A Study in Crimson

by Chris Orcutt

  “Here,” I said, handing her the box, “put on a pair and stow the box in your purse.”

  I unlocked the door, removed the key, and, with a deep breath, heaved the door open. We walked inside, and I quickly slid the door shut behind us. The entryway was dim, but right next to my shoulder was a flashing light. It was the control panel for an alarm system. The LCD read, “ARMED—ENTER CODE TO DISARM.” Adding to the good news, the display was counting down from 30.

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  “Uh-oh?”

  “I didn’t think his apartment would be alarmed. Who puts an alarm in their apartment?”

  The counter reached 20.

  “Someone who has valuables or secrets he does not want others to find,” Svetlana said. “Do you not know the code?”

  “No, well”—I thought for a moment and remembered the notation in the keychain wallet—“I might, actually.”

  The counter was down to 9. On the panel, I pressed “2-4-6-8” and “DISARM.” There was a beep, and the LCD now read, “DISARMED—ENTER CODE TO ARM.”

  “That was close,” I said.

  “What are we looking for exactly?” Svetlana asked.

  I shrugged. “A diary. A computer. Phone records. Anything unusual or that relates somehow to the list Mrs. O’Toole gave us, or to his sexual attraction study. It’s hard to say. We’ll search each area together. As much as possible, try not to disturb objects. If you do pick something up, put it back exactly where you found it—make sure the dust lines match up, okay?”

  “Understood.”

  As I took a step into the loft, Svetlana put a hand on my arm.

  “Dakota? Thank you for bringing me along today,” she said.

  “A bit more exciting than the Nimzo-Indian Defense, right?” I said.

  She nodded. “Quite. My legs are trembling.”

  “That’s the adrenaline, kid,” I said. “Take slow, deep breaths and you’ll be fine. All right, let’s do this.” I led the way inside.

  The apartment wasn’t what I’d expected. Instead of a vast open space like a typical loft, this one was much smaller, maybe 25´ by 25´. Instead of giving the place a hip, trendy feel, its exposed brick walls and wood beams, and its steel support columns and unfinished floors made it seem like a dungeon; the only things missing were a medieval rack and shackles chained to the walls.

  There were two windows—one on the left, which looked out on the street, and another one at the far end of the space, which looked out on another building. Running diagonally between the far corner of the room and the entrance was a ceiling track.

  One thing that stood out was the dearth of furniture. In the living area were one leather couch and an HDTV. The bedroom area had a king-sized bed, two foot lockers for nightstands, a small bureau, and a rolling clothes rack that held a few men’s suits and some petite dresses. The kitchenette contained a small refrigerator, stove, microwave, and a breakfast table. The bathroom—the only walled-off space in the apartment—had a toilet, sink and corner shower.

  On the far end of the loft was an office area, with a bare desk and chair, a bean-bag, a stack of newspapers, and a steel storage cabinet. The storage cabinet was locked. Taking out my lock-picking set, I was about to pick the lock when Svetlana pulled some kind of cord out of the far corner of the room and walked toward me holding it. As she pulled it, the ceiling track made a scraping sound.

  “What is this for?” she asked.

  It was an 8- or 10-foot steel cable with one end attached to the ceiling track and a padlock dangling from the other end. At first I had no idea what purpose the cable served, but then I remembered the metal ring on Sally’s BDSM collar, and the picture became painfully clear: Malone would lock the cable to the ring on Sally’s collar, leaving her chained up like a dog. The sadistic bastard probably left her like that for hours, days even.

  Anger, along with a fresh dose of my hangover, swelled up in me. Suddenly lightheaded, I had to steady myself on the storage cabinet.

  “Are you okay?” Svetlana asked.

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine,” I said. “I don’t think I told you this, but…Sally has one of those ‘BDSM’ collars. I think that cable connects to it.”

  Scoffing in disgust, Svetlana pinched the cable gingerly in her fingers and flung it back into the corner.

  “This place disturbs me, Dakota,” she said. “I want to leave now.”

