Jungle Fever (5/10)
Title: Jungle Fever
Author: Calliatra
Rating: FR15
Category: Gen
Pairing: None
Characters: Tony, the whole team
Genre: Casefile
Words: 2,404 (26,461 total)
Disclaimer: All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: When a Petty Officer’s decapitated body is found it starts an investigation that spirals out of control and places Tony in grave danger.
Written for the Can Anybody Hear Me? Challenge and the Casefile Challenge at NFA and inspired by the Chinese Whisper Challenge.
Chapter Warnings: Animal lovers, proceed with caution.
Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine
* * *
Chapter Four: A Wild Discovery
Early the next morning, Abby’s lab was already vibrating with her favorite music, though it had been turned down to a more moderate volume in consideration of the fact that the scientist wasn’t alone. McGee had been granted the use of one of the computers and was by now deeply engrossed in his work. He was, in fact, so engrossed that he failed to notice Abby sneaking up behind him until something cold and slimy made contact with his neck. With something between a yelp and a squeal he jumped from his chair.
“Abby! What the…?”
Grinning, Abby held out a small contraption that seemed to combine a small motor, plastic tubes, a tiny bottle and a wetly glinting blue glob of a rubbery substance, which McGee identified as his assailant. “I finished it!”
“What is it?” Apprehension was battling with curiosity on McGee’s face.
“A fake tongue. Look!” Abby placed the contraption in front of one of her lollipop stands and turned the motor on. One end of the oblong glob was attached to the rotating part, causing the rest of it to floppily and comically lap at the lolly as it was flipped in circles. “It’s going to help me with figuring out exactly how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop!”
“Aren’t you supposed to be analyzing the tiger hair and the powder we found the ship yesterday? So we can figure out what is has to do with Petty Officer Thorne being poisoned and then beheaded?”
“I did! Well, I did as much as I could. It’s up to my baby now, I’m just waiting for a ding…” She trailed off, looking hopefully towards her MassSpec, but the machine was not obliging. “I guess that would have been too-”
Two dings occurred simultaneously, cutting Abby off.
“Gibbs!” she squealed in delight as her favorite team leader emerged from the elevator. “Your timing just keeps getting perfect-er!”
Gibbs smiled indulgently as he handed her a Caf-Pow and followed her to her workstation. “You got something?”
“Yep!” Abby grinned proudly. “This hair,” she held up one container with a hair in it, “and this hair,” she held up another, “came from the same tiger! And not only that, they both also had traces of” she checked her computer screen, “Enzol B on them.”
Gibbs’ look advised her that further explanations were necessary. “It’s a tanning chemical. You’re not looking for a real live tiger, you’re looking for something made of tiger fur.”
“Isn’t that illegal?” McGee questioned.
“Of course it is! Tigers are endangered, after all. It wouldn’t be easy to get tiger fur around here, but there’s a huge black market for pretty much all tiger parts in Asia, ‘cause a lot of people there still believe they have magic powers.”
“Good job, Abs.” Gibbs leaned in to kiss her cheek, but she held him off.
“Wait, I’ve got more! I analyzed the powder you found with the hair. You want to try to guess what it is?”
Gibbs’ expression indicated that no, he did not.
“You probably wouldn’t have guessed anyway. Well, unless you used your super mind-reading powers or something. Believe it or not, it’s dried, ground tiger penis!”
“Tiger penis?” McGee sounded more inclined towards the not-believing, and even Gibbs didn’t seem to know how to take this information.
“Yup. It’s used in traditional Chinese medicine to increase male potency and there’s still a high demand for it in lots of Asian countries. There’s no real black market for it here, though, probably ‘cause it’s much simpler to just get the little blue pills. So for someone here to have gotten hold of that stuff and the fur, he probably really has a thing for tigers.”
“Good job, Abs.” This time, Abby held out her cheek for a peck.
McGee spoke up quickly before Gibbs could turn to leave. “I’ve got something, too, Boss. I’ve been going through the copy of Thorne’s hard drive I made, and I found a couple of deleted files. I managed to restore them, and, well, look.” He motioned to his monitor where two lists of multiple-digit numbers were visible.
“What am I looking at, McGee?”
“It’s the tracking numbers of the crates Thorne was taking inventory of. He did take inventory of those broken plane parts, even if it wasn’t part of his job, and it looks like there were some inconsistencies. There were more crates than there should have been in that storage area Commander Nelson didn’t want us to search. See these three tracking numbers? They’re nowhere on the official logs for the replaced parts.”
