Donn Cortez - The Killing Jar

What they found, floating on top of the acid, were four perfectly shaped finger casts made out of wax. The wax on the thumb hadn’t detached from the corroding flesh yet and had settled on the bottom.

“Hydro fluoric acid,” said Catherine. “Which will eat through glass just fine but leaves paraffin alone.”

“It got rid of the fingers-well, mostly-but left us with something else,” said Greg. He picked the ca sts out one by one with a pair of forceps, laying them on a plastic sheet on the worktable. “A record of the condition of Hal Kanamu’s fingers just before he died.”

“The tips of the forefinger and thumb were deformed. There was a single large, irregular bump on both of them.”

“Could be a bubble caused by impurities in the wax. It’s a real mixture, after all.”

“I don’t think so. Look, although both are irregular, they match-like two sides of a symmetrical object.”

“You’re right. Which means those aren’t bubbles in the wax.”

“No,” said Catherine. “They’re blisters. Blisters on the tips of our vic’s fingers.”

Back to the warehouse. But this time Catherine and Greg had a better idea of where they needed to look.

“You know,” said Catherine, “Wornow said he used the pulley to get Kanamu’s body from the cone of the volcano to the floor. But what if the gantry was on the wrong side? It’s on wheels-he would have had to move it closer to the pulley.”

“Meaning our crime scene isn’t accurate. So what position was it in when Hal Kanamu went lava surfing?”

Catherine walked over to the base of the gantry. “There’s a faint but discernible trail. It goes back in a curve around ten, twelve feet before stopping.”

“Well, let’s put it back where it was.”

They did, the gantry’s wheels squeaking as it rolled. When they were finished, one side of the gantry but ted up against a thick wooden support beam that ran from the floor to the ceiling.

“There,” said Catherine. “So if it was positioned here when Kanamu died-”

“Then this post is suddenly part of the picture,” finished Greg. “Shall we?”

“After you.”

They clambered up the side of the gantry and onto the platform at the top. Greg spotted something almost immediately. “Well, hello,” he said. “Look what’s visible at this height and angle.”

Catherine saw it, too-a slender, doubled length of chain hanging from a nail pounded into the beam. She got up close and examined it. “Looks like a necklace. Metal’s fairly unreflective-it was practically invisible up here, disappeared right into the grain of the wood.”

“It’s broken, too. The bottom links aren’t connected.”

“No, but they are blackened. And there’s a significant burn mark on the wood, in an odd shape right at the bottom.”

“That’s the same shape as the blisters on Kanamu’s fingers.”

“Yes, it is.” Catherine studied the equipment on the table at one side of the platform. A grinding motor, a toolbox, a butane torch on its side, and a partly disassembled pump were scattered around. She looked from the chain to the table, then to the edge of the platform that abutted the volcano itself. She pulled out her flashlight and shone it up at the roof.

In the shadows of the rafters, something glinted.

They had to go back to the lab to get an extendable ladder tall enough to reach the ceiling. When they returned and used it, what they found embedded in the ceiling right next to a support beam was a small chunk of obsidian. Greg pulled it out with a forceps and admired it for a second before depositing it in an evidence bag. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner,” he said. “Or in this case, a rock.”

He climbed down and handed the bag to Catherine. She held it up and examined it through the clear plastic. “Looks like the same shape as the burn on Kanamu’s fingers.”

“Yep. But how did it get from there to where we found it?”

“I’ve got an idea, but there’s still one piece of the puzzle missing.” She climbed the ladder, then stepped across to the gantry. She bent over the worktable, peering at each of the pieces of equipment in turn. “This electric grinder motor has an exposed flywheel,” she said. “And the power cord is duct-taped to the side of the gantry. Not plugged in right now.”

“But it could have been-plenty of extension cords on the floor. If Wornow moved the gantry from here to where we found it, the power cord could have pulled free.”

“Greg, find the most likely cord and see if you can run it up here.”

He did, climbing up the side of the gantry with the cord in one hand. It reached, just barely.

“Now plug it in.”

When he did, the motor hummed to life. “Still turned on,” said Catherine. “So it was running when Wornow discovered the body.”

“And when he moved the gantry, the plug pulled free and it shut off. He was so freaked a little detail like that didn’t register.”

Catherine opened the top drawer of the rolling tool chest beside the table and rummaged around. “I think it’s time for a little reverse engineering…”

She found the tools she needed and used them to take apart the motor’s housing. By the time she was finished, Greg had climbed up to join her. “Any luck?”

“If there’s anything here, it’s going to be tiny…”

“I’ve got an idea. Hang on.” Greg climbed back down, got something from his kit, and came back. He handed it to Catherine.

“Magnetic fingerprint brush. Good thinking-the housing is full of metal shavings, most of them iron. But what we’re looking for isn’t.”

She used the brush carefully to pick up shavings, then gently move them to a white sheet of paper. Greg used a second magnetic brush to sort through them again, lifting and dropping them, looking for anything that wasn’t adhering to the magnet.

“I think I’ve got something,” said Catherine after a few minutes. She put down her brush and picked up a pair of tweezers, using them to pluck a tiny sliver from the bottom of the housing. “We’ll have to get it under the microscope to be sure, but I think we’re finally ready to re-create the crime scene.”

“Hey, Monkeyboy,” said Greg. “I see you made bail.”

Bill Wornow stepped inside the warehouse, closing the door behind him. He wore a hooded sweatshirt and jeans and looked more than a little cautious. “Yeah. Did you find the, uh-”

“The fingers?” said Catherine. “Yes, they were exactly where you said they were. Thank you.”

“Sure. I just want you to know-I’ve never done anything like that before, okay? I mean, I was panicking. Thinking back on it, I feel kinda sick.”

Catherine smiled. “You were in a tight spot. You didn’t want all your hard work going to waste.”

“Yeah. This project, it just means so much to me… So, why’d you ask me to come here?”

“We just thought,” said Greg from the top of the gantry, “that you might want to see how your partner actually died.”

Wornow stared up at him. “Really? Y ou know what happened?”

“Pretty sure,” said Catherine. “Come on up, we’ll show you.” She climbed up the ladder beside the gantry. Wornow hesitated for a second, then followed her.

“Okay,” said Greg. “So it’s late at night. Hal’s up here, tinkering away. He’s wired on meth-no surprise there-so his attention maybe isn’t what it should be.”

“Did Hal usually wear a necklace?” asked Catherine. “One with a black chunk of rock on the end of it?”

“Yeah, he did,” said Wornow. “He got it in Hawaii, never took it off.”

“Well, he did that night,” said Greg. “Maybe it was getting in his way, maybe he didn’t want to get wax on it-but whatever the reason, he took it off and hung it on a nail, right there.” He pointed.