Chapter 15 #2
My hand flies to my mouth when I see the stains.
There’s more than expected, including bloody handprints and a long dark stain that runs from the center of the trunk towards the back left corner.
I can imagine where the victim’s head would have rested if a body had been laid in on his side.
It’s dried to almost black at the edges and a deep rust color in the middle.
I make a strangled sound I didn’t plan to make, causing Flint to tug me closer.
“Are you okay, ma’am?”
I nod and try to get myself under control.
“Does this blood change anything?” Flint asks.
The detective nods. “We can’t prove a crime, but there’s enough suspicion that I’ll be able to order the forensic testing. Could take a while though…”
“That vehicle ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Jasper mutters.
“I’m going to start fingerprinting with the trunk release handle. Take your time and tell me what you remember from that night on the beltline.”
Taking my mind off all the thoughts running through my mind, I tell him about the shoulder of the beltline and the three men wearing dark suits standing around this sedan.
I tell him about the victim, how they yelled at him and then gave him a plastic water bottle, shoved him back into the trunk, and how I saw them slam the lid in my rearview mirror.
I remember for the first time that one was older, and his hair was graying at the temples.
He had a wedding band that glimmered in my headlights.
Then I describe the smaller man, the one who looked up and saw me as I drove past. I add all the details I can remember from that night, including how they tried to run me off the road and what happened at the police station.
Morgan listens as he works. When I’m done, he says, “You did a good job of remembering details. That should be incredibly helpful.”
That’s when Flint speaks up. “She’s done you one better. She has a whole fuckin’ sketchbook filled with their faces.”
Jasper adds, “We already got a lead on who might be involved. They go by the last name Terrance, and they’re from LA.”
Morgan grumbles without looking up, “Fuckin’ gangsters. That figures. As if we don’t have enough shit going on around this town.”
“Look, it’s going to take me three or four hours to do it right. I can do it with the trunk open here in the gravel, or you can have your boys roll it into the garage where I’ll have shade and an electrical outlet.”
“Yeah, we’ll shove it into the shed,” Jasper says. “We have all the tools you’ll need if you need to take anything apart.”
They all group up and roll the car into the shed by hand. Morgan walks alongside it while carrying his now closed case.
Turning to Flint, I tell him, “I want to watch Morgan work.”
“You heard the part about how it’s going to take hours, right?”
“Yeah, I’m getting some ideas on how to find the victim.”
He bends and kisses the top of my forehead, and then he steers me towards the garage with his arm around my waist.
The garage is bigger than it looks from the outside.
There is a workbench along one wall and a roll of brown paper on a holder above it.
It’s well-ventilated and has plenty of light.
More importantly, it’s temperature controlled.
Morgan has his bag on the workbench and starts by taking out a digital camera and snapping pictures.
“Pull up a chair if you’re staying,” he says to me, without turning around. “I don’t mind being watched, but I do mind being crowded. I need you two to stay back a few feet, please.”
“Yes, sir,” I say, moving back to sit on a bench along the wall. Flint drops down beside me. Jasper is still hovering around, but everyone else has wandered off.
Morgan starts with the trunk lid. Outside surface first. He brushes black powder over the painted metal in long, even strokes, light as snow, and then he tips his head and turns the magnifier and finds what he’s looking for.
“There’s a partial print.” His voice is flat with concentration. “Probably a right thumbprint. It’s normal to find them on the outside of the trunk where people put their hand to close the lid.” He photographs it.
When he starts taking out his fingerprinting supplies, I ask, “What about DNA evidence? Don’t you want to do that before you begin dusting for prints?”
“All in good time. Though because we don’t have any victim, the crime lab won’t run tests as a priority. It might take a month or two, depending on their backlog.”
“We don’t need the crime lab to process it. What about one of those ancestry companies?” I ask.
“They want spit not blood,” Jasper says.
Flint is scrolling through his phone, then speaks. “I found one here that will take blood.”
“We can create a fictitious name to use. The company will flag potential family members. It’s the shortest distance from knowing nothing to maybe finding out who was in the trunk,” I add.
Detective Morgan freezes for a few seconds before turning to me. “That’s a damn smart idea. Those ancestry ones cost upwards of a hundred dollars. Do you have that kind of money?”
Before I can answer, Flint speaks up. “Yeah, we do. That dried blood might provide an identity match or at least a genetic match.”
Jasper agrees. “Let’s see if there are other companies who’ll do tests on blood, and we can send samples to a few of them. Better chance of finding matches. You say the crime lab might take two months? Reckon if we pay extra, we might get an answer sooner.”
“Well, you have to use one of their special kits to gather the sample if you want a genetic match.”
“I’m on it,” Flint responds, pulling out his phone. “I’ll phone around and see if I can get that done ASAP.”
We watch as Morgan begins dusting for more prints. Every time he finds one, he lifts it with tape, presses the tape to a white card, writes a small notation on the corner of the card, and moves on.
He finds three more before he gets to the inside of the lid, and another two on the inside, around the latch.
He photographs and lifts each one. He works methodically, in the same way Flint works on a gun at the bench, in a long, quiet rhythm that only stops when he needs to move his body.
Then I watch as he scrapes samples of the dried blood and puts it into containers.
He’s got a number of them lined up. Gesturing to two of them he says, “You can use that for your DNA test. Should be more than enough for testing.”
“You sure you couldn’t get the crime lab to do it faster?” Flint asks.
“Unless the case is marked as a priority, there’s usually a four- to six-week turnaround,” Morgan volunteers. “Sometimes longer if their lab is backed up. If I get a hit on the fingerprints, then I might be able to put a rush on it.”
“I don’t see how we can move forward without the DNA tests,” Flint says. “Those fingerprints could be from anyone, but that blood clearly came from the victim.”
Jasper’s been on the phone all this time and now he speaks.
“Okay I just spoke to one of the local ancestry labs. Told them some story about how I found a locket with some dried blood in a glass vial. It’s a family mystery and we want to know if it’s a relative.
They bought the story and will do our samples. ”
Flint raises an eyebrow.
“I might have told them Queenie’s gonna turn sixty soon and I want to surprise her with finding a branch of the family she never knew about,” Jasper says.
“I thought your mom was only fifty-six?” Flint adds.
“Don’t tell her I’m aging her.”
Flint’s hand comes out to link with mine again. I tilt my head back against his shoulder and look up at him, upside down.
He is looking at me with a mixture of warmth and surprise.
“What?” I whisper.
“Nothing.” His voice is low and respectful. “I’m just realizing that you might be the smartest person in the room right now.”
I just shake my head because that isn’t remotely true. It feels like this whole process just took a gigantic leap forward. We have fingerprints and a DNA sample. Surely, we can unravel this case with that kind of evidence. The question then becomes what we are going to do about it.