Tully noticed that the box was plain white cardboard with no logo imprinted anywhere outside or inside.
"From the note it sounds like the doughnuts were only a means to deliver the threat," Tully said, "rather than the actual threat."
"You never know." Ganza slid crumbs from the cruller into a test tube.
Ganza was a process machine, a scientist before a law officer. He didn't decide what needed to be done, he simply did it, discounting chance, luck or speculation. For Ganza, the evidence always told the story. It wasn't just props for a story or theory already in progress.
He poured a clear liquid into the test tube, capped it with a rubber stopper and began to agitate it. Tully watched him rock back and forth on the balls of his feet as he rocked the test tube, almost like someone would rock a baby to sleep. He tried not to think of Ichabod Crane doing the Robot or he might burst out laughing. That was the kind of morning he was having.
Tully's stomach growled and Ganza raised an eyebrow at him. They caught each other glancing at the counter where the remaining doughnuts sat in their box.
"There's a tuna sandwich in the fridge. You're welcome to half," Ganza offered, nodding toward the refrigerator in the corner where Tully knew there were also lab specimens. Possibly bits and pieces of tissue and blood. It would all be contained, bagged or capped, even on a separate shelf, but still too close for Tully.
"No, thanks," he told the lab's director, trying to sound grateful instead of disgusted.
Tully had watched Ganza eat between tests and he had seen his partner Maggie O'Dell eat a breakfast sausage biscuit once during an autopsy. But Tully viewed it as his last bastion of civility that he wouldn't cross that line. There were so few in this business left to cross. At least, that's what he told others. Fact was, it made his skin crawl just a little to combine the idea of eating a meal with the blood and guts of a murder.
Tully was still thinking about his stomach when he picked up the two plastic bags, one containing the note, the other the envelope. He had used plain white paper sold anywhere from office supplies stores to Wal-Mart. The ink he used would, no doubt, test to be the same ink used in just about every ink pen. And the guy didn't seal the envelope, so no chance of salvia, no chance of DNA.
Tully had put in a call to George Sloane before joining Ganza. Sloane was Cunningham's choice documents guy ever since the anthrax case in fall 2001. Tully thought forensic document sleuthing was more luck than anything, but he didn't see any harm in letting Sloane play his magic. Of course, Tully realized that his thinking of Sloane's contribution as little more than voodoo was no different than what some people thought of criminal profiling. Both depended on recognizing behaviors of the criminal mind, which was never as predictable as any of them hoped.
Ganza had set aside the test tube and was poking around the box again. With long metal forceps he pinched what looked like microscopic pieces, and was putting them into a plastic evidence bag. He pushed up his glasses and dived the forceps in, suddenly getting excited.
"Might be his," Ganza said, showing Tully the half-inch black hair now clenched at the end of the forceps.
Tully caught himself before he winced. So much for craving any of those doughnuts.
Ganza placed the hair on a glass slide and slid it under a microscope. "Got enough of a root for DNA." He twisted the focus and swooped down to the eyepiece for a better look. "At first glance, I'd say he's not Caucasian."
"Also could be someone at the doughnut shop," Tully said.
Tully looked at the note and envelope again. "So how many people would know how to do an old-fashioned pharmaceutical fold like this?"
"He may have read about it somewhere. Could be showing off," Ganza answered.
Tully lifted the envelope and piece of paper higher so that the lab's fluorescent light shined through both. That's when he saw it, almost invisible in the corner on the back side of the envelope. Sometimes you didn't need a forensic documents expert to catch stuff like this.
" We might have something here," Tully said, continuing to hold the plastic bag to the light, waiting for Ganza to leave behind the microscope and come around the table.
"Son of a bitch," Ganza said before Tully could point out the subtle indentations on the envelope. "Bet he didn't plan on leaving that behind."
CHAPTER
8
Elk Grove, Virginia
Maggie tried to keep Mary Louise from seeing the Smith & Wesson gripped in her hand and down by her side. Cunningham moved the little girl to the corner behind him, shielding her from whatever they were about to find.
"Backup is at the front door," Maggie heard in the earbud. She avoided glancing over her shoulder. "Bomb squad is scanning outer perimeter. They're ready to go in. Are you coming out?"
Maggie looked to Cunningham.
"Negative,"he said, barely audible while he smiled at Mary Louise. The little girl was chattering to him about eating a whole bag of M&Ms which she really, really loved and was probably the reason her tummy hurt.
Maggie knew they were out of time, yet Cunningham was hesitating. She watched him scan the door frame again and again. Nothing looked out of place. Not on this side. Cunningham cocked his head as he listened for any sound behind the door. His right hand clutched the doorknob. His body kept close to the wall. His left hand stayed open and ready in front of Mary Louise like a traffic cop holding her back.
In an ambush situation they'd kick in the door, weapons drawn. But the threat of rigged explosives with hidden trip wires warranted slow and easy. Maggie knew they should let the bomb squad take it from here.
Cunningham wasn't budging. Another victim, Mary Louise's mother, was on the other side. If they picked up the little girl and ran, would it set off a panic? Was someone watching the house with a detonator, waiting for them to do exactly that?
"Ready?" he asked Maggie.
She wanted it over with. They had already wasted too much time. Yes, she nodded, and he eased the door open.
There was no click. No sizzle. No bang.
Nothing.
Except for an unnerving rasping sound. Someone inside the room was having trouble breathing.
Mary Louise swept past both of them while Cunningham grabbed and missed. She bounded up onto the bed where it looked like a pile of bedding had been dumped in the middle. The SWAT team swarmed the outside room, moving so quietly Maggie didn't even notice them brush behind her, already in the bedroom.
"Mommy, Mommy, someone came to help," Mary Louise sang out to the swaddled bundle.
Cunningham rushed over and he swooped the girl into his arms, cradling her close to his chest. But then he stopped dead in his tracks, and turned back to Maggie. There was a flicker of panic in his eyes, but his voice remained calm and soothing as he said, "There's blood."
A pause and another glance, then, "A lot of it."
Maggie came in closer. She could see only the woman's head, matted hair sticking to her forehead. She was gasping, almost a gurgle. Blood spurted from her mouth and nose onto a stained pillowcase. There was blood all over the bedding. But she couldn't see any external wounds.
Then Maggie remembered the note's warning. She realized it was too late. There was no bomb. There were no explosives.
"We may have expected the wrong kind of crash," Maggie said. Instead of relief, her stomach took a plunge.
"What are you talking about?" Cunningham tried to get a closer look while the little girl squirmed in his arms.
"Instead of a bomb squad we should have brought a hazmat team." She could feel everything around her grind to a halt. The bomb squad and SWAT team were frozen in place by her words.
That's when Mary Louise started throwing up. Her upset tummy spewed up red and green all over the front of Cunningham, spraying Maggie, too.