In the Belly of Jonah (27 page)

Linwood focused on the cotton bedspread, knowing Tim Gregory was on his way back after having gone home to catch a quick nap, a bite to eat, and a shower. Linwood lifted hairs and fibers from the fabric and swabbed the few areas where blood had spattered or dripped—not much, because Lisa hadn’t been stabbed or shot or cut in any way. From what Dr. Johnson had told him, Lisa Henry had either been poisoned or asphyxiated, but she wouldn’t be sure until after a long day and dozens more tests and procedures.

Wrapping more masking tape around his fingers, Linwood dabbed at the spread and, inch by inch, lifted anything that would stick to the tape. So far, with nearly three-quarters of the spread done, all he had found were long black hairs, presumably Lisa Henry’s, and a few fibers that had not come from the bedspread. Dabbing, rolling, lifting, he worked his way across the spread, using tweezers to pluck the fibers and hairs from the tape and place each carefully between two plates of glass, marking each slide with unique numbers and quadrant and grid coordinates to indicate what part of the spread the item had been lifted from. Linwood was in the final quadrant, the area where Lisa’s left buttocks and leg had been. Dab, roll, lift, pluck, mark. Dab, roll, lift, pluck, mark. Tedious, yet critical. Dab, roll, lift. Another black hair, only this one was about half as long as the others, maybe eight inches or so. Any other lab technician may have overlooked the subtle difference in sheen, but Linwood saw it immediately. He carefully lifted the hair and placed it between two slides, marked it, and set it aside.

On the very next dab, roll, lift, he found another interesting mass on the masking tape. Again, another tech may have missed the significance, but Linwood remembered seeing this at Quantico in one of the lab exercises only a year earlier. He studied the tiny ball of tissue, noticing its similarities to a miniature slice of orange peel that’s cut in a spiral as one continuous piece, curling without a break. But the mass was smaller than the tiniest of peas. He plucked the delicate tissue from the tape and carefully straightened the curl of tissue. Sliding a glass over it to lay the tissue flat, Linwood knew instantly what he was seeing.

Excitedly, he took the slide to the scope, bypassing the step of marking the slide. He peered into the lens and adjusted the focus. Skin tissue. This was a scraping from underneath a fingernail. Hopefully, it was from Lisa’s fingernail and thus, beneath this scope, he was looking at the DNA of de Milo.

Linwood hurriedly marked the slide and grabbed the one he had set aside earlier, the shorter hair with the slightly different sheen. He slid the glass under the microscope and peered in to study the follicle. He compared it to one of the many others he’d been finding all morning. The hair was coarser, thicker, and was indeed a slightly different shade of black than the others. One end had a root and the other was cut, not broken or frayed.

He grabbed the phone and dialed.

“Jack Linwood. Put me on speakerphone so Dr. Johnson can talk to me. Please,” he said, waiting until he could hear her voice. It sounded distant.

“What’s up, Jack?”

He knew she was up to her elbows in her work, dissecting every organ to find out how Lisa was killed. And she’d need her full attention so as not to miss a single clue. He’d make it quick.

“Lisa’s fingernails. Did you get any scrapings?”

There was a pause and he heard Dr. Johnson mumbling something about the nails. “Why, Jack?#8221;

“Had her fingers been recently scraped? Fresh, maybe even tissue damage from too deep a scraping, like someone did it for her?”

“How did you know that?” Dr. Johnson asked. “What did you find?”

“So I’m right?”

“Yes, what did you find, Jack?”

“I think he missed one. A scraping. I have the tissue under a slide. It’s most certainly skin tissue,” Linwood explained.

“Great work, Jack.” Dr. Johnson’s level of excitement had reached his

own. “You know what you’re looking at?”

“De Milo,” Linwood said.

“Lisa must have clawed the hell out of him. It explains the clean fingernails, the tissue damage near the quick. We need to start that DNA analysis, Jack. ASAP.”

“There’s something else,” he added. “I might have found a hair.”

“Does it have a root?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“God bless you, Jack Linwood,” Dr. Johnson said.

“Might be the home owner or another guest.”

“Might not.”

“Did Streeter say what color hair the homeowner has?”

“Never met her,”Dr. Johnson said. “But get that test started too. Composition, PCR, and RFLP, the works.”

Linwood knew the prosecuting attorneys in sensitive cases like this preferred the restriction fragment length polymorphism because the tests would help differentiate or validate the DNA samples taken from the other de Milo crime scene, but he didn’t know how to get the tests expedited. “I’m on it. RFLP has been taking six weeks lately.”

“That’s why I want a polymerase chain reaction done too. The amplification of the DNA will take far less time than the RFLP. We can at least draw some conclusions and get moving. You’ll have the results by when . . . Tuesday?” Dr. Johnson guessed.

“Maybe I can get that going now. We’ve got the equipment for the PCR, but it’ll mean I can’t process the rest of the evidence.”

“We’ll need the RFLP since you’ve only got one hair and one skin tissue sample. Any blood?” she asked.

“If she scratched him, some of the drops might be his. That’ll take time to sort out too.”

“Think protocol on this one, Jack. We’re going to need you to follow it to the letter. Think unassailable trial evidence. That’s how we’re proceeding,” Dr. Berta Johnson announced, as if this were her case, as if it were her personal responsibility to nail the Venus de Milo murderer. Linwood understood how she felt and appreciated the direction.

“Fast tests for Streeter, slow and defendable tests for trial. Got it,”Linwood summarized.

“If we can catch the bastard, we’ve got him dead to rights.”