“Three extra crates. Something was hidden there,” Gibbs surmised.
“And since the Commander tried to keep us out of there, he probably knew about it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t there anymore when Tony and I searched the area, but I just checked the Truman’s unloading record and get this: Those crates weren’t supposed to be unloaded for another couple of days, but the Commander made it a priority. They’ve been taken to a small warehouse by the docks, but they’re not scheduled to be picked up from there ‘til next week. Everything should still be there.”
“Go. Take Tony and Ziva.” Gibbs instructed.
“Uh, Boss? What are you going to do?”
“Talk to Commander Nelson,” Gibbs said with a grim smile.
*
Commander Nelson was doing an admirable impression of a perfectly calm man. His breathing was even, his hands were still and his expression reflected very little worry for someone in Interrogation. His posture, however, gave him away. It was rigid, beyond the typical straight bearing of uniformed men, with a tension that revealed the nervousness underlying the firm control.
“You lied, Commander.” Gibbs said bluntly. “We know Thorne was in that room.”
“If he was then I was wrong, I guess, but I wasn’t lying. Petty Officer Thorne wasn’t assigned inventory of that particular storage area, there was no reason for him to be there. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong information, but I can only tell you what I know.”
“You had those crates moved early. Why?”
“We arrived ahead of schedule on Sunday, so we had to change around the plans for unloading. I had to re-coordinate a couple of things to make it work.”
“So you had crates that no one needs picked up first thing on Monday?”
“That’s where it fit in the schedule. Like I said, I had to move switch some parts of the schedule around. Is this really that important? Even if Petty Officer Thorne was in that area, what would the crates tell you?”
Gibbs ignored the question. “Your men said unloading was left ‘til Monday, like scheduled. That’s why they were granted leave.”
“There wasn’t much unloading going on on Sunday, not enough to justify keeping everyone away from their families after six months at sea, but enough to make a rescheduling necessary. Look, if those crates are really that important, why don’t you just go examine them? They’re still in the warehouse they were taken to on Monday, they won’t be picked up until next Thursday.”
Again Gibbs chose to disregard the Commander’s comment. “Why did you meet with Thorne three weeks ago?”
“That was the time I told you about, when his report contained a dangerous mistake. I wanted to talk to him, to see what’d gone wrong. He explained that he’d been distracted because his father had just had a stroke, and he promised to be more careful in future.”
Gibbs shook his head. “You’re lying, Commander.”
“Why would I do that?” Commander Nelson exclaimed, agitated. “If you don’t believe me, you can check my calendar for that week, it’s in there. Or just ask my assistant, he keeps track of all my meetings.”
Gibbs narrowed his eyes, practically piercing the Commander with his stare. “Thorne never made that mistake. His co-workers said he was even more careful than usual that week, not less. No, he was working on the replacement parts inventory, he noticed something wrong, and he came to you. You didn’t want anyone to know about that, so you made up this cover story for your meeting.”
Commander Nelson was shaking his head, but a sudden ringing noise prevented the Commander from verbalizing his denial.
“Gibbs,” Gibbs barked into his cellphone in a tone that indicated whoever had dared to break Rule #22 was going to be skinned alive.
*
The warehouse by the docks was indeed small, and also very rundown. It actually made the warehouse where Thorne’s body had been found look like a modern high-tech facility. The sounds of heavy machinery were emanating from the inside when Tony, Ziva and McGee arrived.
They were met at what looked like it had once been a gate by a heavy man wearing an overall and thigh-high rubber boots. “You can’t come in here, it’s off limits.”
Tony pulled out his badge. “Federal Agents. We need to see a couple of the crates inside.”
The man shrugged. “I guess I can let you in, but there’re no crates or anything. A water pipe burst Monday, and fixing it’s tough ‘cause all the piping’s so old. It’s still half flooded, and all the stuff inside was moved.”
“We are looking for several crates unloaded from the USS Truman on Monday,” Ziva informed the man. “Can you tell us where they have been taken?”
“All the Navy stuff was picked up and taken to the new warehouse complex up the road, I think. You should try there.”
