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I had to shake those thoughts of her from my mind. I was semi-hard just thinking about her. I needed to focus on this technical shit in front of me, and put my ‘Poindexter’ hat on to interpret the analysis and try to draw a conclusion.
I scanned through the several page report which listed the subject matter being analyzed, what types of instrumentation was being used for testing, how it was calibrated, the testing media, yada, yada, yada. I hated all of the preliminary crap that was required to be included for forensic purposes.
Okay, here we go.
In layman’s terms, the roses were dissected and various parts of the stems and petals were prepped for slides to be microscopically examined. The examination revealed that the roses were actually the Red Freedom variety, readily available from any florist. They had simply been dipped in a commercially available navy blue die to create the blackness.
I figured that was something that could very easily have been accomplished by the rat bastard or the Poindexter that was hot after my girl.
Fuck that shit, Taz. Get your head out of your ass and keeping reading for Chrissake!
I continued to peruse down through the report and something amid all of the technical jargon caught my attention.
A residual powdered substance was taken from several of the rose stems, and sent for a high performance liquid chromatography analysis. The results of the testing revealed that the powdered substance was identified as cathine, a derivative of cathinone, a Schedule 1 amphetamine.
Cathine is a less powerful stimulant as a result of de-potentiation and the bio physiological conversion of the ketonic atoms through oxidation.
Fuck! Didn’t Lindsey say that Poindexter was doing some science project on this very same topic?
I launched myself off the sofa immediately, shrugging my jacket on and grabbing my keys to head out. I was going to pull her ass out of whatever class she was in and bring her home.
My cell phone chimed. It was Slate. Shit!
“Slate,” I answered, “I was just on my way out.”
“Did you review the forensic lab report, Taz?”
“As a matter of fact, I just finished.”
“Does any of that shit make sense to you?”
I needed to tell him everything I knew. He wasn’t going to like the fact that I had allowed Lindsey to go off with a potential suspect in this whole incident with the roses.
There was still no connection to Jack. So officially, if the line couldn’t be drawn connecting him, the FBI had no business in this case.
“Yeah, I guess the bottom line is that someone is stepping on some amphetamine creating some type of designer drug that for reasons unknown, got sprinkled on the stems of those roses.”
“Yeah, I gathered that. Though it appears the amount and strength of the powder was nowhere near a lethal level.
"Even if someone had ingested every single rose stem, which is plain idiocy, it wouldn’t have caused much harm. It’s a message of some sort to someone. I’m not even sure that message was for Lindsey.”
I hadn’t considered that.
“For whom, then?”
“Perhaps Sammie, through Lindsey; maybe even Jack.”
“So, you’re thinking Jack is back in the states, his whereabouts unknown to everyone?”
“It’s possible. If he is, someone wants to find him other than us for reasons still unclear. They might have suspected that Lindsey was harboring him, or at the very least, knows how to get in touch with him.”
“There is one other thing, Slate.”
I filled him in on the portion of the report that was nearly verbatim to what Kyzer Stanfield had told Lindsey was to be the content of his upcoming science project.
“Shit Taz; that is too close for comfort. I think Lindsey needs to take a break from school until we figure out what this kid is about. He can’t know why, though. It has to sound plausible, so he isn’t spooked.”
“Yeah, I know. Dude already knows I don’t like him.”
