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Last, I added in a bit of Drano before washing the rest away and sealing the Gatorade lid tight.
Going to my suitcase, I removed a large binder clip and affixed it to my nose. It hurt like hell, but there was no way anything could get into my nostrils.
Closing my mouth tight I shook the Gatorade bottle vigorously for several seconds. The mixture inside turned grainy white and grew hot against my hand, a certain sign that the desired effect was well on its way.
Stepping out of the bathroom I took several deep breaths, then returned and transferred the mixture into the Armour-All bottle and screwed the lid down tight.
There was no real difference between the two except that the Armour-All bottle had a spray top, and that’s what I was after. I didn’t mix everything in it originally because the shaking can lead to combustion and the thicker Gatorade plastic would hold up better until I got the concoction transferred over.
I let the water run in the shower for several more minutes to keep the fumes down and to wash away any remaining residue, holding the Armour-All bottle under it until the label easily peeled away. I wiped the bare white bottle clean with a towel and with a Sharpie wrote FLOWER FOOD down the side in plain block letters.
Perfect.
I sat the bottle down on the bathroom counter and walked to the window, parting the curtains just a few inches. Darkness had begun to fall and the glow of city lights could be seen starting to rise above the horizon.
Moving to the bed I picked up my cell phone and dialed the number I’ve written across the top of my third set of notes.
It rang three times before a tired voice picked up and said, “Pickard.”
“Hello, Miss Pickard, my name is Julius with the Dying For You Floral Shop. I have a delivery here in your name and was wondering if you’ll be there to sign for it?”
A few seconds passed. “You have a delivery? For me?”
Complete surprise. This was going to be easy.
“Why, yes ma’am. Very beautiful arrangement too. Young man came in and picked it out himself.”
The voice brightened a bit and replied, “Oh, okay then. Yeah, I’ll be here until midnight or so. I’ll call down to the front gate and tell them I was expecting someone. They might hassle you a little, but they mean well.”
“Thank you for the heads up, Miss Pickard. My delivery man is currently out making somebody else a very happy lady, but as soon as he gets back I’ll send him your way.”
“Okay, I’ll be here. Thanks!”
“Alright then, good-bye now.”
I hung the phone up, unable to hold back the smile tugging at my lips.
It was time.
Chapter Fifteen
My appearance tonight was a combination of the previous two. I started with the slacks and white oxford shirt from two nights ago, but accentuated it by combing my hair straight back with heavy gel and wearing a pair of non-prescription glasses. Over the white shirt I pulled on a lightweight navy blue jacket and zipped it three-quarters of the way up.
Using the bag from the hotel trash can, I wrapped up the bottle of homemade flower food and placed it in my pocket.
The night air was cooling fast as the sun disappeared behind the skyline. A small glow of daylight still remained, meaning my timing was just about perfect.
Again I walked down Fresh Pond Parkway, this time ducking into the Whole Foods Market and purchasing an expensive vase filled with roses from the floral department. On the small card I wrote, Thinking of you –An Admirer and attached it to the top of the bouquet.
As I left I caught a glimpse of myself in the window reflection and couldn’t help but admire my transformation for just a second.
Quite the delivery boy extraordinaire.
Using the T I swung through the heart of Boston, past Harvard, MIT and Boston Common and on out to the UMass/JFK stop. The workday rush was a few hours past, the train almost empty except for me and my delivery.
A few women saw the flowers and smiled, but nobody noticed me sitting behind them.
At my stop I got off the train and hopped on the shuttle that swung out past UMass Boston, The Kennedy Library and the JFK Presidential Museum. I’ve been to both the Library and the Museum many times, but tonight I wasn’t going nearly that far.
I was here on business, not sight-seeing.
The UMass stop was the closest, so that was the one I went with.
The shuttle ride took only a few minutes, the accordion bus sparsely populated with a few college students and a couple of older Latinos. Nobody seemed to notice me in the back and as soon as the bus doors swung open at the first stop, I was on the ground and moving.
It was just a little past nine, so I hooked a left and walked along Dorchester Bay to kill some time.
In the winter large chunks of the Bay would freeze and when the tide went out great sheets of salty ice would lie on the rocks.
For some reason, I always loved that about the place.
I meandered the Bay walkway, nodding to a few fishermen out for the evening, waving to a few sailors untying their boats for one of the last runs of the season. It didn’t seem to bother anybody that I was strolling along with a vase full of flowers, not that I was concerned with any of them anyway.
I took my time walking the length of the harbor and worked my way along the service road back towards the train station. The last shuttle ran at nine-thirty, the road void of traffic as I walked along.
Within minutes, large fluorescent lights piercing the night sky alerted me that I had arrived at my destination.
The Boston Globe.
The third name on my list belonged to Anne Pickard, an up-and-coming journalist just on the north side of thirty. I had her pages of notes folded in my back pocket detailing her information, but I wouldn’t need them.
Like every other I’ve ever done, all important details had been committed to memory.
