Once Pined

The minute Riley and Bill sat down in the conference room in Seattle’s medical examiner’s building, she sensed that trouble was brewing. She exchanged glances with Bill, and she could tell that he was feeling the tension too.

Team Leader Maynard Sanderson was a big-chested, big-jawed man with a presence that struck Riley as falling somewhere between a military officer and an evangelical preacher.

Sanderson was glowering at a portly man whose thick walrus mustache gave his face what seemed to be a permanent scowl. He had been introduced as Perry McCade, Seattle’s Chief of Police.

The body language of the two men and the places they had taken at the table spoke volumes to Riley. For whatever reason, the last thing they wanted was to be in the same room together. And she also felt sure that both men especially hated having Riley and Bill here.

She remembered what Brent Meredith had said before they left Quantico.

“Don’t expect a cozy welcome. Neither the cops nor the Feds will be happy to see you.”

Riley wondered what kind of minefield she and Bill had walked into.

A complex power struggle was going on, without a word being spoken. And in just a few minutes, she knew it was going to start getting verbal.

By contrast, Chief Medical Examiner Prisha Shankar looked comfortable and unconcerned. The dark-skinned, black-haired woman was about Riley’s age and appeared to be stoic and imperturbable.

She’s on her own turf, after all, Riley figured.

Agent Sanderson took the liberty of getting the meeting underway.

“Agents Paige and Jeffreys,” he said to Riley and Bill, “I’m pleased that you could make it all the way from Quantico.”

His icy voice told Riley that the opposite was true.

“Glad to be of service,” Bill said, not sounding very sure of himself.

Riley just smiled and nodded.

“Gentlemen,” Sanderson said, ignoring the presence of two women, “we’re all here to investigate two murders. A serial killer might be getting started here in the Seattle area. It’s up to us to stop him before he kills again.”

Police Chief McCade growled audibly.

“Would you like to comment, McCade?” Sanderson asked dryly.

“It’s not a serial,” McCade grumbled. “And it’s not an FBI case. My cops have got this under control.”

Riley was starting to get the picture. She remembered how Meredith had said that the local authorities were floundering with this case. And now she could see why. Nobody was on the same page, and nobody agreed on anything.

Police Chief McCade was angry that the FBI was muscling in on a local murder case. And Sanderson was fuming that the FBI had sent Bill and Riley from Quantico to straighten everybody out.

The perfect storm, Riley thought.

Sanderson turned toward the chief medical examiner and said, “Dr. Shankar, perhaps you’d like to summarize what we currently know.”

Seemingly aloof from the underlying tensions, Dr. Shankar clicked a remote to bring up an image on the wall screen. It was a driver’s license photo of a rather plain-looking woman with straight hair of a dullish brown color.

Shankar said, “A month and a half ago, a woman named Margaret Jewell died at home in her sleep of what appeared to be a heart attack. She’d been complaining the day before of joint pains, but according to her spouse, that wasn’t unusual. She suffered from fibromyalgia.”

Shankar clicked the remote again and brought up another driver’s license photo. It showed a middle-aged man with a kindly but melancholy face.

She said, “A couple of days ago, Cody Woods admitted himself to the South Hill Hospital, complaining of chest pains. He also complained of joint pain, but again that wasn’t surprising. He’d had some arthritis, and he’d had knee replacement surgery a week before. Within hours of being admitted to the hospital, he, too, died of what appeared to be a heart attack.”

“Totally unconnected deaths,” McCade muttered.

“So now are you saying that neither one of these deaths was murder?” Sanderson said.

“Margaret Jewell, probably,” McCade said. “Cody Woods, certainly not. We’re letting him be a distraction. We’re muddying the waters. If you’d just leave it to my boys and me, we’d solve this case in no time.”

“You’ve had a month and a half on the Jewell case,” Sanderson said.

Dr. Shankar smiled rather mysteriously as McCade and Sanderson continued to bicker. Then she clicked the remote again. Two more photos came up.

The room fell quiet, and Riley felt a jolt of surprise.

The men in both photos looked Middle Eastern. Riley didn’t recognize one of them. But she sure did recognize the other.

It was Saddam Hussein.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Riley stared at the image on the wall screen. Where could the chief medical examiner possibly be going with a photo of Saddam Hussein? The deposed leader of Iraq had been executed in 2006 for crimes against humanity. What was his connection with a possible serial killer in Seattle?

After letting the effect of the photos settle in, Dr. Shankar spoke again.

“I’m sure we all recognize the man on the left. The man on the right was Majidi Jehad, a Shia dissident against Saddam’s regime. In May 1980, Jehad was granted permission to travel to London. When he stopped at a Baghdad police station to pick up his passport, he was treated to a glass of orange juice. He left Iraq, apparently safe and sound. He died soon after he got to London.”

Dr. Shankar brought up pictures of many more Middle Eastern faces.

“All of these men met similar fates. Saddam liquidated hundreds of dissidents in much the same way. When some of them were released from prison, they were offered congratulatory drinks to toast their freedom. None of them lived very long.”

Chief McCade nodded with understanding.

“Thallium poisoning,” he said.

“That’s right,” Dr. Shankar said. “Thallium is a chemical element that can be turned into a colorless, odorless, and tasteless soluble powder. It was Saddam Hussein’s poison of choice. But he hardly invented the idea of assassinating his enemies with it. It is sometimes called the ‘poisoner’s poison’ because it acts slowly and produces symptoms that can result in mistaken causes of death.”

She clicked the remote, and a few more faces appeared, including that of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

She said, “In 1960, the French secret service used thallium to kill the Cameroon rebel leader Félix-Roland Moumié. And it is widely believed that the CIA tried to use thallium in one of its many failed attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro. The plan was to put thallium powder in Castro’s shoes. If the CIA had succeeded in that particular method, Castro’s death would have been humiliating as well as slow and painful. That iconic beard of his would have fallen out before he died.”

She clicked the remote, and the faces of Margaret Jewell and Cody Woods appeared again.

“I’m telling you all this so that you’ll understand that we’re dealing with a very sophisticated murderer,” Dr. Shankar said. “I found traces of thallium in the bodies of both Margaret Jewell and Cody Woods. There’s no doubt in my mind that they were both poisoned to death by the same killer.”

Dr. Shankar looked around at everybody in the room.

“Any comments so far?” she asked.