Four Walls

don't have a choice, huh?'

'Nope,' Stella said. 'First thing I'm going to need is some blood and DNA-and I also need to photograph your face.'

While the medtech set up to draw blood and scrape Johannsen's cheek, Stella picked up her Nikon and photographed the bruise on the man's cheek, both by itself and with him (reluctantly) holding up an L ruler next to it. She then removed the memory card from her camera and placed it in her phone so she could e-mail the pictures to Lindsay at the lab.

Snapping latex gloves onto her hands, Stella started going through the dirty clothes scattered around the apartment, eventually finding a black sweatshirt that was inside out. She took several pictures of it before turning it right-side out.

A fingernail shook loose from the fabric and fell to the floor.

Stella took several pictures of that as well, and was overjoyed to see that there was purple nail polish on it. Then she grabbed a pair of tweezers and placed the nail in an envelope.

'Is that our San Diego sweatshirt?' Angell said, walking over to join her.

Stella held up the shirt to show Angell the city's name embazoned in sparkly letters. 'Yup. This is what our guy was wearing two nights ago-and looky what I found.' She held up the small envelop. 'A purple fingernail.'

Angell raised an eyebrow. 'I just had them bag his laptop. But there's no printer.'

'What about the laptop itself?'

Angell shrugged. 'Couldn't find the love poems.'

'I'll have our guys go over it-he might be hiding them, or they may have been deleted. As long as they weren't purged, we should be able to pull them out.'

Smirking, Angell said, 'Well, this guy didn't think to wash the clothes he killed a girl in, so I doubt he thought he'd need to do more than delete the files.' Then she let out a long sigh.

'What's the matter?'

'It's nothing.'

Stella stared at her. 'Jen.'

'I wanted it to be Morgenstern, just so I could stick it to Bracey,' she finally said. 'Now I have to actually leave him-and her-alone. Doesn't sit right.'

Chuckling, Stella said, 'I'm sure you'll live.'

* * *

As soon as Lindsay received the photos from Stella's Treo, she called them up and compared the size and shape of the bruise on his face to the autopsy photos of Maria's fist. It was a good match. Again, not perfect, but at least you couldn't say with any certainty that the bruise wasn't caused by the fist, which was often the best one could do in such circumstances.

A bit later, a uniform came by with several sample envelopes: the fingernail that was lodged in the sweatshirt, and Marty Johannsen's blood and cheek scraping.

Her first stop was with Adam, to give him the blood sample. Next was Jane Parsons's office. She yawned as Lindsay entered. 'Another late night with the ER doc?' Lindsay asked with a grin.

Jane simply waggled her eyebrows. 'What have you for me now, Ms. Monroe?'

'A new reference sample-except this may be our perp.'

'This is the blood from the necklace, yes?'

Lindsay nodded.

'Spiffing. I'll let you know as soon as I've crosschecked.'

Her next stop was the morgue.

Sid Hammerback was waiting for her, along with Maria Campagna's autopsied body. 'Good timing,' Sid said when she walked in. 'We just got a call from the Campagna family wondering when we can release the body.'

'Well, how soon we do that depends on this.' Lindsay held up the envelope with the fingernail.

Reaching behind him, Sid found a specimen dish, and Lindsay then opened the envelope and tapped its side so the fingernail would come out. Though it had obviously been removed from the body violently-the interior edge was uneven and jagged-you could still see the purple nail polish.

'Wonderful thing, nail polish,' Sid said. 'You know, some say that it got its start in Japan five thousand years ago. Others say it was in Italy-and others say that's complete hokum. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if it started in the Orient-sorry, they call it the Far East now, don't they?'

Lindsay smiled. 'Yeah, nobody uses 'Orient' anymore, Sid.'

'Well, I guess I'm just easily dis-Orient-ed.'

At that, Lindsay groaned, loudly. 'Sid, that was bad even by your low standards.'

'We aim to please,' he said with a grin as he picked up the nail with a pair of tweezers and put it up against Maria Campagna's right forefinger.

It was a near-perfect fit. And the nail polish was the same color.

Sid peered at Lindsay through his spectacles. 'Looks like she is the one who danced with the prince.'

'Yeah, but this prince won't live happily ever after. Thanks, Sid.'

The next thing Lindsay did was scrape off flakes of the nail polish from Maria's corpse, placing those scrapings in an envelope; then she did the same for the errant nail found in Marty Johannsen's apartment.

Adam was waiting for her upstairs. 'That blood you gave me was AB-negative.'

'Same type as what was on the necklace.'

Nodding, Adam said, 'But that doesn't prove anything-just that your guy has the same blood type.'

'Every little bit helps,' Lindsay said. 'Come on, I could use a hand with this.'

With Adam alongside her, she brought the samples over to the gas chromatograph. Sealing the sample from Maria's corpse inside, she started the machine up, letting the gas break the flakes down into their component parts. The computer provided the specifics: nitrocellulose, pigment, and all the other usual elements of nail polish. When that was done, Adam removed the first sample and replaced it with the flakes from the fingernail found in Marty Johannsen's apartment.

Everything matched: the molecular structure of that pigment and the proportions of the different elements.

Staring at the computer screen, Lindsay noticed something she was expecting to see missing from both reports. 'Okay, that's odd. There's no dibutyl phthalate.'

'Gesundheit,' Adam said.

Lindsay glowered at him. 'Very funny. But every nail polish sample I've examined has that.'

'Not for much longer,' Adam said. 'Phthalates have been linked to testicular problems in lab animals and humans. So last year, the nail polish companies started phasing out its use in their products. Speaking as an owner of testicles, I'm rather grateful.'

'Okay, how did I not know that?' Lindsay asked. 'I mean, I wear the stuff.'

Adam shrugged. 'We can't all be incredibly brilliant like me.'

Playfully punching Adam in the arm, Lindsay said, 'Of course not. Still, the two match.'

'Yup.'

Lindsay pulled out her phone and called Stella.

'Hey, Lindsay,' Stella said. There was considerable background noise.

'Good news, Stell: the blood's AB-negative, the fingernail's a match, and the bruise is the right size. Still waiting on DNA.'

'We should have it by morning, and I like the idea of Johannsen stewing in the five-oh's tank all night. It's too late for him to go to processing anyhow.'

'Where are you?'

'On the Henry Hudson coming back to you. I should be there in ten minutes.'

'Please tell me you're using a hands-free.' Talking on a mobile phone while driving was illegal in New York state, unless one was using hands-free technology of some kind.