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A Tangled Web (7)
"Look man, we weren't doing anything wrong, Jimmy said nothing happened to the frogs and it was only like, a few times…"
The young man's voice sounded a little slurred even through the speakers. Sharon tilted her head, her expression disbelieving. "Did he just say that Donnell brought the tree frog toxin home from work so he and his friends could get high on it?"
Buzz glanced up from his seat. "I think he did."
Sharon pinched the bridge of her nose, turning her attention back to the screen.
"How did he get the toxin from the frogs?" In the interview room with Danny Murray, Det. Sanchez did not look like he was having a good time.
"Uh, I don't know, dude… Jimmy's like, real smart. He knows like, all this animal stuff and how to take care of them and whatever. That's his job. But he's like, smart - smart, you know?"
"Smart like what?" asked Julio.
"Like, you can tell when he talks." Danny Murray gave a wise nod. "Jimmy knows what he's talking about, man. Hey, can I have another of these cereal bars?" He crinkled the empty wrapper, causing the detective to scowl.
"No. How often did he bring the tree frog venom for you three to get high on?"
The young man scratched his eyebrow. "Uh…not that often...? He said something about the frogs needing to… make more, or something. Like cows with milk, you know? Only cows make milk every day. Guess frogs aren't like cows… unless they are…?"
Sanchez shot a stony look into the hidden camera.
"If Mr. Donnell repeatedly used the tree frog toxin to get high, is it possible for him to have damaged his liver over time?" So maybe they weren't looking at an intentional poisoning after all.
Standing next to the Captain in electronics, Tao shrugged a little uncertainly. "Yes…? In theory…? It's hard to tell what the repeated use of the bufotoxin – that's the psychoactive substance on the frogs' skin – can do to the human organism," he admitted. "There are a few tribes in Central and South America that employ tree frogs in their ceremonies, but other than that no one actually uses the toxin to get high," he pointed out, "so there aren't a lot of studies on the effects of long-term use in humans..."
"Actually," Buzz looked up from the screens, "google says there were some instances of use by teenagers and college hippies around the 70s… but the ownership and import of the species became regulated in the mid-eighties so people don't have access to the frogs anymore." He paused and amended. "Unless they work at a research lab, I guess."
Sharon grimaced. "I can't believe this," she murmured, then glanced to Tao again. "Is it even illegal for James Donnell to have used the tree frog toxin?"
"Uh… not from a substance abuse point of view, no. That specific toxin is not of the list of illegal controlled substances. Actually extracting it from the frog might count as a… a felony, maybe?" Tao looked doubtful. "It would definitely contravene the Animal Care rules, they're not supposed to mess with the research animals, but again I'm pretty sure it's not illegal…"
She sighed, shaking her head. "So our victim regularly took a highly psychoactive substance, toxic enough to cause lethal damage to his liver – he took that from a research facility and distributed it to his friends so they could all get high… and there's nothing actually against the law in there."
They both had to think on that for a second.
"There might be something…" amended Mike. "I mean, if you put it that way it sounds like there should be some law that he was breaking…"
"Isn't that kind of a moot point?" Buzz looked confused. "He's already dead."
"Yes," Sharon nodded thoughtfully, "but I like to have a clear picture of exactly what happened before we declare a case closed." She leaned toward the microphone and pressed a button to activate the connection to Julio's earbud. "Detective, ask Mr. Murray about 'Zero Footprint' and the bomb threats…"
Another quick glance at the camera and an imperceptible nodded told them that Sanchez had heard her. He leaned forward in his seat.
"So Jimmy's real smart, huh Danny? Did he ever talk about his blog?"
" – said we gotta be more careful with like, the planet. You know? Like, what if the planet just… stops growing things? Jimmy says that might happen…"
"Does Jimmy have a way to stop that?"
The young man crinkled the empty cereal bar wrapper again. "Uh…" He stared at Julio with a wary gaze. "Yeah, like… don't drink water out of bottles and like, turn the lights off and stuff. Look man, why don't you ask Jimmy all this stuff? He'll tell you. Where is he, anyway?" He scratched at his cheek. "Did something happen?"
The detective ignored all the questions. "Does Jimmy have any problems that you know of?"
"Problems…?"
"Is he depressed? Angry? Frustrated?" Julio was exhibiting signs of the latter two, himself.
"No? No, Jimmy's chill," said Danny. "He's chill, dude. He likes his job and stuff… he's real good at it, even some professor dude said so. Jimmy's good, man."
"So I suppose we've got a character witness to rule out suicide."
