Bitter Business

elephant— there was another compound called FC-170C. That’s its generic chemical name. It’s sold commercially as Fluorad. Ever heard of it?”
    “No,” I replied, beginning to take notes. “What is it?”
    “Fluorad is a halogenated hydrocarbon, which is just a generic term for fluorinated hydrocarbon, which is related to chlorinated hydrocarbons. Those are the agents that environmentalists are currently going apeshit about— you know, things like PCBs which are supposed to harm the ozone layer, but I don’t think that Fluorad is one of the ‘bad’ fluorinated hydrocarbons—”
    “You’re losing me with all of this. Tell me, what exactly is Fluorad used for?”
    “I had to make some calls to find out exactly,” he confessed. “As far as I can tell, it’s a kind of surfactant.”
    “What’s that?”
    “You can think of a surfactant as a penetrating agent; it works kind of like a very powerful water softener that’s used to decrease surface tension. Most often Fluorad is added to embalming fluid. I’m sure you realize that embalming fluid is injected into arteries and veins to preserve a dead body. Well, in this case the Fluorad lowers the surface tension of the body fluids as well as the body surface linings—like the lining of the arteries—which allows for better penetration of the embalming fluid out to the capillary beds.”
    “So what would be the point of putting it in the perfume?”
    “No point, unless you also happened to mix it up with cyanide first.”
    “I still don’t get it.”
    “Think of Fluorad as a messenger, a carrier molecule that picks up another molecule and carries it through a barrier—like skin.”
    “Are you telling me that someone mixed Fluorad with cyanide so that when it was put in with the perfume, the
    Fluorad molecules would carry the cyanide molecules through a person’s skin? Is that possible?”
    “Oh, it’s possible all right,” Dr. Dorskey replied. “And it wouldn’t take too much Fluorad either. It’s very powerful stuff.”
    “How powerful?”
    “Let’s put it this way: If you put a drop of Fluorad in a martini and then stuck your finger in the glass, you’d get drunk.”
     

28
     
    I met Elliott Abelman and Detective Blades at Flannagan’s, a comer tavern three blocks from police headquarters. It was a cop bar and well patronized despite the fact that it was only three in the afternoon. I’d immediately phoned Joe Blades after I’d hung up with Dr. Dorskey and told him of the chemist’s findings. I offered to bring him the copy of the doctor’s preliminary report, which I’d asked him to fax to my office. Blades was just coming off of his shift and on his way to meet Elliott for a drink.
    The entire way to Flannagan’s, all I could see was the bottle of perfume laced with Fluorad and cyanide. All I could think of was the level of hate or pathology that must have possessed whoever was behind the crime. I was haunted by images of Cecilia Dobson sneaking a dab of her boss’s expensive new perfume and paying for it with her life. Of Dagny brushing her hair and putting on fresh perfume to go to the funeral and ending up in agony, collapsed on her own floor, as she crawled toward the phone for help.
    I found the two men at a table in the back. Both had bottles of Old Style in front of them, but neither was drinking. I took a seat and laid copies of the spray-mass-spec tests and the material safety sheets on Fluorad on the table.
    “I don’t see how the ME’s office will be able to do anything except rule both deaths homicides,” announced Blades once he’d finished reading, “especially since you said that they make the stuff at the plant where both women worked.”
    “They make it in the specialty chemicals division. It’s a new product that Philip unveiled at the last board meeting. He even did a little show-and-tell to demonstrate the compound’s properties. I remember reading about it in the minutes.”
    “So what’s the big deal?” Elliott asked. “I thought you said this was some sort of additive for embalming fluid.”
    “According to Philip Cavanaugh, embalming chemicals are a four-hundred-million-dollar market that’s growing all the time.”
    “No shortage of customers, that’s for sure,” remarked Elliott.
    “According to the material safety sheet, up until now there’s only one company that’s made this Fluorad stuff and that’s 3M. It’s odorless, colorless, and very expensive.”
    “How