Ora skinned dead possum.
I called Lacy.
“Tell me you’re not at work, Seth,” was how she answered the phone.
“Tell me whether or not you found styrene-butadiene-styrene on the possum.”
She was quiet for a moment. “I wasn’t looking forthat,” she replied.
“Can I?”
“No. But I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, and I’ll let you watch.”
Lacy wasthe one who called Smith, but she put it on speaker.
“Lacy, what’s going on?”
“I hear you’re looking for a miracle,” she drawled, milking it.
He was quiet for a few breaths. “Is Seth there?”
“Merry early Christmas, detective,” I said.
“Talk to me,” he ordered, his voice low and urgent.
“Buettner works at Belmark, yeah?” I asked. I’d confirmed it on his social media, but I needed Smith to make it official.
“Yes?” he replied, drawing out the word into a question.
“Belmark makes packaging. Including labels.”
“Yes?”
“Well,” Lacy said, jumping in. “There’s a chemical used to make label adhesive called styrene-butadiene-styrene, or SBS.”
“Okay…?”
“Not something that naturally occurs in animals,” I said. “And yet, we seem to have found SBS on both the skinned badgerandthe dog.”
“And,” Lacy put in, “the possum.”
“And it couldn’t be anything else? And we didn’t catch it before?”
“So here’s the thing,” I put in. “We knew there was some chemical residue, but we didn’t specifically test it because we assumed it was probably duct tape adhesive, since we also foundduct-tape fibers. But I went back to it tonight, and it’s the wrong adhesive.”
“And SBS isn’t used in tape?”
“Only specialty labels,” Lacy confirmed.
“Well, hotdamn,” Smith breathed, and Lacy and I grinned at each other, because that was certainly the rudest thing I’d ever heard the man say, and Lacy looked just as entertained.
“To be absolutely certain,” I said. “Lacy went and got a label from Belmark.”
“And it matches,” she said cheerfully.
“I adore you both and will bring you cookies on Monday.”
Elliotand I were settled on the couch back at the house—I’d tried to convince him that a couch and reclining armchair would be much better places to convalesce than pillows on a floor or my mattress, and finally succeeded.
