“Yeah, well, now I have to worry about you out in the suburbs,” Barnes told them. “May not be civilized!”
“Half of ‘those guys’ out in the suburbs work in the city. The others are probably too smart to do so.”
Barnes chuckled softly. “Once you head farther west? Used to be farming and manufacturing. Barre was huge on providing gunpowder for the Union during the Civil War. Learned that in a trivia game. Not that I think it will help you much now.”
“Probably not, but knowledge never hurts,” Griffin told him.
“Well, here’s something that will help you. I have a friend with the state police who lives out there in Barre. He’s friends with the local cops. Good guy—I’m sending his number, and I’ll text him so he expects your call. His name is Wendell Harper. He may be of help, at some point in this investigation.”
“That’s great!” Griffin said. “Thanks.”
“I can still hope that all this...that all this is nothing. I can still hope that you took down the Satanist Smasher yesterday,” Barnes said.
“Satanist Smasher?” Rocky repeated.
“So dubbed by the press,” Barnes told them gravely.
“You’d have thought they could do better.”
“Hey. Sadly, you can run out of good names for serial offenders.”
*
It might have been a great deal easier for Vickie and Devin if they hadn’t been on Tremont Street.
The area was filled with pedestrian traffic—schoolchildren in groups, tour companies leading their clients, men and women here and there, together, solo, in pairs. Some leaped out of the way when they saw the women running toward them, and everyone turned to stare at Vickie.
Devin was ahead of Vickie at first, but Vickie managed to catch up.
She was the first to zig and then zag when her attacker turned onto Essex, and then onto the Boston Common. The young redheaded woman ran hard, and it was all that Vickie could do to keep up with her.
The redhead hooked sideways and went streaking into the Central Burying Ground, leaping over old slate stones, tree roots and anything that seemed to be an obstruction.
It was ridiculous! The girl must have been a college sprinter—certainly on a running team of some kind somewhere!
Vickie got a glance at Devin, who was racing hard herself. Devin had made it through the rigors of training at the FBI Academy and even she was having trouble keeping up!
And then, miraculously, while attempting one of her gazelle leaps over a crooked headstone, the redhead went down.
Vickie managed to sidestep the stone.
The redhead saw her. She reached into her pocket.
“No!” Vickie cried, gasping for breath as she surged the final distance and threw herself down on the young woman. “No!”
All she could picture was what had happened with Griffin.
How he’d caught the young man...
How he’d died in front of Griffin.
Vickie caught the girl’s arm; she now had something in her hand she was trying to get to her mouth.
“No, no, what is the matter with you! That is insane!” Vickie cried as she held the girl’s arm back.
By then, Devin—panting and gasping for breath, as well—fell to her knees on the ground beside Vickie.
“Stop her!” Vickie cried.
Devin quickly saw the situation.
The redhead, however, was strong, and had wrestled her hand close enough to her mouth.
She dropped the pill in.
“No!” Devin cried.
“Her cheeks!” Vickie cried.
Devin caught the girl’s jaw, forcing her mouth open. Much of a tiny pill remained on the redhead’s tongue; Vickie plucked it off, wondering how much of it had dissolved already. The fight had gone out of the girl.
Suddenly, she began to buck and twist, going into convulsions.
Devin was already on the phone, calling for an ambulance.
“Keep her from hurting herself!” she told Vickie.
Vickie did her best, throwing her weight back on the young woman, trying to stop her flailing limbs, trying to keep her airway clear, trying to keep her from biting her tongue. Devin put down her phone and held the girl’s head. Long minutes passed.
As the med techs raced through the tombstones to reach them, the girl went motionless. Her skin was red, and she was so still.
“Here, here, let me help you!” one of the EMTs said to Vickie.
Vickie stared at him blankly, and then pointed.
“It’s her... I think it was cyanide.”
“You’re covered in blood!” the EMT said.
“No, no, it’s just something thrown at me. I’m fine,” she said quickly.
Vickie backed away, still on her knees, just staring at the redhead, watching as the emergency personnel went into rescue mode and listening as Devin explained what had happened—describing the pill, how quickly they had gotten it and how the redhead had reacted.
“Vickie!” Devin said.
Vickie looked up.
“The bit of pill...you still have it?”
“Yes! Yes!”
It was in her hand. She passed it over and someone took it, using a glove and quickly sealing it into a bag. Someone else rushed over, working some kind of cleaner or antibiotic over her hands. They did the same to Devin, who barely seemed to notice.
“What...what...?” she asked.
“Cyanide, some form of cyanide, but...she’s alive right now. We’ll get her stomach pumped, and we’ll start going with a Cyanokit,” the med tech told them. “Hopefully you got most of it. What the hell happened? Why would she do such a thing? You’re FBI, right?”
Devin had introduced herself as such when they had arrived.
“I’m FBI, yes.”
Vickie realized that the man was staring at her. She remembered that she was covered in whatever red substance the redhead had thrown at her.
Was it blood? She didn’t know. Paint? Whatever it was—was it worth this young woman’s death?
She cleared her throat. “Can she live?” she asked.
“She can. It depends,” he said. His coworkers already had the girl on a stretcher; an IV had been inserted in her arm.
She was quiet, though. And as still as death.
There were police on-site; Devin kept her credentials out, giving the same explanation of events over and over again.
Vickie’s phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID. It was Griffin, of course.
She winced.
They’d never made it into the offices.
It was all a mess.
She found herself wishing that she’d never chased the redhead.
She wished desperately that she’d let it go.
There was just no reason that this young woman should die—just because she’d thrown something red, something that might or might not be blood, at Vickie.
She managed to answer her phone as Devin continued speaking with the police and the med techs headed out of the cemetery. The size of the crowd of onlookers continued to grow.
“Griffin?” she said.
“I was getting worried—you’re not here yet.”
“I think you need to come get me,” she said.
“Where? What happened?”
She tried to sound just like Devin, calm, concise and yet relating important detail. “A woman on the street attacked me. She—”
“What?”
“She threw a cupful of red stuff at me. I’m not even sure what it is yet. We chased her. Oh, God, Griffin! She did what the man did! She took a pill. We got it out of her mouth, Devin and I. But the med techs took her, and they’re heading to the hospital. Devin is talking to the cops. Griffin, why? In God’s name, why would they do something so stupid, so horrible? It’s so sad. Griffin, if I hadn’t chased her. If we hadn’t chased her...”
“What’s the red stuff?”
“I don’t know. We just started chasing her—”
“Is your skin burning? Does it hurt? God, Vickie! It could have some form of acid in it, whatever it is. Are first responders there?”
“EMTs. Yes, and cops, and—”
“Get yourself to the hospital,” Griffin told her.
“I’m fine. I’ll be right here,” she said, knowing that Griffin was close, and just how quickly he could move, even in Boston, when he chose.
“No, no waiting! Get to a hospital now,” he told her. “I’m hanging up—you get going. I’ll meet you at the hospital.”
And he did hang up.
Vickie realized that the redheaded woman was gone, hurried away from the cemetery in an ambulance.
And now, the remaining EMTs and the cops were staring at her.