“Can you talk?”
“Yes.”
“We completed the laboratory inventory.”
“How bad?”
“Six containers missing from controlled storage.”
“All in my pool?”
“Five confirmed.”
“Sixth?”
“Unknown.”
Marcus became still.
“Dangerous?”
“No evidence of acute toxic danger from the inventory category involved.”
He exhaled.
“Then why are you worried?”
“Because the sixth container was not broken with the others.”
“What does that mean?”
“We found fragments corresponding to five.”
“And number six?”
“Still missing.”
Marcus looked toward the covered pool.
Professional remediation crews had erected a temporary barrier.
“Could it be in the pool intact?”
“Possibly.”
“What was in it?”
Allison paused.
“Routine laboratory material used for environmental testing.”
“Anything that changes cleanup?”
“Potentially.”
“Allison.”
“We are not treating your pool as safe until everything is recovered and identified.”
Marcus closed his eyes.
“Fine.”
“There’s more.”
“Of course.”
“The storage room camera shows Brenda leaving with seven items.”
“You said six missing.”
“One was returned.”
“By her?”
“Apparently.”
“When?”
“Forty minutes before she came to your house.”
Marcus frowned.
“Why take seven, return one, break five, and maybe dump one intact?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could one have been used somewhere else?”
“Yes.”
That became a new question.
Police searched Brenda’s vehicle.
No container.
Her home.
None.
Office.
Nothing.
Then Officer Shaw noticed something on the laboratory security footage.
Brenda did not carry the containers directly to her car.
She moved them into the community maintenance garage.
Cameras covered the hallway but not the garage interior.
From there, she emerged thirty minutes later with the burlap sack.
And one small intact container in her hand.
She placed it in the trunk of the HOA maintenance vehicle.
Not her own.
The maintenance vehicle had been used later that morning by grounds employee Kevin Moore.
Police interviewed Kevin.
He looked confused.
“There was a jar in the back.”
“What did you do with it?”
“Thought it was trash.”
“Where?”
“Dumpster behind the clubhouse.”
Investigators recovered it.
Intact.
Sealed.
No mystery contamination.
No second target.
Marcus felt relief.
The case was ugly enough already.
The forensic pool cleanup began Friday.
Professionals drained the water.
Slowly.
Filtered through equipment designed to prevent debris from entering municipal systems.
The exact process bored Marcus.
He was grateful for boring.
Boring meant people knew what they were doing.
The empty pool looked worse than the contaminated one.
Glass fragments lay everywhere.
Tiny pieces.
Large pieces.
Some nearly invisible against pale plaster.
A specialist explained that every accessible surface would need inspection.
Filters replaced.
Certain plumbing components checked.
The cost estimate reached $31,400.
Then the contractor discovered scratches in the finish.