Sharon nodded at Tao's comment. "It sounds like he did jump off the bridge because he was too high to realize the danger." She couldn't help a regretful frown; the death felt like such a waste. It never ceased to scare her, how quickly someone went from being alive to … not being there anymore. In the space of a heartbeat. And sometimes, there was just no reason for it to have happened at all.
"And it looks like he administered that frog toxin to himself… repeatedly…" the lieutenant pointed out, "so I guess that rules out attempted murder…"
She hummed, "I guess," tilting her head as she stared back at the monitors again. Buzz and Tao caught the note of doubt in her tone, and gave her identical curious glances.
"You don't agree, Captain?" asked Buzz. Sharon bit her lips, looking thoughtful.
"Does this young man look the least bit sick to you?" On the monitor, Danny was taking a sip of his coffee and gesticulating wildly with his other hand. Tao quirked an eyebrow:
"No…?"
"He looks stoned," added Buzz.
Sharon acknowledged the comment with another hum. "But if Donnell brought home the toxin so they could all get high together, and it was the gradual buildup that damaged his liver and caused his delusional rant, shouldn't his friends show some of the same symptoms?"
Mike nodded as he thought about it. "Danny did say that Jimmy extracted the toxin from the frog's skin – he might've gotten exposed to it more than they did," he offered.
"But how much more?"
"It's also possible Donnell just overdid it on the night that he died," Tao added. "Seems like he was the leader of their little group, maybe he decided to try it by himself and didn't dose it properly… Or he could've touched the frogs too much while trying to extract the toxin…"
The Captain dipped her head; that was very likely true. "Either way, when we're done I'd like Mr. Murray and his friend 'Diego' checked out by a doctor," she requested. "Let's make sure they're not going to follow in Jimmy's footsteps."
It had passed six p.m. by the time they finished interviewing the dead man's friends, and Sharon was forced to admit that foul play was looking less and less likely. James Donnell had clearly used the tree frog toxin of his own volition, on repeated occasions, and though she wasn't clear on why or how he'd overdone it on Saturday night, that was one answer that could wait until the next day.
"What did I tell you?" Standing by the murder boards, Provenza uncapped a marker. "Young eco hippies and drugs… or in this case, exotic animal toxins." He finished a quick drawing of a stylized frog next to Donnell's photo, and shook his head. "What happened to good old weed, and magic mushrooms?"
"Maybe he didn't find them organic enough," scoffed Flynn.
His partner arched his eyebrows, nodding slowly. "It's not easy being green…"
That earned him amused huffs from Flynn and Tao, and even Sharon allowed herself a fleeting smile – although Provenza had shot a meaningful look in her direction at the mention of weed, and she was still harboring her best warning glare.
"Mike – anything on Mr. Donnell's computer yet?"
"I've logged on to his blog as admin," the lieutenant said, "and I'm looking through moderated posts and comments that weren't visible to the public. There are a few angry commenters, as you might expect – this one guy thinks flooding the whole west side of the city would be a good idea – but so far, nothing to suggest that Donnell was actually rallying his followers or anything. I don't think his site was a front for an eco group," he told her. "Just an opinion blog, like we thought earlier."
"There was nothing at his house, either," Andy provided. "Buzz has it all on tape, but it looked just like a regular bachelor pad. Only everything was recycled."
"His fridge looked like Flynn's," muttered Provenza.
"Hey, kale chips are a fine alternative to the greasy unhealthy stuff. They have sixty percent less sodium, did you know that?"
"No," the older man deadpanned, "and I didn't need to."
"It's ironic," Tao put in without looking up from the laptop, "that he was so passionate about eating healthy, yet if he hadn't jumped off the bridge, he'd have died of liver failure because of a toxin overdose…"
Sharon found it sad more than ironic.
"Did we establish that none of the researchers in the tree frog lab knew about what Mr. Donnell was doing?"
"Yeah, three of them didn't even know him – since he worked the night and weekend shifts, they never ran into him," said Tao. "One of the research assistants had seen him around on occasion, but she swears she had no idea and nothing to do with him extracting the toxin from the frogs, and I think I believe her."
She sighed. "That still doesn't change the fact that because of improper safety measures, a young man was able to abuse and distribute an unregulated toxic substance, and it likely led to his death."
"That's not gonna look good for the university," Mike agreed. "Donnell's parents might have grounds to sue them."
"That's the least of my concerns right now," said Sharon. "I'd like to make sure that we don't get another incident like this… I want someone to call the university and report this, and if necessary open a file looking into their safety and handling protocols."
