FIC: White Shroud (14/20) CSI:NY, T
Title: White Shroud, Chapter 14
Author: Zelda Ophelia (zeldaophelia)
Fandom/Character: CSI:NY; Stella, Angell, Flack
General info: Not mine; T.
Content: Some chapters include discussion of sexual violence.
Notes:Written for the csi_bigbang challenge. Big thanks to eternal_sadist for the beta. This fic can be considered a sequel to Titania Falling
Summary: When the flu bug hits the NYPD, the detectives and CSIs work to cover the caseload. Angell, Stella, and Lindsay confront the mystery behind a body in Union Square Park. Meanwhile, Flack, Mac, and Hawkes try to determine what happened at a Rangers game and Danny deals with a case of karma. Previous parts here.
It was just after eight in the morning when Angell and Maka arrived at the bioremediation test site. It was a satellite lab nearly an hour's drive from the university, where the researchers involved in the competitive mini-grant were conducting their research. The unit consisted of a number of large greenhouses and a building that was labeled as the office. They started there, Maka knocking on the door. A slight, middle-aged woman answered, her dark hair pulled back in a tight bun.
"Yes?" she asked in a thick Eastern European accent, surveying them both.
"I'm Detective Maka, and this is Detective Angell with the NYPD. We need to speak with Dr. Zita Klimet, Dr. Eric Gaertner, Hillary Hora, and Max Terrones."
"I'm Dr. Klimet. It sounds like you want to meet with my entire research team."
"That would be correct," Maka said.
"They're inside. We were just finishing our morning meeting," Dr. Klimet said as she motioned for them to enter. "What is this about?"
"Matt Tarleton, Tripp Norton, and Jacob Plank," Angell said.
"Jake?" a young woman further inside asked, her eyes wide with horror. "I heard that Matt and Tripp both died, but Jacob, too?"
"He's in the hospital," Maka said. "You know them?"
"Not Matt and Tripp--not really other, than to recognize them. But Jacob was my lab partner in Plant Systematics last semester and Economic Botany right now. We've--" she blushed, ducking her head a bit. "we've gotten to know each other through the classes."
"Just how well did you know him, Ms.-?" Angell asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Hillary," she said with a shake of her head as the guy sitting next to her grinned, elbowing her in the side. "And not that well. Well, not as well as I would have liked. We just worked together in class - and occasionally outside of class - but I don't think he was that interested. Or if he was, he didn't show it very well and can I just shut up now?"
The guy next to her laughed at her embarrassment, turning to Maka and Angell. "You'll have to excuse our Hillary. She's had a crush on Jake since they started working together in those classes-" He ducked her not so playful swipe. "-and it's been rather well known. At least among those of us who work with her."
"Max," she complained, glaring at him. He shrugged, his hands raised in surrender. She turned back to the detectives and asked, "Is Jake going to be okay? What happened?"
"And how is this related to those other two young men?" the older man - Eric Gaertner, most likely - in the room asked. "I thought those were separate occurrences."
"They were. Matt died of selenium poisoning," Angell explained. "However, during Tripp's autopsy it was discovered that he was a victim of selenium poisoning, as well. Jacob Plank was taken to the hospital last night with similar."
"And since our research proposal involves selenium, we became the most logical suspects," Dr. Klimet finished for them.
"Actually," Maka said, "the fact that your project and Norton and Plank’s are the two finalists in the mini-grant competition is what made your team persons of interest. We have reason to believe that the other two researchers on the team have been poisoned as well."
"Selenium is a very slow-acting poison and requires time to build up in the system," Dr. Gaertner said crossly. "You don't actually expect us to be able to provide alibis for the entire time it has been taking place, do you? It would be difficult to tell you where we've all been every minute of every day in that period, not to mention impossible to corroborate."
"It started about a month ago," Angell said. "We need to know where you've been in that time frame. We realize that it'll be difficult, but we need as much information as you can give us."
"A month ago?" Dr. Klimet asked. "That might be easier than you thought, Eric. We only got back to the States two weeks ago."
"Two weeks ago?" Maka asked.
"Yes," Dr. Gaertner said, beginning to smile. "We were attending the European Bioremediation Conference. While the conference itself is only four days long, we - the entire team - spent three weeks on the other side of the pond."
"I'm a visiting scholar from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Bielany, Poland," Dr. Klimet explained. "As a part of the sponsorship between NYU and NCU, we spent two weeks after the conference at NCU. We helped our colleagues there set up replicates of our work here, and Dr. Gaertner and I both gave several seminars to the Institute of General and Molecular Biology and the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Protection."
