Chapter 7

A geek for all reasons

Although it is not unheard of, the train from Greenwich was late which was fine with
Shu, since he was ten minutes behind schedule as well, even using a siren. Of course
putting a flashing light and siren on your wife’s Honda was like putting racing slicks on a
Yugo; what was the point. Since Shu and Danny had managed to trash the unmarked
assigned to them, they would have to use the Honda until either another car was found or
theirs was repaired. Considering the appearance of the car after the shoot out at Danny’s,
Shu figured the car was only good for parts, and not many of them.

Jack Chow stepped to the platform, replete with country club style; blue blazer, kaki
pleated trousers, deck shoes, no socks and light blue oxford shirt. Shu wondered if he
was coming to work or off to see ‘Muffin and Buffy at the club.’ Jack carried a single
black bag in his right hand, similar to a doctor’s tote from the 1950’s. As soon as he saw
Shu he waived as if they had not seen one another in twenty years.

“Jack, looks like you made it ok,” Shu shook his hand firmly. “I expected you would be
bringing a lot more stuff with you than this.

“Oh this,” Jack held up the bag. “This is for my phones, OQO model 4 computer,
portable printer, chargers, jacks, cables and a couple of Cliff bars in case I get hungry
while I work.”

“Not the old peanut butter and banana from college days?” Shu asked, already knowing
the answer.

“Nope, high tech carbs now,” replied Jack

“So where is your equipment? I figured you’d have a trunk full of stuff knowing you,”
Shu put his hand out to take the bag.

“Yeah, well I guess you know me. It was too much to carry on the train, so I chartered a
helicopter to bring it all down. A panel van with a couple of MIT grad students I hired to
help me picked it up this morning. It should be outside by now,” Jack tapped the bag and
held it firm. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll just carry the bag for now.”

Shu walked Jack across the expanse that is Grand Central Station to the police parking
area. Stepping out the glass doors they were confronted by a black panel truck,
something like UPS or SWAT might use and two spectacled young men each with pocket
protectors full of pens and markers.

“Don’t tell me,” said Shu smiling, “these are your boys.”

“Yep, they’re the ones.” Jack was now ahead of Shu trotting to his personal geek squad
and what Shu would call their ‘geek mobile’.

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As it turned out, Clifford and Arnold were twins, who at age 20 were working on their
respective PHD’s in Applied Molecular Translocation and Theoretical Nanomechanics
and Tribology. Shu believed they could have been the ‘before’ in a before and after ad
for Clearasil. Both had on plaid shirts, jeans and New Balance athletic shoes. If the
shirts had not been two different colors, there would not have been an obvious way to tell
the two apart.

“Hey Al, come over here,” Jack waived Shu to the van. “This is Cliff and Arney Lee my
assistants for this project.” Jack pointed at the blue shirt for Cliff and the red for Arney.

“Pleased to meet you guys,” Shu shook Cliff’s hand noticing that his palm was sweaty
and orange.

“Sorry guy,” Cliff spoke, “been eating Cheetos and drinking Dew all morning. Should
have used the wipes before the shaking” Cliff pulled a wet wipe from a plastic container
on the dash.

Shu wiped his hands with the moist towelete and chose to waive a greeting at Arney
rather than enduring another Cheetos clasp.

“I guess you guys are the brains behind…uh…the brains.” Shu offered and awkward
smile. “How’d you guys meet?”

“Jack is funding our thesis,” Cliff responded.

“Funding you? To get your PhDs? Whoever heard of that?” Shu smiled and turned to
Jack, “what’s the deal here?”

Before Jack could respond, Cliff started, “The basics of all matter is molecular structure
and in turn its atomic composition.” Cliff held up his hand with his fingers close to one
another.

“Matter is made of molecules that lay close to one another, like my fingers and the atoms
inside do the same thing. If you heat it up the molecules grow and the atoms move
apart,” he opened his fingers. “On the atomic level there is always space in matter, no
matter how dense. In theory, we can map that distance and insert material between the
atoms without changing either materials property, but having both coexist in the same
space, time location”

Arney spoke up, “The problem is, how to push atoms from one place to another without
disturbing the atomic sphere containing the paths of the electrons. At the same time we
need to ensure there is no molecular friction that would produce heat that would convert
the translocation into a chemical reaction”

“Jack, what the hell are they talking about?” Shu questioned.