Anne Pickard was the daughter of a single mother, having grown up on the west side of Chicago. A National Merit Scholar in high school, she earned a scholarship to Northwestern where she majored in journalism. After graduation she transferred across town and spent another year earning her masters in journalism from the University of Chicago, which she parlayed into an associate writer’s position with the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
After only six months the Tribune recognized her knack for research and reporting with a no-frills style and gave her a staff position. She spent two years there covering anything they put in front of her before the big boys came calling and she took a position and a serious pay increase from the Globe.
That was three years ago. By all accounts she had done nothing in the time since but strengthen her reputation.
Winter before last she did an expose on New England whaling, a piece that earned her some serious Pulitzer consideration.
It was almost a shame it all had to end for her, but that sort of thing happened when digging a little too deep. Eventually she stumbled across the wrong subject matter, stepped on the wrong toes, and that was all it took.
What that something was, I’ll never know.
Approaching the Globe, I changed into my interpretation of a delivery boy’s walk, shuffling my feet in rapid succession, my butt pinched inward and thrust forward. My nose rose skyward a bit and I twisted my shoulders ever so slightly as I walked, turning my gait into more of a prance.
An enormous stereotyping, but if it kept anybody from remembering the real me, I was all for it.
A large chain link fence ran the length of the front of the Globe. A single person gate stood in the center of the fence, locked tight from the outside. I followed it down towards the parking lot to a side entrance with a turnstile locked tight. Beside it, mounted on a waist-high pole, was a service phone.
Balancing the flowers in one hand, I picked it up and dialed zero.
“Security,” a gruff voice replied.
“Um, yes, I have a delivery here for a Miss Anne Pickard,” I replied, my voice a touch n
asal.
I could hear shuffling on the other end. “It’s almost ten-thirty pal, come back in the morning.”
“I understand that sir, but we called a little bit ago and Miss Pickard assured us she would be here and available. She also said she would notify you that we were on our way.”
Without another word a buzzer clicked from the turnstile.
I hung up the phone and pushed my way through, careful to keep the flowers in a semi-presentable state. A short concrete walkway deposited me into a small security guardhouse where the man I had just spoken to was sitting behind the desk eating a sandwich.
His gray hair and protruding stomach both suggested he’d done of lot of sitting and eating over the years, but I bit back the comment on the tip of my tongue.
“Thank you so much, sir! I apologize for any confusion.”
The guard waved a greasy hand at me, but said nothing.
“Can you tell me where I can find Miss Pickard?”
The man sighed and picked up a clipboard clearly annoyed. “Second floor. Straight down this hallway to the main stairwell, go up and she’s just off to the right. About the only person left in the building, shouldn’t be hard to find her.”
“Thank you so much!”
The guard grunted and said, “Next time just try to get here at a reasonable hour, huh?”
“Yes sir, we’ll try.”
I pushed through the double doors into the hallway as behind me the guard said, “And you can exit out the front door. The front gate opens from within just fine.”
Was planning on it anyway. No chance I’d disturb a man and his sandwich again.
The double doors opened into a long corridor with dark green carpet and framed pictures of Globe’s gone past.
Pearl Harbor. The Kennedy Assassination. The Berlin Wall falling. 9/11. The Sox winning the Series.
Another time and place I might have been tempted to stop and look for awhile, but not tonight.
The hallway dumped me onto a large tile foyer with an enormous staircase ascending to the second floor, hallways spouting in several different directions. Without looking around I took the stairs to the second floor, emerging onto a deserted expanse of desks and cubicles.
A pale blue pallor illuminated the room, the end result of a few dozen computer screens in hibernation mode. The only real light in the place came from a single desk lamp, the sound of typing audible.
Silently I set the flowers down on a nearby table and removed the plastic bag from my pocket. I pulled the bottle from it and replaced it in my jacket pocket, then picked up the flowers and made my way towards the lamp.
“Miss Pickard,” I asked in the most unassuming voice I could muster.
A young girl with pale skin and carrot orange hair jumped several inches at the sound of my voice, her fingers frozen above the keyboard. I smiled and waited as she pressed her hand to her chest and tried to slow her breathing.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to startle you. Anne Pickard?”
The girl stood and bobbed her head up, a flush of red coloring her cheeks. “Yes, that’s me. No need to apologize, I was just kind of zoned out here.”
When she spoke a mouth full of crooked teeth displayed themselves and as she stood it revealed the figure of a ten year old boy. She wore a plain cotton dress that hung almost to the ground and an old pink sweater that was unbuttoned and lank by her sides.
No wonder she was surprised to hear she had a flower delivery.
“Miss Pickard, my name is Elias and I have been given the distinct pleasure of delivery these for you this fine evening.”
I stepped forward and placed the flowers on her desk, watching as she bent down and took a long smell from the nearest rose.
“Mmmm, that is wonderful,” she cooed. “Who are they from?”
“Well Miss, I wasn’t in the shop when the young man came in and ordered them but I hear he was a charming young fellow. Quite a looker too as I heard it.”
