Once again, 
When Jean-Paul Dubois was born in South Louisiana, five languages were a part of his early heritage: Creole French, African American Vernacular English, Creole Spanish, and the two Native tongues of Coushatta and Chitimacha, in that order. One might say that his upbringing fitted him for a career at Interpol, because a rich interplay of cultures was his heritage, although the U.S. Army's less tolerant soldiers never let him forget he was “just Black,” in the nicest terms they ever used for him.
But still, more ingrained as a source of actual terror was a childhood memory of hearing English and Creole French back to back.
The English: “Now who done did this here?”
The French: “JEAN-PAUL PHILLIPE DUBOIS!”
That was the end of a good afternoon, or the end of the end of a long time of waiting to hear the summons to the scene of the crime, and then returning to the scene to eventually have his father's strong right hand applying a pine or sweet gum switch liberally to his derrier. The sweet gum switches were especially bad – those seed pods in the fall and winter that had not fallen off were the stuff of nightmares.
Still, even that fitted him to first stop getting into trouble, and then to help others get out of trouble – so, he was all set up first to join the U.S. Army's Judge Advocate General division, and then accept a position at Interpol after 20 years in the Army.
Oftentimes, he heard his father's voice in his head – “Now who done did this here?” – just before a big case was brought to his attention. Père Dubois had been shouting at him from the moment he had gotten up that morning, and, sure enough, Chief Inspector Dubois had not stepped all the way into Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France when he heard his title and name coming from three corners of the building.
“Inspector Dubois!”
“Inspecteur Dubois!”
“¡Inspector Dubois!”
Australian English, French, and Spanish – oh, this was bound to be interesting.
International arson was always interesting – three different countries had called to Interpol for help once they had realized that they were dealing with similar strange circumstances … a fire whose smoke that had killed hundreds of people downwind and sickened thousands of others.
The challenge of the case was that no known toxic substances had been anywhere in the vicinity of the fires. A park in Victoria, Australia – a mountainside near Chiapas, Mexico – an old wood outside Versailles, France that had once been a royal park. No industry had ever touched any of these spots, no toxic waste spills, nothing, and yet, the same pattern of death and sickness had occurred. The assumption in all three countries was that some arsonist had to have put poison into the smoke.
Chief Inspector Dubois listened to the accounts presented him in three languages, and what was wanted – three teams, one each sent to each country to look over the scenes.
Into the evidence that already existed … this had to be some kind of arsonist, because that mountainside in Mexico was almost sheer. The old wood that used to be a park in Versailles? Well off of any modern road, and miles past a great deal of other woods that were available. Even the park in Victoria, although it was publicly accessible, was being remodeled, and was not only closed to the public at the time of the fire.
Then came the first real clue – initial reports said a spark from a power line that was inadvertently hit had started the fire. The other two cases? Separated by two years of time, united by having a thunderstorm near the time the fire started. Initial cause of the fire was thought to be lightning.
But still, one had the same poisonings – that had to be some kind of murderer, chasing down sparks in Victoria and lightning well off the beaten path near Chiapas and Versailles.
Then one had to consider what kind of poison had been used – the murderer had to be some kind of chemist, because the deadly compound had aerosolized in the fires without leaving any sure trace but one: shikimic acid.
Chief Inspector Dubois thought about that for a long moment … back to his childhood days in a way … both pine needles and sweet gum seed pods had a high concentration of that acid, and of course, woods had been burned. But, pound for pound, the levels were still way off … sweet gums were native to a great deal of the eastern United States and the mountainous regions of Mexico, and were a beautiful ornamental in parks in temperate regions around the world, but still, the levels were off.
Still another memory: Père and Mère Dubois had their children gather sweet gum seed pods for holiday kindling – the sweet licorice-like smell filled the home from the fireplace. A little before that time of year, Père Dubois smoked wild boar, duck, and rabbit with half hickory wood and half sweet gum … it gave a taste like no other to the meat.
Still further: Chief Inspector Dubois had passed many happy childhood days chewing on the bitter but fragrant sweet resin that gave the sweet gum tree its name.
Obviously, thick smoke from any fire anywhere would kill you, but there was nothing particularly deadly about the smoke of sweet gum trees.
However, sweet gum trees were what had burned in each of the fires in question. That was the other common element in the matter. Somebody had gone out of their way to poison fires burning in random sweet gum stands where random villages and neighborhoods would be downwind.
But then again, the listed causes of the fires were lightning, lightning, and human error, and given terrain and location, that was the logical conclusion.
One other common element: the park in Victoria was being remodeled and new trees brought in, and, some 30 years earlier, the stand near Chiapas had burned under suspicious circumstances. Even the old wood near Versailles – some very old trees dating back to when the sweet gum tree was introduced to Europe in the 1600s were there, but there were also some much younger ones.
Chief Inspector Dubois sank into deep thought. The strength of Interpol was not field investigation, but database management – put Interpol on the scent of an international problem, and chances were, somewhere in its vast files was something to assist or a way to help national law enforcement to tackle the crime. This would be the way this case would have to go. He knew what was being requested of Interpol owing the nature of the crime … an incident response team to both Australia and Mexico to assist with the investigation of the mass poisoning of their nationals. Interpol could get a team anywhere in 12 to 24 hours … but in reality, there was no current incident. It had just taken five years for everyone involved to realize this was an international problem.
International crime often presented several ways of looking at the problem … although the national investigators looked at the matter through the lens of arson, Chief Inspector Dubois also could see its through the lenses of Interpol … this was potentially not so much a standard arson but an environmental crime, somewhere between forestry, pollution, and wildlife crimes.
The more Chief Inspector Dubois thought about it, the more the definition of wildlife crime as Interpol defined it came to him... indeed, something had been tampered with and poisoned, but perhaps not at the point the national investigators thought of.
“Versailles is a mere hour by plane from here, gentlemen,” he said. “I cannot promise you that Interpol will send a team to scenes years old, but, we are already in France, so, I will go with you to see what there is to see.”