CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The hazmat team had already done their exterior sweep and cleared the residence for limited entry.
Their team lead had been specific about the conditions: low-level protective suits, gloves, and respirators before anyone crossed the threshold.
The suits were the lightweight Tyvek variety, not the full encapsulated gear of an acute chemical emergency.
Miles had worn them more times than he could count during his time in countless labs.
They were strong enough to create a barrier against dermal contact and to filter the air at a safe level but without completely impeding their motion.
That wasn’t to say it was comfortable by any means.
Miles had put his on in the front yard and was already irritated at the way the material trapped body heat and created a friction against every movement.
Also, these models were built in a way that the respirator altered the sound of his own breathing into something loud and close.
Vic was beside him in the same gear, her hair tucked back, the respirator making her face unfamiliar in a way that was slightly disorienting.
Pruitt worked the front door in under two minutes, and they went in. Pruitt stepped to the side and, as they had discussed with the Hazmat team lead, closed the door once they were inside. Miles started for the center of the first room—a living area of some kind—but stopped after just three steps.
The walls were covered floor to ceiling on all four sides in hand-drawn color wheels and dense pages of handwritten notation.
The wheels were large, many of them two to three feet across, rendered on drafting paper and filled in with actual paint.
There were at least twenty of them…probably more.
The annotations running along each segment were small and precise, providing the pigment name, formula notation, and then a secondary figure labeled drain index.
The index numbers ranged from the low single digits to above twelve, and the higher numbers were circled in red.
The circled segments corresponded to the most saturated pigments, the deep viridians, the heavy carmines, the full cadmium yellows and oranges.
Between the wheels, filling every gap in the plaster, were pages of notation that at first read like a scientific paper.
They were filled with numbered sections, with data tables in the margins and references to color measurement systems, the Munsell system, CIE color space, spectrophotometric coefficients.
Miles was familiar with most of it and it made him feel uneasy.
“Any idea what any of this means?” Vic asked Miles, stepping up beside him.
“Most of it, yah…but it’s sort of all over the place.”
Miles stood in the middle of it and turned slowly. Through the respirator, his breathing was the loudest thing in the room.
"He's been building this for years," Vic said. Her voice was slightly muffled by the respirator but clear enough. She moved to the far wall and was reading a section of notation between two of the larger wheels.
"Oh, at least," Miles said as he looked at the nearest wheel.
The annotations in the margins were dated, small notations in the upper corners of each sheet, and the earliest ones he could see went back nearly four years.
That placed it before the non-renewal at SCAD and long before his dismissed complaints.
So, it seemed that this bizarre obsession had started before his failures.
Miles moved to the worktable along the back wall, the Tyvek suit shifting and catching with each step.
It was a six-foot folding table that had been used as a workspace of some kind.
The surface was stained in the pattern of container rings and solution spills.
Along the right edge, metal brackets had been bolted to the table and then removed, the screw holes clean against the surrounding stain, the brackets gone.
Whatever equipment had been mounted there had been packed out deliberately.
Along the left edge, a row of glass jars stood in ascending order, each one labeled in the same small hand as the wall annotations.
The labels read drain index 3.1, drain index 5.
4, drain index 6.9, drain index 8.2, drain index 11.
7. The two jars with the highest numbers held faint yellow residue settled at the bottom. The rest were empty and dry.
Miles photographed each jar, the task made quite difficult because of the gloves.
On the shelving unit to the left, he found color theory reference texts with their spines creased flat from use.
There was also a collection of scientific journals with paper tabs marking specific articles, and an empty chemical storage container whose interior was dry but faintly discolored along the base.
A stack of purchase receipts with names and dates sat in a neat pile organized by date on the top shelf.
Miles climbed the lowest rung of the shelving unit to read the top one without disturbing the stack.
It was from a chemical supply company for two kilograms of Chromium trioxide. The date was five weeks ago.
"His equipment is gone," Vic said, looking at the bracket marks. "He packed the capability and left the framework."
"He knew someone might eventually come here," Miles said. "He didn't think it would matter. More than that…leaving all this crap on the walls makes me wonder if he wanted us to see it. Sort of taunting us, maybe."
Vic looked like she was going to say something else, but she was interrupted by a knocking sound behind her. It came from the front door, and it was immediately followed by Pruitt’s voice. She left the door closed, yelling through so they could hear.
“Sterling…Stone…the property records on the house juts came through. The landlord confirmed Cord paid his rent through the end of the month in cash. Sixteen days ago, in person."
Miles looked back at the worktable, at the absent equipment and the graduated jars.
"He settled the rent so nobody would come looking before he was finished.
" He thought about the relabeled brush cleaner in Ostroff's studio, the treated soaking supply in Hale's shop.
This was a man who worked in increments and saw no reason to hurry.
"Whatever he's still planning, he made sure he had time for it. "
Pruitt’s voice came back through the door, slightly muffled. "BOLO's going out right now, and I'm getting vehicle information from the landlord.”
Miles and Vic nodded, even though Pruitt could not see them. Vic sighed and said, “We need forensics in here before anyone touches any of this."
"Yeah…and that might take a while,” Miles said, looking round the room once again and starting to feel overwhelmed.
He didn't move. He stood in the Tyvek suit in the middle of Russell Cord's living space, surrounded by thirty color wheels and years of careful notation. Slowly, he looked at the color wheels and understood that they had confirmed their killer and lost him at the same time.