Flynn nodded and walked back over to his desk, reaching for the phone. Provenza gave the Captain a sober look.
"Speaking of parents…have we notified Donnell's yet…?"
She shook her head. "Tomorrow." There would be no point in them driving down to LA tonight, and Sharon couldn't release their son's body yet, anyway. "I'll be making the call first thing in the morning."
It was a part of the job she'd never get used to, the gruesome task of breaking the news to parents that their children would never come home again. She couldn't help but think of the child waiting for her at home...it was an insidious, unspoken fear, that one day she'd be the one on the receiving end of such a notification.
An irrational fear. But it felt real.
Suddenly she was anxious to end the day and go home to Rusty.
"Alright," she said softly. "Given the evidence so far, I don't think there's any indication of an immediate threat to public safety, and it looks like we'll be able to rule Mr. Donnell's death as an accidental overdose. Dr. Morales can make the official pronouncement on his report tomorrow morning." She surveyed the murder room with a searching glance, to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything. "As soon as Det. Sanchez brings Danny and Diego back from the clinic, and once I have someone's assurance that there are no other uncontrolled toxins being abused at the university, we can call it a day. I'll call Chief Taylor to inform him of the progress."
The rest of them expressed their agreement with a mixture of nods and grunts; Flynn could be heard asking the operator for the number of one of the USC deans, while Tao continued to explore the contents of Donnell's laptop. Provenza leafed through the mail they'd brought back from the man's house in a large blue recycle bin, and Sharon retreated a few steps and pulled out her phone.
Her eyes were drawn once more to the photos of James Donnell on the murder board – the young man almost-smiling in his DMV shot, next to the grainy camera footage photo of his body at the foot of the bridge. Provenza's frog cartoon drawn beneath them made for a tragicomic effect.
'Real smart', his friends had called Jimmy, 'a good guy' – and maybe he was, but even so his actions had cost him his life. And somewhere, his parents were probably having their regular Sunday night dinner, with no idea that their son was dead. Come morning, Sharon's phone call would change their lives.
She sighed, and dialed Taylor.
When Sharon stepped inside the condo an hour later to find the living room empty, she felt only a brief moment of discontent. Yes, it didn't make her happy that Rusty was spending so much time in his room lately… but in this instance, she was too tired and hassled to expend much energy worrying about that. After over twelve hours spent chasing what was turning out to be a convoluted drug overdose case, all she wanted was a quiet evening and a glass of wine.
She took off her shoes with a mental note to never again wear heels to work on a Sunday. She was halfway to the kitchen when she realized that however much she wanted a glass of wine, she may have wanted a shower even more. It was a tough choice; she vacillated by the living room table for a moment.
Her attention was diverted at the sound of Rusty's door opening. He peered out, spotted her and walked over.
"I thought I heard you."
Sharon hummed a tired greeting and even mustered a half-smile for him. She hoped he wouldn't catch the terrible smell on her clothes.
"So did you figure out what happened to that guy who jumped off the bridge?"
Her answer was a lopsided nod. "Yes… and no. I still have a few unanswered questions," she admitted. "But in the end, it doesn't look like someone killed him."
"So what you're saying is, you guys had to work all day Sunday, and there wasn't even a murder." He was giving her one of those wriggly-eyebrows, wiseass looks of his, and Sharon had to envision presenting Taylor with the overtime sheets as a coping mechanism.
"I'm generally happy when there is no murder to solve," she replied in kind, walking over to surreptitiously open the balcony doors for extra ventilation. "Did you have dinner?"
"Yeah, I made some pasta… with sausage… saved you some, it's in the fridge."
"Oh – thank you." She smiled in appreciation, then noticed two tomatoes abandoned on the kitchen counter and frowned, confused. "Wait – how did you make pasta? We didn't have anything in the fridge."
Rusty gave her a funny look. "Uh, I went to the store and bought the ingredients…?" His tone clearly said 'duh'.
"You went to the – Rusty." Sharon arched her eyebrows. "I thought we agreed that you'd wait for me to go grocery shopping."
"Yeah, Sharon, but like, I don't need to wait. I can buy five tomatoes and some sausage on my own." He stuck his hands in the pockets of his pajama pants. "Besides, what did you want me to do?"
"You were supposed to make a list of the things you need," she reminded him, and the boy rolled his eyes.
"I did make a list," he grumbled, "and then I went and bought the stuff on the list. What's the big deal, anyway? And you can close the window, by the way," he told her, "I could smell the weed from my room."