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“Al, it simply boils down to this. These guys are close to being able to pass one solid
object through another one without changing the physical properties of either and not
leaving a hole.” Jack was holding his fingers apart on one hand, and slipping the finger
of the other hand between them.

“Wait a minute,” Shu was incredulous. “You mean to tell me that these guys believe you
could take a chunk of wood and just slip it through a concrete wall? This is comic book
stuff, or maybe like a ghost who walks through walls. Is that it?

“Well, not as slight of hand as you make it sound, but basically yes that is it. By
adjusting the frequency of both materials, and by the use of sub nano-particle machines, it
is theoretically possible to move a block of wood through a block of solid steel,” Jack
replied.

“I think you guys been smoking too much dope,” Shu shook his head. “Theory or not,
this kind of crap can never happen. You may as well try to turn lead to gold.”

“Actually,” Arney began, “in 1972 a Soviet physicists at a nuclear research facility near
Lake Baikal in Siberia accidentally discovered a method for turning lead into gold when
he found the lead shielding of an experimental reactor had changed to gold. It is also
purported that Glenn Seaborg, 1951 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, succeeded in
transmuting a minute quantity of lead to gold in 1981. However, turning lead to gold is a
complex process of changing the permanent atomic structure of an element. In our thesis
we are merely holding open a space between two sub molecular particles for a third to
pass by.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Shu dismissed the logic with a wave of his hand. “When you boys
actually do this, give me a call and I’ll be the first to make the announcement.”

“Sorry Al,” Jack interjected, “I get to make the announcement, if there is one, since it is
my one hundred million that is funding the Lees’.”

“A hundred million!” exclaimed Al, “are you nuts?”

“Not really Al,” Jack tried to calm him down. “Just think what this would be worth to the
government, to the military, to science. Beyond billions, Al, beyond billions.”

“Come on Jack. This is voodoo science, the kind of stuff you get from guys who wrap
their heads in tinfoil, think they have been abducted, or think Big Foot lives on the New
Jersey Turnpike. This is not real.” Shu held Jacks shoulders as he talked trying to bring
Jack to his senses.

“I can’t tell you much Al, but this much I can say,” Jack pulled him close to whisper in
his ear. “We’ve already done it.”

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“What? How? Bullshit!”

“No Al, it’s not bullshit, it’s real and very secret.” Jack put his finger to his lips.

“Fine,” Al replied, “but I don’t believe it so it’s pretty easy to keep it secret. No one on
the face of the earth would believe it and if I told anyone they’d think I’m nuts. Let’s get
going, you guys can only be in the crime scene till six tonight, after that you have to clear
out; the city wants to reopen the station. Too many suits getting their Italian leather
shoes scuffed by the extra two block walk are starting to hurt the mayor’s re-election
chances.”

“Let’s go boys,” Jack called to the Lee brothers as he climbed into Shu’s Civic. “Follow
us.”

Traffic was heavy as it took nearly twenty minutes to go from the train hub to Whitehall
station. Several police cars were still parked around the entrance with three uniforms at
the top of the stairs that led up from the subway, and three more down below. Shu
parked between two of the squad cars, exited and instinctively pressed the lock button on
the key fob. The car chirped an acknowledgement and all the uniforms turned to look.

“Hey detective,” one of them called, “you use that thing for low speed pursuit?”

Another one called out, “Say, don’t make fun of him. It takes a lot of balls to drive your
mommy’s car.”

“Yeah,” Shu called back. “Laugh it up assholes and remember, that when I make
Captain, I’ll be reviewing each of your performance reports and deciding who gets a
promotion and who doesn’t” The jeers stopped as Shu and Jack when down the steps to
the murder scene.

Uniformed police officers walked back and forth along the edge of the platform, shining
their flashlights over the lip and down to the track bed below. The platform itself was
well lit and scrubbed clean. Shu seriously doubted that there was any evidence to find
that the squints did not already bag and tag.

“Sorry this place is so clean,” Shu apologized. “I can’t believe I feel bad that they have
scrubbed down a crime scene.”

“Not to worry,” replied Jack. “It really should not effect what we will be doing anyway.”

The Lee brothers were descending the stairs with several oddly shaped briefcases, an
aluminum truck that looked like a coffin and a folding table.

