The Enemy Inside by Steve Martini Read Free Book Online

Serna’s vision of the approaching vehicle. No trees or other obstructions.
    “She could have been looking at something in her car,” says Harry. “A map. Maybe her cell phone. That would explain why she was traveling so slow.”
    “Maybe.” I pass the report back to him.
    “More interesting,” says Harry, “is the fact that the preliminary toxicology report shows the absence of any drugs in Ives’s system.”
    This was the big surprise of the day. We are all smiles around the table with the news. While it may not cut our client loose entirely, it offers a big headache to the prosecution, who now must explain to the jury how the defendant became unconscious behind the wheel.
    The cops are now batting zero for two. No alcohol, at least nothing approaching the presumptive level of intoxication, and no drugs. So that means we have an unconscious client under the influence of nothing.
    “Any kind of medical condition,” asks Herman, “might account for his problem?”
    “Not that we know of,” says Harry.
    “I asked Ives on the phone this morning and he says no,” I tell them. “He’s never passed out, never fainted. Had a physical two months ago and passed it with flying colors.”
    “So what caused it?” says Herman.
    “Could have been drugs,” I tell him.
    “But they didn’t find any,” says Harry.
    “Some of the more complex drugs take a while. Could be weeks before they have a final report. And then there are some they don’t even look for in the routine screenings unless there’s a reason.”
    “You mean roofies?” says Herman. “The date rape drug?”
    “There’s that one and there’s others. It is a possibility,” I say. “Police don’t usually order them up in the normal toxicology screening.”
    These are known as predator drugs, used by some perpetrators either to engage in sexual assault on the unconscious victim or to rob them. Either way the victim usually remembers nothing when it’s over.
    They work like conscious sedation and in some countries are used as an anesthetic. Those under their effect lose motor coordination. Their eyes may be open but nothing is being registered in the brain. They result in near total loss of memory during the period that the victim is under the influence.
    “Fits the profile of what Ives described as his symptoms,” says Harry. “They’re absorbed into the system quickly. All trace gone within at most seventy-two hours. They show up in urine tests. Here they drew only blood.” Harry’s skimming through the report. “Here it is, ‘Benzodiazepine.’ They didn’t check the box, didn’t ask for it.”
    “It’s too late now,” says Herman.
    “I asked Alex about the possibility the last time we talked to him, you and I at the jail,” I tell them. “The question whether somebody might have slipped something to him. It wasn’t lost on him. The thought had crossed his mind before I mentioned it. He wondered about the girl, the one who invited him to the party, and whether it was a setup. The single glass of champagne. The fact she never showed at the party. It weighed on his mind.”
    “I know what you’re saying,” says Herman. “There’s no way Ives coulda driven like hell and gone out into the desert if somebody slipped him a roofie. What that means, somebody delivered him out there. Accident was staged. Is that what you’re sayin’? That whoever did it, killed Serna? So there was no mishap involved.”
    I nod.
    “Here we go again,” says Harry. “Why can’t we just keep this simple? Straightforward DUI with the cops showing no evidence. We push hard enough and they’ll kick him loose. Case over. We can move on.”
    “They nearly did that at the bail hearing,” I tell him. “The question is why? Think about it. What do we know?”
    “Not much,” says Harry.
    “On the contrary. We know that Ives was shadowing Serna, not in a physical way, but he had her in the journalistic cross hairs over something. According to Alex,