White Collar: Knock on Wood
Chapter Twenty-four: Nightshade
Neal sat in one of the conference room chairs leaning back with his feet up on the table. Tilting his head back he threw the rubber band ball up in the air and caught it again. He wasn't sure how long he'd been throwing and catching the office curio. If it seemed like hours it was because it was. They were waiting on the autopsy and toxicology report. Unlike on CSI the test results didn't show up in a neat file in the spans of a commercial break.
"Neal," Peter said in a weary tone "get your feet off the table."
"I'm so bored."
"That's no excuse for poor manners."
Neal rolled his eyes as he took his feet down off the large table. He perked up when he noticed that Peter was holding a file. Peter sat down and opened the folder and started reading the contents. Neal waited impatiently for Peter to share what he was learning.
"If you think you're reading that out loud...you're not." Neal pointed out.
"The scotch wasn't poisoned, neither was the glass."
"So we gave him the heart attack?" Neal asked doubtfully.
"No...well sort of. Harker was poisoned, but hours before we talked to him. He had traces of Atropa belladonna in his system."
"Deadly Nightshade?"
"That's right. The Nightshade disrupted his parasympathetic nervous system. Under the stress of the confession and arrest his heart rate began to race out of control. According to this the atropine in the Nightshade blocked the vagus nerve which is responsible for reducing heart rate."
"Like a run away train his heart just kept going faster until it derailed."
"Massive heart failure was the ultimate cause of death." Peter confirmed.
"Nightshade, another deadly plant." Neal noted. "Botany seems to be our killer's strong suit."
"Neal..." Peter said carefully "you do realize that with the timing of Harker's poisoning it brings Josephine back to the top of the list of suspects."
"I know." Neal sighed. "I just can't believe that it was her. She treated your burns with such genuine compassion, she stole my Federal ID so that she could turn it into a lucky charm for me. She helped Mozzie clean my apartment, does that sound like the actions of a cold blooded murderess?"
"She's a con artist, Neal."
"So am I, it doesn't mean either of us are killers."
"No, but it does mean that she'd be highly skilled at hiding her true nature."
"She can't be that good."
"You mean she can't be better than you?" Peter corrected.
"This isn't about pride, Peter. It's about finding a murderer."
"I agree. But innocent or guilty of murder Josephine still needs to be found."
"I don't even know where to start." Neal admitted.
"Where would you go if you were her?"
"That would depend on how much money I had, what kind of ID I was carrying, whether or not I had any friends left."
"For this exercise let's say you didn't have any of those things."
"I'm on my own and I can't trust anyone?"
"Exactly."
"That's a scary thought." Neal said seriously. "I'd want to go somewhere that I felt safe."
"Somewhere familiar?"
"Absolutely."
"What about the warehouse?"
"No. It's been compromised. I could be found there." Neal shook his head and became lost in thought. "Josephine is like a squirrel, hiding pockets of treasures all over New York. She had the warehouse and the storage unit, she could have a dozen such places. She'd go to one of them."
"That doesn't really help."
"No...not really."
Peter leafed through the rest of the autopsy report. Still trying to think of where Josephine might go Neal rolled the rubber band ball between his hands on the table. Despite firmly believing that she couldn't have been behind the murders, he still didn't know her well enough to guess her whereabouts.
"Where would you go?" Peter asked suddenly.
"I already told you, I don't have any idea where any of Josephine's other hiding places are."
"No, not Josephine. You, where would you go if you had nothing and no one to turn to?"
"Grand Central Station." Neal answered without hesitation.
"Really?" Peter asked surprised. "You'd go somewhere crowded?"
"If I couldn't trust anyone I knew, I'd need to find a stranger to help me. Grand Central is the perfect place to find a fellow lost soul."
"Poetic, but a poor choice. I'd catch you there in a heartbeat."
"You said I didn't have any friends. I assumed that you were dead for this thought experiment, not that you were chasing me." Neal complained. "What about you? Where would you go?"
"Me? I don't know, I've never really thought about it."
"You should."
"Why?"
"Never hurts to have a 'plan B'." Neal teased.
Peter looked at Neal suspiciously to which Neal responded with a look of practiced pure innocents. The expression never failed to cause Peter to shake his head in disgruntled defeat, and today was no exception.
"What do we do now?" Neal asked.
"Excellent question. I've got the airports, and other major exits to the city covered, local LEOs are on the look out."
"I don't think she'll leave the city."
"Then we have a good chance of catching her, she has to step out in public to get food at some point."
"I had everything delivered when I came back."
"That takes money. Let's dig through Harker and his company's records to see if there is any evidence that he handed over any money to Josephine before Jones got there."
"I forgot that Agents were watching Harker most of the night. That cuts down on the time for a potential poisoner to get to him."
"Another reason Josephine looks more and more guilty."
Neal didn't want to agree with Peter out loud, but he did have a very good point. It took Peter a few hours to request access to Harker's accounts. Once they had them the pair poured over them in hopes of finding something. Long after the sun went down they still had nothing.
"If Harker gave her a large sum of money on short notice he must have had the cash on hand in the house." Neal concluded.
"I agree."
Peter continued to skim through the printed pages as well as the digital files on his laptop. Neal noticed as the afternoon had turned to evening that Peter had started to hold his injured hand closer and closer to his body. He now had it held protectively against his chest. Neal figured that as fatigue set in the constant pain became harder to ignore.
"Peter, we should call it a night. We aren't getting anywhere."
"You're right." Peter admitted. "Come on, I'll give you a ride home."
Neal was tired by the time Peter dropped him off at June's. Having a hard time deciding if he was more tired or more hungry Neal roamed the kitchen looking for something easy to eat for dinner. He found the left over Chinese food from the night before when Josephine had ordered in. Leaning his back against the counter he ate some cold vegetable chow mien directly from the carton.
It wasn't until Neal went in search of the Spanish Rioja that had gone so well with the meal the first time that he noticed the neatly folded note on his kitchen table. Putting down the Chinese food Neal walked over to the table. Picking up the note a small black piece of plastic attached to a silver key ring fell out.
Neal picked up the piece that had fallen and took a closer look at it. His heart rate jumped when he recognized it as the key to his tracking anklet. It took him a moment to realize that Peter must have had it on his car keys when Josephine stole them. The front of the card had an address in the dock district on it, well out of his two mile radius. Opening the card he read the rest of the instructions.
"'Midnight. Come alone or she dies...'."