Ping!
by Ashley Lounsbury
Another crime scene.
Lucinda gathered sponges, sample bags, gloves, and her HAZMAT suit then headed out to the address sent to her by the precinct.
This was the fourth call in just under two weeks.
Usually Smith and Gorsky did the clean up, bringing back samples and data for her to analyze. And she needed all the chemical data they could get to figure out where and how the toxin was being transmitted. But her lab mates were still at the previous crime scene. Fortunately, She preferred working by herself if she had to leave the house at all. Lucinda was on her own for this one.
She showed up to see a gaggle of uniformed officers stationed a good distance away from the craftsman-style suburban house. It was theatre, she knew. The toxin was not airborne, that was one thing her lab was able to quickly establish. Everyone was spooked. Not Lucinda. She was intrigued.
She walked up to the police tape, situated across the sidewalk and showed her badge to the two officers stationed closest to the scene. One lifted the tape and allowed her into the yard. She placed her supplies on the ground and began her preparations for entering the contaminated site.
The first officer took that as invitation for a conversation. Joy.
“Cleaning up the scene, then?”
Obviously. “Yes.” She removed her shoes to step into the HAZMAT suit.
“You techs have any clue what the stuff is?”
Not at all. “We have some suspicions.” She replaced her shoes and zipped up the suit.
“I know the Russian’s are involved in this. You should look at what the Russian’s can do.”
Lucinda stayed silent, as nothing she would say would have been very kind to the clueless officer. She slipped her shod feet into the shoe covers.
“It is a possibility.” The other officer finally broke into the conversation.
“Possibility? Dude, that’s what links all these people. They’re all Russian. The file said they had all come from Russia. Even the nanny.”
“But what would the Russians want with a little girl?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe she’s an agent?”
“Dude, she’s eleven.”
All that was known about this case was an unknown deadly agent with multiple victims. Victims who all have ties to Russia. And one missing girl.
Thus far it had been her parents, her neighbors, her nanny, and now it seems, the grandparents. The only clue thus far was the fact that all four sets of victims had links to the Russian oligarchy. That was what put these crimes on the radar of the FBI and Lucinda’s lab.
“I don’t’ know,” the first officer looked at the house as if he could actually solve the case. “But something connects all of these cases.”
Ah yes, the beat cop who wishes to be a detective. It didn’t take a detective to see the connections in this case, but connections alone do not solve crimes. Evidence is needed. Lucinda hoped her secret weapon would shed some light on the toxin at least.
She and her other fellow chemists had worked with the forensics team to refine a toxin detector after the second set of murders. She pulled out the black device and turned it on. The officers looked on as she checked the pieces.
“Looking to hang some photos?” The first one sneered.
Her hackles rose quickly at the insinuation. “Why? Because I am a woman?”
His face fell. “Oh god no!” He sheepishly pointed to the detector. “It’s because it looks like a stud finder…”
She looked down at the device. It was about the size and shape of a large stud-finder, because that was what they used as the device’s shell. He was not wrong.
“Oh.” But Lucinda was never one to back away from nerding out about her love of science. She felt the need to explain her new toy. “It’s to detect any lingering toxin. Swab something before cleaning it, wipe it onto the plate and ping, the sensor will go off at the first sign of the toxin.”
She pulled on her helmet and doubled up her latex gloves. The usual thick hazmat gloves had been deemed more of a burden because the scene needed every spot of toxin, in every nook and cranny, cleaned and the awkward gloves did not suit for such work.
The officers looked impressed at the ritual but didn’t ask questions. She took her leave before they could formulate any.
She headed toward the front door, when the second officer spoke. “No sign of forced entry.” He sounded proud and officious as he gave Lucinda information that already been clearly stated in the case file. “Victims were deceased when the first officers arrived at the scene.”
Her job now was to clean up the crime scene and take samples back to her lab to decipher what, if any, biohazards were present at the scene. All that was known thus far was that the toxin was deadly and it was water-soluble. After they established that her lab had checked the water systems at the first two crime scenes but found no sign of the substance. Yet it wasn’t airborne, as the living evidence of the first officers to the scene could attest. They now theorize it could have been a substance absorbed through the skin, placed anywhere contact would have been made by the victims. Forensics had been running tests and her lab had a few samples but the investigation had gone nowhere by the time the next set of bodies was discovered.
She stopped at the front door to take her first sample and swabbed the doorknob. The sensor remained silent.
So the door was not where the toxin was placed. She opened the door and entered the quiet house. Crime scenes always gave her the creeps. Especially since the only reason she found herself at any was because of a potential biohazard. It was now her job to follow all the possible points of contact the victims would have had to see if the toxin showed up.
Before closing the door she took a swab of the inside doorknob. Nothing.
The next point of contact in the house would be the banister.
Ping.
She cleaned the banister, bagged the sponge and tested it again. Nothing. Being water-soluble made clean up much easier. However, no other point of contact upstairs caused the detector to go off.
Lucinda conducted this ritual throughout the house, wherever a swab set off the sensor.
