Magoo
“Here’s what we’ve got so far,” said Dr. Bernie Lofgrin, a squat, balding man with eyes so magnified by his goggle-sized glasses that they looked more like hard-boiled eggs cut in half when he got excited. He was a favorite among the SPD detectives, his nickname an appropriate Magoo.
As the civilian director of SID, Lofgrin had worked cases with Boldt for more than a decade, his forensics lab supplying the technical pieces of the puzzle so necessary to an investigation and the subsequent prosecution. An arrest might come from information supplied by a snitch or a witness, but convictions came from evidence supplied by the lab. Where some detectives worked their contacts, their informants, their resources, Boldt chose to rebuild the life of the victim just before death, and to rely upon the physical evidence to tell the real story of what had happened. Every investigator did this to some degree, but Boldt had made his own science of it, and as such, had formed both a partnership and a deep friendship with Lofgrin.
Both jazz aficionados, the currency of their exchanged favors was rare recordings or treasured masterpieces. Building one’s collection was as important as growing one’s IRA. Boldt’s collection of more than ten thousand LPs dwarfed that of Lofgrin or Doc Dixon, and as he was typically the one in need of favors at the office, his cassette recorder was the one that was more active.
Lofgrin loved to hear himself talk. He was meant more for the university than the laboratory. “We patched together a full set of latents from the one hundred and thirty-seven lifts we developed down there. You can be fairly confident that a high percentage of those are all from the same individual. More to come.
“There was no apparent effort to keep the place wiped down,” he continued. “Your resident wasn’t thinking he’d have visitors. And yes, we’re running the latents through the state database and we’re passing them on to the nationals as well.”
He recited, “If this guy’s ever been printed, we’re going to know about it.” His stained smile revealed he’d taken up smoking again. The smoking concerned Boldt: Lofgrin’s heart suffered inside a nervous, agitated body.
SID had failed to locate the suspect’s escape route out of the Underground, leaving more questions than answers.
“Did we check the prints against-”
“Ferrell Walker?” Lofgrin interrupted. “I read my e-mails, Lou. The answer is yes, Matthews got Walker to roll some prints for us. If he was ever in that lair we’re never going to prove it.
The prints aren’t his.”
Lofgrin gained energy when Boldt took notes, so sometimes Boldt scribbled things into his notebook just to appear active, as was the case now.
Boldt said, “At this point it wouldn’t surprise me if this guy Walker goes down for several of our open cases. The more we look at him, the more it looks that way-to me, to LaMoia, even Daffy.” When an investigator pushed the lab in one direction, it tended to prejudice and speed up results, but Boldt-who rarely used such ploys-couldn’t be sure if Lofgrin had even heard him.
“I won’t bother you with the Home and Garden tour, but I’m telling you: The prints aren’t his. It was pure oxygen in those tanks as you suspected. It’s your job to find out where he stole them.”
“Could they be one-half of an oxyacetylene rig?” Boldt asked.
“Welding? Absolutely.”
“As in construction sites?”
“Are you going somewhere with this?” Lofgrin asked.
“Our hotel peeper … the construction site.”
Lofgrin nodded slowly. “Ah-so,” he said.
Boldt’s scribbling was for real, as he made a note to check all recent downtown construction sites for reports of stolen oxygen. When things began to come together on a case, an investigator could feel the momentum shift his way. It brought on an almost childish giddiness sometimes-a visceral high that was one of those things you lived for, the way a marathon runner knew when he’d hit his stride and the training was finally paying off. The Big Mo was in this lab with him, and Boldt took it for a ride.
“Go,” he encouraged.
“Hairs and fibers workup,” Lofgrin said, aiming his distorted eyes toward Boldt. “I caution that this is all prelim, but we did lift seventeen black hairs from a five-gallon tub of wastewater, presumably where this guy washed up. Head hairs. We also ran all the clothing we found into the scrape room and collected a sizeable amount of fiber evidence. Initial examination of the black head hairs was conducted both macroscopically and mi- croscopically. Cell structure confirms they’re from an Asian. We picked up chromosomes on the sheath material from one sample that confirms it’s male hair. This particular Asian male had smoked pot within the last month. That shouldn’t be too hard to confirm for your Mr. Chen, should it?” Boldt’s pen went to work. “We’ve asked Dixie for comparison head hair samples from Chen. If we get a good probability, and I think we will, then we’ll perform STR- short tandem repeat-DNA analysis.
It’s quick and reliable, and cheaper than the old RFPL. I could have something for you by tomorrow or the next day.”
Boldt mentally assembled the pieces. In all likelihood Chen had had physical contact with whomever had been in residence at the underground hideout. This, in turn, implied the obvious.
He asked, “Blood evidence?”
“You’re a pushy son of a bitch. You know that? Phenol-phthalein test was positive. And check out the Luminol.” He handed Boldt a color photo that showed blobs of blue where the Luminol had reacted with any residual blood in the converted storage room. A special fluorescent light was used to highlight the Luminol. The pattern suggested footprints.
“These were developed by the doorway?” Boldt asked.
“We fluoresced the whole room, but yes, this photo was shot near the door. The blood had been washed with soap and water or maybe something a little stronger.” He presented another photo, also revealing Luminol stains on the lip of a container.
“Again, this is the same wastewater plastic tub.”
Boldt said, “He washed his hands of the blood and some hair came off in the process.”
Lofgrin nodded.
“If you were a woman, I’d kiss you.”
“I’d file for harassment.” Lofgrin handed Boldt yet another photo, this time showing a pair of workman’s coveralls, also photographed in the dark under the illumination of fluorescent black light. The discoloring indicated blood splatter, like a volley of cascading tears.
“Oh, God,” Boldt muttered.
“Yes. Exactly. Jackson Pollock this isn’t.” Before Boldt could ask, Lofgrin answered. “This was also washed, but in a heavy detergent. No way to type it, no chance for DNA. Could be the guy butchered an elk.”
“Or a couple missing women,” Boldt said.
Lofgrin said, “He wears size ten-and-a-half shoes. About six feet tall. Hair color brown, but it’s dyed-from a sandy blond.
He’s on a strong dose of doxycycline.”
Lofgrin was probably not describing Ferrell Walker, Boldt realized. Dyed hair? Nathan Prair, perhaps-although that also felt like a stretch.
“Are you telling me we found a ’script bottle down there?
Are you holding out on me, Bernie? Do you happen to have a name from that prescription?”
“No prescription, no bottle, either. His hair, the dyed hair, the predominant hair sample found down there in that room,”
Lofgrin answered, “revealed the doxycycline. You are what you ingest. Most of it goes into your hair.”
“He’s fighting an infection,” Boldt said. The use of hair coloring bothered the detective in him. Women, sure. But a man using hair coloring suggested more than vanity to a cop-if the occupant of that room had changed his looks, the possibility existed that he’d done so in an effort to outrun a criminal record.
