Nikki frowned deeply and knocked on the front door again. Mike Fisher was standing next to her. His Audi was parked in the driveway of the house. "She knows, doesn't she?"

Mike looked at his watch. It was 4.40 am. "I called her right after we talked. Roughly, at least."

Nikki bit her lower lip and knocked one more time.

Grumbling and quiet cursing could be heard from inside the house. Then the front door opened. Maggie looked tiredly at her daughter. "I'm already awake," she growled. Then she looked at the officer. "Couldn't you have sent me a text?"

"I did," the younger woman replied, looking almost amused at her boyfriend, "three times!"

Maggie groaned loudly as she let Nikki and Mike into the house and slumped her shoulders as she switched on the light in the kitchen. "So really the Vatican, hmm?"

Nikki went to the kitchen island and sat down while Mike set about getting the coffee machine going. "Yep, that's right. Did you have a long night?"

"You mean next to your brother?" the redhead replied and the officer pressed her lips together. "We had another one of those in the darkroom until three hours ago," Maggie said. "And your other colleagues were once again completely overwhelmed. You can tell when the good team is on forced leave."

Mike grinned and gave his girlfriend a meaningful look. "That was a compliment, you know?"

Maggie finally grinned a little.

Nikki rolled her eyes. "Yeah, thanks, mom. What happened?"

"Thanks," Maggie whispered to former investigator Mike, as he handed her a mug of coffee, and took a deep breath. "One dead from strangulation games in a darkroom near East Boston. It was voluntary, so not a homicide, but probably negligent homicide or whatever." She took a first sip from her coffee cup. "I don't care at this point, let the lawyers and judges deal with it."

Nikki looked at Maggie closely and frowned a little. "I can guess where that was."

The redhead made a face again and closed her eyes tiredly. "Yeah, there was probably some goddamn fisting party, you know, where some guys let other guys stick their hands up their asses up to their elbows. It was Folsom, too, where all the hardcore SM people dress up their sub as a dog and put them on a leash."

"Thanks," Nikki whispered as Mike also handed her a cup of coffee and frowned a little. "I've heard all the stories. But no one has choked on a dog biscuit for humans?"

Maggie squinted at the ceiling and squeezed one eye shut. She seemed to be still waking up and sorting out her thoughts. "No, the injured man was at the fisting party. One of them was in charge of fisting and had to keep his hand bent over the others who wanted to be fisted ... He got a lumbago from the weird posture."

Nikki made a face and nodded slowly.

She knew the scene and the extent to which these parties could go, and suddenly she thought that the job with the Vatican and the Visconti wasn't so bad anymore, even if it would mean the end of her young career. She knew these darkrooms. She had also been called into such a few times by her colleagues for alleged assault and worse. It was always unbearably hot and the floor flashed white in the UV light. Semen contained protein and was particularly easy to see in this light.

"Two dead in total," Maggie said with a frown.

Nikki made a face. "What else?"

"A broken neck."

"That doesn't sound very voluntary."

Maggie looked wearily at her daughter and took a sip from her coffee cup. "It wasn't. But it wasn't murder or manslaughter either, it was just an accident. They have a fucking tub in the basement where natural secretion fetishists --"

"They're the ones who like piss and shit," Mike lectured Nikki.

Nikki gave him a punishing look. "Thanks, but I could already guess that. What happened, Mom?"

Maggie lifted her shoulders and frowned a little. "They'd put a fucking bathtub there and set it up so that the urine from the urinals one floor above was fed into the bathtub through a special pipe and people could then splash around in the ... piss tub. There were only urinals without chemical toilet blocks on the floor above so that they didn't change the ... well, the aroma."

The officer made a face. "They really do think of everything."

"It's kind of like that damn Marquise de Sade." Maggie rubbed the back of her neck. "None of this shit is new anyway. It's all been done before. Anyway, the pipe bent and a huge load of urine went next to this piss tray. The floor was slippery and one of the guys, who had been drinking and taking drugs, slipped on the floor, hit his temple against the edge of the tub and broke his neck."

"That's a heroic death," Mike said with a frown.

"Not quite as heroic as collapsing in the Sistine Chapel covered in blood," Maggie replied and looked briefly at her daughter. "You sent me pictures yesterday. Even I've never seen anything like it. And that's saying something. I'd even autopsy this body for free." She yawned and stretched while giving the officer a punishing look. "Still, I was actually expecting you around lunchtime. Because I actually have today off for once."

Nikki made a face. "Oh, I'm sorry about that, Mom." She was visibly startled, but Mike grinned widely when Maggie winked at him.

The redhead put her hands on her hips. "On the other hand, I think we're going to need until tonight anyway if we're going to do the initial rapid tests on this unusual case."

