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.
"Yeah," Chief McCade said. "I still don't think the deaths are connected."
Riley was startled by the comment. But Dr. Shankar didn't look surprised.
"Why not, Chief McCade?" she asked.
"Cody Woods was a plumber," McCade said. "Wouldn't it have been possible for him to have been exposed to thallium as an occupational hazard?"
"It's possible," Dr. Shankar said. "Plumbers have to be careful to avoid lots of hazardous substances, including asbestos and heavy metals such as arsenic and thallium. But I don't think this was what happened in Cody Woods' case."
Riley was becoming more and more intrigued.
"Why not?" she asked.
Dr. Shankar clicked the remote, and toxicology reports appeared.
"These killings seem to be thallium poisoning with a difference," she said. "Neither victim showed certain classic symptoms-hair loss, fever, vomiting, abdominal pain. As I said before, there was some joint pain, but little else. Death came quite suddenly, looking much like an ordinary heart attack. There was no lingering at all. If my staff hadn't been on their toes, they might not have even noticed that these were cases of thallium poisoning."
Bill seemed to be sharing Riley's fascination.
"So we're dealing with what-designer thallium?" he asked.
"Something like that," Dr. Shankar said. "My staff is still untangling the chemical makeup of the cocktail. But one of the ingredients is definitely potassium ferrocyanide-a chemical that you might be familiar with as the dye Prussian blue. That's strange, because Prussian blue happens to be the only known antidote to thallium poisoning."
Chief McCade's large mustache was twitching.
"That doesn't make sense," he growled. "Why would a poisoner administer an antidote along with the poison?"
Riley hazarded a guess.
"Might it have been to disguise the symptoms of thallium poisoning?"
Dr. Shankar nodded in agreement.
"That's my working theory. The other chemicals we found would have interacted with thallium in a complex way that we don't yet understand. But they probably helped control the nature of the symptoms. Whoever concocted the mixture knew what they were doing. They had a pretty keen knowledge of both pharmacology and chemistry."
Chief McCade was drumming his fingers on the table.
"I don't buy it," he said. "Your results for the second victim must have been skewed by your results for the first. You found what you were looking for."
For the first time, Dr. Shankar's face showed a trace of surprise. Riley, too, was taken aback by the police chief's audacity in questioning Shankar's expertise.
"What makes you say that?" Dr. Shankar asked.
"Because we have a surefire suspect for Margaret Jewell's killing," he said. "She was married to another woman, name of Barbara Bradley-calls herself Barb. The couple's friends and neighbors say the two were having problems, loud fights that woke up the neighbors. Bradley actually has a past record for criminal assault. Folks say she has a hair-trigger temper. She did it. We're all but sure of it."
"Why haven't you brought her in?" Agent Sanderson demanded.
Chief McCade's eyes darted about defensively.
"We've questioned her, at home," he said. "But she's a sly character, and we still haven't got enough evidence to bring her in. We're building a case. It's taking some time."
Agent Sanderson smirked and grunted.
He said, "Well, while you've been building your case, it seems that your 'surefire' suspect has gone right ahead and killed somebody else. You'd better pick up the pace. She might be getting ready to do it again right now."
Chief McCade's face was getting red with anger.
"You're dead wrong," he said. "I'm telling you, Margaret Jewell's killing was an isolated incident. Barb Bradley didn't have any motive to kill Cody Woods, or anybody else as far as we know."
"As far as you know," Sanderson added in a scoffing tone.
Riley could feel the underlying tensions coming to the surface. She hoped the meeting would end without a knockdown, drag-out fight.
Meanwhile, her brain was clicking away, trying to make sense of what little she knew so far.
She asked Chief McCade, "How financially well off were Jewell and Bradley?"
"Not well off at all," he said. "Lower middle-class. In fact, we're thinking that financial strain might have been part of the motive."
"What does Barb Bradley do for a living?"
"She makes deliveries for a linen service," McCade said.
Riley felt a hunch forming in her mind. She thought that a killer who used poison was likely to be a woman. And as a delivery person, this one could have had access to various health facilities. This was definitely someone she'd like to talk to.
"I'd like to have Barb Bradley's home address," she said. "Agent Jeffreys and I should go and interview her."
Chief McCade looked at her as if she were out of her mind.
"I just told you, we've done that already," he said.
Not well enough, apparently, Riley thought.
But she stifled the urge to say so aloud.
Bill put in, "I agree with Agent Paige. We should go check Barb Bradley out for ourselves."
Chief McCade obviously felt insulted.
"I won't allow it," he said.
Riley knew that the FBI team leader, Agent Sanderson, could overrule McCade if he chose to. But when she looked to Sanderson for support, he was staring daggers at her.
Her heart sank. She instantly understood the situation. Although Sanderson and McCade hated each other, they were allies in their resentment of Riley and Bill. As far as both of them were concerned, agents from Quantico had no business being here on their turf. Whether they realized it or not, their egos were more important than the case itself.
How are Bill and I going to get anything done? she wondered.
By contrast, Dr. Shankar seemed as cool and collected as ever.
She said, "I'd like to know why it's such a bad idea for Jeffreys and Paige to interview Barb Bradley."
Riley was surprised at Dr. Shankar's audacity in speaking up. After all, even as the chief medical examiner, she was brazenly overstepping her bounds.
"Because I've got my own investigation going!" McCade said, almost shouting now. "They're liable to make a mess of it!"
Dr. Shankar smiled that inscrutable smile of hers.
"Chief McCade, are you actually questioning the competence of two agents from Quantico?"
Then, turning toward the FBI team leader, she added, "Agent Sanderson, what do you have to say about this?"
McCade and Sanderson both stared at Dr. Shankar in open-mouthed silence.
Riley noticed that Dr. Shankar was smiling at her. Riley couldn't help smiling back at her in admiration. Here in her own building, Shankar knew how to project an authoritative presence. It didn't matter who else thought they were in charge. She was one tough customer.
Chief McCade shook his head with resignation.
"OK," he said. "If you want the address, you've got it."
Agent Sanderson quickly added, "But I want some of my people to go with you."
"That sounds fair," Riley said.
McCade scribbled down the address and handed it to Bill.
Sanderson called the meeting to a close.
"Jesus, did you ever see such a pair of arrogant jerks in your life?" Bill asked as Riley walked with him to their car. "How the hell are we going to get anything done?"
Riley didn't reply. The truth was, she didn't know. She sensed that this case was going to be tough enough without having to deal with local power politics. She and Bill had to get their job done quickly before anyone else died.