Dead Hunt

cornered?’’

‘‘Give up to fight another day,’’ said Kingsley.

‘‘You don’t think she’ll want to shoot it out?’’ said Merrick.

‘‘No. She would always have the hope of escape, I think. Clymene is very pragmatic,’’ said Kingsley. ‘‘If you do find her, your biggest problem will be to not be seduced by her.’’

‘‘What?’’ said Drew. The two of them gave slight, derisive laughs. ‘‘What do you mean? I’ve seen her mug shot. Not what I’d call a babe.’’

‘‘The mug shot isn’t representative of her looks. But it’s not just her looks. She has a special gift,’’ said Kingsley. ‘‘She knows how to appeal.’’

‘‘What do you do?’’ said Merrick. ‘‘Wear tin foil on your head when you go see her?’’

Diane laughed. Deputy Marshal Chad Merrick had a sense of humor after all.

Kingsley smiled and scratched his head. ‘‘We get special training,’’ he said.

‘‘Sure you do,’’ said Drew.

‘‘If all you have is the mug shot,’’ said Diane, ‘‘the local paper will have photos from the trial.’’

‘‘Have you spoken with Rev. Rivers, the counselor at the prison?’’ said Kingsley.

‘‘He had gone for the day,’’ said Drew.

Diane and Kingsley exchanged glances. ‘‘That’s how she got out,’’ said Kingsley.

‘‘What?’’ said Merrick. ‘‘You’re saying the prison chaplain helped her escape?’’

‘‘It’s a very good possibility,’’ said Kingsley. ‘‘I would look at him.’’

The two deputy marshals left, turning down Diane’s offer to walk them to the door, saying they remembered the way out. Diane and Kingsley stayed in her office.

‘‘I didn’t expect this,’’ said Diane.

‘‘No. Now we really need to find out who she is. I know the U.S. Marshals have had a lot of experience at this, but in this particular hide-and-seek contest my money’s on Clymene,’’ he said.

‘‘And here I thought she was planning her appeal,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Listen, we need to find out if there are any family movies of her—Archer’s son might have some. I’d like to get a recording of her speaking.’’

‘‘If you want to try a forensic linguist,’’ said Kingsley, ‘‘we have one. Michael loves to analyze voices.’’

‘‘That’s a good place to start. I have some other ideas too. Jin will love it. Jin is another member of my crime scene crew. He just finished calibrating a new DNA lab here in the forensic unit.’’

‘‘How is her DNA going to help?’’ said Kingsley. ‘‘I don’t see how that will locate her, or where she’s from.’’

‘‘I’m not going to look for her. I’m going to look for a relative.’’

Chapter 14

Ross Kingsley looked at Diane for a moment with a blank expression, then smiled.

‘‘People with similar DNA to hers,’’ he said, ‘‘Like siblings or cousins?’’

‘‘Right. I’m hoping the DNA profile of someone related to Clymene is in one of the many databases we have access to. If we can find a relative, then we have a link to who she is and where her family is from. That would give the marshals places to look and give us family history we need.’’

‘‘I like that. Any more ideas?’’ asked Kingsley.

‘‘A few. Analyzing her speech should give us some clues. And I need to talk to David. He’s my king of databases. I think we can do something with our face recognition software. She may have made her face look a little distorted in the mug shot, but that would not have changed the indexes used by the software. We also have photographs taken by the media during her trial.’’

‘‘Not many. She kept her face covered entering and leaving,’’ said Kingsley.

‘‘We only need one to find a match,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Even the bad mug shot we have will do if worse comes to worst.’’

‘‘You thinking she’s been arrested before? That there’s a picture of her in a database someplace from a previous arrest, maybe under another identity?’’ asked Kingsley.

‘‘Maybe. Perhaps someplace where the fingerprints from old records have not yet been digitized. But we have lots of databases we can comb through—missing persons, for instance, or driver’s license records.’’

‘‘See, I knew it was a good idea to get you to track down her identity,’’ said Kingsley, grinning broadly.

I’m glad you think it’s such a good idea, thought Diane. She wasn’t so sure she would have any time to devote to the search for Clymene after dealing with what was becoming a major scandal at the museum. Diane stood up and stretched, kneading her lower back muscles.

‘‘Why did Clymene ask me to come see her?’’ asked Diane. Ever since she’d learned of Clymene’s escape, Diane had been wondering what the point of the visit had been.

Kingsley shrugged. ‘‘She knew she was escaping; maybe she just wanted to mess with your life a little. Maybe she really was concerned about Grace Noel and wanted to take care of those concerns before she left. Maybe receiving a visitor put her in the right place or got her out of prison duties that would have delayed her. I have no idea, but it’s interesting. We’ll be sure to ask her when we catch her.’’

‘‘Do you think the marshals will find her?’’ asked Diane.