*
‘Up the road’ turned out to be slightly farther than expected, and Tony very much regretted letting Ziva take the wheel. Twelve minutes of sheer terror later, however, all three of them were miraculously still alive, and, after flashing their badges at three separate security checks, were finally standing in front of a small array of crates, trying to match the numbers to the ones on Thorne’s lists. McGee noted with satisfaction that this warehouse was very well lit. No unpleasant surprises in the form of decapitated animals could be lurking in shady corners here.
“The number of this crate is only on one of Thorne’s lists,” Ziva pointed out.
“So’s this one. And that one over there,” McGee added, pointing them out. “That’s all three of them.”
Tony held up the pry bar he was carrying for just this purpose. “Who wants to do the honors?”
Ziva grabbed it from his hand and roughly forced it under the lid of the nearest crate. With Tony and McGee crowding around her she pried loose the lid and threw it aside.
McGee yelped and stumbled backwards, pulling out his Sig, while Tony stood apparently frozen to the spot, staring. From inside the crate, glassy eyes stared back.
“It is not alive, McGee,” Ziva called out.
Of course it wasn’t. McGee felt silly as he re-approached and tucked away his gun. No matter how lifelike that tiger head looked, it was dead, dead and attached to a fur that looked destined to become the tiger version of a bearskin rug.
“If I’d known you were scared of stuffed animals, Probie, I’d have-” Tony cut himself off as he took a closer look at the contents of the crate. “Is that a whole elephant tusk?”
“Looks like it,” McGee confirmed, peering in. “And that’s a whole monkey and… we should really get this stuff to Abby.”
*
Tony, Ziva, McGee, Ducky, Palmer and Abby were crowded around the worktable in Abby’s lab when Gibbs walked in. Spread out on the table was a collection of the smaller specimens taken from the opened crate, from furs of various shapes and colors over collections of teeth and claws to what appeared to be several stuffed frogs. Abby had apparently already overcome the state of shocked fascination which still seemed to hold the others captive, and was the first to notice his arrival.
“Gibbs! Can you believe this? It’s all from endangered animals, and there’s two more whole crates! How could anybody do this? They’re innocent animals, and someone murdered them just so people could decorate their houses with their body parts. It’s horrible!”
Gibbs patted her carefully on the arm. He had to admit that although Abby had told him on the phone what they’d found, the sight was still a little stunning.
“Worth?”
It was Ducky who answered him. “There’s no telling what this could fetch on the black market, Jethro. These are fine specimens, extremely well prepared, and, of course, quite rare. The content of these crates is most certainly worth a fortune.”
“Enough to kill someone.”
“It would appear someone thought so.”
“Boss,” McGee spoke up, “we found two sets of fingerprints on the inside of the lid. One belongs to Thorne, the other one is,” he swallowed.
“Commander Nelson’s,” Gibbs supplied.
“Yeah. Do you really think the Commander killed Thorne?” McGee wondered. “I mean, Thorne was one of his men.”
“He had a motive, McGee,” Ziva interjected. “He was smuggling endangered animals. Thorne could have sent him to prison for many years.”
“Okay, but if the Commander did it, why did he poison him first and then behead him? And why did he kill a squirrel, too?”
Ziva had no answer to that.
Abby in the meantime had pulled a small bottle of pale yellow liquid from one of the crates. “You might want to look at this.”
“What is it?” Tony asked, pulling up a second bottle of the same kind and holding it against the light. Abby snatched it away from him.
“Careful!” She took vial from one of the shelves and poured a bit of the viscous yellow liquid into it, then pulled a canister from her cooler and unscrewed the lid. “Pure alcohol,” she explained. “If this stuff is what I think it is,” she poured enough alcohol into the vial to match the amount of whatever-it-was, “we’ll see pretty soon.” Abby closed the vial with a rubber cork and shook it slightly. Then she held it up against the light. The two liquids were still separated, but along the junction a reddish brown color was starting to form.
“What does that mean?” Tony wanted to know.
“It means that this is definitely croton oil. Looks like we know where the killer got his poison.”
Previous Chapter Next Chapter
Resources:
A list of the different uses of Sumatran tiger parts. It is in equal parts fascinating and disturbing.
This is great explanation of what methods there are for identifying unknown substances. It’s very well written and directed at people with no prior knowledge, so if, like me, you’re somewhat ‘scientifically challenged,’ this is perfect. It manages to be easily understandable without being oversimplified, and if you’ve ever wondered how some of the stuff Abby does in her lab actually works, I highly recommend reading this.
