Free A Garden of Vipers by Jack Kerley Page B

witches’ brew of toxins. Organophosphates, the report says. I’d never heard the term. Pesticide, herbicide, some industrial chemicals.” I heard paper rattling in Warden Malone’s hand as he read from the page.
    â€œWhere did all that stuff come from?” Harry asked.
    â€œAll available inside, Detective,” Malone said. “Cleaning supplies, rat poison, roach paste, paint thinner. They’re kept tucked away, but…”
    â€œSo someone squirts a bunch of stuff on Harwood’s scrambled eggs and he drops dead later?”
    â€œThe docs say it took some mixing of compounds to get the right effect, the maximum bang for the buck, to be crass.”
    â€œHarwood got banged hard,” I noted. “He have any enemies?”
    â€œI’ve checked around and the answer is, not really. He was a smart-ass but managed to stay out of major confrontations. Wanting to appear angelic for the parole board will do that.”
    â€œGot any poisoners up there?” Harry asked.
    â€œSeveral. But we keep them real far from the pantry, so to speak. The docs said anyone with access to the right supplies could have mixed the brew…with a little help from someone with bad thoughts, the right formula, and high school chemistry.”
    â€œInfo that could have come from outside.”
    Malone laughed without humor. “Imagine a couple guys in the visitors’ room. The one on the outside says, ‘Soak twenty roach tablets in alcohol, let sit two days, mix in…’”
    â€œGot the point,” Harry said.
    We asked Malone to keep us in the loop. Harry clicked the starfish off. He closed his eyes and shook his head.
    â€œThe next time I decide to race Logan to a scene, how about you strangle me.”
    â€œI was just thinking that. Where from here?”
    â€œLet’s check into Harwood some more, call up the man’s sheet. Talk to folks that knew the deceased. Maybe figure out Taneesha Franklin’s interest in a guy like Leland.”
    I sat at the computer, pulled up overviews on the incident as Harry leaned over my shoulder, reading ahead.
    â€œBernard Rudolnick was Harwood’s victim,” Harry said, frowning at the computer screen. Doctor Bernard Rudolnick.”
    â€œKilled in a bar, right?” I scrolled the screen to the correct info as Harry recited particulars.
    â€œThe Citadel Tavern. A low-life joint. Got into a scuffle at the bar, the men went outside. A gun goes bang in the night. The shooter lit out, but Mobile’s finest grabbed Harwood a few hours later.
    I studied the screen. “Doctor? Like in M.D.?”
    â€œPsychiatrist,” Harry said. “Bet they didn’t get a lot of shrinks at the Citadel. A pity the one they had didn’t last the night.”
    Â 
    Time for me to pick up the prelim from Taneesha Franklin’s autopsy. I took the stairs, looked into the second floor, and saw Sally Hargreaves sitting at her desk, staring blank-eyed at the wall. Sally was a detective handling sexual crimes, a tough gig on the best days. I continued down the flight, realized Sally wasn’t the wall-staring type. I climbed back up, went to her desk.
    â€œWhat’s up, Sal? You look like your cat got sucked into the vacuum cleaner.”
    She turned, brightened. Pushed strands of auburn hair from her eyes. Smiled with false bonhomie.
    â€œHi, Carson.”
    â€œYou OK?”
    She looked at a report she’d been filling out. Shook her head.
    â€œI just got back from the hospital. A rape victim. Among other things. Jesus.”
    â€œTough one?”
    â€œUgliness through and through. Bizarre.”
    I rolled up a chair for the vacant desk beside Sal’s. The desk had belonged to her former partner, Larry Dayle. Dayle had resigned after four months on the Sex Crimes unit, moving his family to a mountainside in Montana and stringing the perimeter with razor wire.
    The floor—Sexual Crimes, Crimes