending on what he’s up to at the moment, I can’t guarantee when he’d get back."
"I understand.Thank you so much," Kate said, ending the call.
DeMarco glanced over at her."Did it seem like she'd be able to reach him?"
"I hope so.But now all we can do is wait."Kate settled back in her seat, feeling the familiar frustration that came with being unable to take immediate action."In the meantime, we should head back to the field office and see if we can find more information about Torres's business practices."
DeMarco nodded, though a frown tugged at her lips at the idea of needing to wait.Upon leaving the Bennett house, she'd pointed them in the direction of the field office anyway, so it wasn't like it was going to be out of the way.However, as it turned out, they'd made it less than another two miles toward the field office when Kate's phone rang.DeMarco was stopped at a red light when it started buzzing.
Kate looked to the ID, assuming it would be Torres.She was quite surprised to find that it was, instead, the number of one of the forensics labs.Hoping for a break in the case, she answered it immediately.
"This is Agent Wise."
"Agent Wise, this is Dr.Martinez from forensics.I have the results from those pill tests you requested."
Kate felt her pulse quicken as she sat straight up in her seat."Excellent.What did you find?"
"Well, it looks like your theory was correct.We tested all the pills in both medication bottles, and in each case, it seemed, at first, that it was legitimate Lorazepam, exactly what Dr.Chen prescribed.But there were other pills mixed in with it… just three or four, enough to be mixed in without anyone really noticing."
"So someone added poisoned pills to each bottle," Kate said, feeling a mixture of vindication and horror.
"That's what it looks like.The pills in question contain a concentrated dose of potassium chloride mixed with a fast-acting sedative.It would be enough to cause rapid cardiac arrest in someone of the victims' ages and health conditions."
Kate absorbed this information while DeMarco listened intently from the driver's seat."Dr.Martinez, can you tell me anything about how these pills were manufactured?Were they professionally made or homemade?"
"They appear to be professionally manufactured capsules that were opened and refilled with the lethal substances.My guess is that whoever did this had access to pharmaceutical-grade materials and knew what they were doing."
"Thank you, Dr.Martinez.This is extremely helpful."
“Glad to help,” Martinez said.“Let me know if you need anything else.”
Kate ended the call and turned to DeMarco."A few pills in each bottle were poisoned.Maybe just two or three to blend in with the others.The rest were legitimate."
"But that means they have no control over when the victim takes the fatal dose."
"Exactly.It could be days or weeks before the victim happens to take the poisoned pill.The killer has no way of knowing when their target will actually die...just that they will eventually, if they continue taking the pills that were prescribed to them."
The light turned green, and DeMarco pulled through, closing in on the field office."That's a pretty risky method.What if the victim noticed something different about one of the pills?"
"These are people over fifty taking medication for anxiety," Kate pointed out."They're probably not examining each pill closely, especially if they're in a hurry or stressed.And the killer chose a medication that people typically take as needed, not on a strict schedule.And you know… this method tells us something important about our suspect.”
“What’s that?”
"They're patient, methodical, and willing to wait for results.They're not looking for immediate gratification."
"And they don't seem to care about the specific timing of the deaths," DeMarco added."They're content to set the trap and wait for it to spring."She shook her head and said, “God, there’s no way to know how many pill bottles are out there right now with a little poison surprise.”
Just a few minutes later, DeMarco parked in the field office parking garage.They walked through the building toward the elevator together, Kate's thoughts churning with the new information.Would a killer with this sort of patience and dedication be more dangerous?Maybe even more difficult to catch?If they'd planted poisoned pills in an unknown number of bottles,knowingthose they wanted dead would die within a matter of days or weeks, then they could be long gone by now.
