Chapter 10 - Chemical Footprints
The interrogation room in the basement of the Syracuse municipal building was colder than the hospital.
Daniel sat at the center of the table, his hands cuffed to an eyelet bolted directly into the concrete floor. The Italian leather shoes were gone, replaced by standard-issue orange slip-ons. His expensive woolen sweater was spotted with dried mud and the grease from his steering wheel.
He looked up when the door opened, his eyes darting to me with a frantic, pathetic hope that died the instant he saw the ice in my face.
“Claire,” he croaked. “Did they catch him? Is he—?”
“He’s in custody,” Ramos interrupted, dropping a heavy legal pad onto the metal surface. “And your daughter survived your father’s second attempt on her life by about fifteen seconds, Mr. Pierce. So I suggest you stop looking at your wife like she’s going to forgive you, and start explaining what you told the arresting officers in the garage.”
Daniel flinched, his head sinking down between his shoulders. “It wasn't just my dad. He couldn't make that stuff by himself. He’s seventy-one. His hands shake so bad he can barely sign a check.”
“We found the beakers in his basement,” I said, my voice dead. “We found the scale.”
“The equipment was his, but he didn't compound it!” Daniel leaned forward as far as the chain would permit, the steel links clinking against the iron eyelet. “He doesn't know anything about cosmetic chemistry, Claire! He’s a timber surveyor! He knew about lye from cleaning processing vats thirty years ago, but he didn't know how to keep it stable in an emulsion! If you just mix lye with store-bought cream, the oil separates in twenty minutes! It turns into yellow water!”
Ramos narrowed her eyes. “He’s right about that. The lab report from the preliminary scrape on the jar showed an advanced polyacrylamide stabilizer. That’s an industrial emulsifier used in high-end pharmaceutical compounding. You can’t buy it at a hardware store.”
“Who made it, Daniel?” I asked.
Daniel swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “Marcus Kane.”
The name fell into the room like a dead bird.
Marcus Kane was Richard’s nephew—Daniel’s first cousin. A former biochemical researcher for a specialty plastics firm in Rochester who had lost his license four years ago after an investigation into illegal chemical diversion.
“Marcus has been living at the old pump station near the Seneca River,” Daniel whispered. “Richard paid his legal fees back during the trial. Marcus owed him everything. Dad told me two weeks ago that Marcus had found a way to ‘clean the slate’ for the family.”
“And you didn't call the police?” I whispered, taking a step toward the table. “You knew Marcus Kane was working for your father, you knew Marcus was a disgraced chemist, and you let Richard bring that box into our house?”
“I didn't know what they were making!” Daniel wailed, tears streaming down his face, leaving clean tracks through the gray grime on his skin. “Dad told me Marcus was compounding a private batch of industrial solvent for the sawmill! He swore to me on his mother’s grave that it was for the timber machinery! Why would I think he’d put it in a cosmetics jar for my own daughter?”
“Because he hated me,” I said, leaning down until my face was six inches from his. “And you loved his money more than you loved your child.”
Daniel squeezed his eyes shut, his whole body shaking with dry, hollow heaves.
Ramos tapped her radio. “Vance. Get the Seneca County sheriff on the line. We need a tactical unit at the old pump station on River Road. Marcus Kane is our compounder. And Vance—tell them to go in heavy. If Kane has a lab out there, he has precursor chemicals.”
“Wait,” Daniel gasped, opening his eyes. “There’s something else. Marcus… Marcus didn't just make one jar.”
Ramos froze, her hand still on her shoulder mic. “What did you say?”
“My dad paid him for three units,” Daniel whispered, his voice trembling so violently he could barely shape the words. “I saw the invoice in the truck when Dad picked me up last Monday. Three jars. Marked A, B, and C.”
The room seemed to tilt sideways.
“One was for Claire,” I whispered, the terror rising again, cold and vast as an ocean. “One was the jar Emma opened. Where is the third jar, Daniel?”
Daniel looked up at me, his face utterly paralyzed with an absolute, hopeless horror.
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“I don't know,” he breathed. “Claire… I thought the second one was the one in the living room. I don't know who has the third one.”
***
