On Camila's phone, a notification of a text message from Juliet popped up. It simply read "Amarogentin." That was all the information Camila needed to achieve a breakthrough. She took out a sterile swab and began dragging it along the bottom of the sink filled with uncleaned dishes, she then scraped all the small bits of food stuck in the drain mesh into a small plastic bag.
As soon as she took off her protective equipment, she immediately bolted out of the kitchen and ran towards the biological sciences lab. There, she found Juliet diligently running all the samples through chromatography and mass spectrometry, Camila tapped her on the shoulder and handed over the swab and the bag.
"Analyse these two first, I think the key to this mass murder is in these two samples."
Juliet shot Camila a confused look, but before she could ask any questions, Camila was once again running, this time, towards the security office. She knocked and an old man opened the door.
"I need to review the security footage of this building from this morning. It's for the investigation."
A police officer sitting inside the room leaned back on his chair to take a glance at the door.
"We're already reviewing the security footage, is there something specific you are looking for?"
Camila walked over to the monitor and nodded.
"I need to look at the footage right after the conference started. Specifically, I'm looking for any of the kitchen staff from this building's restaurant entering the room."
The footage was played back, eventually, Camila spotted a girl in the restaurant's uniform carrying three teapots down the hallway. She knocked on the door to the conference room and handed the teapots over before she left. A few minutes later, she returned with another three teapots, and once again knocked and handed them over to the occupants of the room.
Camila replayed the footage again, but this time, her eyes were stuck on the girl's waist, or specifically, the tiny bottle of disinfectant wrapped in plastic wrap hanging from the belt of her skirt.
Camila continued to review the security, now switching between the cameras to follow the girl's movement. The girl was inside the restaurant working until the building was evacuated due to the mass casualty incident inside the forensic pathology conference, while she was leaving the building, she threw away the bottle of disinfectant into a trash can close to the entrance of the building.
Satisfied with what she learned, Camila got up and walked out of the security office, and walked towards the building's entrance. She put on a pair of gloves and rummaged through the trash until she found the bottle of disinfectant that she had laid her eyes upon earlier. She quickly put it in a bag and brought it to Juliet in the lab as well.
After a while of analysis, Juliet finally had the results of what was in the three samples Camila had brought her.
"First, we have the swab and the bag of mush you brought me, trace amounts of nicotine are present. Next up, we have that bottle of disinfectant, roughly 50% nicotine. Camila, where did you find these? It seems like we are really close to solving this case.
Camila returned a proud smile, and she confidently proclaimed to Juliet.
"Close? I already have the solution in my head, I just need to gather everyone around and reveal what the truth is, and who is responsible."
Camila's statement made Juliet speechless for a few moments, until she began to slowly clap.
"Wow, Camila. That was… fast. It was only a while ago that we felt like we had no idea how the poison could have possibly been placed, and now you're saying you've solved it? That's impressive.
Camila turned towards the door of the lab.
"Come on, Juliet. Take your lab coat off and let me show the truth to everyone."
Inside the restaurant, police investigators, the kitchen staff, and Camila's team gathered around. The police officer in the white uniform stepped towards Camila and asked.
"Hey, what did you call all of us here for? You're interrupting the investigation, if you've got something useful to say, do it quick."
Camila waved her hand, and Juliet brought a piece of paper over and showed it to the officer. It was the report of a laboratory analysis.
"I've found it, the source of the nicotine poisoning. Not only that, I know exactly who did it, and they are one of the kitchen staff members gathered in this room right now."
Upon hearing what she said, a flurry of whispers erupted amongst the kitchen staff while the officer commanded several of his colleagues to block all the exits.
"Mine telling us who that person is instead of acting like we're in a TV show?"
Camila raised her hand, before she brought it back down and pointed at a girl amongst the kitchen staff.
"Emma, that's your name right? You're the culprit behind this mass murder."
Emma took several nervous steps backward while frantically shaking her head.
"You're wrong! This is slander! You have no evidence to back it up!"
Camila took several slow steps towards Emma as she said.
"But I do have evidence, and it's all because you were too confident in your plan. Noah and Ronnie, please start by explaining how we narrowed it down to an ingested poison."
"To cause a large number of people to simultaneously go ill, there are only two plausible causes, toxins and diseases. However, since no one outside of the conference had the same condition, that largely rules out infectious diseases.
For toxins, there are only four main routes for them to be absorbed. Dermal exposure, which means being absorbed through the skin, inhalation, ingestion, and injection. None of the patients had marks that indicated that a needle had been stabbed in them.
The fact that two people breathed in the carbon monoxide-filled air of the room, Camila and the only surviving forensic pathologist not on life support, and they both did not experience the respiratory arrest that everyone else suffered from, indicates that inhalation is unlikely as well."
The moment Noah finished his explanation to the police, Camila turned towards Ronnie and pointed at him.
"Ronnie is next, please explain to our lovely officers what we've uncovered from the questioning of the kitchen staff. That is the key to uncovering why there was abnormally bitter tea served at the conference."
Ronnie was taken aback for a second when his name was called, unsure of what findings from the police questioning Camila was referring to.
"Sure? Since I still have no idea what's going on in your head, Camila, I'll just say everything I know. This restaurant that we are currently standing in was the one that delivered the tea for the conference, correct?"
One of the older staff members nodded.
"That's correct. The organiser of the event is a friend of our boss, he requested us to lend over some pots and cups alongside some drinks for their guests."
"However, " Ronnie continued, " At some point, there was something wrong with the tea and it was sent back because of how unusually bitter it was. So bitter, in fact, that even after presumably pouring it all out, the customers could still taste it if they drank out of the same cups. However, none of the customers fell sick even if they could taste that something was off.
