Read Online The Poisonous Ten by Tyler Compton - Free Book Online Page B

bet—but I don’t think it’s him. Pull his history, financials, co-workers, family, the works. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe it is him. Rachel and myself will handle the Mr. Tisdale angle. The rest of you go at this murder as if it isn’t him. If it’s not him then there has to be a reason our killer picked Allison Tisdale as his victim. Some reason he knew her. A client maybe? The man who sells her her coffee. Her car lease agent. Someone. Somehow, he knew her. He was able to abduct her from her regular daily life and kill her without anyone knowing she was gone for two hours. How was that possible? He had to know her schedule.”
    “According to her secretary, Allison Tisdale wasn’t sch eduled to come in to the office today until the afternoon,” Fairmont offered. “She told the office she was going straight up to the house on Mulholland to get it ready for the viewing.”
    “That coincides with what the husband told us,” Parks said.
    Parks’s team stared at him as he got lost in his own thoughts. He looked up and saw Hardwick staring back, and he shook out of it.
    “What else do we have? Jackie? You and Amy find an ything out about the body?”
    “The tests confirm that our victim was poisoned by cy anide,” Jackie began. “This could have affected our killer just as much as the intended victim. It not only takes a lot of patience but, well, balls to pull this off. It’s dangerous.”
    “What kind of a time period are we talking about here?” Parks asked. “I mean, considering when she left home to the time when we found the body was around two hours. Maybe less? Is that possible?”
    “Yes.” Jackie nodded. “Inhaling a toxic dose of cyanide—and in a gaseous form—can cause immediate unconsciousness. Convulsions even. And death can follow within fifteen minutes. Swallowing takes longer, which is probably why our killer chose the gas form.”
    “And how did our killer get his hands on this cyanide gas?”
    “Not sure. But it’s a poisonous toxin, so it should be tr aceable. I’ll check on it.”
    “And what about the purple blood?”
    “It’s a side effect of the poison,” Jackie explained. “It’s often called ‘chemical asphyxia.’ What cyanide does is prevent the body’s red blood cells from absorbing oxygen, which we all know is what turns blood the reddish color we generally see.”
    “And what about the circle put around the body?” Har dwick interrupted. “What does that mean?”
    “Nothing as far as I’m aware of.”
    “We feel it’s a sort of calling card from the killer,” Parks admitted, not all that sure. “Either that, or they just wanted to make a spectacle. Perhaps they’re theatrical.”
    “Speaking of calling cards,” Amy Tanaka blurted out as she burst into the conference room. “I think our killer left one. And it’s not the bloody circle.”
    “What is it?” Parks asked.
    Tanaka took the photos she had in her hands and passed them around the table. They were of some part of the vi ctim’s body with a small symbol carved into the skin.
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    “What’s this?” Parks asked.
    “That was carved into the victim’s body near the vaginal area. Postmortem.”
    “A cross?”
    “God dammit,” Hardwick huffed. “Does that mean this a religious killing then?”
    “It could be,” Tanaka replied, nodding. “But I don’t think it’s a cross. It’s too symmetrical. All four ends are equal.”
    “A plus sign?” Fairmont asked. 
    “But what does that mean?” Parks asked.
    “ Could be. Who knows?” Tanaka shrugged.
    “ But you don’t think so?” Parks asked impatiently. He wanted answers. And another damn cup of coffee. “What do you think?”
    “I don’t know,” Tanaka admitted. “I just know what I thought of when I first saw it. But I think that’s more of a cultural thing. It probably is a plus sign. Or something else.”
    “What did you see?” Parks asked again.
    “Jū,” Tanaka finally answered.
    “Jew?”