Author: Calliatra
Rating: FR15
Category: Gen
Pairing: None
Characters: Tony, the whole team
Genre: Casefile
Words: 2,404 (26,461 total)
Disclaimer: All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: When a Petty Officer’s decapitated body is found it starts an investigation that spirals out of control and places Tony in grave danger.
Written for the Can Anybody Hear Me? Challenge and the Casefile Challenge at NFA and inspired by the Chinese Whisper Challenge.
Chapter Warnings: Animal lovers, proceed with caution.
Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine
* * *
Chapter Four: A Wild Discovery
Early the next morning, Abby’s lab was already vibrating with her favorite music, though it had been turned down to a more moderate volume in consideration of the fact that the scientist wasn’t alone. McGee had been granted the use of one of the computers and was by now deeply engrossed in his work. He was, in fact, so engrossed that he failed to notice Abby sneaking up behind him until something cold and slimy made contact with his neck. With something between a yelp and a squeal he jumped from his chair.
“Abby! What the…?”
Grinning, Abby held out a small contraption that seemed to combine a small motor, plastic tubes, a tiny bottle and a wetly glinting blue glob of a rubbery substance, which McGee identified as his assailant. “I finished it!”
“What is it?” Apprehension was battling with curiosity on McGee’s face.
“A fake tongue. Look!” Abby placed the contraption in front of one of her lollipop stands and turned the motor on. One end of the oblong glob was attached to the rotating part, causing the rest of it to floppily and comically lap at the lolly as it was flipped in circles. “It’s going to help me with figuring out exactly how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop!”
“Aren’t you supposed to be analyzing the tiger hair and the powder we found the ship yesterday? So we can figure out what is has to do with Petty Officer Thorne being poisoned and then beheaded?”
“I did! Well, I did as much as I could. It’s up to my baby now, I’m just waiting for a ding…” She trailed off, looking hopefully towards her MassSpec, but the machine was not obliging. “I guess that would have been too-”
Two dings occurred simultaneously, cutting Abby off.
“Gibbs!” she squealed in delight as her favorite team leader emerged from the elevator. “Your timing just keeps getting perfect-er!”
Gibbs smiled indulgently as he handed her a Caf-Pow and followed her to her workstation. “You got something?”
“Yep!” Abby grinned proudly. “This hair,” she held up one container with a hair in it, “and this hair,” she held up another, “came from the same tiger! And not only that, they both also had traces of” she checked her computer screen, “Enzol B on them.”
Gibbs’ look advised her that further explanations were necessary. “It’s a tanning chemical. You’re not looking for a real live tiger, you’re looking for something made of tiger fur.”
“Isn’t that illegal?” McGee questioned.
“Of course it is! Tigers are endangered, after all. It wouldn’t be easy to get tiger fur around here, but there’s a huge black market for pretty much all tiger parts in Asia, ‘cause a lot of people there still believe they have magic powers.”
“Good job, Abs.” Gibbs leaned in to kiss her cheek, but she held him off.
“Wait, I’ve got more! I analyzed the powder you found with the hair. You want to try to guess what it is?”
Gibbs’ expression indicated that no, he did not.
“You probably wouldn’t have guessed anyway. Well, unless you used your super mind-reading powers or something. Believe it or not, it’s dried, ground tiger penis!”
“Tiger penis?” McGee sounded more inclined towards the not-believing, and even Gibbs didn’t seem to know how to take this information.
“Yup. It’s used in traditional Chinese medicine to increase male potency and there’s still a high demand for it in lots of Asian countries. There’s no real black market for it here, though, probably ‘cause it’s much simpler to just get the little blue pills. So for someone here to have gotten hold of that stuff and the fur, he probably really has a thing for tigers.”
“Good job, Abs.” This time, Abby held out her cheek for a peck.
McGee spoke up quickly before Gibbs could turn to leave. “I’ve got something, too, Boss. I’ve been going through the copy of Thorne’s hard drive I made, and I found a couple of deleted files. I managed to restore them, and, well, look.” He motioned to his monitor where two lists of multiple-digit numbers were visible.
“What am I looking at, McGee?”
“It’s the tracking numbers of the crates Thorne was taking inventory of. He did take inventory of those broken plane parts, even if it wasn’t part of his job, and it looks like there were some inconsistencies. There were more crates than there should have been in that storage area Commander Nelson didn’t want us to search. See these three tracking numbers? They’re nowhere on the official logs for the replaced parts.”
