Fatal Reaction

fished quarters from my pocket. A crashing noise and the sound of a pair of male voices startled me. The labs in this part of the building were dedicated to the ZK-501 project and all of those investigators were supposed to be enjoying their scenic trip into Chicago’s past. I stooped to retrieve my can of soda from the chute at the bottom of the machine and looked out into the hall. I hadn’t slept decently in days and I was nervous as a cat.
    I stepped out into the hall, but there was no one there, only a big hazardous-waste container, a dumpster on wheels, all by itself in the middle of the corridor. It was just the men from the biohazard company making their rounds, emptying the hundreds of biohazard containers, large and small, that were scattered throughout the building.
    As I popped open the top of my can two men emerged from Lou Remminger’s lab wheeling another, albeit slightly smaller container. Watching them in their orange coveralls reminded me of Danny’s apartment.
    For a moment no bells went off, no blinking lights, no loud cries of “Eureka!”, no shouts of “Kate is a genius!” But suddenly I knew what I should have known all along, what should have been obvious from the first day I’d come to work at Azor. If my mind hadn’t been so cluttered with thoughts about deals and drugs and dinner plans, it would have been glaringly, blindingly obvious.
    Quite simply, I looked at the hazardous-waste containers that could be found in practically every room of the building, and I knew exactly what Danny’s killer had done with the cassette tape and the bloodstained clothes that had been removed from his apartment.
     

CHAPTER 28
     
    No doubt the men from the disposal company thought I was crazy when I started grilling them about their handling of the containers. I especially wanted to know how often the dumpsters were emptied and where the stuff that came out of them was taken. When I asked them if they ever looked to see what was inside the bins, they were certain I was out of my mind. They assured me there was no telling what was inside the containers— anything from radioactive materials to dog cadavers. Of course, I thought to myself, that was the inherent beauty of the thing.
    Mentally kicking myself for not having figured it out sooner, I went back to my office and immediately called Elliott Abelman. While he wasn’t prepared to start handing out hosannahs quite yet, he did agree that the idea made sense. He promised he’d try to get in touch with the biohazard company first thing in the morning.
    He also told me he’d just gotten off the phone with Joe Blades. Apparently Michael Childress’s car had turned up in a satellite lot at O’Hare airport. Whoever had left it there had taken the ticket from the lot with them so thatthere was no way of knowing when it had been parked there. Also, he assured me, I would be happy to know that in light of Michael Childress’s death the Chicago PD had agreed to reopen the investigation into the death of Danny Wohl.
    I hung up the phone and tried to force myself to get back to work. Even if my theory about the bloody clothes was correct, it was likely to remain just that—a theory. I had no idea how many different companies, hospitals, and universities this particular biohazard company was contracted to, how many hundreds or thousands of dumpsters were emptied who knows where every week. The chances of being able to find the missing cassette among all that hazardous waste, even if we could find somebody willing to look, had to be close to zero.
    Somebody had been very clever. Somebody, even when he was improvising, had been able to cover his tracks very well. I felt discouraged and outwitted, and I didn’t much like it.
    And then it occurred to me. If Danny was killed by someone at Azor then whoever had used the biohazard disposal containers to dump the bloody evidence would have had to come back to the labs to do it. He’d be anxious to get rid of the evidence as soon as possible, which meant he’d most likely have come out to Azor on the Sunday that Danny had died. Why not? People came and went at all hours and the killer wouldn’t want to risk keeping the incriminating evidence any longer than was necessary. Besides, if he waited to bring it to work on Monday, there would only be more people around. All I had to do was look at the videotape from the security cameras in the lobby from that Sunday.
    I was so excited about this plan that I