Linwood smiled, happy he could help.

Dr. Johnson added, “And Jack?”

“Yes?”

“As soon as you prep everything, give Streeter a call, will you? Tell him what you’ve found and ask if he wants you to process the rest of the evidence or if he wants you to work up the PCR on the tissue and hair. Might as well confirm what color hair the homeowner has, just to see if your test is worth running.”

“I’ll give him a call.”

“Also tell him the perp’s definitely using high-pressure water to kill the victims.”

“Lisa Henry too?”

“No. If I had to guess, he ran out of time with Lisa.”

“But you’re sure it’s de Milo?”

“Absolutely.”

“So you know how Lisa died?”

“Initial screening tests, DAS, GDS, and ANS all indicate high barbiturates. We’ll need further identification and confirmation on the specific toxicants for each biological specimen.”

Linwood was anxious for Dr. Johnson to get to the point. He heard both her sigh and the sound of metal clinking against steel. Had she dropped a scalpel?

At length, Dr. Johnson blew out a long breath before adding, “She was killed with an injection of heroin, just like Jill Brannigan and the two in Platteville. Heavy dose. My guess, four or five milligrams; maybe more. He wanted Lisa dead. She just stopped breathing. She didn’t have a chance.”

“Holy mother,” Linwood whistled.

“Yeah. And we lifted a print from Lisa’s arm with the argon-ion laser.”

“A fingerprint? From her body?” Linwood asked. “That’s a new one on me.”

“We got lucky because she was brought in so quickly. And de Milo must have taken off his gloves at some point, or someone was with de Milo who wasn’t wearing gloves.”

“Why would he be so careful, only to slip up by taking off the gloves?”

“That’s your job to figure out,” Dr. Johnson said.

“Maybe he cut himself, had to clean up, couldn’t perform a specific task with latex on his fingers. Something. But whatever the reason, he was probably thinking he wouldn’t leave prints on her naked body.”

“Right. Maybe to wash up after he was done with her,” Dr. Johnson speculated.

Linwood remembered something he had seen in the prep area. “They brought me the catch basin for each pipe from the three sinks in the house. Want me to look at the slides the techs prepared last night to see if I find anything?”

“You can’t do it all, Jack.”

“But I can try, Dr. Johnson.” He smiled.

I hadn’t run this hard since coach made us finish four miles under twenty-two minutes the last season I played for the University of Wyoming. For a track star, that would be nothing. For a big-boned girl like myself, that was quite an accomplishment. Running these days was more like jogging—and eventually walking—but today I was trying to jog something free in this gray matter of mine that I couldn’t quite grasp.

It had to do with that stupid pomegranate they found beside Lisa’s bed. That, combined with the hole carved in Jill’s body, the scene from the photos Lisa showed me. It was all so macabre, but something about it was tugging on my mind. Something that should have made sense but was eluding me.

All I could think of was Elizabeth, my sister the graphic artist. Maybe it was because she loved pomegranates. She’d introduced me to them one day after school when we’d splurged on a couple, then drove around in her skin mobile. That’s what she called the flesh-tone four-door American jalopy she owned in high school. Elizabeth was a free spirit, a “do what you love, love what you do,” “forever keep me unsatisfied” kind of person. She was constantly in search of a new Mount Everest to climb and would do so with ease, only to find she quickly tired of the view. Being her own boss as a graphic artist, at least for the current moment, allowed her to follow a host of different passions and interests.

The pomegranate made me think of her graphics studio and the hours I spent dropping by and chatting about nothing in particular simply because I found her so energizing. What bothered me is that the pomegranate shouldn’t have reminded me of the studio. We’d never eaten a pomegranate together there. I never saw her eating one while she worked there, at least not that I could remember, so what was the connection between it and Elizabeth’s studio?

The only thing I could think of was the hours and hours I’d spent flipping through her gorgeous library of art books. The naked body and the pomegranate. It meant something.

Elizabeth would know. She had a brilliant mind that she frequently draped behind humor so no one would suspect.

I’d been running for an hour and that was what I’d come up with. Call Elizabeth. I ducked inside my house, read the note from Agent Kelleher saying he’d be back by noon, which gave me an hour, then showered.

With my hair still wrapped in a towel, I pulled on my jeans and slid my arms into a white oxford shirt. I slipped a jacket on over the shirt and tugged on my socks and shoes. I came into the kitchen, grabbed a packet of string cheese and a glass of ice water, and picked up the phone.

“Hi, Michael,” I said when he picked up after the second ring. Nibbling on the cheese, I continued, “Is Elizabeth there?”

Elizabeth picked up the other line and I heard Michael hang up.

“Hey, Boots. What are you up to?” Elizabeth’s voice was comforting.

I almost started to cry and didn’t know why.

Maybe it was because I hadn’t been called Boots in weeks. The only people in the world who called me that were my eight siblings and Dad; a nickname my oldest sister, Agatha, gave me when I was just a toddler playing with our father’s steel-toed boots. Of course, Mom never warmed to the idea and continues to be the only one in the world who calls me Genevieve, the saint she named me after. As a matter of fact, she gave each of us girls a saint’s name, starting with an “A”saint for the firstborn, “B”for the second, and so on. I was the seventh born, so I got a “G” saint. The concession for Dad was that he could give us each a middle name of traditional Norwegian origin, and the boys would go by those names. Thank God, because it was bad enough we girls had old-fashioned names; my brothers would have been teased unmercifully if they had to go by their saint names, Dismas and Hubert.

Genevieve, the first name on my birth certificate, happens to be the patron saint of disasters.