“Three extra crates. Something was hidden there,” Gibbs surmised.
“And since the Commander tried to keep us out of there, he probably knew about it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t there anymore when Tony and I searched the area, but I just checked the Truman’s unloading record and get this: Those crates weren’t supposed to be unloaded for another couple of days, but the Commander made it a priority. They’ve been taken to a small warehouse by the docks, but they’re not scheduled to be picked up from there ‘til next week. Everything should still be there.”
“Go. Take Tony and Ziva.” Gibbs instructed.
“Uh, Boss? What are you going to do?”
“Talk to Commander Nelson,” Gibbs said with a grim smile.
*
Commander Nelson was doing an admirable impression of a perfectly calm man. His breathing was even, his hands were still and his expression reflected very little worry for someone in Interrogation. His posture, however, gave him away. It was rigid, beyond the typical straight bearing of uniformed men, with a tension that revealed the nervousness underlying the firm control.
“You lied, Commander.” Gibbs said bluntly. “We know Thorne was in that room.”
“If he was then I was wrong, I guess, but I wasn’t lying. Petty Officer Thorne wasn’t assigned inventory of that particular storage area, there was no reason for him to be there. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong information, but I can only tell you what I know.”
“You had those crates moved early. Why?”
“We arrived ahead of schedule on Sunday, so we had to change around the plans for unloading. I had to re-coordinate a couple of things to make it work.”
“So you had crates that no one needs picked up first thing on Monday?”
“That’s where it fit in the schedule. Like I said, I had to move switch some parts of the schedule around. Is this really that important? Even if Petty Officer Thorne was in that area, what would the crates tell you?”
Gibbs ignored the question. “Your men said unloading was left ‘til Monday, like scheduled. That’s why they were granted leave.”
“There wasn’t much unloading going on on Sunday, not enough to justify keeping everyone away from their families after six months at sea, but enough to make a rescheduling necessary. Look, if those crates are really that important, why don’t you just go examine them? They’re still in the warehouse they were taken to on Monday, they won’t be picked up until next Thursday.”
Again Gibbs chose to disregard the Commander’s comment. “Why did you meet with Thorne three weeks ago?”
“That was the time I told you about, when his report contained a dangerous mistake. I wanted to talk to him, to see what’d gone wrong. He explained that he’d been distracted because his father had just had a stroke, and he promised to be more careful in future.”
Gibbs shook his head. “You’re lying, Commander.”
“Why would I do that?” Commander Nelson exclaimed, agitated. “If you don’t believe me, you can check my calendar for that week, it’s in there. Or just ask my assistant, he keeps track of all my meetings.”
Gibbs narrowed his eyes, practically piercing the Commander with his stare. “Thorne never made that mistake. His co-workers said he was even more careful than usual that week, not less. No, he was working on the replacement parts inventory, he noticed something wrong, and he came to you. You didn’t want anyone to know about that, so you made up this cover story for your meeting.”
Commander Nelson was shaking his head, but a sudden ringing noise prevented the Commander from verbalizing his denial.
“Gibbs,” Gibbs barked into his cellphone in a tone that indicated whoever had dared to break Rule #22 was going to be skinned alive.
*
The warehouse by the docks was indeed small, and also very rundown. It actually made the warehouse where Thorne’s body had been found look like a modern high-tech facility. The sounds of heavy machinery were emanating from the inside when Tony, Ziva and McGee arrived.
They were met at what looked like it had once been a gate by a heavy man wearing an overall and thigh-high rubber boots. “You can’t come in here, it’s off limits.”
Tony pulled out his badge. “Federal Agents. We need to see a couple of the crates inside.”
The man shrugged. “I guess I can let you in, but there’re no crates or anything. A water pipe burst Monday, and fixing it’s tough ‘cause all the piping’s so old. It’s still half flooded, and all the stuff inside was moved.”
“We are looking for several crates unloaded from the USS Truman on Monday,” Ziva informed the man. “Can you tell us where they have been taken?”
“All the Navy stuff was picked up and taken to the new warehouse complex up the road, I think. You should try there.”
