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A Tangled Web (9)

"Technically, they weren't explosives, per se." Lt. Tao pinned another photo to the murder board, showing two containers on a locker shelf. "Neither of these two substances is actually classified as a chemical explosive, because they don't expand or release much gas or heat on their own, but," he turned around to face the rest of the team, "since persulfuric acid is a strong oxidizer that can contribute to the combustion of the acetone derivative we found in Donnell's locker, mixing the two together in sufficient quantities could create a blast."

Sharon pressed a finger between her eyebrows; she was getting a tension headache. "So Donnell could've used the substances we found in his locker to carry out a bomb threat."

"Well…" Tao grimaced a little doubtfully, "yes, although the quantities we found wouldn't have done a huge amount of damage. With the materials in these two containers, I'd say… maybe he could blast something the size of this room… maybe."

"So his target was a small place," concluded Flynn. "Great. That should narrow it down."

"Or there are more explosives that we haven't found," Sharon pointed out worriedly. "I don't think we can draw any conclusions yet."

"There's also the possibility that he was planning to mix in another catalyst," Lt. Tao amended, "which would amplify the amount and speed of the heat release, resulting in a bigger blast. But the bomb squad didn't find another substances in his locker – and with or without the extra catalyst, he'd still need some sort of mechanism to control when the compounds got mixed, which also wasn't there. We found the acid and the ketone in completely separate containers, and no other catalyst, so technically, we may not be able to qualify this as an 'explosive' under the current dangerous substances codes."

She didn't particularly care what they called it; she was more concerned about what it meant that they'd found the substances at all. "Where did the two chemicals come from? Are they available for general purchase? Where did Donnell get them?"

"The acid is a component in a lot of industry cleaners," said Mike, "and acetone itself of course is available to buy online… although the compound we found in his locker was actually a derivative, like I said," he revised, "which doesn't have any common industry uses that I found so far, so…not sure where he got that. Of course, both substances are used in laboratories…"

Sharon gave a quick nod, understanding his point. "Let's ask the university if any of their research labs are missing supplies."

"Already did, Captain." Sykes was standing against Julio's desk. " We've asked everyone to take an inventory. So far no one's reported anything – but it's just nine a.m., we're still waiting to hear from most of the labs. "

"And are we sure there's no indication in Donnell's financial records of having purchased any of these chemicals? What about his friends' records?"

Tao shook his head. "Nothing. None of them registered this kind of purchase to a credit card, and none of them made any significant cash withdrawals in the last three months that could account for this."

Andy crossed his arms, staring at the board. "Doesn't this Murray guy work at an industrial supply store? Could he have stolen the stuff from there?" He paused, frowned, "Is anyone else getting a déjà vu here?"

"It's more of a home and garden store," said Julio, "and they do carry two brands of cleaners that contain the acid, but they're stored in a different location than Murray works at. I checked, he doesn't have access to that storage, and none of the deliveries he's made in the past three months included either of the cleaners. And yes," he muttered darkly, "I remember that too, lieutenant."

Sharon glanced from one to the other, eyebrows arching in a questioning manner.

"Last time we had three kids thinking they can 'save' the world," Tao explained, "with bombs – among other things – it didn't go so well."

Understanding dawned in her expression. "The mall shootings from a few years ago." And with that, a stab of apprehension at the memory; between one suspect dying in custody, and the tragedy at the mall a day later, she hadn't slept for four days straight trying to clear everyone involved. It had been one of the most devastating incidents for the LAPD in the last decade – and that, even though the worst of it had been averted by Chief Johnson and the team. The loss of life could have been a hundred times worse.

"It's not the same thing, Ma'am," Sanchez opined. "I sent uniforms to supervise an inventory at all the store locations, nothing's missing. And we didn't find any weapons or anything at either of these guys' homes. Plus… Murray just doesn't seem like the type."

"When do they ever?" scoffed Flynn.

Julio stuck to his point of view. "This guy's just an idiot kid who likes to get high."

"That's certainly consistent with everything we found at his house," Provenza agreed, "particularly his little public produce garden on the roof."