  “We can’t,” I said. “We haven’t found anything yet. Tell you what…start searching the desk while I check this cabinet.”

  “Very well.”

  I started picking the cabinet door lock. These locks are much easier to pick than door locks, and I had it open in thirty seconds. Office supplies filled the top shelves. On the middle shelf were a small, insulated cooler and an international express shipping label. Lastly, on the bottom shelf, were a couple banker’s boxes containing older versions of Malone’s Sexual Attraction Survey flyer from previous colleges. Jammed in the boxes were also dozens of folders containing questionnaires and study applications. Attached to the folders were headshots of the applicants. All of them happened to be young women.

  I took out my digital camera. There wasn’t enough time to document all of the applications, so I photographed only the first ten. As I was putting the boxes away, I brushed against a black cloth and discovered it was covering a mini-fridge inside the cabinet. There was a padlock on the fridge. Why would someone lock a refrigerator? My curiosity aroused, I started picking the lock.

  “Svetlana,” I said over my shoulder, “how are you making out over there?”

  “Excellent. I found a flash drive hidden in one of the drawers. The files are encrypted, so I am decrypting them now.”

  “What?!”

  I spun around to see Svetlana standing over a notebook-sized computer on the bare desk. The screen was filled with a bunch of settings and flashing letters and numbers that made no sense to me.

  “Where’d you get the computer?” I asked.

  “Where do you think?” she said. “My handbag.”

  Finished picking the padlock, I opened the mini-fridge. Inside was only one item: a tray containing twenty test tubes sealed with rubber stoppers. Fourteen of the test tubes were filled with a purple liquid. During my tenure with the FBI Lab, I’d done enough serological work to recognize blood when I saw it. I snapped a photo of the entire tray, then quickly photographed each test tube. Each of the fourteen test tubes had a single label with two initials on it.

  “Done,” Svetlana said behind me. “What have you found? Anything?”

  “Blood.”

  “Blood?”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure, but never mind that right now.” I put the tray away, shut the fridge and stepped over to Svetlana. “Show me what you found.”

  “There are fourteen folders on the flash drive,” she said, “each one labeled with two initials.”

  “Same thing with the test tubes I found. Go on.”

  “As you can see”—she double-clicked on the computer touchpad—“each folder contains several photographs, and each photograph is labeled with the same initials as the folder, plus a number. For example, in this case we have ‘T.G. One,’ ‘T.G. Two’ and so on.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “One of the test tubes of blood over there is labeled ‘T.G.’ Bring up the photos.”

  She selected all of the photos in the “T.G.” folder and opened them. The photos were all of a curvaceous, dark-haired young woman. The first few were photos taken covertly from a distance, like surveillance shots. In the other photos—which looked like stills from a closed-circuit camera—the young woman was nude, looking at someone or something else off-screen. Svetlana put a hand on mine. Hers was shaking.

  “I very much want to leave, Dakota.”

  “First of all, Svetlana, relax.” I pinched open my coat, revealing my
gun. “I’m a trained FBI Special Agent, my dear. Nothing’s going to harm you. Not while I’m around.” I gave her a consoling wink. “Second, this is precisely when we need to slow down and be ultra-methodical. Let me ask you—did you copy these folders over to your laptop?”

  She nodded.

  “Good,” I said. “Then put the flash drive back exactly where you found it, and then I need you to go to the pharmacy for me.”

  “The pharmacy? Why?”

  “There’s no time to explain.” I pulled out my pocket notebook and pen. “Here, I’ll make you a list.”

  While she put the flash drive away, I wrote out a list, tore off the sheet and handed it to her.

  “Leave your laptop,” I said. “And hurry.”

  Shouldering her purse, she walked briskly out of the apartment. I opened the other folders on the computer and glanced at the photos inside. Like the first one, each folder contained surveillance photos and nude stills. Closing the computer, I rummaged through the rest of the desk, but didn’t find anything. I gave the rest of the apartment a cursory search, checking first for obvious traps like slips of paper wedged in drawers or strands of hair across cabinet doors, but I didn’t find anything.

