The Breeze of Death

The man emerged from the sea, shuddering violently, his lips a ghastly blue-purple shade. The cool ocean breeze slithered across his drenched skin, raising sharp goosebumps, contracting and retracting unmentionable male body parts, pulling and shrinking until they all but vanished. He was naked.  

A woman, watching from a distance, shifted in her seat and silently slid off her chair. The man trudged up the sands of Black Gull Cove, a secluded clothing-optional beach known for its eerie silence and the way the tide seemed to whisper secrets to the shore. His bare feet left dark imprints in the wet sand as he made his way to his beach blanket. 

She moved toward him, just as bare, her hips swaying with an unsettling ease. A towel hung from her left forearm, and in that hand, a plastic cup with a straw.

He withdrew a towel from his beach bag to his face as she passed. A quiet hiss, barely a whisper in the wind, her breath blast in the straw and a small dart hit his chest.  

The man collapsed, folding into himself like a broken marionette, sinking into the fabric of his blanket. The woman barely broke stride. She bent down as if offering a tender pat, but instead plucked the dart from his flesh and slid it back into the straw. His wallet disappeared beneath her towel.  

She strolled away, unhurried, her movements fluid, her expression untouched by guilt or concern. She discarded the cup and straw at a nearby trash can, her fingers never lingering.  

The man remained motionless, his body slack. To the passing eye, he was merely a sunbather, dozing beneath the afternoon sky.  

He was dead.

■■■

The beach was nearly empty, the last traces of daylight slipping below the horizon. A lifeguard, making his final rounds, spotted a lone figure still stretched out on the sand. At first glance, the man appeared to be sleeping, his body perfectly still, his face calm.  

The lifeguard jogged over, nudging the man’s shoulder. Cold. Too cold. His breath caught. His radio crackled to life as he called for the police and an ambulance.  

By the time the first responders arrived, the sky had deepened to a murky twilight. A police sergeant stood over the body, arms crossed, as the lifeguard shook his head.  

“If I’d seen anything suspicious,” the lifeguard said, voice edged with unease, “I’d have called sooner. But there was nothing. Looks to me like the guy had a medical issue and died. I’ve seen it before — once. A guy walked from the waterline to his blanket, laid down, and never got up. Turned out to be a stroke.”  

The sergeant turned to the EMT crouched beside the body. “Anything stand out?”  

The medic exhaled, studying the corpse. “Not much. There’s a small red spot — just a dot — on his chest, with a little redness around it. Looks like an insect bite. No other marks, no signs of struggle. No ID. No fob.” He hesitated, his brow furrowing.  

The sergeant caught it. “What?”  

The medic’s voice dropped, careful, deliberate. “His fingernails, his skin tone … the way his eyes look. I’d say he died from asphyxiation.” He looked up. “And that’s … weird.”  

The sergeant frowned. A man lying alone on a quiet beach, seemingly at peace — and yet, he suffocated? How? “Should we have the medical examiner check it out, or chalk it up to natural causes?”  

The EMT hesitated, then shook his head. “I can’t put my finger on it, but something’s off. If it were up to me … I’d order an autopsy.”  

The sergeant glanced down at the body again, his unease growing. A cool breeze from the water brushed his face, and suddenly, the beach didn’t feel so empty anymore.

■■■

The medical examiner, Dr. Halverson, frowned as he pulled back the white sheet. Three days had passed since the lifeguard found the body on the beach. Three days for evidence to decompose and fade.

His assistant adjusted the overhead light. “Think we’ll find anything?”  

Dr. Halverson didn’t answer. He was already studying the tiny red dot on the victim’s chest — the one everyone had dismissed as an insect bite. But something about it bothered him.  

He made his first incision. “If there was poison, it had already started to disappear,” he told his assistant. 

Hours later, Halverson leaned over his report, frustrated.  

Cause of Death: Asphyxiation. But why? The victim suffocated without a cause. No struggle. No finger marks on the neck. No throat obstruction. The airway was clear. His heart healthy. It was as if his body forgot how to breathe.  

He scratched his head and looked at his assistant. “We have an unexplained small wound. Obviously not a knife or other edged weapon. No brusing or contusions. No needle fragment. We do have a pinpoint mark on his chest that I don’t think is an insect bite.” 

He ordered toxicology tests, though he already knew the answer. Three days was a long time for a toxin to decompose and vanish.  

When the results arrived two days later, the answer was infuriatingly inconclusive. The pathologist suspected curare and told the lab so they could run special tests for it. However, there was no curare in the blood. If there had been some, it had broken down before it could be identified. 

The good news was that the muscle and liver samples showed faint traces of an alkaloid compound, but it was too degraded to confirm as curare. Oddly, the wound contained plant-based residue — possibly from a South American vine similar to that from which curare is made.  

Halverson rubbed his temple. Someone had poisoned this man. He was sure of it. But with no solid toxin results, the case would never hold up in court. Still, one thing nagged at him. 

Who the hell has access to curare?

■■■  

Detective Sarah Nolan flipped through the medical report, tapping a pen against her desk. The autopsy gave her just enough to be suspicious — but not enough to call it murder.

The as-yet-unidentified victim had no discernable history of health problems. Asphyxiation made no sense, yet that was listed as the cause of death. The red dot, likely the injection site, was at central body mass, an easy target.

Nolan pushed her chair back and stood, staring out the window. Someone had used an exotic poison, knowing it would disappear before an autopsy could prove it, and injected it in plain sight of hundreds of people on a nude beach without being seen. 