"What about the van?" Flynn retorted, and his partner gave a conceding sort of lopsided nod. "Murray had two cars in the garage," Andy recapped for the two detectives and Tao, who hadn't heard it yet, "his own '99 Volkswagen Cabrio, and a delivery minivan from his workplace. There was barely enough space for both of them in the garage, so we checked with his manager, who said delivery drivers aren't supposed to drive the store cars home. So let me ask you," he arched his eyebrows at Sanchez, "if this guy isn't 'the type', what was he planning to do with the minivan?"

The detective thought for a second, then glanced at Sharon. "I think we should talk to Danny Murray again, Ma'am."

"I agree. In the meantime, let's keep trying to find out where the explosives might have come from," she requested of the rest of them, "and what Donnell might have been targeting. Please let me know of any updates immediately…oh," she'd started heading for the door, but paused in her tracks and turned to Provenza, "Lieutenant. I think we should ask James Donnell's parents to come here, so I can notify them in person of their son's death. Would you mind…?"

"I'll call them," he agreed.

"Thank you. And…" Sharon sighed. "If Dr. Morales is done with the body, I don't see a reason not to release it to the young man's parents by the end of today. At the very least, they might ask to see it…" She glanced at the pictures on the murder board, showing Donnell's DMV picture, next to a far less presentable image of his body after the jump from the bridge. "Could you please ask Dr. Morales to see if he can…"

"Put Humpty-Dumpty together again?" Andy suggested, earning himself a wry look from the Captain, and a far more approving one from his partner.

"Thank you, Lt. Flynn," Sharon said dryly. "Why don't you help Lt. Tao go through Donnell's personal correspondence? I want to make absolutely sure that there's nothing in there that we're overlooking."

She pointed illustratively to the recycling bin filled to the brim with fliers, ads, coupons and assorted envelopes. Andy's shoulders slumped.

"Oh, come on…"


"Okay… look, Jimmy asked me to get the minivan, okay?"

Danny Murray looked just as uneasy in the interview room as the two times before, if not more. There were dark circles under his eyes, and even as he admitted to having more information, he still looked hopelessly confused.

"Are you sure he's… you know…"

"Dead? Yeah." Sanchez was not showing the young man too much patience. "So you just took the delivery minivan from work, even though it's against the rules and could get you fired, just 'cause your stoner buddy told you to?"

"Yeah! Jimmy wouldn't ask if it wasn't important," Danny seemed to think that explained everything. "And he said we were gonna help people, and – but like, not to talk to anyone else about it. I wanted to help him out, okay?"

"Why didn't you tell us any of this yesterday!" demanded Julio.

"I didn't wanna get Jimmy in trouble, dude, okay?"

Sharon and Julio exchanged a brief glance; they'd already told him the night before that his friend was dead, but Danny was having some difficulties keeping the facts straight in his head – which wasn't entirely surprising, but it did slow down the interview process considerably. And time was the last luxury they could afford at the moment. Not when James Donnell might have actually placed a bomb somewhere.

But when they tried again to impress that upon the young man, he only protested more. "No! He'd never do that, man. He'd never like, hurt people! Jimmy's … was… a good guy!"

Sharon clasped her fingers together, leaning forward slightly. "If he didn't want to hurt people, what were the explosives for?"

"I don't know, okay?" He swallowed uneasily. "I don't know about any explosives in his locker. He never told me anything about that."

The phrasing was particular enough to make her frown. "What about places other than his locker? Does he have more stored somewhere else?"

"I don't know!"

"Then what did he tell you!" Sanchez demanded, growing even more impatient. "Tell us the truth, Danny! Or do you want to go to prison? Is that what you want?"

But his threats only caused the young man to jump backwards in his seat, looking not so much ready to talk as ready to throw up in a panic. Sharon touched Julio's arm, a silent signal to dial it down for a moment, and she leaned forward again.

"Danny, you know more than you're saying," she stated calmly, "and because you're not being totally honest with me, people could be in danger. Do you think that's what Jimmy would want?"

His shoulders hunched dejectedly. "Jimmy wanted to help everyone, okay? He thought people were gonna get hurt."

"Hurt… hurt by what? Danny." She fixed him with a penetrating gaze. "How did Jimmy want to help? What did he need your minivan for? Where was he planning to go?"