Also, the one who made the tea was Emma, the one whom Camila is currently suspecting. She also delivered it too late, but I'm not sure if that has any relevance. But I suppose if the toxin was in the original batch of tea delivered by this restaurant instead of the takeout milk tea ordered later on, then Emma would be a prime suspect, is that it, Camila?"
Camila shook her head to the surprise of everyone in the room except Juliet. Juliet took out another lab report, this time, showing the contents of the bitter tea served by the restaurant as she explained.
"However, there was no nicotine in the teapot, nor were there any other toxins. Every single substance in here would be expected of regular black tea, all except for one substance. That substance was amarogentin. Since chemistry isn't my strong suit I looked up what that molecule was on a database, apparently it is an extremely bitter compound that would never normally be found inside any black tea."
Camila held up a hand, stopping Juliet from continuing as she took over.
"That amarogentin revealed something important, a key clue that explains everything. There was not one, not two, but three different types of tea served within the conference room, but only one of them, the first one, contained the poison."
The police officer in the white uniform stayed silent for a few seconds as he processed the information, before he asked.
"Wait, how do you know that there were three types of tea when we've only seen the milk tea on the table and the bitter tea sent back to the restaurant? Also, why were there two types without the poison? Also, what does amarogentin have to do with this?"
Camila flashed a grin at the officer as she continued explaining.
"It's simple. First, I'll explain how I know there were three types of tea served. When I reviewed the security footage, I noticed that the teapots were delivered in two batches. However…"
Camila stopped in the middle of her sentence, took a nearby teapot and poured herself a cup, taking a sip before immediately spitting it out.
"With tea that bad, there's no way the people inside the room would just accept the second batch of tea without any complaints. This leaves one possibility, the two rounds of tea delivered were different, which also explains why the perpetrator added a highly bitter substance into the teapot."
One of the kitchen staff raised a hand as she asked a question.
"Okay, I understand your logic behind how you found out that there were three batches of tea, and presumably the first one was the poisoned one, but why would the murderer make the tea super bitter for no reason?"
Juliet handed over another paper with lab results to Camila, this time it showed only minor traces of nicotine. Camila took it and displayed it to everyone else.
"But there was a reason, and the reason lies right here. These are the results for the laboratory analysis we did, and the sample we had tested, came from the kitchen's dishwashing sink. The reason why the tea was purposefully made bitter, was to encourage the kitchen staff to thoroughly wash the cups that still had traces of the poisoned tea, and erase the evidence!"
Emma, the one accused by Camila, frantically interjected after her lengthy explanation.
"But how does this prove that I did it? Even though I prepared the first round of tea, I didn't do it! Someone else must have sneaked it in while I wasn't looking!"
Camila again showed everyone the lab report with the extremely high levels of detected nicotine and she also brought out a bag, with a small empty bottle of disinfectant inside.
"The concentrated nicotine was found inside this bottle that you were carrying around. Honestly, every other part of this attack was planned meticulously to evade detection, but you messed it all up because you were scared of the nicotine knowing that it can be absorbed through the skin, so you took some plastic wrap to cover the bottle and refused to hide it inside your bag. Your caution for your own safety ended up being the Achilles Heel of the entire plan. Am I right?"
Emma held her head down low, several excruciatingly long seconds passed before she let out a soft sigh and covered her face with her hands.
"Yes… I did it. All of it. Just take me away already, my fate's already been decided."
Two police officers immediately grabbed Emma upon her confession, placed her in handcuffs, and escorted her away. The officer in the white uniform stepped towards Camila after the arrest was made with one more question on his mind.
"There's only one thing I don't understand. Why would she have any motive to carry out a risky attack targeting forty people? If it were one or two people, I'd understand that it was likely for a personal motive, but a major attack like this?"
Camila bit her lip before she hesitantly responded to the officer's question, her arms crossed and gaze pointed at the floor.
"I don't know. All I can assume is that someone ordered Emma to do it. Whoever designed the plan clearly has some knowledge of forensic investigation and medicine, coming up with complex red herrings to prevent the timely treatment of the victims, and covering their tracks from laboratory investigation. I'll leave that up to you guys to figure it out, I've done more than what my job as a toxicologist requires me to do."
The officer nodded and he turned away to command the rest of the police officers. Noah walked up right next to Camila, and without looking at her, he asked.
"Job done?"
"Job done, let's go back. I don't want to deal with the press once they catch wind of this."
That evening at the road right outside Southern Queen's Hospital, Camila stood on the sidewalk, leaning her body over on the fence separating the pedestrians from vehicles rushing to the accident and emergency department. A man in a suit with a crutch in his hand slowly approached Camila and took a spot right beside her.
"Don't get hit, Camila. We don't want the new hero of Haucon to get hurt."
Camila's gaze remained still and unmoving, her eyes filled with an empty darkness. It was only after a full minute of silence did she flatly responded.
"I don't know what you mean. Not only that, I still don't know you."
"It doesn't matter, you'll understand soon enough anyway. But I must inquire, why are you not celebrating? You just solved a complex case and were instrumental in the capture of the culprit all in one day, is it not enough for you?"
Another minute of silence passed.
"They're dead. Thirty-three of them are dead with six more in critical condition. What good does solving the mystery do if it can't bring back those who were affected?"
The man moved closer to Camila, and he looked at her face despite Camila refusing to return the gesture.
"You prevented more people from being hurt. You did your part. All I will say though, is that this won't be the last time, far from it. Get a good night's sleep, you'll need it for tomorrow."
The man picked up his crutch and slowly walked away. Camila shot a suspicious look at his back and muttered to herself as he left.
"What do you mean by tomorrow? Are you some fortune-teller?"