That meant planning. That meant skill. That meant access to the toxin. Dr. Halverson suspected curare. That meant… a professional.

She grabbed her coat and keys. If the lab couldn’t give her answers, she’d find them herself and start with curare. Somewhere was a killer who thought they’d just committed the perfect crime.  

■■■

Detective Sarah Nolan sat in her car, her mind racing with the implications of her latest lead. The Deep Amazon Imports shop had proven unhelpful — it didn’t seem like they were dealing in curare, but the people were nervous. A tip-off about the potential for smuggling other Amazon products. Another time.

Curare’s exotic origins were its own mystery. For centuries, indigenous tribes in the Amazon had been using it for hunting animals and killing enemies using blowguns and poison darts. It was a deadly combination.  

She did learn curare comes from plants like Chondrodendron tomentosum, which grows deep in the Amazon jungle. Indigenous groups harvest and prepare it, coating blowgun darts in the potent toxin. For the right price, curare is smuggled out of the Amazon. A few well-connected importers act as intermediaries, passing it off as botanical research, a cultural artifact or just flown in under the radar like the cartels did drugs.

Deep Amazon Imports owners explained once curare reaches the black market, murderers seeking an untraceable toxin buy it. Exotic poisons like curare are sold alongside other rare toxins, such as ricin or tetrodotoxin.

All that fit. But Detective Noland needed more. A lot more. She called the anthropology department of the university. 

Nolan thought the key to this case wasn’t just the toxin, but how it had been obtained. The professor could trace curare’s traditional roots, but if someone had it illegally, he had connections. He was useless.

Whoever was behind the murder would be covering the tracks, but what and where were those tracks?

She would interview the suppliers of Amazon Rainforest Imports and other exotic traders. Checking international shipping records for curare coming from Amazonian regions would be a waste of time. The murderer was more sophisticated than that. 

Nolan ran the fingerprints the medical examiner just sent her. Hit. Driver license, issued a month ago, photo fits. The guy is Daniel Mercer, age 52 and his address was a luxury condo downtown.

A nude beach wasn’t exactly the typical scene of a targeted assassination, and that bothered Nolan. Why was he there?

■■■

She visited Mercer’s condo. Perplexing because it was a minimalist small unit. It didn’t look lived-in, more like visited. 

The open floor plan made the 500-square-foot space feel larger than it was. White walls, sleek black furniture, and floor-to-ceiling windows gave the condo an airy, but sterile atmosphere. A single gray leather couch faced a mounted flat-screen TV, with no personal photos or decorations on the walls.

The kitchen was compact but high-end, with black quartz countertops, stainless steel appliances, and a single barstool tucked under a floating island. He must not have entertained. The fridge was nearly empty, aside from bottled water, cold brew coffee, and takeout containers with decaying vegetarian food.

The bedroom was barely a room, separated by a sliding frosted glass partition. The bed was a foam mattress lying on a simple platform. The dark gray sheets were perfectly made, as if it had never been slept in. A single nightstand held a charging phone and a closed leather notebook.

The only real sign of life was the glass desk against the far wall, a laptop and neatly stacked files. A small locked drawer hinted at secrets, and Nolan had a feeling that whatever was inside would tell her more about the man than anything else in this perfectly curated space.

The place felt temporary, like a hotel room Mercer never intended to stay long in. Or, perhaps he knew he wouldn’t be staying at all, or never stayed here.

Three days later, a tech cracked his personal laptop. The emails notified Mercer of recent payments from a bank in Washington, D.C. 

There was nothing to tie Mercer to this condo. Even the correspondence with university researchers studying Amazonian plant-based foods and medicines revealed only email addresses and no names. The email accounts were foreign-hosted and she knew she could not crack that. 

The leather notebook had more, but no names. From its contents, Nolan surmised Mercer was a phytotherapeutic drug and phytotherapy consultant in the exotic plant trade. But his emails had veiled hints about dealings in smuggling Amazonian substances. One email said: “Shipment delayed. Getting nervous. Locals don’t trust outsiders. Keep the buyer happy.”

Was this just about plant-based medicine?

One name appeared: Dr. Eduardo DeSantos — a biochemist working in South American botanical research. The DEA had investigated DeSantos for illegal toxin sales.  

A message from an unnamed sender said, Você fez uma promessa. Você não foge disso. Portuguese. It meant: “You made a promise. Don’t walk away from this.” 

Nolan pondered, did Mercer cross or cut ties with someone dangerous?  

Her phone buzzed. Captain Reese. She didn’t even get a chance to speak. “You’re off the case.” His voice was clipped, the kind that left no room for argument. “It seems the guys name is not Mercer. Give it up.”

“What?” Nolan gripped the phone tighter.

“I’m told the victim was an FBI whistleblower,” Reese continued. “He was scheduled to appear before the Oversight Committee next month about corruption in the FBI. They don’t want their name tarnished so they’re taking over. You are to send all files to the FBI and retain none. Nothing.”

Her stomach dropped. “Captain —”

“That’s an order.” A pause. Then, softer, almost regretful, “It’s not our call.”

Nolan exhaled sharply, staring at the laptop screen. “Captain, the pieces are coming together. An FBI whistleblower is dead by a sophisticated method at an unusual place. They hate whistleblowers. Then the FBI wants us to close the case, have us destroy our files and takeover. Doesn’t that smell to you?”

The line went dead.