‘‘I know you aren’t finished analyzing all the evi dence yet,’’ Garnett said, ‘‘but we’d like to see what we have so far.’’
It appeared that Garnett wanted to get down to business before the sheriff asked about any other pro cedures they didn’t do.
‘‘Sure,’’ Diane said, ‘‘but perhaps the sheriff would like a tour of the facilities first.’’
Diane didn’t wait for a reply, but immediately began showing the sheriff the labs and the glasswalled work spaces. She explained to him how each of the different microscopes revealed hidden charac teristics in all manner of trace evidence. The sheriff nodded as she explained to him about opaque mate rial versus transparent material and the type of mi croscopes they required, about polarizing and phasecontrast microscopes.
‘‘The museum has an electron microscope that we contract to use,’’ said Garnett with pride that sug gested that it was his own piece of equipment. Appar ently, this made up for not doing DNA analysis.
‘‘We contract with the museum for several pro cesses,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Pollen analysis, soil analysis, questioned and damaged documents. It’s one advan tage of being in a museum.’’
‘‘But don’t your researchers here do some DNA work?’’ said the sheriff. ‘‘During the museum tour last year, some of the biologists said they were working with DNA.’’
‘‘They’re heavily involved in their own research projects,’’ said Diane, ‘‘and what they do is very differ ent from what we need. They’re not set up to process crime scene evidence.’’
Diane hoped the gas chromatography, spectral anal ysis and electrostatic detection and the amazing range of national and international databases—AFIS for fingerprint identification, CODIS for DNA identifica tion, databases for fibers, shoe prints, cigarette butts, bullet casings, tire treads, paint, hair, plus all the soft ware that matched, categorized, imaged, mapped, and, correlated—was sufficiently interesting to get him off his DNA analysis obsession. The last stop was David’s bug-rearing chambers.
‘‘These are the insects from Cobber’s Wood. They’ll give us a pretty good estimate of time of death.’’
‘‘Dr. Webber said the bodies had been out there about a week,’’ said the sheriff.
‘‘More like three,’’ said David.
The sheriff laughed. ‘‘Three weeks in this climate gets you bones.’’
‘‘Hanging slows decomposition.’’
‘‘I’ve found that Lynn Webber is always right on the money,’’ said the sheriff, still smiling.
‘‘We’ll grow out the bugs and give you a report,’’ said Diane.
‘‘You do that, but I have to tell you, I respect the mind of a human more than I do the mind of a bug.’’
‘‘When it comes to brains, so do I,’’ said Diane. ‘‘But we’re talking about sex, and bugs are very pre dictable in that area.’’
Laughter broke the contentious mood that threatened.
‘‘We’re just starting to process the evidence,’’ said Diane, ‘‘but we’ll tell you what we can about the murders.’’
Chapter 12
Diane led Sheriff Braden and Chief Garnett to a round table in the corner that she and her crew used for planning and debriefing. She sat across from them. Her crew filled the remaining spaces around the table; David and Jin to her left between her and the sheriff. Neva was the last to sit down. She pulled out the chair between Diane and Garnett and hesitated a moment before she sat, leaving a wide space between her and Garnett.
The metal top of the table reflected a fuzzy image of all of them. Chief Garnett put his hands on the table and looked at his reflection for a moment. The sheriff’s
through
gaze still shifted around the room, looking the glass partitions at the equipment—no
doubt wondering how much everything cost. ‘‘What more can you tell us about any connection
between these two crime scenes?’’ asked Garnett
when they were all settled. ‘‘It’s an amazing coinci
dence that the man who found those bodies was him
self hung a day later. Are we looking at the same
perp, or were Edwards and Mayberry involved in the
woods murders in some way?’’
Diane didn’t know the answer to that question, and she guessed that Garnett didn’t really expect an
answer.
‘‘I can tell you that the person who tied the knots
on the hanging victims was not the same person who
tied the knots for Chris Edwards.’’
‘‘How can you possibly tell that?’’ asked Garnett.
‘‘I know you’re some kind of expert in knots, but . . .’’ ‘‘My examination is not yet complete, but I’ve seen
enough to know that the same person probably tied
Blue, Red, and Green Doe, but not Chris Edwards.’’ ‘‘Blue, Red, and Green Doe?’’ said Garnett. ‘‘Until we