  Finally it was time get things ready for Svetlana’s return. I removed a newspaper from the bottom of the stack and spread it out on the desk. I’d just moved Svetlana’s laptop aside when she returned, closing the apartment door behind her.

  “Good, you’re back,” I said. “Bring everything to the desk, please.”

  She put the bag down and let out a deep breath.

  “Fourteen eyedroppers,” she said, “medical tape, Ziploc bags, blood typing kit, two instant ice packs, lunch cooler, and one fine-tipped Sharpie pen.”

  “Good show, Svetlana.” As I emptied the bag, I pulled out an item with “Revlon” printed on the cardboard backing. “What’s this?”

  “This is a new mascara,” she said, snatching it away. “It spoke to me.”

  “You took time to shop for makeup?”

  “I did not shop.” She batted her eyes. “It simply jumped into my basket.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Not that you need it. You have the lushest eyelashes I’ve ever seen.”

  She smiled. “Now, what are you doing with all of this, and how can I help?”

  I took the tray of test tubes out of the mini-fridge and set it on the desk.

  “First, using the eyedroppers, I’m going to take a tiny sample from each of these test tubes,” I said. “You can help by tearing off pieces of medical tape. Each time I take a sample from a new test tube, I’ll say the initials out loud. Please write those initials on a piece of tape, put the tape on a Ziploc bag, and I’ll place the eyedropper in that bag. You then seal the bag and put it in the cooler. When we’re finished, crack the instant ice packs and place them on top of the Ziploc bags. But don’t open the blood typing kit yet—that’s for later. Okay?”

  Nodding, she opened the medical tape, Ziploc bags and Sharpie pen, and laid everything in front of her.

  “You may begin, doctor,” she said.

  “All right,” I said. “ ‘T.G.’ ”

  Uncorking the test tube, I laid the rubber stopper carefully on the newspaper, tilted the test tube to the side, and sucked up enough blood in the eyedropper to reach the 1 ml mark. I returned the test tube to its slot in the tray and re-corked it. Finally, I sealed the nozzle end of the eyedropper with a piece of medical tape, and put it in the Ziploc bag that Svetlana held open for me.

  “One down,” I said. “Thirteen to go.”

  The first four took a good minute each, but after that Svetlana and I were a well-oiled evidence-stealing machine, completing the process on the remaining test tubes in about five minutes. While I returned the test tubes to the mini-fridge and locked it and the cabinet again, Svetlana cracked the ice packs, closed the cooler and stowed her computer and the packing refuse in her purse. I refolded the newspaper and returned it to the bottom of the stack, glanced around to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything, and entered the alarm code on the panel. The alarm was now set.

  Out in the hallway, I locked the door. We hurried downstairs, paused to remove our latex gloves and put our sunglasses on, and exited the building.

  We stuffed our gloves and the packing refuse in a wastebasket on the corner, and instead of walking back to our car along Hanover Street, I turned us down North Bennett—little more than an alley that zigzagged through the North End. The second we were safely in the car, we looked at each other, smiled and heaved a sigh of relief.

  “Exciting?” I said.

  “ ‘Exciting’ is one word for it,” she said.

  I patted her arm. “Good job, Svetlana. You’re a natural.”

  “Once I got over the jitters from the adrenaline, it was rather enjoyable,” she said. “My first ‘B and E.’ ”

  “Well, you performed like a pro.” I started the car and pulled away. “Hey, that stuff with the computer back there. Where’d you learn that?”

  “I have a degree in computer science from NYU,” she said. “I knew a day might come when I did not wish to play chess professionally anymore, so I decided to expand my skillset. I was always talented in computers. I have also studied mathematics and languages.”

  And here I thought I my dual bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and English were impressive.

  “Really?” I said. “Where?”

  “Several universities. Moscow State. The University of London. The American University of Paris.” She held up the cooler. “So where do we take this? The police?”

  “No, my alma mater,” I said. “We’re going to perform some tests on the samples ourselves—under the radar.”

  “I assume your alma mater is okay with your waltzing on campus with a cooler full of stolen blood samples.”