"So," Dr. Gaertner said, grinning widely, "it's entirely impossible that we were involved in this. We weren't even in the country when it happened."
"All four of you took part in this?" Angell asked.
"All four of us," Dr. Klimet said. "Max and Hillary both presented posters at the conference and took part in setting up the trials at NCU. Their presence was instrumental in the success of that part of the project. We couldn't have done it without them."
"Did you or Dr. Gaertner present at the conference?"
"We both presented papers, repeated those presentations, and presented others in our seminars at NCU for those colleagues who were unable to attend the conference."
"So you weren't able to attend the meeting announcing the two finalists?" Angell asked.
"No, we weren't."
"And it's a shame, too," Max said. "Apparently there was a pretty big party afterward. That would have been fun to have been at, you know? Most of the stuff the groups involved in the proposals do together is boring and stuffy; it would have been a nice change of scenery."
"Do you know of anyone else, either involved in the grant process or not, who might want to cause harm to the victims?" Maka asked.
"No," Dr. Gaertner said. "Everyone was impressed by that team. It was the first time a team without a faculty member had been involved in the grants--it consisted of just a research staff member and three students, one of whom was an undergrad. The fact that they made it to the final round is just all the more impressive."
"What does making it to the final round involve?" Angell asked, furrowing her brow.
"The whole point of the mini-grant program," Dr. Gaertner explained, "is to set up a research project that can then be funded by other grants. It's essentially a start-up grant, but its intention is to help bring more grant monies in to the university in the future. Because of the economics of this day and age, for the final round we have to show that we will be capable of bringing in large grants. This is done by outlining what NSF or other grants we'll be applying for, how much they're worth, and, in some cases, attaching a copy of our grant application."
"If this is for start-up funds, what are you working on now?"
"The project that we proposed is actually an offshoot of the research we're currently working on," Dr. Klimet said. "Currently we're looking at the phytoremediation of cadmium-contaminated soils. We chose to use artificially contaminated soils - soils we amended with cadmium ourselves - as well as sample soils sent to us from around the world. This included soils from an area in China that also has a very high selenium concentration, which has led to selenium poisoning from food crops grown in fields in those areas. We found, to our surprise, that our plants were removing both the cadmium and small amounts of the selenium from that soil."
"As a result," Dr. Geartner jumped in, "we want to look into how to increase the amount of selenium our plants remove. Our hypothesis is that it's a result of one of the transgenic genes we added to the plants, so we would like to isolate that particular gene and see if we can find a way to amplify its effects."
Angell nodded, though about half of the explanation had gone over her head. "We're also going to need hair samples from the four of you."
"Hair samples?" Max asked, running his hand over his hair.
"It's to test to see if we've been poisoned as well," Dr. Gaertner said. "You'll need it from the root? And how much?"
"Yes, but only a few hairs. We'll contact you if we need more," Maka said, pulling the small evidence bags that Stella had given her from her pocket. "Please put your names on your sample so we can keep them straight."
One of the grad students produced a black sharpie that was passed around as all four researchers provided their sample. The bags were handed back to Maka when they were finished. "Okay," she said slowly. "Is there anything else any of you can think of?"
All four shook their heads, Max rubbing lightly at the spot where Hillary had helpfully tugged out a few of his hairs for him. Dr. Geartner stood, showing them to the door. "I suppose you'll be checking on our trip."
"It's protocol, Dr. Geartner," Maka replied as they stepped out of the office. "And, yes, we will."
"Good. I don't want there to be any doubt. I can't think that anyone would kill over these grants--they aren't very large. And while that team was doing some very good research that could help save lives, so are we. I don't want any shadow of suggestion that we were involved hanging over our work."
"We understand," Angell said, extending her hand to shake his. "And, considering your alibi, it seems unlikely that your group had anything to do with it. However, it is our job to follow up on any possibilities."
"And since we were involved in the grant process and using selenium, it was a high possibility," he said with a sigh. "It's a shame. Those were good kids--bright kids who had a great future as researchers."
Angell bit the inside of her cheek to avoid making a snarky comment about Tripp, instead nodding in agreement. "Thank you for your assistance."
"Of course. And if you need anything else," he said, gesturing to the office, "you know where to find us."
"What did you think?" Maka asked as she started the car. It was not going to be a short drive back into the city; plenty of time to discuss the case.
"I think that their alibi is going to check out," Angell said quietly.
"You still think we're missing something."