Nikki blinked a few times and frowned a little. "Don't tell me you think this is so exciting that you'd autopsy Aurelia Sforza's body for free?"

Maggie took a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair. "In this case, yes. But I thought --"

"You don't have to," the officer interrupted her and pulled out a letter. "This is for you." Maggie looked carefully at the letter with the papal seal. "I've never received an autopsy order from the Vatican before." She looked at Nikki with wide eyes. "Can I open this?"

Mike grunted in amusement.

Nikki blinked a few times and frowned. "Sure, it's especially for you. A small expense allowance for you and your team from Cardinal Julio for the private autopsy and toxicology examination."

Maggie carefully opened the envelope.

Inside was a letter of thanks with the seal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and, a little hidden, some green bills.

"Will that be enough?"

"Why yes," Maggie replied, "I'll change quickly and be in the driveway in ten minutes."

"You can ride with us," the officer said, "Aurelia's body will be driven straight to your morgue."

The redhead smiled wryly. "You've really thought of everything, Nikki. Well, feat when you're on the Lord's errand." She gestured inside. "You can make some coffee while I change. Then we'll be on our way in a minute."

xxx

The autopsy hadn't taken long. Apart from the blood, which the morticians had long since removed from the body in Italy, Maggie found nothing on the already decomposed corpse that could explain the sudden death. With the exception of anemic internal organs and pale mucous membranes as a sign of severe blood loss, there was no cause of death. As there was no relevant amount of blood anywhere inside the body, the young woman must have bled outwards without a wound being visible.

The dead woman's eyes were closed and there was that rigid, doll-like peacefulness on her face that was characteristic of all the dead. "The bleeding must have been diffuse," Maggie said more to herself than to anyone else, "the subcutaneous fatty tissue has bled extensively. There was no more blood on the outside of the skin, which was probably due to the morticians' preparation of the body." She turned to Nikki and Mike. "But see for yourself. No external signs of violence or injury to explain the bleeding. I told Toxicology to hurry up a bit."

xxx

Some time had passed. Toxicology had hurried. The forensics people had hurried extra and one of them came out of the next room and handed Maggie a brief report in her office while Nikki and Mike poured themselves coffee.

The redhead sat at her desk and furrowed her eyebrows. "That explains a lot."

The officer furrowed her eyebrows. "What exactly?"

Maggie studied the report and licked her lips. "The blood analysis was really the crucial step," she said, "though we had to squeeze the blood out of her a bit. Unlike in horror films or poorly researched thrillers, corpses don't bleed because the heart has to beat. And it doesn't normally do that in dead bodies. Except maybe in Edgar Allan Poe."

Mike furrowed his eyebrows and looked questioningly at his girlfriend.

"Can we get down to business then?" Nikki mumbled into her cup.

The redhead looked at her daughter briefly. "Am I going too slow? Don't forget, the Vatican is paying me. And they have time. For more than two thousand years."

Nikki rolled her eyes and slumped her shoulders. "All right, what have you found out, Mom?"

"Aurelia Sforza was given a very high dose of Nevrotamine, a variant of Warfarin, also known as Marcumar, about two hours before her wedding."

Nikki had heard the term before. "Isn't that something to thin the blood?"

"That's right. Patients usually take it to prevent further thrombosis or a pulmonary embolism or stroke. Before long flights, for example. It's exactly as you say. Warfarin is an anticoagulant that prevents blood clotting and actually has a delayed effect."

"A vitamin K antagonist, isn't it?" Mike asked with narrowed brows. "I remember something from my time as a cop."

Maggie pulled down the corners of her mouth, impressed. "That's right. As a vitamin K antagonist, the drug inhibits blood clotting by blocking the formation of clotting factors, which is why it actually has a delayed effect after several days."

"But is there such an extreme version of the drug that would cause what happened to Aurelia?" Nikki wanted to know. "You say that she must have been given it two hours before her wedding."

"There's no such thing legally, of course," replied the redhead, looking up briefly, "she wasn't given classic Warfarin, but a new variant that works much faster and more effectively. What's more, Warfarin is not only used to thin the blood of humans."

Nikki frowned exhaustedly. "But?"

"But also as rat poison," Mike said thoughtfully, looking at her.

Maggie nodded in agreement. "Here," she pointed to the tube with the blood sample, "the active ingredient was so highly dosed that it opened the blood vessels and the blood leaked out. Aurelia Sforza bled to death internally and externally within a very short space of time."

Nikki and Mike were silent for a while. The whole thing, the officer thought, was an extremely new and sadistic form of murder by poison. "But isn't it true," said the young woman, "that Warfarin works more slowly on rats? Because they have their own tasters and the rats don't eat it when they die?"