“Just put the table over here,” Jack said pointing to a location near the stairs. “Set the
equipment boxes over there.” Jack turned to Shu and pointed to the uniformed policemen,

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“they’ll need to leave the area. You can stay if you like, but you’ll need to suit up.” Jack
pulled a white nylon jumpsuit from the first case.

“Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll go topside for a while and get some air. You guys
do what you do and let me know if you need anything.”

“Works for me,” Jack replied, slipping on his jumpsuit and sliding disposable covers over
his shoes. Two of the officers that were on the street helped the Lees’ carry down the last
of the containers. All in all they had thirteen different cases and boxes sitting on the tiled
floor of the station.

“Time to get started,” Jack pulled out his computer and started arranging cables. The Lee
brothers starting pulling out several lights on stands and stationing them around the
platform.

“More lights?” commented Shu. “You guys out to get the perfect tan? There are enough
floodlights down here to light Broadway.”

“Special lights,” replied Cliff in a condescending monotone. “Adjustable multi-

spectrographic variable frequency.”

“Oh, ok like the black lights you use for those day glow posters”, Shu smiled as he
responded knowing it would piss the Lee’s off. He didn’t wait for an answer. He could
here the Lee’s shouting technical references as he walked up the stairs.

An hour had passed before Shu went back down the stairs to check on Jack’s progress.
He did not expect that Jack would learn anything new that the forensics team did not
already learn, but it didn’t hurt to try and Jack wanted to do this. Kind of a win win
situation. If he didn’t find anything, it would prove forensics knew what they were
doing, if he did find something, it could lead to finding the killer and that would make the
Captain happy.

Shu was not sure what he expected to see when he reached the bottom of the stairway.
Perhaps Cliff and Arney were crawling around on the floor with wet q-tips or Jack taking
digital photos and loading them in his computer. What he did see left him speechless.

As he reached the bottom of the stairs he became suddenly aware that he was not looking
into the station area, but into a black cloth hung over the opening to prevent light from
entering the area. It took a minute or two to find the edge of the drape so he could get
past to the crime scene. When he did, the room was dark except for a blue white glow
coming from everything that was white in the room. It made the ‘geek team’ look like
glowing termites working inside a darkened tree trunk. The glow was from the array of
black or ultraviolet lights that shone from every angle.

The ceiling was covered with what was either a white plastic or nylon drop cloth attached
to several hoses that fed into something that looked like a shop-vac, but more complex

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with LED lights flashing and numbers blinking on and off. Jack was working on the
back wall with some kind of silver box that had a long arm sticking out. It was held to
the wall by suction cups and a cable ran back to the table where Jack’s computer sat.
Cliff was walking around the platform with a meter of some kind that had an end that
looked like a giant nylon funnel.

What was most confusing of all was what Arney was doing. As Shu watched, Arney
took a device that looked something like a laser pointer wired to a box that looked
something like welder and held it to the tile on the wall. When he pressed on a foot petal,
the pointer appeared to be cutting the ceramic tile from the wall, but there was no visible
beam like they have on light sabers. Arney then took his carefully selected pieces, placed
them in a small plastic enclosure and some kind of futuristic food processor ground it to a
fine power. Once complete, Arney put the powder in a jar, labeled it and placed it in a
case. He did this several times as Shu stood watching in awe. This was nothing like the
forensics team from the department. In fact they were nothing like anything he had ever
seen anywhere.

“Hey Stinky, welcome to the cave,” Jack stepped away from the box on the wall and
approached Shu. “So what do you think of our little lab away from lab?”

“Honestly, Jack…it is the most amazing thing I have ever seen and I don’t have a clue
what the hell you guys are doing,” Shu’s eyes took another tour of the room. Can you
explain what’s going on, in terms I’ll understand, not any of that techno-geek lingo you
guys use.”

“Sure Al, follow me and I’ll explain what kind of things we are doing,” replied Jack. The
two walked over to the rear wall where the box held to the wall with suction cups was
residing. The small stick like thing that protruded from its side appeared to have a tip
like a phonograph needle and the arm was moving rhythmically over a scratch or nick in
the wall.

“This thing is called a profilometer and is combined with a cross race curvature gage and
software. Essentially what this does is measure the roughness of the surface and how
much curve it has. Since these walls are ceramic tile, I am measuring each one of the
nicks and gouges on the wall to determine is profile and what could have caused it,” Jack
was resetting the device to measure another mark on the wall about a foot further down.