She froze, momentarily derailed. Damn it.
Rusty was giving her a wry look.
"Det. Sanchez and I had to visit the home of a person of interest," she said in as dignified a manner as possible. "Excuse me, I'm going to take a shower."
He fidgeted uncomfortably in his spot. "Are you like, mad at me because I went and got groceries?"
Sharon's shoulders dropped in a soft sigh. "I'm not mad, no. I just wish you'd consulted with me before changing the plan we agreed on."
"Consulted – seriously? It's a grocery trip Sharon, I didn't go and like, sign a ten-year house lease without your permission." He rolled his eyes again, and she offered a restrained smile:
"It's the principle of the matter."
"Yeah, well, my principle is not starving to death," Rusty informed her seriously, "and besides, you've been out since six a.m., I didn't think you'd want to wait in line an hour at the store."
Sharon opened her mouth to reply, then paused. "Well… I don't," she admitted, eliciting an exasperated teenage huff:
"So then what's the problem?"
She caught herself before even starting to explain; she was too tired to get into this now. "Next time," she told him pointedly, "call me before you decide to change our plans."
"Fine, okay, I will," he replied, with the dramatic air of someone making the greatest concession of their life, and Sharon couldn't help an amused smirk, her irritation subsiding.
He watched her walk past him in the direction of the bathroom.
"Wow… how long were you and Det. Sanchez at this person's house, exactly?"
"So this guy poisoned himself with a frog?" Rusty's face scrunched in disbelief. "What, were like, regular drugs not good enough or something?"
Sharon lifted a shoulder, piercing a bit of pasta with her fork. "There is always an attraction to things that are novel or riskier. Did you finish your homework?" It was her third attempt to divert the conversation away from their case; Rusty, however, seemed as determined to discuss nothing else as she was to discuss anything else.
Sure, he might have been genuinely interested in James Donnell's fate – but more likely he was just trying to keep the conversation away from a particular topic, by keeping her on the safe subject of the case. And Sharon thought she knew exactly what he was avoiding.
"Yeah, we didn't have that much homework for tomorrow. Just Biology and that's like, one of the easy ones. So this guy, he jumped off the – "
"Do you need me to come talk to the principal, tomorrow?"
Rusty paused with his mouth open. Then he slumped in his chair. "No, Sharon. I already told you."
"No, you said that you're not in trouble –"
"I'm not!"
"I believe you," she said calmly. "But, if you feel that one of your classmates has a problem with you, that might get you in trouble –"
"No one has a problem, okay? It was just… we had a disagreement," he muttered darkly. "That's all."
The 'disagreement' had left mud and grass stains all over his pants, and his shirt torn in two places.
When Sharon had seen the extent of the damage, after he'd tried to surreptitiously do laundry on Friday evening, she was fairly sure that her heart had stopped beating for a few seconds.
Then she'd gotten angry, because she'd been home at least three hours and had asked about ten times if everything was alright and how exactly did the state of his uniform qualify as 'nothing's wrong, Sharon' and 'school was fine'?!
Luckily, there hadn't seemed to be any actual physical damage, which was a huge step up from the last 'disagreement' he'd had with the boys at his school. Rusty swore that no one was in the infirmary this time. Still…
"Rusty…"
"Look, Sharon, just… it's fine." He sounded somewhere between frustrated and pleading. "Nothing's wrong, you don't need to talk to the principal, we didn't get in trouble, everything's fine, okay? Just… can you drop it, please?"
No, she couldn't drop it! What was he thinking? He was lucky she hadn't started ringing the other parents to see who the other party was, who was involved in this 'disagreement'. Scratch that – he was lucky she hadn't opened an investigation!
She'd let the issue rest yesterday, in the hopes of discussing it more calmly today, but because of the Donnell case they hadn't had a chance to talk. So now Rusty was out of luck; she wasn't dropping anything until this issue was resolved to her satisfaction.
"Rusty, if someone's giving you a hard time, if you're getting into fights at school, I think we should take this up–"
"I'm not getting into fights," he protested, "can you please… God, Sharon!" He actually got up from the table, retreating a few anxious steps toward the sofa, and she pressed her lips together, lowering her fork back to the plate.
"This isn't convincing me that nothing's wrong," she pointed out in a calm, low tone.
"Yeah, neither is anything else," he said frustratedly, "because I've said it like, a hundred times and … I don't know what you want me to do, okay?"