Maggie looked closely at her daughter. "You know your stuff. And also so that some time passes so that the rats die in their own burrow and don't lie around somewhere else. But it's true: Rats do indeed have some tasters, which is why it only works on them after eight hours, when the tasters don't seem to show any symptoms and the other rats have long since started feeding themselves. To their disadvantage, of course. However, the faster option now ensures that the rats die directly on site, so that you can collect and dispose of the rats on the spot. It all has its pros and cons."

"And it was quicker here too?"

"According to my estimates, it took about two hours."

"Would you be able to taste this stuff?" Nikki asked with furrowed brows.

"Definitely," said Maggie and got up from her chair to pour herself a coffee too. "This here is Nevrotamine, the most toxic Warfarin/Marcumar variant. If this were administered in a drink, you'd taste it immediately and a flavoring to mask the taste would be immediately noticeable, especially at a wedding. And there's something else, which is why I can rule out the possibility that she didn't ingest it orally."

"Namely?"

"We found no poison in the stomach contents or in the contents of the upper duodenum, the small intestine and duodenum. That rules out oral ingestion of the toxin."

Mike nodded slowly and frowned a little. "Was it injected into Aurelia?"

Maggie took a sip from her cup and raised her eyebrows briefly, nodding. "It could be, but we haven't found anything on the veins that looks like an injection site, even if it was a few days ago. If we want to pursue this lead, our colleagues in Rome will have to interview everyone Aurelia met on the day of her wedding and find out if there was a doctor's visit or anything like that."

Nikki frowned thoughtfully. "I'm sure Adami could organize that."

"But," said the ME, "since it's Nevrotamine, the toxicology colleagues have a completely different suspicion."

Nikki took a deep breath and licked her lips. "And what's that?"

"Nevrotamine also acts as a contact poison through the skin."

The officer raised her eyebrows in surprise. "So someone administered this poison through her skin?" "

"Yes, and only to Aurelia. Or were there other people at this wedding with fatal bleeds?"

Nikki shook her head slowly. "We haven't heard anything about that. But then that begs the question of who or what the bride was in contact with."

"Long enough," Maggie continued, sitting back down at her desk, "for the drug to be absorbed through the skin and enter the bloodstream."

Nikki looked at Mike and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "We were at your sister's wedding more than a month ago. Can you think of anything?"

Mike thought for a moment and then pursed his lips. "That the food was pretty good and the drinks were even better?"

Nikki rolled her eyes and Maggie grunted in amusement. Men, the officer thought. Typical. But then she had an idea. "Put another way, what's the most important thing for the bride at the wedding?"

Mike blinked a few times and frowned deeply. He suddenly had the feeling that he was about to fall into a very deadly trap. "The groom, right? Should be expected, anyway. Women put on the whole circus to marry the guy. And then the women are in a hurry to divorce their husbands as quickly as possible. The only ones who win are the lawyers."

Nikki opened her mouth in surprise, closed it again, drew her eyebrows together and cocked her head to one side questioningly.

Mike also opened his mouth, closed it again, smiled almost apologetically and raised his shoulders.

"Although," Maggie said, trying to defuse the awkward situation a little, "there are always jokers who say no at the registry office and make themselves look funny. Or don't show up at all. But how is her future husband supposed to have smeared Aurelia with the poison? He would have to wear gloves. That doesn't seem very romantic to me. Or were they rubber fetishists?"

Nikki rolled her eyes again. "Very funny," she groaned as she thought feverishly. Then it occurred to her. "That's completely obvious! Who's more important at the wedding? The groom or the bride?"

Mike suddenly raised his eyebrows. "The bride, hence the horror effect of the bride falling over covered in blood."

Nikki pointed at her boyfriend with wide eyes. "That's right. And what is the most important thing for the bride, apart from the wedding and the groom, at the wedding and before it?"

He pulled the corners of his mouth down. "I don't know. The cake and the midnight snack?"

Nikki took a deep breath and slumped her shoulders. "The damn wedding dress!"

He made a face and this time even Maggie made a face.

"Honestly?" Nikki pointed at Maggie and then at herself. "Just ask any woman, the wedding dress is the most important thing of all."

Mike furrowed his brows and tucked his chin.

Nikki paused, licked her lips and cleared her throat.

Maggie pursed her lips. "Well, I nearly drove Liz crazy planning our wedding back then, not to mention picking out my wedding dress."

Nikki grinned broadly and nodded slowly. "If Ma had had her way, you'd have been married the very next day, no fuss."

"Thank God, unlike Liz, it was my first wedding!" Maggie replied with a broad grin. "And I was in charge."

Nikki laughed briefly and nodded slowly.

Mike looked at the two women and cleared his throat with a frown. "And what does all this have to do with the Nevrotamine now?" Maggie's eyes widened and Nikki pursed her lips. Then it dawned on him. "You mean the lining of the wedding dress was smeared with this poison."