“Really?” Anne said, her eyes bulging a bit.
“There’s a card,” I said, pointing to the top of the arrangement. “Maybe that could help a bit?”
“Ooh,” she said and snatched the card away. “Signed, An Admirer. Wow, I wonder who it could be.”
I raised my hands to her and said, “My job is to deliver smiles and it looks like my work here is done.”
“It is,” she replied. “Thank you so much.”
I started to walk away before turning on a heel and pulling the bottle from my pocket.
“Almost forgot. This is a little mixture we’ve worked up, helps these little guys stay beautiful an extra day or two.”
Stepping forward I doused the flowers with the mixture, being sure to hold the bottle low and coat every one of the rose buds. I clamped my mouth tight as I did so, pushing out a slow breath through my nose.
Once completed, I nodded once and offered a closed-mouth smile before retreating. I stepped quickly from the area and into the gathering darkness, pocketing the bottle and moving down the stairs two at a time.
Not once did I break stride as I crossed the foyer and pressed through the front door, jogging the front walk to the gate.
By the time I reached the street, the mixture had already done its job, of that I was certain.
Bleach mixed with ammonia emits a highly toxic fume. A light waft could be recovered from, but a direct sniff such as a person smelling a flower was deadly within minutes. Add in some toilet bowl cleaner to up the toxicity and minutes become seconds.
Right after I left, Anne probably noticed the funny smell in the air. The combination of ammonia and bleach can give off a foul stench, though the Drano acts to fight it somewhat.
Not enough to get rid of it, but enough to let me get out of the area.
Curious, she would lean in for a sniff to see what it was, inhaling one or two fatal pulls of the gas. Mixed together, these three agents formed a compound that shredded her lungs, turning them into rice paper.
Blood would pour in through the walls of her airways, reducing her to coughing up chunks of bloody tissue as her body fought for air.
Within a few seconds, she would have drowned in her own blood.
I caught the train back to Harvard Square, hopped out and walked away from campus towards the Charles River. Hooking a hard right I strolled past the Newell Boathouse and along Memorial Drive, watching light dance off the water.
Just past the Anderson Bridge I tossed the bottle of flower food into the river and a little further down I did the same with the glasses. I unzipped the jacket and mussed the gel out of my hair before turning back down Mt. Auburn Street towards the Tria.
Twenty minutes later I arrived back in my room, another successful night’s work complete.
Chapter Sixteen
Beckett and Meeks left Ames early and spent the afternoon digging up as much as they could on Wilbanks. The crime scene was still crawling with Feds and after the events of the morning they were sure Winston had put them on a short list of people to be kept away at all costs.
Ames was given the task of speaking to Mrs. Wilbanks, leaning on his connection to her as a friend to facilitate his position as Sheriff. Beckett and Ames both hoped being in the presence of friends might relax her enough to remember something useful, though neither was optimistic.
By five o’clock Beckett and Meeks both sat across from each other at Beckett’s desk, a pile of new research covering it. The Brockler file had been gathered up and tossed to the side, photos of her seemingly sleeping body splashed across the top.
“So what do we know?” Meeks asked, leaning forward and rubbing the loose skin around his eyes in circles.
“We have a Congressman dead, potentially murdered,” Beckett said. “We have no evidence to support that claim beyond a couple of cracked ribs and we have no way of getting to the crime scene to try and collect any more.”
“Any chance we’ll be able to get a hold of that crime scene case report?” Meeks asked.
Meeks exhaled slowly and said, “So what else do we know?”
Beckett lifted the top sheet of his legal pad, reading from his notes.
“We’ve got Keller Wilbanks, born and bred into Boston affluence. Harvard undergrad, Yale law. Worked two years in corporate law before running for office at the age of 27 and winning in a landslide. Been a low ranking member of Congress ever since.”
“Gee, no way for a man to rack up enemies there.”
“Serves on committees overseeing bills for tax reform, ocean fisherman’s rights and immigration.”
Meeks twisted his head to the side and said, “Ocean fishing thing might be worth looking into. Group trying to make a point takes out a man while fishing.”
Beckett nodded. “Valid, though the big problem with that idea is he was on the side of New England fisherman. The Gloucester fishing community invests all of their money with his family’s bank. Those very same banks finance most of his campaigns and hold nearly all of his assets, so it’s definitely in his best interests to keep those fishermen happy and making money.”
Meeks frowned, his gaze focused on the desk between them. “What about the others? What were they, tax reform and immigration? Anything there?”
“Tax reforms seems like some pretty run of the mill stuff, nothing for anybody to get too up in the air about.
“Immigration could be something worth looking into, though I doubt it.”
“Heart of his district is Southie; everybody knows its Irish one generation removed from immigrants themselves. If he went against that there’s no chance he’d ever get elected again, no matter how much money his family throws around.”
“Not to mention, it’s never wise to piss of the Irish,” Beckett added.
“Yeah, that too,” Meeks agreed.
The two of them fell silent, pondering their position for a few moments.