“How do you know the needle was poisoned?” Hickman asked.
“When the stuff hit her she went out like that,” Jack said, snapping his fingers.
Hickman nodded, thoughtful. “Duly noted,” he said. He and Coates fanned out around Jack, moving deeper into the room to examine the corpse, stepping carefully around it.
Jack stumbled against Coates, bumping into him. He put a hand on the big man’s shoulder as if to steady himself. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” Coates barked.
“Sorry,” Jack said.
Hickman asked, “What exactly happened here, Bauer? How did it go down?”
“She came in to change the sheets and towels — she said. Then she made her move when she thought I wasn’t looking.”
“And…?”
“I was looking,” Jack deadpanned.
Coates hooked his thumbs in the corners of his front pants pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Maybe she thought you were going to beat it without leaving her a tip.”
Jack moved to one side, out of the way. He stood leaning against the cabinet with his hands folded behind him. The others had eyes only for the corpse. Jack reached behind himself and carefully deposited an object behind a plastic ice bucket, which hid it from view. Nobody saw what he’d done.
Hickman studied the cadaver intently, like an auditor searching ledger entries for a decimal point in the wrong place. He glanced at Jack. “Can you ID her?”
Jack shook his head. “I was hoping you could.”
“I can’t place her.” Hickman turned to Coates. “What about you, Red?”
“I’m blank. She looks like somebody’s maiden aunt.
“Except for the knitting needle stuck in her throat,” he added.
“What tipped you to her, Bauer?” Hickman asked. “How’d you know she was a phony?”
Jack spoke directly to Hickman. “I’ve been here long enough to know most of the service personnel and I’ve never seen her before. Not much by itself, but it got me wondering. Then she was wearing a uniform with long sleeves. All the other maids had short-sleeved uniforms. Long sleeves in this heat? It didn’t ring true.”
Coates was sour-faced, skeptical. “Maybe her other outfits were in the laundry. Or she had ugly arms and didn’t like to show ’em.”
“I thought of that, too. So I tried her out with another test. I asked her why the regular maid, Norma, wasn’t cleaning my room like usual. She said it was Norma’s day off.”
“So?”
“Norma was just a name I made up. The maid who cleans the room is Carmen,” Jack said.
Hickman nodded with a barely perceptible tilt of the head, as if acknowledging that the other had scored a point.
“You’re a regular Sherlock Junior.” Coates took off his hat and fanned his face with it. Thinning strands of pale orange hair were slicked back over a shiny freckled scalp.
Hickman squatted down and began turning out the woman’s pockets. “She’s clean,” Jack said. “I already gave her a onceover.”
“I bet,” Coates said nastily. “You wouldn’t be holding anything out on us, would you, Bauer?”
“She was a pro on a hit job. She wouldn’t be carrying anything that might indicate her true identity.”
Hickman stood up, reflexively straightening out the creases in his pants. “We’ll see what the lab crew can turn up. Her technique might furnish some solid leads, too. Pretty exotic…We don’t get too many poison needle kills in this neck of the woods.”
“Are you sure?” Jack asked.
Coates bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Dr. Yan started off the chain of Ironwood deaths. A heart attack, they said.”
“It happens. He was over fifty and he’d just finished playing a couple of sets of tennis in the hot sun.”
“He had a clean bill of health on his most recent physical and had no history of heart trouble.”
“An autopsy wouldn’t have missed something as obvious as a needle puncture wound, Bauer.”
“That toxin is so potent that I’m betting that even a scratch or a pinprick of it brings on instant death. And the symptoms could pass for a heart attack or stroke.”
“Under the circumstances, I suppose we’ll have to order an exhumation,” Hickman said. “We might learn something new, provided the toxin is one that doesn’t break down a short while after being introduced into the body.”
“You might also want to circulate photos of her around the tennis club,” Jack suggested, indicating the corpse. “Somebody might have noticed her on the premises about the time that Yan dropped dead.”
As if inspired by the thought, he took out his cell phone and used its camera function to photograph the cadaver from several different angles. He stepped back to capture a full body image, then moved in closer to click off a series of head shots, including full frontal views and profiles.
Coates’s unhappiness deepened. “What’re you doing?”
“Taking some souvenir snapshots for the folks back home,” Jack said. He returned the cell to its belt holder. He started toward the front of the room.
“Where’re you going?” Coates demanded.
“I’m going to upload the photos on the CTU net to see if our files can get a make on the killer. I’ll use the digital comm system in my SUV,” Jack said. “Any objections?”
“You’re damned right—”
“Don’t wander too far, Bauer,” Hickman said, cutting off his partner. “Sabito wants to debrief you when he gets here.”
“I don’t work for Vince. I’ve got my own bosses to answer to and they’ll want this information as soon as possible.” Jack opened the door partway. “I’ll be right outside.”
Hickman shrugged, as if the matter were of no importance. Jack went out. Hickman began, “Red—”
Coates was already starting toward the door. “Stuffy in here. Think I’ll take the air myself.”
“Don’t crowd him. But don’t lose him, either.”
“Fat chance of that!”
Jack’s vehicle was parked near room eight. It was a tan Ford Expedition, a CTU vehicle with all the trimmings.
CTU had branches in most major cities in the United States, but its presence in Los Alamos was virtually nil. Its nearest divisional headquarters was in El Paso, Texas.
An agent from CTU/ELP had driven to Los Alamos to deliver the Expedition to Jack to use during his assignment and taken a plane back to home base.
The machine was basically the same model with the same options and special modifications as those used by CTU/L.A. With one notable exception. The Los Angeles vehicles had black exteriors. The Southwestern variety was tan to better resist the desert sun.
Jack reached into his right front pants pocket and took out a handheld electronic keying module. The SUV was equipped with motion-detecting anti-interference sensors capable of triggering a silent vibrating alarm in the electronic key component if anyone had been meddling with it.
The alarm was untripped; the Expedition had not been tampered with. Jack wouldn’t have put Sabito past planting a homing device or bug on the vehicle so he could track Jack’s movements.
Jack pressed the button on the keying device to unlock the SUV. It was parked head-out for a quicker getaway. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw Coates loitering beside the blue-black sedan, watching him.
Jack opened the driver’s side door and took a step back. The sealed SUV had been baking under the sun for hours. The heat inside was slightly terrific. He took a deep breath and climbed in, leaving the door open to let some of the heat out.
He switched on the ignition, the finely tuned engine coming alive with a surge of power. Working the pushbutton controls, he rolled down the windows and turned on the air conditioner. It would take a moment or two before its powerful blowers began pumping cool air into the compartment.