With the entire mortuary staff standing in the sheriff’s office parking lot, the emergency evacuation had turned into a party. Someone opened a case of cold Coke, and Calvin had the door of his PT Cruiser open, pumping dancehall reggae loud into the lot. A splinter group gathered near the loading bay to smoke, until the safety officer, a thin, angry-looking woman who drove a Volvo station wagon the color of a freshly stubbed toe, chased them away, warning of the exposure risk.

She monitored their sheepish departure, then returned to Jenner.

Reason didn’t seem to be working with her. Jenner said, “Look, the fumes only developed because I heated the shirt with really hot photo lights—I’d had it out all day, and nothing happened! The lights are off now, I bagged and sealed the shirt, I turned on the room exhaust, the autopsy room air has been exchanged many times. There was no need to evacuate the entire building—or even just the autopsy wing!”

She wouldn’t budge.

“Doctor, this constitutes an airborne toxic exposure, and until the Hazmat team says it’s okay, the Forensic Sciences wing will stay shut. On your say-so, I’ve let staff law enforcement personnel return to the main municipal building, but the forensic labs, including the morgue, are closed…”

Jenner shrugged irritably. “Well, whatever. Your call. But it’s a complete waste of time. And I need to get back in there as soon as possible so I can test my samples and find out exactly what we’re dealing with.”

She shook her head decisively. “Out of the question. The morgue stays shut. The lab stays shut. Those specimens will keep until Hazmat gives the all-clear.”

“No they won’t! If I want meaningful test results, I need to centrifuge the blood as soon as possible!” Jenner ran a hand through his hair. “When the hell will Hazmat get here?”

“They’re coming down from Fort Myers. I’d say we’ll be up and running again in about three hours.” She scribbled something on her clipboard, then peered at him over her glasses.

She said, “Do we need to worry about the body? Is that contaminated?”

Jenner thought for a second, then grudgingly decided the question was fair. “It’s okay; he’s been sutured closed, and is in a body bag now. Actually, I remember feeling a bit light-headed a couple of times during the autopsy; I just chalked it up to not getting enough sleep last night. In fact, I felt a bit woozy when I collected the stomach contents, which makes complete sense now.”

Her eyes were sharp. She said, “So, doctor, tell me again: in your opinion, what are we dealing with?”

“I think someone fed him an organophosphate poison. You’ll find organophosphates on every damn farm in Douglas County—insecticides, mostly. But they also exist in weaponized form—sarin, tabun…”

Too late, Jenner realized it was the wrong time to showboat; she was now leaning forward intently, pen hovering over God only knew what disastrous checkbox. Terrorist threats were porn for safety officers—they lived for the stuff. If Jenner didn’t talk her down, she’d shut down the whole county and call in Homeland Security.

He said, “This is pretty clearly an insecticide poisoning. Someone spiked his wine with some kind of bug juice.”

She seemed disappointed they’d moved on from poison gas. “But if it was insecticide, wouldn’t he…wouldn’t he be able to taste it in the wine?”

“Yes, I think so, taste it and smell it. They probably held him down and poured the stuff into his mouth—the splash pattern on his shirt looks more like, well, splashes, than if he’d puked it up.”

She put a hand to her throat. “So you think…”

“He was murdered.” He paused, then looked at her intently. “They got him drunk, poisoned him with insecticide, then somehow he escaped and made it onto the road where he was hit. Or maybe they pushed him in front of the car. The accident is just a distraction—he’d have died sooner rather than later.”

She said, “Oh my gosh! How horrible!”

She jotted on the clipboard, then said, “Now, coming back to the poison gas for a second…”

He watched her write. “The sooner we get into the lab and run those specimens the sooner I can tell you if there’s anything more serious going on…”

She pulled out her cell phone, hit the walkie-talkie button, and asked where the hell the biohazard-containment team was.