  “Nope,” I said. “But my mentor will be. If he’s still there, that is. It’s been a while.”

  17

  The Prodigal Protégé Returns

  Returning to Cambridge, we parked on Memorial Drive and walked across the MIT campus from the river. Along the way, I gave Svetlana the nickel tour, pointing out buildings where I’d taken various classes, and noting to myself with a smile the building that housed my freshman English professor’s office, where I’d once spent a rainy, quiet, watershed afternoon with her, receiving, shall we say, some special, private tutelage.

  Then Svetlana and I entered the courtyard in front of building 18—Dreyfus—which, as a sandy brown rectangle with rows of small square windows, bore an uncomfortable resemblance to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. I held open the door for Svetlana, boarded the service elevator with her, and pressed the button for “B3”—the deepest bowels of the building, where my mentor used to have his office and private lab. The elevator doors closed and we slowly descended.

  “So, who is this mentor of yours?” Svetlana asked.

  Knowing how long the elevator ride and walk to his office would take, I told Svetlana about him. When I was an undergraduate here, I explained, MIT didn’t officially have a forensic science program. What MIT did have was Dr. Steven Lenz, or simply “Steve” as he insisted we students call him, who would attend his colleagues’ chemistry lectures and poach promising students who showed an interest in forensic science and criminalistics.

  Steve had begun his academic career in the 1970s doing pure biochemistry research; but shortly after receiving tenure, he experienced a terrible tragedy: his wife and daughter were murdered. From that day on, Steve became obsessed with forensic science—not only to try to find the killer of his wife and daughter, but also to improve forensic science for law enforcement in general. Some of his early research in DNA helped to develop DNA “fingerprinting” for criminal investigations, and he had consulted for the Massachusetts State Crime Lab, the FBI, Scotland Yard and Interpol.

  When th
e elevator doors opened, I led Svetlana down the long, dingy hallway. The air was still filled with the same acrid chemical smell that I’d come to associate with Steve and his “secret” lab.

  “He sounds like a fascinating man,” Svetlana said.

  “He is,” I said, “but don’t get the wrong picture of him. He’s not a typical white-haired ‘mad scientist.’ The guy’s a total maverick. Used to drive a motorcycle. Not sure if he does anymore, but if he’s still here at MIT, I’m sure he’s just as much of a rule-breaker as he always was.”

  Our footsteps echoed in the empty hallway. I chuckled to myself remembering another aspect of Steve’s personality.

  “By the way, Svetlana—fair warning.” I glanced in the lab windows as we passed them. “Steve was always a notorious ladies’ man. He’s in his late fifties now, so I’m sure he’s mellowed, but don’t be surprised if he flirts with you a little bit. Ah, here we are.”

  A cracked plastic name plaque beside the door read, “Dr. Steven Lenz,” and a card beneath it listed his office hours. Steve was scheduled to be here later this afternoon. I peered in the window on the door. Both Steve’s office and his lab were dark.

  “This is unfortunate.” Svetlana tapped a fingernail on the office hours card. “Perhaps we should go have coffee and return when—what are you doing?”

  “Getting the key,” I said.

  I jogged down the hall, opened the fire extinguisher locker, felt inside and removed the Hide-a-Key box.

  “Should you be doing that?” she said.

  “He won’t mind. His favorite students always knew about this key.”

  “I assume you were one of his favorites.”

  “Yup.”

  I unlocked the door, stowed the key back in its hiding place, led Svetlana inside the lab, and switched on the lights. Nothing had changed.

  A sprawl of lab apparatus still cluttered the stainless steel countertops. There was the same Sherlock Holmes poster on the wall—now yellowed and frayed at the corners—with famous Holmes quotes, and the same giant periodic table of elements suspended from the ceiling in the back. On the side of the lab was his adjoining office, his sanctum sanctorum, which we students never entered uninvited, and in the far corner of the lab was Steve’s “gym”—a speed bag, heavy bag, weights, weight bench, boom box, and mats. There, Steve worked out with us while teaching us criminalistics by Socratic method.