The officer nodded gravely. "Yes, that would fit. I don't see any other explanation either, Mike." She looked at her mother. "Would that be possible?"

Maggie took a deep breath and ran her teeth over her lower lip. "Yes, the two hours is pretty accurate. The wedding dresses are often quite tight on the body."

Mike paused, but then pressed his lips together and shook his head. "But why didn't anyone else have any complaints? The bride won't have dressed herself alone, will she?"

Nikki smiled broadly. That had just crossed her mind too. Then she'd thought about the day she and Ashlyn had literally forced Maggie to try on wedding dress after wedding dress. "Because the person helping to put it on is wearing white cloth gloves," she said, looking at the redhead. "Quite simply so as not to soil the dress. The gloves are usually given as a gift by the bridal stores."

Mike looked at the officer at first as if Nikki had lost her mind, but then he nodded slowly, knowing that she had attended more weddings, be it with friends or family, than he had.

"And where exactly is the wedding dress?" Maggie looked at her papers. "It's not here!"

"You mean in Boston?" the former BPD officer asked.

Maggie frowned deeply and shook her head. "No, there was no dress on the delivery bill either. Apart from that, Nikki was at the exhumation, was Aurelia still wearing her wedding dress?"

Nikki took a deep breath, closed her eyes and licked her lips. "No, she didn't." She opened her eyes again with a slight frown. "Then hopefully it's still at the Vatican in Rome."

Maggie exhaled loudly and leaned back in her chair. "It would be better if the wedding dress was here in Boston. Then we can analyze the surface and see if we can find Nevrotamine there. Which I have high hopes of finding."

Nikki pressed her lips together and pulled out her cell phone, annoyed that she hadn't thought of this small but important detail first. "I'll call Adami or Julio right away."

Maggie clasped her hands in front of her mouth and frowned deeply. "And tell them to watch the hell out of that wedding dress. The stuff may have dried, but as soon as it comes into contact with moisture, it turns back into the contact poison it is. With the wedding dress, all it takes is sweat from nervous hands to kill someone."

Nikki chewed nervously on her lower lip, rolled her eyes and hurried out of Maggie's office.

Maggie looked after her daughter and then turned her gaze to Mike. "Have you told her already?"

Mike pressed his lips together and shook his head. "Nikki's only just arrived from Italy. It's the middle of the night, she hasn't showered or slept, let alone eaten anything since I picked her up from Logan. I'll talk to her when she's rested a bit."

Maggie looked at him intently and then rolled her eyes, running a hand through her hair. "God help us."

xxx

Cardinal Julio picked up after the first ring. He knew Nikki O'Laighin's number and had already been waiting for her call.

Nikki briefly explained the background to her call to the cardinal.

"A poison that makes a person bleed to death?" he asked, "A contact poison? Oh, almighty, old Visconti is right when he says that Satan is after his family."

"Possibly. Maybe just someone who knows a lot about poisons. Does the family had or still have enemies?"

Julio hesitated for a moment. "Old, noble families always have enemies. People who are jealous, who don't begrudge them their wealth. You know what Jesus said about the rich --"

Nikki ran a hand through her hair and closed her eyes briefly. "Yeah, the thing about the camel and the eye of the needle. But do they have enemies capable of something like that?"

"I can't imagine it. I can't imagine humans being capable of something like that anyway. Then again, the wickedness of man is as deep as the pit of hell."

Nikki frowned more than deeply. "Right now, we need one thing in particular to keep the case alive, and I hope it's still with you in Rome."

"The firm faith?" the cardinal asked, and the young woman couldn't help but smile as he gave a short laugh. "It's difficult at the moment, but it's still here, Officer O'Laighin."

She took a deep breath and nodded slowly, closing her eyes briefly. "We can always use it, Cardinal Julio, but it's about the dress."

"The wedding dress?"

"That's right. We suspect that it was rubbed with this nevrotamine from the inside, allowing the poison to penetrate Aurelia's skin long enough to have this terrible effect."

Julio was silent for a moment. "That does indeed sound plausible."

"And we need the wedding dress to prove it. Do you still have it?"

"I think it will still be in the Vatican morgue."

"We need it urgently. You need to send it by express mail to the BPD morgue, directly to Dr. Margaret Ross. As soon as possible!"

"That's what we'll do. As quickly as possible."

"And, Your Eminence, it really is urgent! Be careful as hell with the wedding dress. Everyone who touches it must wear gloves in any case. No direct skin contact! This poison is highly dangerous! It's best to pack it foolproof so that nothing happens to the couriers either!"

"I'll deal with it personally as soon as I can."

"If you can, try to do it even faster!"