entirely: that loneliness would be your lot, that there was no hope of changing your course.
* * *
Marita Soorenstad looked up the minute Bartholemew entered her office. “Do you remember a guy named David Fleming?” she asked. He sank down into the chair across from her. “Should I?”
'In 1991, he raped and attempted to kill a fifteen-year-old girl
who was riding her bike home from school. Then he went and killed someone in another county, and there was a Supreme Court case about whether or not the DNA sample taken for the first case could be used as evidence in the next case.'
“So?”
“So in Maine, if you take a blood sample from a suspect for one case, you can indeed use it for subsequent tests in a different case,” Marita said. “The problem is that when you took blood from Trixie Stone, she consented because she was a victim, and that's very different from consenting because she's a suspect.”
“Isn't there some kind of loophole?”
“Depends,” Marita said. “There are three situations when you're talking about an individual sample that was given based on consent, as opposed to based on a warrant. In the first, the police tell the individual the sample will be used for any investigation. In the second, the police tell the individual the sample will be used only for a certain investigation. In the third, the police obtain consent after saying that the sample will be used to investigate one particular crime, but they don't make any mention of other uses. You with me so far?” Bartholemew nodded.
“What exactly did you tell Trixie Stone about her rape kit?” He thought back to the night he'd met the girl and her parents in the hospital. Bartholemew could not be entirely sure, but he imagined that he said what he usually did with a sexual assault victim: that this was going to be used for the purposes of the rape case, that it was often the DNA evidence that a jury would hang their hat on.
“You didn't mention using it for any other potential case, did you?” Marita asked.
“No,” he scowled. “Most rape victims have enough trouble with the current one.”
'Well, that means the scope of consent was ambiguous. Most people assume that when the police ask for a sample to help solve a crime, they aren't going to use the sample indefinitely for other
purposes. And a pretty strong argument could be made that in the absence of explicit consent, retaining the sample and reusing it is constitutionally unreasonable.' She pulled off her glasses.
“It seems to me you have two choices. You can either go back to Trixie Stone and ask for her permission to use the blood sample you've got in the rape kit for a new investigation, or you can go to a judge and get a warrant for a new sample of her blood.”
“Neither one's going to work,” Bartholemew said. “She's missing.”
Marita glanced up. “Are you kidding?”
“I wish.”
“Then get more creative. Where else would there be a sample of her DNA? Does she lick envelopes for the drama club or Teen Democrats?”
“She was too busy carving up her arms for any other extracurriculars,” Bartholemew said.
“Who treated her? The school nurse?”
No, this had been Trixie's big secret; she would have gone to great pains to hide it, especially if she was cutting herself during school hours. But it did beg the question: What did she use to stanch the flow of blood? Band-Aids, gauze, tissue?
And was any of that in her locker?
* * *
The bush pilot from Arctic Circle Air had been hired to fly in a veterinarian headed to Bethel for the K300 sled dog race. “You going there too?” the vet asked, and although Trixie had no idea where it was, she nodded. “First time?”
“Um, yeah.”
The vet looked at her backpack. “You must be a JV.” She was; she'd played junior varsity soccer this fall. “I was a striker,” Trixie said.
“The rest of the JVs headed up to the checkpoints yesterday,” the pilot said. “You miss the flight?”
He might as well have been speaking Greek. “I was sick,” Trixie said. “I had the flu.”
The pilot hauled the last box of supplies into the belly of the plane. “Well, if you don't mind riding with the cargo, I don't mind giving a pretty girl a lift.”
The Shorts Skyvan hardly looked airworthy - it resembled a Winnebago with wings. The inside was crammed with duffels and pallets.
“You can wait for the commuter flight out tomorrow,” the pilot said, “but there's a storm coming. You'll probably sit out the whole race in the airport.”
“I'd rather fly out now,” Trixie said, and the pilot gave her a leg up.
“Mind the body,” he said.
“Oh, I'm okay.”
Text file converted with freeware AcroPad - www.dreamscape.it
“Wasn't talking about you.” The pilot reached in and rapped his knuckles against a pine box.
