Office of the Coroner, Saint Tammany Parish
“What the hell is that?” Jana said.
The doctor studied the items.
“Well that sure wasn’t put there by the factory. Someone planted this. It looks like a grain of wheat, if I’m not mistaken. I’m not sure what this other grain is, but it looks like a seed of grass or barley or something. And this mixture of liquids, maybe it’s just me but it almost looks oily.”
Kyle squinted at the items. “Kind of congealed together. And what’s that? That looks like a flea. Am I right? Doctor, can we get this analyzed immediately?”
“And we don’t have time to send it to the FBI crime lab,” Jana said.
“Well,” Dr. Canray replied, “I’ll have to call technicians over at our crime lab. Then we’ll have to get this to them.”
“How long will it take us to get there?” Cade said.
“Oh, about thirty seconds. The crime lab is right next door.”
Jana said, “And you said this wasn’t a small town.”
“Well, I lied, sort of. We’re so close to the hustle and bustle of New Orleans, but we pretend to be a small community. It just doesn’t seem to work out that way.”
Kyle interrupted. “Does the lab have the capability to analyze this material?”
The doctor looked at him. “Yes. What do you think we are? A bunch of hicks?”
“You’ll have to excuse Kyle,” Jana said. “He tends to get a little excited about things.”
“Do not.”
Cade smirked at him.
Thirty minutes later as the analysis commenced, they stood at a long glass window and looked into the sterile laboratory facility. The technician was covered from head to toe with a white jumpsuit and face mask. He separated the items into different petri dishes and ran each into a TRACE 1310 Gas Chromatograph machine. It didn’t take long before the technician flashed them a thumbs-up as the last sample passed through. He pointed over their shoulders to a computer screen mounted on the cinder-block wall behind them.
The screen displayed the results of the lab tests. As they studied the output, it was apparent there were four items detected.
“She was right,” Kyle said as he read from the monitor.
Wheat (Triticum monococcum)
Barley (Hordeum vulgare)
Red Wine (Vitis vinifera)
Olive Oil (Olea europaea)
Flea (Xenopsylla cheopis)
Jana shook her head. “This isn’t getting easier, it’s getting harder. What are we supposed to do with this? I can’t get the thought out of my head that Jarrah is laughing at us.”
“We are off the mark on this one.” Cade said. “And we’re not just missing something, we don’t even know where to begin. We’ve got to figure this out and fast. We all know Jarrah is planning something big. He’s leading up to it, he always does.”
“Wheat, barley, wine, and oil?” Jana said. “A flea? What the hell does that mean?” She turned and paced the hallway. “Other than the flea, it sounds like something out of the Catholic sacraments.”
“Hey,” Kyle said, “that’s right. Remember when Jarrah questioned if you’d ever gone to church?”
“Yeah. He said, didn’t you go to church as a little girl.”
“There must be something there,” Kyle said. “Let’s get this evidence over to the FBI crime lab. They may be able to analyze it further and come up with other clues. In the meantime, does anybody have any ideas? These things we keep finding aren’t ringing any bells.”
“I agree,” Cade said. “They’re not ringing any bells with me either. Let’s get on a call with Uncle Bill and tell him what we found. Maybe he and Knuckles have something. At this point, I don’t think we can take this investigation any further. Let’s head back to NSA headquarters.”
Jana placed a call and explained the new evidence.
Bill replied, “We couldn’t be sure you’d find anything, but you made it pay off. Good work.”
“Bill, we’re heading to the airport. Have the pilot getting ready to go wings up. We will see you in about two hours,” Jana said.
“Not so fast. You’re getting on that jet all right, but you’re not heading back here. You’re going to California. You’re not going to believe what we found.”