F³ Experiments 04

           After he got over his initial wow and exclamations of magic, we settled in to work. I had thought up the chalk on the ride from my cabin to the town, but that was where I kind of got stumped. Chalk wouldn’t produce a good contrast. While it worked on something dark, it was useless against lighter materials. I also had no idea how to lift prints off a surface since tape hadn’t been invented, yet.

            One step at a time, Sam.

            In short order, Ernst, as I had learned his name after we began our experiments, and I had tried coal dust, soot, powdered ink, and even graphite—I made a mental note to save some of that to create my own pencil. I was sick of ink stains on my fingers.

            All of them had various degrees of success, but also drawbacks. The color contrast was right, but the powder clumped and didn’t produce a good print. This one was too light, that one too heavy, that one just was too sticky on everything.

            “This is getting ridiculous,” I said. “Maybe we can’t do it. Like I said, I don’t know exactly what the apothecaries in my homeland used.”

            “Don’t fret, Shamus. The work is not lost, yet. Seldom are my medicines of a single ingredient. Rather, they are recipes of ingredients working in harmony with one another.”

            “Recipes?” I perked up.

            “Yes, though I would not recommend them for the eating like the pastries Marion’s daughter makes.”

            “So we can try mixing some of these together to get the right consistency. That should—”

            I stopped as my brain caught up to what he said. Marion’s daughter. Marion was the baker in town, her daughter was Caitlyn.

Is that what the gossip is about? Me and Caitlyn?

F³ Dark Business 01

            The days were getting shorter, but for my money, the shortest day of the year was not the winter solstice, it was Halloween. Most people would call it an overactive imagination, but I knew that shadows were longer, light didn’t reach as far, and the things that went bump in the night did so with more gusto on this night, which was why I typically closed the office early on Halloween.

            I had just made it down the elevator when my phone rang, the distinctive bass chords of “Fever” instantly recognizable. “Hey, Nikki, not really feeling up for a costume ball, tonight. Just want to pass out candy to trick or treaters.”

            “As much as I would love to kidnap you to a costume ball, Matthew, that is not the purpose of my call.”

            “Well, good. Pick up some Kit Kats and you can join me in handing out candy. We can watch an awful horror movie, too.” I waved to the building’s front desk people on the way out, who waved back. Typically, only one person watched the building at night, but a string of vandalisms in the area leading up to Halloween put them on edge.

            Nikki sighed, audibly, almost melodramatically. “Sadly, I will need a raincheck. And I would ask that you take one as well. I have need of you, tonight.”

            “What’s shaking?” I asked, stepping through the door. I turned to find my car when I spotted a familiar Mercedes with blackout windows in back. The sky was still light out, though the sun had disappeared behind the buildings.

            The back window closest to me rolled down a couple of inches. I couldn’t see anything inside, but I already knew.

            “Dark business is afoot,” she said. “I need a detective. More importantly, I need a friend.”

            I clicked off my phone and went to the car. Inside, a light clicked on. I saw an immaculately made-up Nikki wearing an elegant ball gown in black.

“Hey, baby, you looking for a good time, tonight?”

Usually, innuendo like that made her smile. The corner of her mouth quirked up, but no smile. “I would like nothing better, but there will be little pleasure, tonight.”

Serious business on Halloween. Yeah, this is going to turn out great.

I got in the car.

Nikki pressed the intercom button to the driver, whom I couldn’t even see. “The Fairhaven Club.”

“Oh, hell,” I said.

F³ A first Test 03

           “Now what, Shamus, do you use this powder for? Know that, I may be able to help your cause.”

            I lifted up my thumb for him to look at. “The marks on our fingers are distinct. Whenever we touch an object, something is left behind.”

            He shook his head. “Not unless something already stained our fingers. Why, if you touch my counter, now, with clean hands such as yours, not a mark would be left.”

            I sighed. “Do you have chalk?”

            He shrugged and went to his cabinets, opening a small drawer and produced a whitish, lumpy rock.

            “And one of those poundy things with the bowl?”

            “The mortar and pestle,” he said, patiently.

            I used the poundy thing—I didn’t know which was the mortar and which the pestle—to break off a chunk and then proceeded to grind it to a fine powder. I had been careful to keep one hand out of the chalk, so I used that clean thumb to press down firmly on the wooden counter. The apothecary had kept a very clean shop, so I was sure the counter would take the print okay.

            I hefted up the wooden bowl, and very carefully tapped out a tiny amount of powder. When I had gotten a light dusting on top, I bent down and lightly puffed away the loose chalk, hoping this worked.

            It did. It was faint, but the whitish powder stood out against the dark wood of the counter, revealing the fingerprint.