SUMMER HAVEN POLICE DEPARTMENT
FRIDAY, 8:05 AM
Awaiting the warrant to search the newspaper, as well as Spencer Blakely’s residence, Becca and Silas returned to the police station to catch their breath as they planned their next move. Becca had left Silas sitting at Linda’s desk while she went over to the break room to fill up her ‘World’s Greatest Chief’ mug with the sluggish brown liquid her officers had the audacity to call coffee.
Silas reclined in a chair next to Linda White’s desk with his feet up on another chair. He knew Becca was exhausted. The human body needed sleep to function. And though he had no way of truly understanding the effort of will she must have been enduring just to keep her eyes open, he nevertheless sympathized with her.
Then, he was struck with a pang in his chest. A heaviness he’d never experienced before, but he knew with no uncertainty that the humans called the feeling ‘guilt’. His mind had drifted from Becca’s arousal prematurely from bed to that of the murder of Courtney Abeling, which, in turn, had twisted his gut like a pretzel. It was because of him the lovely young woman was dead. So much potential, now evaporated into the ether like his body had just a few hours before.
Of course, he knew the guilt was misplaced. First, it was, indeed, her Time. There was nothing he could have done to prevent it. But also, he had not pulled the trigger on her himself. That had been someone else. He assumed it had been the same thugs that had attempted to kill him, which meant that the ultimate culprit was the one trying to usurp his throne. The one who held the Hand of Cain.
He sighed, staring up at the florescent lights of the institutionalized ceiling and absently flicking his wrist to send his yo-yo into an ‘Around the World’ move.
“Did you grow a goatee?” Linda, who’d just walked into the station, said as she sat down at her desk. “I like it. It totally gives you that refined British gentleman look.”
He gave her a weak smile of thanks. He was in no mood to be charming at that moment, but he did appreciate her compliment. He supposed he would keep the facial hair a little while longer, just for something different.
“My dear Linda,” he said, spinning the yo-yo back up into his palm and pocketing it. “You are a ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy day.”
She blushed in response, then proceeded to boot up her computer to prepare for the day of work. As she did so, Silas let his eyes roam around the bullpen, taking in the organized chaos buzzing around the room. He watched as cops, from both the police department and the sheriff’s office, entered and exited, answered phone calls, and chatted with each other while drinking fresh coffee. It was shift change and the night crew were working at filing their reports while the day crew busied themselves with briefings of the previous night’s activities and gathered the necessary gear required to tackle the coming day.
It was, as they say, a hotbed of activity and, for a brief moment, Silas enjoyed just a moment of reprieve to ‘people watch’. The department was impressive in its diversity. Of the five uniformed officers coming on duty, two were Hispanic and one was African-American and a woman.
Silas watched as they came out of the briefing room, chatting with each other while making their way toward the exit and to the back-parking lot where most of the cruisers were kept. Most wore the standard blue uniform of a typical patrolman. Two, however, wore more formal attire comprised of long sleeves, shining black leather shoes, and gold bars on their sleeves. Supervisors, obviously. Though Silas wasn’t sure how, as mortals, they could tolerate being out in the hot Florida sun wearing such attire. For him in his jet-black suit, it was no big deal. His body wasn’t real. It didn’t get hot or cold, sweaty or chilled.
But for these police officers, the heat could be brutal and he pitied them.
“Tell me, Linda.” He nodded to the officers wearing the long sleeve shirts. “Aren’t they allowed to wear short sleeves in this weather? Their subordinates can. Why not them?”
Linda looked up from her computer screen and turned in the direction of the men he’d indicated. She smiled. “Oh, yeah. The chief allows all the officers to wear short sleeves. Some of them, when on bike patrol, even wear polos and shorts. But those guys can’t. They’ve got tattoos.”
“Huh?”
“Tattoos. Department policy says that any tattoos must be covered while on duty. It’s unprofessional. The citizens around here are kind of conservative. Older. They’re still pretty suspicious of anyone who has things like tattoos or piercings.”
Silas let that information sink in for a minute as he watched the two supervisors heading out the door.
“And how many officers here have tattoos?” he asked.
“Oh, I’d say more than a handful.” She pointed over to Becca, who was standing next to Sgt. Tanner. “Even old timers like Jeremy are all tatted up these days though. Won’t be long before the old long sleeve policy goes the way of the dodo, if you ask me.”
Silas looked at the senior officer. He’d never noticed it before, but he too was decked out in the more formal, long sleeve uniform.
As he stared, Becca glanced over at him and waved him over.
“Pardon me, Linda,” he said, getting up from his chair. “But the boss is beckoning.”
He walked over to the chief and sergeant, pondering what he’d just learned about the office policy. Tanner gave him a casual, but suspicious, nod of hello, then turned to Becca.
“Okay,” he said to her. “I’ll have her brought into the interrogation room now.”
With that, the sergeant walked away toward the holding cells, leaving Silas and Becca to themselves.
“Bring who to the interrogation room?” Silas asked.
For the first time since he met her, Becca offered a full-blown grin. He would never consider her a dour woman, but for the most part, she was deadly serious. As she smiled, he took her in, not for the first time, and decided he rather liked this look on her. He hoped he could continue to see it more often.
“Well,” she said. “While you’ve been lounging around here distracting my employees with your impressive displays of yo-yo tricks, I’ve been busy.”
“You mean the search warrant for the newspaper and Blakely’s home?”
“That. But also, I had Elaine Shepherd picked up just as she was leaving for work. The sheriff’s office just got here. I figured you’d want to be part of the interrogation.”
