Free Name of the Devil by Andrew Mayne Page B

screens. Cheek cells, unlike hair or skin cells, can tell you a little bit more because they’re in the mouth. In this case, we found something unusual. Just a trace, but enough to make a spike.” Ailes points to a graph. “Psilocin.”
    It takes a moment for me to remember my pharmacology classes. Psilocin is a psychedelic. “Psilocin? This was in Jessup’s sample? You mean he was on mushrooms?”
    â€œThat’s the closest match. But it’s something different. The conventional toxin screen wouldn’t have noticed it. Hold on.” Ailes taps away at his keyboard faster than I can think. “Here . . .” A chemical structure floats on the screen.
    It’s just a bunch of ping-pong balls to me. “Care to dumb it down? I’m just a former showgirl who learned a few card tricks.”
    He rolls his eyes and points. “Hardly. That’s the phenyl ring. Almost all of the psychoactive drugs we have involve some variation of this. Jessup had something in his body that’s a close match to psilocin, something similar to what you’d find when a magic mushroom breaks down.”
    â€œSo the sheriff did get high off mushrooms?” We’ve reached my limit of crazy for the town.
    â€œNo. I said close. That’s the funny thing about chemistry. Rearrange an atom or two and decongestant becomes meth. Substituted phenethylamines are a whole family of molecules that can interfere with your neurotransmitters in a variety of ways. It’s why synthetics aren’t always precise. A right-handed version of a molecule might be a nausea-alleviating wonder drug, but the left-handed version could have the same effect and cause birth defects, like Thalidomide.”
    â€œSo the sheriff was on some kind of synthetic drug?”
    Ailes shakes his head. “Not necessarily. It could be a natural substance that hasn’t appeared in our databases yet. We’re still finding new and different ways to mess with our brains. Archeologists have even found what appears to be psychoactive moss in ten-thousand-year-old graves. Its main ingredient is a substituted phenethylamine we hadn’t seen before.” He traces his finger around the molecule. “There could be a billion permutations. Each one affecting the brain in a slightly different way. One might slow down processes in the calcium channels, while increasing the response between auditory neurons.” He looks at me like the result should be obvious. “Words would sound distorted to you, slow and drawn out.”
    â€œIs that a real thing?” I ask.
    He shakes his head. “It’s an example I just made up. My point is that there are a billion ways to mess up our perceptions.”
    â€œI think you may have missed your calling. Could the sheriff have ingested this accidentally?”
    â€œYou were there, what do you think?”
    â€œIf there hadn’t been an unexplained explosion and bodies in the trees, just violence, I’d say maybe . But everything together doesn’t quite match the behavior of one man on the worst trip ever.”
    â€œNo, it does not,” agrees Ailes. “This suggests something larger.”
    â€œHow much larger?”
    Gerald snorts.
    I glare at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    â€œHe knows where you’re going next.”
    â€œWhere’s that?”
    A map pops up on the screen, replacing the graph. The center is a town called Tixato. I’ve never heard of it.
    â€œWhy would I be going there?” I ask, trying to figure out their private joke.
    Ailes starts talking in his professorial voice. “In any crime scene you find a thousand pieces of evidence that are interesting, but lead you down false alleys. A blond hair from a dead prostitute gets tracked in because the cleaning lady lives in a bad apartment building. A Syrian passport found in a plane crash is actually from an overnight express envelope