But when his only response was a wary shrug, even Sharon could feel her patience thinning. She leaned back in her seat again, trying to figure out a better way to reach the young man. A few seconds later, a knock on the door drew her attention, and she glanced over to see Provenza sticking his head in.

"Captain." His voice was low. "There's something you need to hear."

After only the briefest deliberation, Sharon stood up. For the time being, admitting that 'Jimmy' had been planning something, for which he'd wanted the delivery minivan, was all that Danny seemed willing or able to share. It wasn't nearly enough to go on, of course, but she trusted that Julio could continue the interview just fine on his own while she attended to whatever Lt. Provenza had found.

With a quick glance signaling Sanchez to keep trying to get the details, she followed the lieutenant out of the interview room.


"One of the researchers at USC just called in". Provenza barely waited until the interview room door was closed before updating her. "Some chemistry lab, or geo-chemistry or… you'll have to ask Tao for the technically correct nomenclature," he rolled his eyes. "But the guy reported missing supplies from their lab – persulfuric acid and Tao's acetone derivative, specifically."

Her expression grew even more serious as she nodded. At least that answered the question of where Donnell had obtained the chemicals. "Anything else missing? Like the extra catalyst that Lt. Tao mentioned?" When Provenza shook his head, she felt a momentary relief. Maybe they'd found everything there was to be found. "What quantities did this researcher say were missing?"

The lieutenant arched his eyebrows. "That's the interesting news. They're missing more or less exactly what we found in that locker."

That news should've brought more relief. Instead, Sharon felt a vague sense of unease, though she couldn't put her finger on why. Possibly this case had just been so filled with uncertainties and contradictions from the start, that even good news was hard to digest. "So we found all the explosives that Donnell had stolen?"

"Maybe…" Provenza conceded, "or maybe he took some of the same from other labs. Make it harder to detect the theft. We're still waiting to hear from at least half of them."

She exhaled a displeased breath. It had been nearly two hours since Det. Sykes had notified the university that they needed all the research labs' supplies inventoried urgently. "Is there any way to accelerate the process? Maybe get in touch directly with the labs who are delaying this?" Especially now that they'd found evidence of one theft, it was even more imperative that they figure out if anything else was missing.

The lieutenant agreed, "I'll make some phone calls." And she thanked him with a silent dip of her head.

"I called Donnell's parents, too," Provenza said in a quieter voice. "They should be here this afternoon. I didn't tell them anything," he warned, "but… you know how it goes. They got pretty agitated anyway."

And for good reason, they both knew. It wasn't for nothing that the LAPD was calling at nine a.m. on a Monday, let alone asking Mr. and Mrs. Donnell to drive down two hours without giving them any details. They'd have called their son right away, Sharon was sure. It's what she would have done. They'd probably keep calling him, their panic growing each time he didn't answer, right up until they walked into her office.

What would be going through their minds, then? What would her notification wreak on their lives?

It was hard to imagine.

Sharon sighed. "Thank you, lieutenant." She made a motion to head back into the interview room, but…

"Captain!"

Her hand paused half-way to the doorknob.

"I was just coming to look for you," said Lt. Tao. "Flynn and I may have found something."


"No, Ma'am, I'm afraid that's not possible at the mome – yes, I'll pass that on. No, I'm afraid I can't give you any more details at this time…" Amy rolled her eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh into her phone. "I understand, but that's not up to me. No – if the dean calls, I'll only tell him the same thing…"

Having followed Lt. Tao back to the murder room, Sharon was about to ask who Sykes was talking to, when her focus was diverted by Flynn's call:

"Captain – take a look at this."

Her eyebrows arched slightly as she accepted the object that he'd handed her. She turned it over in her hands a couple of times, studying it with as much attention as she could, but after a few seconds of seeing nothing out of the ordinary about it, she decided to admit to her confusion:

"A flier for a new shopping center opening in Compton…? What about this caught your eye, Andy?" She opened the little pamphlet again, unfolding it to read the list of stores and facilities, but other than a gaudy color scheme that hurt her eyes, the advertisement seemed completely unremarkable.