“Oh, trust me,” he said, rummaging through his pockets and finding a Warhead candy he’d nabbed from Becca’s candy jar earlier. “It’ll be a pleasure to be on the other side of that table this time.”
“Good.” She started walking toward the interrogation room. But before she could walk inside, Linda waved her over.
* * *
“Chief,” Linda said, holding up a telephone. “It’s the medical examiner. Line two.”
“Thanks. I’ll take it in my office.” A moment later, she pressed the speaker phone button so Silas could listen in. “What can I do for you, Doc?”
“Actually, it’s what I can do for you,” he said. “I’ve examined all of Ms. Alvarez’s pill bottles, as well as the pills you found in her trash. I think I have a pretty good handle on what happened.”
“Really?” She looked over at Silas, who had raised one of his eyebrows with interest.
“Yes.” She heard papers rustling around on the doctor’s end of the line, as if he was sifting through a file. “It’s just a working theory, mind you. We’ll know conclusively when we get the toxicology screen back. But it looks like someone has switched out some of her Ativan, a benzodiazepine, for Eldepryl.”
“Okay.” Her mind raced to process why that tidbit mattered. “I’m not sure exactly what that means.”
“Of course. You see, Eldepryl is a monoamine oxidase inhibitor. Like the benzos, it’s an antidepressant, but it’s fallen out of favor by most doctors because of some pretty serious side effects.”
“What kind of side effects?”
“Well, first of all, if mixed with other medications, it can cause serious complications resulting in something called Serotonin Syndrome. Too much of the stuff can cause it as well.”
“Serotonin Syndrome? Isn’t that a dangerous increase in Serotonin?” Silas asked.
“Serotonin?” Becca asked. She’d heard of it before. Knew it was some type of hormone, but that was pretty much the extent of it.
“Serotonin is the chemical that’s released when people sleep,” Silas explained. “It’s what causes dreams and things like that.”
“Exactly. Serotonin is what helps give us a sense of well-being. Helps ease our minds. And can increase our imagination. But an increase in the hormone could cause serious problems. Someone suffering from Serotonin Syndrome would experience a wide variety of symptoms from heart palpitations to paranoia. They’d get chills, fever, elevated blood pressure. And in extreme cases, hallucinations.”
“Like what Andrea was having the weeks before her death.”
“Yes.”
“But would this kill her? Would someone with this Serotonin Syndrome die from it?”
“It depends on how it was ingested.” Dr. Lipkovic cleared his throat. “Like I said, if she took the monoamine oxidase inhibitor, or MAOIs as they’re more commonly called, it would pretty much just increase the amount of Serotonin in the brain and cause the side effects I already mentioned.”
“What kind of drugs would need to be mixed?” Silas asked.
“Oh, there are too many to list. But for our purposes, any of the SSRI’s would do. For instance, Lexapro, which our victim was taking regularly. Her Lexapro wasn’t switched out, so I assume she was still taking them anyway. Mix an MAOI with Lexapro and you’d develop a hyperpyrexic crisis. In other words, Serotonin Syndrome.”
“And that can be lethal?” Becca asked.
“Oh, in extreme cases, yes. But it’s easily identifiable and treated, which is what happened at the ER on the night she was Baker Acted.” They heard more shifting of papers on the other end of the line. “However, certain foods eaten while on an MAOI like Eldepryl can cause almost instant death. The food will mix with the drug, causing a hypertensive crisis, which most often leads to a myocardial infarction.”
“Which is what you saw in her autopsy.”
“Precisely. I only wish her stomach contents had revealed more, but unfortunately, nothing remained. I have a feeling she regurgitated her food just before she died. Emptied her stomach entirely. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
There’d been no signs of vomit in her bedroom or bathroom, making Becca think someone must have cleaned it up. But then, why leave the overturned nightstand? The empty glass on the floor?
“What kind of food are we talking about, Doc?” Silas asked.
“Oh, alcoholic beverages would do it. As you remember, I did detect the smell of alcohol on her blood during autopsy. Also, several types of cheeses, cured meats, and anything with soy in it. The reaction comes from tyramine in the food, which plays havoc with blood pressure.”
“And you believe someone’s been switching her regularly prescribed benzodiazepines with these mono…mono…”
“Monoamine oxidase inhibitors. Yes. The pills you found in her trash can were Ativan. When I looked in her bottles of Ativan, I found the Eldepryl instead.”
Silas looked at Becca. “When we searched the house, there was a block of cheddar cheese and an empty bottle of wine in the kitchen. You’re saying…”
“Absolutely. If Ms. Alvarez ingested any of that, she would most definitely have suffered some type of hypertensive crisis, which could easily lead to death.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Becca said. “That helps a lot.”
“You’re welcome. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you,” he said. “And I’ll be sure to send you my final report when I get the toxicology results back.”
She hung up the phone. “Well, looks like we have our cause of death.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Silas said. “Seems to me there are plenty of easier ways to kill someone if that’s what you intend to do.”
“Unless you wanted to make it look like a death curse had finally taken its victim.”
“True.”
Becca let out a breath and began making her way to the door. “So, I guess there’s nothing else to do right now other than interview our suspect,” she said.
The two began making their way once more to the interrogation room and a sudden surge of energy for the case rushed through Becca’s veins. She finally had a probable cause of death. She had two excellent suspects. And at that moment, she was very curious to find out just what business Elaine had with Blakely and why she’d failed to mention their early morning rendezvous when they spoke yesterday. It was bad enough that she had attempted to have Jacinto Garcia place a death curse on their victim—a woman Elaine claimed to be ‘like a sister’ to her. But the fact that she had been having secret meetings with Ms. Alvarez’s current boyfriend was a twist almost too delicious not to enjoy.