“Look Jack, I’m not stupid, but I sure feel that way. Can your break this down just a little
lower so I can understand?” asked Shu.

“Sorry, this device measures the shape and smoothness of the gouge in the ceramic tile.
It draws a picture of it and we can extrapolate the inverse of the shape to determine what
made the mark. Several of these marks are recent, located close to one another and have
the same surface finish pattern,” replied Jack.

“Ok, so there are a lot of marks that are the same, so what?”

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“The marks appear to have been made by a steel object, not unlike a knife, only with a
larger diameter,” Jack was drawing a picture on the wall with a grease pencil. “It may
have been curved like this or it may have been round.”

“You mean round, like a Frisbee kind of round?” Shu asked.

“Yes, but more like an old thirty-three and a third record. The blade was obviously very
hard and very sharp. The surface indications in the gouge are very smooth, like the
surface of a bearing,” Jack was rubbing a tile. “Here’s one we have already checked.
Arney will cut it out and we’ll do some more testing.”

“Yeah, I was going to ask you about that next. What exactly is he doing? Remember, no
big words,” Shu smiled a little indicating that he was not as dumb as he was acting.

“Arney is cutting pieces of the tile out of the wall using the portable laser,” Jack started to
explain.

“I got that, but how come no death ray beam coming out of it,” Shu asked.

“That’s because it is an invisible laser. That is its light is out of the normal optical range
for you and I to see.” Jack looked to see if Shu understood. The lack of blank stare
suggested this was getting through so he went on. “Once he cuts the sample, he takes it
over here and grinds it into an extremely fine dust. That dust will be placed in this device
here. It is called a time of flight mass spectrometer. We refer to it as a TOF.”

“Got it up to that point. What does a TOF do?” Shu was beginning to see how all these
devices where working.

“Try this on for size,” Jack was in his science teacher mode. “Suppose you have three
samples on your desk, each the size of a grain of sand. One is lead, one is aluminum and
one is copper. Then suppose you blow across them with a soda straw, which will move
first?”

“Well Mr. Chow, I guess the aluminum one would move first, because it is the lightest,”
replied Shu.

“Right you are, but not because it is lighter, but because is has a lower mass. The TOF
does the same thing. It electrically accelerates the sample to a set speed and sees which
elements come in first, second and so on. By doing that we can determine the materials
composition,” Jack smiled.

“I know the composition, it is ceramic tile. So why the test?” asked Shu sounding
somewhat frustrated.

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“Oops, I left something out. You are right,” Jack replied. “We do know it is ceramic and
we do know the composition of the ceramic material. However, since the ceramic is so
hard, the impact of the other object left microscopic particles of material in the gouge.
When we grind the sample up and test it, we subtract out the ceramic material readings
and we are left with the composition of the object that made the mark.”

“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that a twenty armed flying ninja cut up all the
victims. Let’s also say he was using a big curved sword, like one of those sultans might
use. You’re telling me you can determine what the sword is made of by the hack mark it
made on the wall when he missed.” Shu was thinking as he was talking. “Is that about
the size of it?”

“You hit the nail on the head. Plus, we can tell you the shape of the sword, or at least
make a good guess based on the shape and radius of the ‘hack mark’ as you called it,”
Jack beamed at Shu’s grasp of the technology.

“Good, so I got that much. If you know what it is made of, we can get some guys
working on the local kung-fu weapons shops or some of those nuts who pretend they are
knights on the weekend at the renaissance fair,” Al took out his notebook to make some
notes.

“We have identified the material, more or less,” replied Jack

“What do you mean ‘more or less’,” asked Shu.

“Well, here’s the thing. The material is steel, but very old by the way it was produced.
We can tell that from the way the iron is distributed in the grain structure of the metal,”
Jack was holding something back.

“So, what else were you going to say other than it is old steel? What, that it’s fifty or a
hundred years old?” Shu was anxious for answers.

“It’s definitely over one hundred years old, probably over a thousand years old,” replied
Jack.

“Are you shit’n me? Over a thousand years old?” again Shu could not believe what he
was being told.

“Yeah, and there’s more. From the iron and nickel in the composition, it looks like this
object was probably made from a meteor.” Jack reached over and handed Shu one of the
printouts.

