Free Up in Smoke by Ross Pennie

“Plants and genetics” was all she would say. And though her results never got published in academic journals, they led to numerous patents probably worth a tidy sum. No one was certain which plant species she worked with. And no one spoke of the irony that her life had met its end in a field full of plants. Tobacco plants.
    On a Monday morning in August last year, Tammy didn’t show up for work. The days went by. People thought she must have gone to a conference and had forgotten to tell anyone. When her family reported her missing, everyone started to worry. A few days later, a farmer in Norfolk County found her body dumped near Highway 3 , about half an hour’s drive from Tammy’s home on Grand Basin Reserve. After the Ontario Provincial Police forensics team finished its cursory examination of her laboratory, a guy in a suit showed up with a couple of heavy lifters and two security guards. They stripped the workbenches clean and carted out everything but the curtains and floor tiles. And refused to talk to anyone.
    The police wouldn’t release many details of Tammy’s death, but did admit she’d been sexually assaulted and suffered one or more gunshot wounds. There were rumours that it was an execution-style killing, and people speculated about Mohawk gangs and the Korean mafia operating on her reserve. In the research corridors at Caledonian University, the unresolved murder of a simpatico and accomplished colleague was still extremely painful. Staff birthdays felt awkward and tinged with sadness whenever a store-bought cake showed up instead of one of Tammy’s creations. The subtext that no one dared mention played again in Hamish’s mind: Tammy’s murder was yet another setback in the long struggle of First Nations people to achieve full status as valued professionals.
    Wilf blew his nose with a striped handkerchief then eyed Hamish’s containers. “They’re skin lesions in there? Fingers and what else?”
    â€œLips.”
    â€œHmm.”
    â€œYeah.” Hamish forced a smile.
    â€œAnd you got nothing on culture or DNA testing?”
    Hamish shook his head.
    â€œWhat about blood tests?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œHave the pathologists had a look?”
    â€œDidn’t see anything diagnostic. Even with special stains.”
    Wilf’s gaze swept his laboratory. Though it was cluttered, it was quiet. Perhaps Hamish had come at a good time. Wilf pulled back his sleeve and checked his watch. He seemed satisfied with what he saw. “That mean we’re chasing another of your zebras?”
    Hamish pushed the tray of specimens toward the smiling bear cub and allowed himself a restrained grin in return. “I knew you’d come through.”
    â€œDon’t get excited. I’m not going to see diddly. But I guess I can’t refuse that choir-boy face.”
    During the three years since Hamish had arrived at Caledonian, he and Wilf had traded stories of their days as boy sopranos. Unlike Hamish, Wilf had enjoyed his church choir experience. Probably because he was a natural-born musician and too burly to elicit sexual advances from his choir master. Or maybe he’d just been lucky. “How many samples you got there?”
    â€œTwelve. I had three others but —”
    â€œA dozen? That’s an entire Serengeti full of zebras. Geez, Hamish, you can’t be serious.”
    Hamish pulled his business card from his wallet. “Get me on my cell. Any time, day or night, soon as you’re done. This evening, maybe?”
    â€œDon’t push it, Choir Boy. I’ve got orchestra practice at six-thirty.”

CHAPTER 9
    It was the end of a long day at the office. They’d given him more space here in Simcoe, but the view through Zol’s window was an abomination. It confronted him with a string of obscenities scrawled onto a concrete wall behind a line of garbage bins. The town fathers and mothers had