*
‘Up the road’ turned out to be slightly farther than expected, and Tony very much regretted letting Ziva take the wheel. Twelve minutes of sheer terror later, however, all three of them were miraculously still alive, and, after flashing their badges at three separate security checks, were finally standing in front of a small array of crates, trying to match the numbers to the ones on Thorne’s lists. McGee noted with satisfaction that this warehouse was very well lit. No unpleasant surprises in the form of decapitated animals could be lurking in shady corners here.
“The number of this crate is only on one of Thorne’s lists,” Ziva pointed out.
“So’s this one. And that one over there,” McGee added, pointing them out. “That’s all three of them.”
Tony held up the pry bar he was carrying for just this purpose. “Who wants to do the honors?”
Ziva grabbed it from his hand and roughly forced it under the lid of the nearest crate. With Tony and McGee crowding around her she pried loose the lid and threw it aside.
McGee yelped and stumbled backwards, pulling out his Sig, while Tony stood apparently frozen to the spot, staring. From inside the crate, glassy eyes stared back.
“It is not alive, McGee,” Ziva called out.
Of course it wasn’t. McGee felt silly as he re-approached and tucked away his gun. No matter how lifelike that tiger head looked, it was dead, dead and attached to a fur that looked destined to become the tiger version of a bearskin rug.
“If I’d known you were scared of stuffed animals, Probie, I’d have-” Tony cut himself off as he took a closer look at the contents of the crate. “Is that a whole elephant tusk?”
“Looks like it,” McGee confirmed, peering in. “And that’s a whole monkey and… we should really get this stuff to Abby.”
*
Tony, Ziva, McGee, Ducky, Palmer and Abby were crowded around the worktable in Abby’s lab when Gibbs walked in. Spread out on the table was a collection of the smaller specimens taken from the opened crate, from furs of various shapes and colors over collections of teeth and claws to what appeared to be several stuffed frogs. Abby had apparently already overcome the state of shocked fascination which still seemed to hold the others captive, and was the first to notice his arrival.
“Gibbs! Can you believe this? It’s all from endangered animals, and there’s two more whole crates! How could anybody do this? They’re innocent animals, and someone murdered them just so people could decorate their houses with their body parts. It’s horrible!”
Gibbs patted her carefully on the arm. He had to admit that although Abby had told him on the phone what they’d found, the sight was still a little stunning.
“Worth?”
It was Ducky who answered him. “There’s no telling what this could fetch on the black market, Jethro. These are fine specimens, extremely well prepared, and, of course, quite rare. The content of these crates is most certainly worth a fortune.”
“Enough to kill someone.”
“It would appear someone thought so.”
“Boss,” McGee spoke up, “we found two sets of fingerprints on the inside of the lid. One belongs to Thorne, the other one is,” he swallowed.
“Commander Nelson’s,” Gibbs supplied.
“Yeah. Do you really think the Commander killed Thorne?” McGee wondered. “I mean, Thorne was one of his men.”
“He had a motive, McGee,” Ziva interjected. “He was smuggling endangered animals. Thorne could have sent him to prison for many years.”
“Okay, but if the Commander did it, why did he poison him first and then behead him? And why did he kill a squirrel, too?”
Ziva had no answer to that.
Abby in the meantime had pulled a small bottle of pale yellow liquid from one of the crates. “You might want to look at this.”
“What is it?” Tony asked, pulling up a second bottle of the same kind and holding it against the light. Abby snatched it away from him.
“Careful!” She took vial from one of the shelves and poured a bit of the viscous yellow liquid into it, then pulled a canister from her cooler and unscrewed the lid. “Pure alcohol,” she explained. “If this stuff is what I think it is,” she poured enough alcohol into the vial to match the amount of whatever-it-was, “we’ll see pretty soon.” Abby closed the vial with a rubber cork and shook it slightly. Then she held it up against the light. The two liquids were still separated, but along the junction a reddish brown color was starting to form.
“What does that mean?” Tony wanted to know.
“It means that this is definitely croton oil. Looks like we know where the killer got his poison.”
Previous Chapter Next Chapter
Resources:
A list of the different uses of Sumatran tiger parts. It is in equal parts fascinating and disturbing.
This is great explanation of what methods there are for identifying unknown substances. It’s very well written and directed at people with no prior knowledge, so if, like me, you’re somewhat ‘scientifically challenged,’ this is perfect. It manages to be easily understandable without being oversimplified, and if you’ve ever wondered how some of the stuff Abby does in her lab actually works, I highly recommend reading this.