Under Control…
Part Four
The autopsy came back; Dave had died the same was Amy did, an
overdose of chloroform. Neither Batman and Robin nor the police were surprised.
“Yeah, Bruce, question. The DNA came back with the killer being a woman, right?
Amy was raped; ‘care to explain?”
“Off hand I’d say that we’re looking for more than one killer.”
“Two separate criminals or partners working together? Or a semi-copycat?”
“That’s one of the things we need to answer.”
“I thought that we were zeroing in on this.”
“We’re zeroing in on part of it. Pieces of a puzzle, Dick—you know that’s what
solving crimes are. You find the pieces and see how they fit.”
“Uh-huh, except that you get pieces from about twenty different puzzles and half
the pieces are missing and you don’t know what piece belongs with what crime.”
Bruce actually smiled, well almost. “That’s what makes it fun.”
“Oh, yeah, right. I forgot.” God, it was good to laugh with the Bat.
Robin ran a check with a number of chemical and scientific supply companies to
see if any chloroform had been shipped to the Gotham area in the last couple of
months. There were dozens of responses to that one; schools, pharmaceutical
companies, labs, companies that made freon for refrigerators or air
conditioners, a company that made dye…too many. He reversed his search and
hacked school records to see if any chloroform had specifically been delivered
to Brixton Academy. Yes, the mechanics teacher had ordered some, so had the
chemistry teacher and both would have legitimate reasons for class experiments.
Okay.
“It’s a start, the stuff was in the building. Now I’ve got to find out if any
was missing which can’t be accounted for.” The easiest way was to just go to the
sources.
“Excuse me, Mr. Reynolds, I hope I'm not interrupting?” The man was in his
living room watching the Knicks vs somebody on the 52 inch plasma.
“…Robin? How did you get in here?” He was suddenly a bit pale.
“Sorry to startle you. Yes I am, thank you, but you really should make sure that
you remember to lock your back door. Anyway, I was wondering if you could tell
me how much chloroform you ordered for Brixton Academy and if you’d happen to
know how much has been used so far. If it’s not too much trouble.”
The man stared for a second then kicked his brain back into gear. “Yeah, sure, I
haven’t used any. I was going to have the AP chem class do a couple of
experiments but ended up changing the syllabus.”
“How much did you order?”
“A liter. It should be in the storage room in the back of the classroom.”
“Who has a key to that?”
“Me, the maintainance people and there’s a copy in the office; they have a copy
of every key used in the building along with a master key which should open just
about everything.”
“Does anyone have a master key?”
“The janitors, I guess that the principal might, maybe the superintendent. I
don't really know.”
“Would anyone else have a reason to use it or know it’s there?”
Reynolds thought for a moment. “Whoever signed it in when it was shipped would
know it’s there; I unpacked it and anyone who saw the invoice would know. I
guess whoever pays the bills. And there aren't too many home uses for the stuff.
If someone took some, then they had a specific use for it. And it's not that
expensive; you can get it over the Internet pretty cheaply; any scientific
supply house would carry it, no questions asked.”
“Do you ever share your supplies with the other teachers? If one of the other
science teachers needed chloroform would you use the same bottle or share this
one?”
“Well, that depends. Usually we all just order whatever we need, within reason.
I didn’t talk to anyone about this though, so this would have just been for use
in my own classes.”
“Okay. Who approves your class syllabus?”
“Uh, the head of the department and sometimes the principal takes a look but you
can’t think they’d do anything…?”
“I don’t think anything yet but thanks for talking to me. 'Enjoy the game.” And
he was gone, leaving the man to a sleepless night.
Robin also stopped in at James Smith's, the Mechanical Engineering teacher’s
place and got basically the same answers and a lot more attitude (“Shouldn't you
be home in bed at this hour?”); he’d also ordered a liter of chloroform for use
in Plexiglas work but hadn’t gotten to that section yet and so it should still
be sitting there unopened.
The weird thing was that he was in both men's classes and hadn’t ever considered
that either of them could be capable of killing anyone. In fact he didn’t
seriously consider them suspects, but then he’d been wrong before and so wasn’t
about to rule anyone out at this point. Not yet, anyway.
Next, around one in the morning, he went over to the school and let himself in
through the skylight in the teacher’s lounge so he could check the level in the
supposedly unused bottle of chloroform in the Chem lab. There it was, sitting on
the bottom shelf, still in it’s original shipping case, seals intact. Next door
in the Mech E lab he searched where Smith had told him he’d put the supplies and
found the supposedly unused bottle. The bottle was almost a quarter empty. He
dusted the bottle, the door and the locks for fingerprints, put everything back
where he found it.
He was looking for a woman who would have access to the area, who would have a
key or know someone who had one...the list was longer than he liked.
Obviously anyone in the office could get a key; there was an often unlocked key
board hanging on the wall in the main office. Someone could even have made a
copy of the storage closet locks or the master. And it might not be an adult, he
couldn't rule out a student with some kind of grudge. There were almost four
hundred students, half of them female. The faculty and staff had around fifty
people, a lot of them women.
Okay. Think.
First things first. He went back to the cave, maybe he could find a match with
some of the prints he'd just lifted.
***
On Monday the students arrived back at Brix, apprehensive, frightened and making
bad jokes which were not well received. They wanted answers and there were few
answers to be had. Flowers were placed both at the main gate and where the two
students were found. The cafeteria’s kitchen was closed and the school ordered
personal pizzas for everyone.
It was going to be another long day.
TBC