A variety of things were tested in the living room. She followed the path a person might take from one place to another. There was little point in taking samples of, say, the moldings or the ceiling fan as it was unlikely someone had touched those out of the way items.
The couch already had hazmat tape across it. That was where the victims were found. The entire thing would be incinerated once her lab established that would not release the deadly toxin.
She looked around the room for another point of contact. She noticed an open box of air filters and a stepladder in the corner by the couch. Someone had been installing some rather hearty filters in this obviously new air filtration system.
She swabbed the box.
Silence.
The swabbed the handle on the stepladder.
Ping.
She cleaned thoroughly and bagged the sponge, tested it again, and nothing.
She looked up at the grate on the ceiling. If the stepladder hand been contaminated, then maybe… but hey hadn’t gotten to installing the filter; the open one was sitting on the floor, clean from the factory.
She stepped up the ladder and swabbed the grate.
Ping.
She removed it and began to clean the grate. It was full of old, caked dust and grease. She scrubbed vigorously; harder than she had with the other surfaces, which had been cleaned much more recently.
As she finished up and placed the sponge in the sample bag, she felt the cool wet of the cleaning solution dripping down her finger. She held up her hand to see that she had scrubbed a hole through both latex gloves on her right hand. Shit.
Lucinda dropped everything. She jumped off the ladder, narrowly avoiding knocking everything over. She ran to the kitchen. She prayed none of the toxic substance has penetrated the broken glove. She washed her shaking hands for longer than was necessary. She shook them off in the sink as best she could and went to the detector.
Nothing. There was no sign of the substance.
Satisfied with the results of the avoided catastrophe, she took her time to slow her racing heart as she dried her hands. She bagged her gloves and the paper towels for the lab, just in case. Replacing the two layers of gloves was a bit of a challenge given her hands were still a little shaky and damp. She took a deep breath in her hood and returned to work.
She went back and tested the vent again. Nothing. It was thoroughly cleaned. She set it on the floor to test the inside of the duct.
That is when she heard a faint noise further in the ventilation system.
Lucinda paused, listening close for any sign of movement. Maybe an animal had breeched the house. If that was the case, the poor thing might not be long for this world. She listened carefully for the telltale signs of claws or a tail along the metal. Nothing.
But there it was again, a light yet audible bump of something solid against metal. And it was closer.
She quietly set down the detector on the coffee table and backed out of the room. She needed to remove her gloves and helmet to make a call to the officers positioned outside. The animal could not be left to its own devises in the house, but she didn’t have the resources to manage it on her own.
She tiptoed to the cleaned hallway. From there she was out of the line of sight of the vent and able to remove a few layers to get to her phone in her pants pocket. If an animal made its way out, she didn’t want to spook it. Procedure was to corner it, and keep it safe until animal control could suit up and arrive. Should she have replaced the vent to keep it in the ducts? They did have protocols for things like this but she never imagined having to actually implement them. This is why she preferred to stay home at her computer and analyze data. Data did not compromise suits. Data did not hide threateningly in the ventilation system.
She removed her hood, trying not to let the material squeak as she set it down on the stairs. Next was the suit zipper and her gloves once again. She let the sleeves hang loose as she carefully slid her arms free to reach into her pocket.
But she did not have time to make the call. A soft thud indicated something made its way out. It definitely sounded much larger than an animal. Were the criminals lingering at the crime scene? Could they have fit in the ventilation? She kept her phone in her hand and leaned forward to peak into the living room.
In the corner stood a young girl.
Lucinda lost all thoughts of hiding and walked right into the living room.
The girl froze like a deer in headlights. She was cornered. Lucinda was in front of her and the couch blocked her in to the left. The child had nowhere to go.
Lucinda held up her hands in the universal sign that no harm was to come but the girl did not relax. She looked exhausted. This must be the missing child. She didn’t even know her name. It was in the file, of course, but she never took note of it. Kristina? Olga? Jane? She had no idea.
So many questions came to mind. How long had the poor thing been hiding in the house? Had she witnessed the murders? All of them? Was she hiding in the ventilation when her grandparents were murdered? So maybe the victims were poisoned in person. This girl must not have been exposed to the toxin if she was still alive, so Lucinda let down her guard.
“Hello, I’m Lucinda. Are you alright?”
The girl nodded but the unshed tears in her eyes said otherwise. Lucinda’s heart broke for the girl. Everyone around her was being killed off. The poor thing must be terrified.
“I am working with the FBI. You’re safe. Are you alright?”
The girl’s lip trembled. Lucinda didn’t want to frighten her, but she knew the detectives would need to be contacted. She moved closer to the girl, who cowered but did not run.
She walked up to her with her hands out, gesturing to the coffee table that had been moved away from the couch. The girl walked forward tentatively and sat at the edge, next to the detector.
Lucinda knelt in front of her but the girl looked away. She was looking down at the detector next to her but her glassy eyes were focused much further away.
A single tear finally escaped and fell to the table.
Ping.