“I want to find out if and when they figure out what killed those rats. Also, whether any more of them had anthrax.”

“I’ll try to find out sometime today,” Chet said.

“I’d appreciate it,” Jack said, and quickly redirected his attention to his work spread out on his desk.

“Aren’t you doing any posts today?” Chet asked.

“I’ve taken an unscheduled paper day,” Jack said without looking up.

“Are you sick?”

Jack laughed. “That’s what George asked. I wish I were. It would be a convenient excuse. I’m just trying to eliminate one of the reasons the front office is always on my case, namely, being perennially behind getting my cases signed out.”

“One of the main reasons you’re always behind is because you take on too many cases in the first place,” Chet said.

“Whatever,” Jack mumbled as he began scanning a section of David Jefferson’s brain under his microscope.

After Chet left for the pit, Jack kicked the door shut to avoid the distraction of the casual visitor. Still, he found that he couldn’t truly concentrate. As preoccupied as he was about everything, he was unable to keep himself from glancing up at the clock every so often. Particularly as the time approached ten, he started to worry about the phone ringing. He fully expected Cheryl to call with the standard message that the chief wanted to see him ASAP. After all, by that time in the morning both Dr. Jim Bennett and Gordon Strickland would have had more than enough opportunity to phone their complaints about Jack.

As if on cue, the phone did ring at ten sharp. Despite Jack’s expecting it, its jangle unnerved him. For several rings he considered not answering. But recognizing the futility of putting off the inevitable, he picked it up. To his surprise, it wasn’t Cheryl. It was Peter Letterman.

“I’ve got some surprising news for you,” Peter said.

“Good or bad?” Jack questioned.

“I suppose you’ll think it’s good,” Peter said. “Connie Davydov did not have methemoglobinemia, but she does have botulinum toxin in all the samples you gave me, including her stomach contents.”

“Good Lord!” Jack said. “This isn’t some kind of sick joke, is it?”

“Not at all,” Peter said. “I ran several of the assays twice just to be sure. The results were strongly positive, suggesting the victim had a large dose. I can follow up with some quantitative tests, but that will take a while. I wanted you to know the qualitative results right away.”

“Thanks,” Jack said. “I owe you.”

“Glad to be of assistance,” Peter said before ringing off.

Jack hung up the phone slowly. He felt a mix of emotions. One was a kind of elation at the validation of his suspicions about Connie Davydov having been poisoned. The other was shock. Botulism probably was the last thing he expected.