“Like I can read this. It would be easier for me to read Hebrew.” Shu did not bother to
take the sheet of paper so Jack placed it back on the table with the stacks of
documentation they had already produced.

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“Ok, so what about this other stuff. Can you summarize what you guys are doing in
twenty five words or less?” Shu was beginning to show the strain of too little sleep, too
much stress and too much information. Had it been Danny, he probably would have shot
someone, just out of principle. “Let’s start with the sheets on the ceiling, what’s that
about?”

“I’m sure you already know that hot air rises. In the subway, air is pushed into the station
by the incoming train, and pulled out again as the train leaves. However, there is an
upper layer of air that remains relatively undisturbed. That would be the top one quarter
inch or so nearest the ceiling.” Jack was pointing up as he explained.

“When the murders were committed, the temperature of this area rose rapidly, partly
because of the panic but mostly due to the loss of blood. The stress probably pushed the
core temperature of the victims to 103 degrees or more. Once the blood spilled, it raised
the air temperature around it and created a thermal cycle that took air born particles from
the area of about here,” Jack was holding his hand at waist height to illustrate, “to the
ceiling. There it would be trapped in that heated area that I said was about a quarter of an
inch thick or stuck to the ceiling.”
“I get the explanation and why the sheet things are up there, but wouldn’t there be a lot of
other stuff from the days or weeks before trapped up there too?” Shu had a grasp of this
kind of science.

“Yes there would be,” Jack replied. “That’s why we are using an extremely low flow
HEPA vacuum system, similar to that used in clean rooms at NASA. We only want to
remove the last portion of the thermal layer, around 1/32 of an inch of air and particulate.
We will capture it in special filters, and take it back to the lab for analysis.”

“What do you think will be in there?” Shu had his pad of paper out again taking more
notes.

“If I’m right,” Jack smiled since he was almost always right. “We will find DNA from
the victims, probably in the form of hair, blood and skin and I am hoping we will find
hair or fiber from the killer or killers as well.”

“How long before you have any results?” Shu asked.

“It will take us a couple of days to match up and analyze DNA. As for fiber, I’m not sure.
But I can show you something interesting we found when we did our first filter change.”
Jack held up a zip-lock bag with several strands of what appeared to be red hair.

“That looks like red hair, probably from one of the victims,” Shu observed.

“That’s what we thought too, till we looked at it under a microscope.” Jack removed one
of the hairs with tweezers and placed it under a microscope attached to his computer via a
USB port. He tapped a couple of keys to make the image appear and then fine tuned it
with his mouse.

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“See this right here?” Jack was pointing at the screen.

“What am I looking at?” questioned Shu.

“See how it looks segmented? Kind of like a bunch of circular corks stacked on top on
one another?” Jack was pulling out one of his own hairs.

“Yeah, so?”

“Ok, so now look at this hair I just pulled from my head.” Jack refocused the microscope
to show a very smooth hair in the central image. “See the difference?”

“Sure, I can see the difference, but that just means it wasn’t your hair.” Shu seemed
pretty confident in his conclusion and figured the hair was still from one of the victims.

“Nah, you’re missing it. All human hair looks the same under the microscope.” Jack
pulled one of Shu’s hairs from his head and slid it under the microscope next to his. “See
they look the same.”

“I see what you mean,” Shu was mulling over what this meant. “So you’re saying this is
not one of the victim’s hairs and it’s not even human? So what is it, someone’s dog hair
from an assist dog?

“Nope this is no dog hair, but its close. It’s from a Canis lupis.” Jack put the hair sample
back in its bag.

“Canis lupis. If I remember my Latin from school, that’s a wolf,” Shu looked
disbelieving.

“Latin is right, but this is even more confusing,” Jack leaned in close as he liked to do,
probably for the dramatic effect. “This is a red hair and wolf hairs are grey, black or
white.”

“Well at least we have it figured out now,” Shu was being sarcastic in his tones and
waving his arms in the air. “We have it solved now. Your honor, the killer was a twenty
armed flying ninja with a meteor sword and a red wolf.”

“But there were no wolf prints, or dog prints for that matter,” Jack reminded.

“Oh, I’m sorry your honor. I left out a part,” Shu was more sarcastic than ever, “I forgot
to say the wolf could also fly and that’s why he did not leave any prints. I rest my case.
Jack, you must think I am insane. I can’t tell anyone this crap. You’ll have to find more
that means something than this stuff.”