She managed a strained half-smile. "First, I'd like you to sit back down," she waved a hand at the chair he'd jumped out of, "and then I'd like you to tell me what happened Friday, so I can be assured that there's nothing going on at school that could be dangerous to –"
"Dangerous?" His voice nearly cracked on the word. "Dangerous? Sharon – being a witness in Stroh's trial is 'dangerous'! Being out on the streets with a psycho stalker after me, that was 'dangerous'! This is just school, okay, I can handle school, why can't you just…" He trailed off at the sight of her expression, and his shoulders slumped with a defeated sigh. He rubbed both hands over his cheeks, lowering himself to the arm of the sofa. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry, Sharon, I don't…" Rusty sighed, giving her a sad look. "I'm sorry. I know you mean well, it's just… you don't have to worry so much."
She couldn't even think of a reply to that.
"What happened Friday?" she asked quietly, and Rusty let his head drop into his hands again.
"Nothing happened, Sharon, I'm serious," he sighed. "Nothing important, we just had a stupid disagreement over some … stupid thing, and it got a little out hand but like… we didn't beat each other up or anything. The teachers didn't see us and no one got in trouble and then I came home and that was it, I swear."
"What was the disagreement about?"
He looked away, then, crossing his arms and letting out another disheartened sigh. "It was stupid. It doesn't matter."
"Rusty."
"It doesn't, okay? It's just… not even worth talking about." He shook his head, and when he met her eyes again he looked, if possible, even sadder. "I'm sorry for yelling at you. I didn't… I'm sorry, Sharon. It's… it was just a stupid fight at school, and I don't need you to worry about every little thing in my life, okay?"
Sharon pressed her lips together, and his expression just grew more distressed.
"I swear, I'm not in trouble and I'm not gonna get in trouble and … just trust me, please." He let his head drop to his chest. "Can we like, not talk about this anymore? Please?"
Faced with his entreaties, there was nothing for her to do but acquiesce, though it was with great reluctance. But she couldn't force him to talk to her, and pushing right now would've only made things worse. It was a fragile balance between them, lately. Just like many other times in the last few weeks, she wasn't even sure how they'd gone from having a normal conversation to an emotional argument.
Hearing the door to his room close, Sharon allowed herself a long sigh.
The shrill ring of her phone woke her up again. Groggily, she checked the clock on the nightstand that read just under six a.m., and groaned; this was becoming a bad habit. Sharon groped around for her phone and squinted at the screen enough to recognize the extension from downtown – wow, whoever was calling her must have already been at the station, so someone at least had woken up even earlier.
"Raydor," she answered, doing her best to keep the sleep out of her voice.
"Captain – I'm sorry to wake you up this early, but if this means what I think it means, you might end up thanking me."
Surprise cleared away most of her residual sleepiness. "Doctor Morales. What's wrong?"
"So you know how sometimes you just get that feeling that you forgot something? And it really nags at you in the most annoying way possible? Well," he didn't wait for a reply, "I didn't get to enjoy my Sunday after all, because of that feeling. So when I woke up in the middle of the night and it still wasn't gone, I decided to go back and figure out what I'd missed." He paused for breath, giving Sharon just enough time to ask:
"And…?"
"Yesterday," the doctor went on, "we were busy asking who this guy was and how he died, so I looked at his face, and his brain, and his dental records, and the signs of poisoning in his organs… But then you figured out that he died from overdosing on psychoactive tree frog venom," his tone indicated this was an important point, "which normally works through either ingestion or skin absorption, and if he was handling the frogs to extract the toxin and came into contact with it that way, that would leave traces on his hands. Traces that I didn't see yesterday," he was speaking so fast she could barely keep up, "because well, for one, his hands were pretty mashed just like the rest of him, and there was blood all over them, but more importantly because you already had his prints and you weren't looking for cause of death so I didn't pay as much attention to the hands as I should've –"
"Doctor–" Sharon had to interrupt, because it was too early for this many words, and Morales sounded like he'd had way too much coffee. "What are you saying? What did you find on his hands?"
"Found signs of where the toxin might've come into contact with his skin – I think. Like I said before I'm not an expert at this, but it looks like the right kind of tissue degeneration…"
"So… you confirmed that he died from the poison of the tree frog." She wasn't sure why that was worth a phone call at not-even-six-a.m.
"There's that, yes. But, while I was cleaning the tissue on his hands, I found traces of other substances, and since I was here at five a.m. anyway, for no apparent reason, I decided to test them myself and, long story short –"
Very long story. "Yes…?"
" –there were traces of explosives on his skin."