"I'm beginning to wonder if it even has anything to do with the grants at all."
Previous || Master Post || Next
Author: Zelda Ophelia (zeldaophelia)
Fandom/Character: CSI:NY; Stella, Angell, Flack
General info: Not mine; T.
Content: Some chapters include discussion of sexual violence.
Notes:Written for the csi_bigbang challenge. Big thanks to eternal_sadist for the beta. This fic can be considered a sequel to Titania Falling
Summary: When the flu bug hits the NYPD, the detectives and CSIs work to cover the caseload. Angell, Stella, and Lindsay confront the mystery behind a body in Union Square Park. Meanwhile, Flack, Mac, and Hawkes try to determine what happened at a Rangers game and Danny deals with a case of karma. Previous parts here.
It was just after eight in the morning when Angell and Maka arrived at the bioremediation test site. It was a satellite lab nearly an hour's drive from the university, where the researchers involved in the competitive mini-grant were conducting their research. The unit consisted of a number of large greenhouses and a building that was labeled as the office. They started there, Maka knocking on the door. A slight, middle-aged woman answered, her dark hair pulled back in a tight bun.
"Yes?" she asked in a thick Eastern European accent, surveying them both.
"I'm Detective Maka, and this is Detective Angell with the NYPD. We need to speak with Dr. Zita Klimet, Dr. Eric Gaertner, Hillary Hora, and Max Terrones."
"I'm Dr. Klimet. It sounds like you want to meet with my entire research team."
"That would be correct," Maka said.
"They're inside. We were just finishing our morning meeting," Dr. Klimet said as she motioned for them to enter. "What is this about?"
"Matt Tarleton, Tripp Norton, and Jacob Plank," Angell said.
"Jake?" a young woman further inside asked, her eyes wide with horror. "I heard that Matt and Tripp both died, but Jacob, too?"
"He's in the hospital," Maka said. "You know them?"
"Not Matt and Tripp--not really other, than to recognize them. But Jacob was my lab partner in Plant Systematics last semester and Economic Botany right now. We've--" she blushed, ducking her head a bit. "we've gotten to know each other through the classes."
"Just how well did you know him, Ms.-?" Angell asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Hillary," she said with a shake of her head as the guy sitting next to her grinned, elbowing her in the side. "And not that well. Well, not as well as I would have liked. We just worked together in class - and occasionally outside of class - but I don't think he was that interested. Or if he was, he didn't show it very well and can I just shut up now?"
The guy next to her laughed at her embarrassment, turning to Maka and Angell. "You'll have to excuse our Hillary. She's had a crush on Jake since they started working together in those classes-" He ducked her not so playful swipe. "-and it's been rather well known. At least among those of us who work with her."
"Max," she complained, glaring at him. He shrugged, his hands raised in surrender. She turned back to the detectives and asked, "Is Jake going to be okay? What happened?"
"And how is this related to those other two young men?" the older man - Eric Gaertner, most likely - in the room asked. "I thought those were separate occurrences."
"They were. Matt died of selenium poisoning," Angell explained. "However, during Tripp's autopsy it was discovered that he was a victim of selenium poisoning, as well. Jacob Plank was taken to the hospital last night with similar."
"And since our research proposal involves selenium, we became the most logical suspects," Dr. Klimet finished for them.
"Actually," Maka said, "the fact that your project and Norton and Plank’s are the two finalists in the mini-grant competition is what made your team persons of interest. We have reason to believe that the other two researchers on the team have been poisoned as well."
"Selenium is a very slow-acting poison and requires time to build up in the system," Dr. Gaertner said crossly. "You don't actually expect us to be able to provide alibis for the entire time it has been taking place, do you? It would be difficult to tell you where we've all been every minute of every day in that period, not to mention impossible to corroborate."
"It started about a month ago," Angell said. "We need to know where you've been in that time frame. We realize that it'll be difficult, but we need as much information as you can give us."
"A month ago?" Dr. Klimet asked. "That might be easier than you thought, Eric. We only got back to the States two weeks ago."
"Two weeks ago?" Maka asked.
"Yes," Dr. Gaertner said, beginning to smile. "We were attending the European Bioremediation Conference. While the conference itself is only four days long, we - the entire team - spent three weeks on the other side of the pond."
"I'm a visiting scholar from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Bielany, Poland," Dr. Klimet explained. "As a part of the sponsorship between NYU and NCU, we spent two weeks after the conference at NCU. We helped our colleagues there set up replicates of our work here, and Dr. Gaertner and I both gave several seminars to the Institute of General and Molecular Biology and the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Protection."
