“Is he on his back, his side, facedown?” I open a cabinet, looking for three-percent hydrogen peroxide.

“On his back and left hip, kind of twisted in a heap,” she replies.

I go to the computer and take a look. Howard Roth’s body is turned to one side on the basement floor at the bottom on the steps. He stares straight up, his knees drawn, his arms bent by his sides, and blood is coagulated and drying under the back of his neck, spreading to a stain that disappears under his shoulders. Once he landed in this position, I’m fairly sure he didn’t move.

“It bothers me that it seems the sole reason Channing Lott became a suspect is an e-mail exchange between him and whoever he allegedly was attempting to hire,” Lucy says. “You’re aware of it, I assume?”

“Not specifically.” I return to the cabinet and find jars of sodium acetate and 5-sulfosalicylic acid.

“I’ll pull it up from online news,” she says, as she does it. “So this past March fourth, a Sunday? An e-mail was sent to Channing Lott’s personal account from a user he later claimed he didn’t recognize but assumed it was someone from one of his shipping offices. He said in direct testimony that he can’t possibly know the names of everyone who works for him around the world.”

Lucy reads what’s quoted in the story.

I realize it’s inappropriate for me to contact you directly through e-mail, but I must have verification of the partnership and the subsequent exchange before I proceed with the solution.

“And what did Channing Lott reply?” I dissolve the sulfosalicylic acid into hydrogen peroxide.

“He wrote, ‘Are we still committed to an award of one hundred thousand dollars?’”

“Certainly sounds incriminating.” I check the reagent Leuco Crystal Violet, LCV, making sure it hasn’t turned yellow, that it’s white and fresh.

“He claims he assumed the e-mail exchange was about a monetary prize his shipping company offers,” she reports. “That he often partners with other marine transport companies in rewarding scientists for coming up with viable solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

I pour in the LCV, a cationic triarylmethane dye, and mix with a magnetic stirrer.

“The amount of the award was in fact one hundred thousand dollars,” Lucy says.

“Sounds like an argument Jill Donoghue would come up with.” I transfer some of the solution into a spray bottle.

“Except the Mildred Vivian Cipriano Award has existed for more than a decade,” Lucy says. “So it wasn’t just trumped up for his defense to explain away the e-mails. And since whoever initiated them has never been arrested or even identified, I conclude the e-mail sent to Lott wasn’t traceable. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”