Panacea by F. Paul Wilson Read Free Book Online

right.
    â€œForget the plants,” Phil said, reaching for the plastic sheet on the ground. “They just go to motive. Check out the vic.”
    A male corpse lay facedown on the ground. His T-shirt had been sliced open to reveal a strange tattoo in the center of his back.

    As she squatted for a closer look, she noticed other tattoos running up and down his arms, which lay straight at his side, palms up. That was how she saw the number scrawled on his palm.
    536
    It didn’t look like a tattoo. When she noticed the cap of a black Sharpie protruding from the back pocket of his jeans, she had a pretty good idea how it got there. How long ago had he written that? Might be nothing, might be the last thing he did before his death. She turned her attention to the tattoo.
    Phil said, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
    â€œI’m thinking I am,” she replied.
    Yes … this certainly shared features with what she’d been able to discern on the back of the burn vic.
    â€œIs that the caduceus or whatever you mentioned?”
    â€œNo. But neither was the other one, and what we could see of the burn vic’s tattoo was missing the same features. This is the same size and looks to be the same variation on the caduceus, which means…”
    â€œâ€¦ the vics are connected. And owing to the similarities of the crime scenes, the deaths are connected.”
    Laura rose to her feet. “I think that’s a safe assumption, Sherlock.”
    He popped his neck again. “Hot diggity.”
    Laura had to laugh. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anyone say that.”
    â€œSomething my grandfather used to say.” He rubbed his hands together like a miser contemplating wads of cash. “The joint task force is going to want to hear about this: new gang in town.”
    â€œThat’s a bit of a leap, isn’t it?”
    â€œNot at all. Two growers with matching tattoos, both murdered among their plants—”
    â€œHold on now with the murder bit. I couldn’t find a cause of death on the first.”
    â€œBut you will. I have faith in that. And in both cases the rival gang committed arson to destroy the evidence. Drug-related felonies galore.”
    She didn’t know where the rival-gangs idea came from—probably just frosting on Phil’s story—but no question about the felonies.
    She stared at the body of the dead grower. Despite the colorful tattoos on his arms and shoulders, the black lines of the snake and the staff stood out.
    Wait … staff? That looked more like a bone … like a femur. And what was with the shooting star? She’d have to do some digging online after she’d posted him tomorrow.
    She sure as hell hoped she could find a cause of death for this one.

 
    8
    In East Meadow, Nelson pulled into the parking lot of an assisted-living facility run by the Catholic church and called the Advocate. Ceil, the receptionist in the lobby, recognized him and said, “He’s in the common room.”
    He found Uncle Jim in his wheelchair playing pinochle. Some sort of jury-rigged clamp attached to his paralyzed left arm held his cards. He tossed them on the table with his good right.
    Uncle Jim … At age seven, after Nelson’s parents were snuffed out in a head-on crash on the Jersey Turnpike, he’d had no one. So he’d wound up in the care of Child Protective Services with a round-robin of foster homes looming in his future. Then a man calling himself James Fife showed up—his father’s brother, older by two years. He’d never known he had an uncle. Apparently the two of them had had a catastrophic falling out before Nelson’s birth and hadn’t spoken since.
    James had himself declared executor of the estate and moved Nelson into his Brooklyn apartment where he raised him like his own son. His boyhood lacked any and all frills except the live-in housekeeper