"So," Dr. Gaertner said, grinning widely, "it's entirely impossible that we were involved in this. We weren't even in the country when it happened."
"All four of you took part in this?" Angell asked.
"All four of us," Dr. Klimet said. "Max and Hillary both presented posters at the conference and took part in setting up the trials at NCU. Their presence was instrumental in the success of that part of the project. We couldn't have done it without them."
"Did you or Dr. Gaertner present at the conference?"
"We both presented papers, repeated those presentations, and presented others in our seminars at NCU for those colleagues who were unable to attend the conference."
"So you weren't able to attend the meeting announcing the two finalists?" Angell asked.
"No, we weren't."
"And it's a shame, too," Max said. "Apparently there was a pretty big party afterward. That would have been fun to have been at, you know? Most of the stuff the groups involved in the proposals do together is boring and stuffy; it would have been a nice change of scenery."
"Do you know of anyone else, either involved in the grant process or not, who might want to cause harm to the victims?" Maka asked.
"No," Dr. Gaertner said. "Everyone was impressed by that team. It was the first time a team without a faculty member had been involved in the grants--it consisted of just a research staff member and three students, one of whom was an undergrad. The fact that they made it to the final round is just all the more impressive."
"What does making it to the final round involve?" Angell asked, furrowing her brow.
"The whole point of the mini-grant program," Dr. Gaertner explained, "is to set up a research project that can then be funded by other grants. It's essentially a start-up grant, but its intention is to help bring more grant monies in to the university in the future. Because of the economics of this day and age, for the final round we have to show that we will be capable of bringing in large grants. This is done by outlining what NSF or other grants we'll be applying for, how much they're worth, and, in some cases, attaching a copy of our grant application."
"If this is for start-up funds, what are you working on now?"
"The project that we proposed is actually an offshoot of the research we're currently working on," Dr. Klimet said. "Currently we're looking at the phytoremediation of cadmium-contaminated soils. We chose to use artificially contaminated soils - soils we amended with cadmium ourselves - as well as sample soils sent to us from around the world. This included soils from an area in China that also has a very high selenium concentration, which has led to selenium poisoning from food crops grown in fields in those areas. We found, to our surprise, that our plants were removing both the cadmium and small amounts of the selenium from that soil."
"As a result," Dr. Geartner jumped in, "we want to look into how to increase the amount of selenium our plants remove. Our hypothesis is that it's a result of one of the transgenic genes we added to the plants, so we would like to isolate that particular gene and see if we can find a way to amplify its effects."
Angell nodded, though about half of the explanation had gone over her head. "We're also going to need hair samples from the four of you."
"Hair samples?" Max asked, running his hand over his hair.
"It's to test to see if we've been poisoned as well," Dr. Gaertner said. "You'll need it from the root? And how much?"
"Yes, but only a few hairs. We'll contact you if we need more," Maka said, pulling the small evidence bags that Stella had given her from her pocket. "Please put your names on your sample so we can keep them straight."
One of the grad students produced a black sharpie that was passed around as all four researchers provided their sample. The bags were handed back to Maka when they were finished. "Okay," she said slowly. "Is there anything else any of you can think of?"
All four shook their heads, Max rubbing lightly at the spot where Hillary had helpfully tugged out a few of his hairs for him. Dr. Geartner stood, showing them to the door. "I suppose you'll be checking on our trip."
"It's protocol, Dr. Geartner," Maka replied as they stepped out of the office. "And, yes, we will."
"Good. I don't want there to be any doubt. I can't think that anyone would kill over these grants--they aren't very large. And while that team was doing some very good research that could help save lives, so are we. I don't want any shadow of suggestion that we were involved hanging over our work."
"We understand," Angell said, extending her hand to shake his. "And, considering your alibi, it seems unlikely that your group had anything to do with it. However, it is our job to follow up on any possibilities."
"And since we were involved in the grant process and using selenium, it was a high possibility," he said with a sigh. "It's a shame. Those were good kids--bright kids who had a great future as researchers."
Angell bit the inside of her cheek to avoid making a snarky comment about Tripp, instead nodding in agreement. "Thank you for your assistance."
"Of course. And if you need anything else," he said, gesturing to the office, "you know where to find us."
"What did you think?" Maka asked as she started the car. It was not going to be a short drive back into the city; plenty of time to discuss the case.
"I think that their alibi is going to check out," Angell said quietly.
"You still think we're missing something."
"I'm beginning to wonder if it even has anything to do with the grants at all."
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