“I might. You gave a pretty good description to the responding officer, but I was wondering if there were any details you might have remembered, anything unusual you might h ave noticed or realized since then.”

McKay paused, then said, “Actually, there is. I want to show you something.”

He led Nick halfway down a short hall to a room marked SUPPLIES and used a key to open the door. “I never used to keep this locked, but now I do,” he said. Inside, two walls were stocked floor-to-ceiling with supplies that ranged from boxes of gauze to needles. “The suture supplies are kept on the top shelf. I didn’t even notice some were gone until I did a complete inventory after the robbery. The thing is, I usually have to use a step stool to reach them, and it wasn’t in the supply room that day-I was using it in the surgery, down the hall. The thief would have had a hard time reaching it-and why would he go to all that trouble for sutures, anyway?”

“I’m thinking that’s what he actually came here to get,” said Nick. “But you’re right, he wouldn’t have been able to reach. Unless…”

Nick took out his flashlight. The supply room was dimly lit by a single low-wattage bulb, and the far corners were hard to see. He shone the light on the surface of a back shelf, right next to the wall and about three feet off the floor. There, barely visible, was a dusty footprint.

“… he gave himself a little boost,” said Nick. “Looks like a military boot to me.”

The army and navy surplus store was painted almost entirely in camouflage colors, which wasn’t really that wise a choice; half their stock simply disappeared into the background, giving the odd feeling that you were in a store crammed with nothing. That was far from true, though: locked glass cases displayed weaponry ranging from jackknives to bayonets, while World War II-era gasmasks goggled at customers from behind the counter. Racks of clothing ran in rows to the back of the store, everything from heavy-duty peacoats to lightweight jungle fatigues.

“Excuse me,” said Grissom to the clerk behind the counter.

He was young, probably still in his teens, with a shaved head and a shadow of a mustache. He wore a faded combat jacket that was too big for him and was reading an old copy of Soldier of Fortune magazine.

“Help you?”

“Yes, I was wondering if you remember this man.” Grissom showed him a picture of Gustav Janikov. “I believe he bought a pair of boots here.”

“Yeah, I know him-that’s Gus. He lives on the street, but I guess this is his neighborhood because I always see him around. Came in a few weeks ago, said he’d come into a little extra cash. Wanted something to keep his feet warm and dry, something that would last.”

“I see. Would you happen to know anything else about him-where he slept, other people he talked to?”

The clerk frowned. “I don’t really follow what those guys do. Gave him a good deal, though-guy who pounds the pavement as much as he does needs some decent footwear. Haven’t seen him around la tely.”

“You won’t,” said Grissom.

“Grissom, you never fail to impress me,” said Hodges. “I followed your instructions and ran the samples, checking specifically for any type of insect-related poison. I was thinking maybe a pesticide, an organophosphate or neonicotinoid-but no. So I moved on to actual bugs, venom from black widow or brown recluse spiders-that came up dry, too. But-like you-I never disappoint.” He produced a printout with a flourish and a triumphant smile.

Grissom took it without comment and quickly scanned its contents. “Homobatrachotoxin?” he said.

“Indeed. A steroidal alkaloid that’s ten times more powerful than puffer fish poison and usually found in the skin of poison dart frogs. But what, you say, does a poison from a Costa Rican amphibian have to do with insects-”

“Phyllobates doesn’t produce the poison itself,” said Grissom. “Members of the genus aren’t poisonous when raised in captivity. It’s thought that they process the toxin out of the environment-probably something they eat.”

Hodges’s smile faded a little. “Well, of course you’d know that. The most likely contender is the Melyrid beetle, which is loaded with the stuff.”

“True, but they probably don’t manufacture it either-the likely culprit is thought to be even farther down the food chain. And a little farther up from the frogs are the Ifrita and the hooded Pitohui-both birds that eat Melyrid beetles and process the poison into their feathers.”

“Making them the, uh, only poisonous birds in the world,” said Hodges, clearly derailed. “But it looks like you’re already well aware of that.”

Grissom gave Hodges a small smile. “Good work, Hodges.

10

GRISSOM COMPARED THE boot print Nick had lifted from McKay’s supply-room shelf to the one he’d taken from Gustav Janikov’s boots, then placed it back on the light table. “We have a match. Good work, Nick.”

“Thanks. But with Janikov dead and buried, he can’t tell us who told him to steal that thread.”

“The same person who gave him enough money to buy Richard Waltham’s gun and obtained it either before or after Janikov overdosed.”

Riley strode in. “Sorry I’m late. I’ve been all over town trying to source that bottle, but there are just too many places that carry it. The stamp that would have told us the batch number and expiration date was on the part of the bottle that was cut off-I narrowed it down to brand, but that was it.”

“It was a long shot,” Grissom admitted. “But you can never tell when you might get lucky.”

They brought her up to speed. “So Janikov got the gun from Waltham but was dead bef o r e it was used on Paul Fairwick,” she said. “The killer could have gotten it from his body.”

“Possible,” said Grissom. “Janikov was clearly being paid to work for the killer-he was sent specifically to obtain the surgical thread.”

Nick nodded. “He might have been killed for refusing to follow orders. Maybe he was supposed to shoot Fairwick himself but wouldn’t.”

“I don’t think so,” said Grissom. “The killer’s plans are intricate; I don’t think he’d leave such an important element to someone else. In fact, Janikov’s involvement doesn’t really fit with the pattern the killer’s established thus far.”

“Maybe it does,” said Riley. “Janikov wasn’t the only person involved in the robbery. There were the two transients who staged the fight.”

“Easy enough to do,” said Nick. “Janikov probably paid them off with drugs or booze.”

“Unless our killer has more than one person on his payroll,” said Riley. “He’s imitating insect b ehaviors, right? Well, colony insects send out workers to obtain supplies.”

Grissom looked thoughtful. “True. Which would imply a nest or hive location-as well as a larger scale of operations. Even given his obsession with insects, he wouldn’t acquire his own drones unless he needed them. But what for?”

“Bees go out and collect pollen,” said Nick. “Maybe he’s got his people doing something similar.”

“No,” said Riley. Both Grissom and Nick turned to look at her. “I know what this reminds me of. Large-scale cocaine processing labs need a significant workforce. They’re sealed in a building and guarded by soldiers.”

“Not collecting pollen,” said Grissom. “Making honey. Ants do much the same thing, but with slave labor-drones kidnapped from other colonies are imprinted chemically and put to work.”

“So our serial is a drug lord, too?” said Nick.

“Whatever he’s producing,” said Grissom, “I don’t think profit’s his motive. In fact, if he is processing large amounts of a particular chemical, I very much doubt it’s one anyone would take willingly.” He paused. “In fact, it might be the very same thing that killed Gustav Janikov.” He told them about the homobatrachotoxin.