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“Seriously Al,” Jack tried to calm Shu down. “All I can do is give you all the facts that I
can find. It’s up to you to put them together to find the killer.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what Jack…” Shu’s statement was interrupted by a hum inside the
breast pocket of his suit coat. “Hang on Jack; I need to take this call. Shu here.”

The voice on the other end of the cell phone was that of Nick Miller, the chief coroner.

“Listen Shu,” Nick began but hesitated slightly as though he was thinking how to best
phrase what he was about to say. “I’ve identified the victims from the Whitehall
murders. I haven’t released any information to the department yet; I thought I should talk
to you first.”

“Why, what’s the release got to do with me?” Shu asked.

“Well it’s just there is something odd. It may be just a coincidence, but maybe not.
Anyway you will need to make the call here.” Nick was intentionally evasive.
“Look Nick, spit it out,” Shu was becoming impatient.

“Ok, it’s like this. One of the women was named Lori Tanner.” Nick waited for the
reaction.

Shu held the phone away from his ear, his face went pale and his eyes glazed as he stood
thinking about the name. It just could not be.

“Al, you ok?” asked Jack as he saw Shu’s reaction. “Is it your mother?”

Shu regained his composure to hear Nick asking if he was still there.

“Yeah, I’m still here,” Shu replied. “Was it?”

“No, it wasn’t Danny’s ex, but she is about the same height and hair color as Lori, plus
the same last name. Creepy, huh?” Nick drew out the word creepy.

Shu could feel the goose bumps on his arms, the hair standing up on the back of his neck.

“Nick, you did the right thing by calling me. Keep this quiet, not a word to anyone. If
you can keep the lid on this for a few more hours, I’ll get to Danny and let him know.”
Now Shu was trying to figure out just how to tell Danny that someone might be trying to
kill his ex-wife. “I’ll call you later Nick. Thanks.”

“Anything I can do to help?” Jack asked.

“No, not really. I need to go now. You guys keep up the work and call me if you need
anything.” Shu patted Jack lightly on the shoulder and headed for the stair. Just as he

11
made for the third step, something in his coat pocket bumped against the railing with a
dull thump. It was the object from Danny’s apartment; the clue from Fat Sam.

“Jack,” Shu called from the stair. “There’s something else I need you to take a look at
before I leave.” Shu pulled the item from his pocket, still wrapped in the linen
handkerchief. “Take a look at this Jack.” Shu handed him the item.

Jack carefully unfolded the handkerchief to reveal what appeared to be a finger. It was
not a human finger, but instead had been broken off a statue of some kind.

“Looks like a finger to me Stinky.” Jack smiled, waving the clay finger at Shu.
Suddenly Jack stopped and looked more closely at the finger. “Where did you get this?”

“I can’t really say right now. Do you know what it is?” Shu could tell Jack was
formulating his answer and he rolled the finger around in his hand.

“This finger is made from a clay mixture or it might be better to call it terra cotta, Italian
for baked earth. Crude terra-cotta female figurines were uncovered by archaeologists in
excavations of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa from Indus Valley period of about 3000-1500
B.C.E. in Hindu history. This finger, however, appears to be similar to Emperor Qin Shi
Huang's Terracotta Army, built in 210–209 BC. Of course I cannot be sure without
running some tests on the material as well as doing some comparisons to photographic
samples and perhaps even contacting the museum at Xi'an, near the Mausoleum of the
First Qin Emperor.”

“No Shit? So how would it get to New York?” Shu spoke without really expecting an
answer.

“Well, it could be part of a replica, though I must admit if it is a replica, it is of museum

quality.” Jack was now holding a black light next to the broken edges. “Well now, this
is interesting...”

Jack’s voice faded off as he thought. He walked to the table and dabbed a cotton swab
into some clear liquid and wiped one of the edges of the broken clay, then placed it back
under the black light. “See that?”

“Sure, but what does it mean?” Shu saw the glowing edge of the clay finger.

“It means that’s blood. What’s more, there is blood on the inside of the clay.” Jack
sounded like Sherlock Holmes.

“And what do you suppose of that?” Shu was not sure where this was all going. For the
most part, he figured the blood was some of Fat Sam’s.

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“Well, as strange as this seems, and I mean it is really strange. It looks like the finger
was alive when it was broken off. And this is the blood of the fingers owner.” Jack
answered.

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