"We found it on the guy's coffee table. Look – the only other things on there were two organic pizza menus and some tutorial on how to recycle stuff." He pointed to the bin they'd brought back from Donnell's house. "Everything else was in there, even his real mail, after he read it he tossed it into recycling."

She still couldn't see where he was going with it, and the uncertainty must've shown on her face, because Lt. Tao chimed in to explain further:

"His phone records and debit card transactions show he ordered from both pizza places frequently, at least once or twice a week –"

Sharon remembered that much; she'd studied the records the previous day, and had noticed that he mostly seemed to call his parents, the utilities company and local delivery places.

" – which explains why the menus were on his coffee table. He must've used them a lot, so he didn't throw them out," finished Tao.

"As for the recycling brochure," Andy picked up the explanation again, "when we talked to his neighbours at least two of them mentioned that he constantly reminded them about how to do it, and even gave them copies of the brochure."

This time, she thought she could see their point. Dipping her chin, she frowned thoughtfully: "So he used the menus and the recycling leaflet regularly... but why," she murmured, "would he hang on to the shopping center flier?" A renewed sense of urgency began to bloom as she followed the logic through. "Lt. Tao – did Donnell mention this new mall in any of his blog entries?"

"Not by name, no – but, there are a couple of entries on shopping centers in general, and he googled this particular one over a dozen times in the last couple of months."

Her mind was already racing back to all the other clues they had. As Lt. Provenza had said, it was possible that they'd already found all the explosives that Donnell had ever (maybe) intended to use, but what if… "What does his blog have to say about shopping centers?"

Mike turned his computer screen, showing her two pages next to one another. "He's criticizing how commercial areas are expanding into what's supposed to be residential or green space," he summarized, "how their impact on low-income neighborhoods is actually negative… and he generally argues that they create a financial and social burden by trapping people's funds and limiting the range of their interests and community activities."

Sharon closed her eyes briefly. She was torn between the impulse to rush to action, and the need to know more and make sure this wasn't a false alarm. "Do those entries use any of the buzzwords from his speech on the bridge?"

When Tao grimaced, she knew his answer before he said it:

"Uh, most of them, actually. Or at least the ideas, if not the exact words. Context-driven social pressure, impulse control problems," he glanced at the screen again, "the suggestion that the city should reduce the commercial pressure and get rid of some of the shopping malls or turn them into local community centers instead…"

She glanced at the flier again. "This just opened yesterday." The morning right after Donnell had made his bomb threats and jumped off the bridge. Oh god…

"Yup, a big Sunday launch. Discounts and coupons at most of the stores, free ice cream sundaes and live music… Kathy actually considered going to check it out when we caught the case and I had to cancel plans to visit her brother." Lt. Tao looked a little uneasy at the thought, a feeling Sharon could absolutely empathize with.

"But the opening went well. There were no problems."

"No one reported anything, no," Flynn confirmed. "But…"

But, that didn't mean that Donnell hadn't placed a bomb at the mall anyway. He may not have had time to detonate it, but if there were explosives sitting there somewhere, anyone could stumble across them and…

Her eyes darted to the wall clock. "What time does the mall open?"

The two lieutenants looked equally grim.

"Ten," said Andy. "That's why we pulled you out of the interview."

Her heart picked up again; the clock read nine forty-five. "Call the bomb squad, tell them we have a possible new location. And call the mall and tell them to delay the opening time today and clear out all the employees already there," she instructed in a clip tone. "I'm going to try to get confirmation on this, but be ready to move ahead anyway."

With that, she grabbed the flier from Tao's desk, and all but dashed back into the hallway, to the interview room. Danny Murray looked startled at her hasty entrance, and even Det. Sanchez gave her a slightly questioning glance, but there was no time for explanations.

Sharon place the flier down in front of Danny.

"Is this where Jimmy was planning to go?"

The slight widening of his eyes and the way his shoulders hunched even further was answer enough.


I know Rusty was MIA for this chapter (a first for me! did we even know I could do that?!), but don't worry, he'll be back in all his teenage angsty splendor in the next one. In the meantime, thank you all for your continued encouragement - hearing that you're enjoying the case has been fantastic, as you know it's my first effort in the 'crime' direction, and very much out of my comfort zone! I'm very grateful for your feedback :).