‘‘We did it, Boss. It’s in there.’’ He did a little dance and spun around.
‘‘You’re going to have to be a little more specific. We’ve got so many things working.’’
‘‘The hair. The hair. They matched the hair,’’ he sang.
‘‘The shed hair protocol worked?’’
‘‘GBI came through. They’re all very excited. It matched with the blood in your apartment perfectly— I’m talking nuclear DNA. This is exciting.’’
‘‘Jin, you’ve earned your pay. Would you like to take a copy of the report to Garnett?’’
Jin grinned. ‘‘Sure. I’d love showing him the kind of magic we can perform, and wipe some of those smirks off those guys downtown. Of course, most of them won’t even realize what a feat it was to get read able nuclear DNA from shed hair.’’
‘‘Do you get those smirks too? I thought it was just me,’’ said Diane.
‘‘No. We all get them. It’s especially bad for Neva, since she used to be down there. They see us as geeks, I guess. However, there’s more. The DNA was the cake, but I have some more evidence that lights the candles.’’
‘‘I see you’re on a roll. What’s the other evidence?’’
‘‘Cheap orange carpet fibers.’’
‘‘In Kacie’s apartment?’’
‘‘No. Yours. I went over before I came here and did a sweep of your apartment.’’ He stopped. ‘‘I hope you don’t mind.’’
‘‘No, of course not. I hope you vacuumed the whole place.’’
‘‘By the way, you have some strange neighbors across the hall.’’
‘‘Tell me about it. You don’t know how strange.’’
‘‘They asked me if I was moving in, did I have a cat. I told them no, that I was from the crime lab, and they asked me if I knew anything about the best fu neral homes. What’s that about?’’
‘‘It’s their hobby. They love funerals. They go to funerals for people they don’t even know.’’
Jin stood gawking at her. Apparently left speechless.
‘‘The landlady told me they had seven children,’’ said Diane. ‘‘All of whom died. They showed her pho tographs of their funerals.’’
‘‘Now, that’s downright scary. You live across the hall from those people?’’
‘‘Last year, when she thought I was harboring a cat her husband was allergic to, she lifted the landlady’s keys and snuck into my apartment. I came home and found someone hiding behind the curtain and almost brained her with a cast iron skillet.’’
Jin was laughing now. ‘‘You’re yanking my chain.’’
‘‘No. It’s true.’’
He put Diane’s key on her desk. ‘‘The orange carpet fiber was on your couch, and on the bloody towel.’’
Jin frowned suddenly and pulled up a chair and sat down, switching gears from his usual hyperactive mode.
‘‘I’ve been looking at the evidence from Kacie Beck’s scene. The rape kit was negative. He used a condom. I didn’t find anything on the body that be longed to the perp. Her house was clean too. No prints, no fibers that we can identify—we got the same cotton fibers, but that’s all. The guy skinned her fin gers pretty bad getting the ring off. I’m betting he got some blood on him—clothes, gloves, something. Doesn’t help us now, but it might later. You know, Boss?’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘I’ve been thinking about a DNA lab.’’
‘‘You have. Been thinking about the money to put one in?’’
‘‘No. Haven’t been thinking about that. The Girl Scouts raise a lot of money selling those cookies. Maybe we could get some crime cookies—some shaped like a gun, a knife, a bone, maybe. The sand wich cookies could have red filling. What do you think about that?’’
‘‘I’m starting to think you don’t have enough to do.’’
‘‘How about tee-shirts? We could sell tee-shirts—
‘‘Good-bye, Jin.’’
Diane watched him go out the door. She looked at her blank wall and decided she needed to do some thing to decorate this office—it seemed like she was spending a lot more time in it.
The reports her team generated were stacked up on her desk. She’d been through them several times hop ing for a revelation. There was none, but it was the slowly trickling evidence that was taking the day. They were getting close—more than close. They could put whoever it was in the hospital with the hanging victims on two separate bits of evidence—the orange fibers and the DNA. That was a home run.
Her thoughts went to Raymond Waller. He seemed such an unlikely person to be involved in crime. But who knows? She’d really only met him a couple of times. Lynn Webber knew him, though. Worked with him every day. She’d trusted him. Diane shoved it out of her mind and stood up. All this was really in Garnett and Braden’s purview.
