When Matthew received the latex gloves from Daggie Simister’s scene, he was faced with a plethora of possibilities, none of them foolproof. He could put on cotton examination gloves, and on top of those wear the inside-out latex gloves. By using his own hands to fill out otherwise-limp latex, he makes it easier to lift and photograph latent prints. But in doing so, he runs the risk of ruining any possibility of fuming prints with superglue or looking for them with an alternate light source and luminescent powders or processing them with chemicals such as ninhydrin or diazafluoren. One process can interfere with another, and once the damage is done, there is no going back.
It is half past eight, and the inside of his small lab right now looks like a mini staff conference, with Matthew, Marino, Joe Amos and three scientists gathered around a large transparent plastic box, the glue tank. Inside it are two inside-out latex gloves, one bloody, hanging from clips. Small holes have been cut into the bloody glove. Other areas of the latex, inside and out, were swabbed for DNA in such a way as not to disturb any possible prints. Then Matthew had to decide door number one, door number two, door number three, as he likes to describe a deliberation that involves just as much instinct, experience and luck as good science. He chose to place the gloves, a foil pack of superglue and a dish of warm water inside the tank.
What that produced was one visible print, a left thumbprint preserved in hard, whitish glue. He lifted it with black gel lifter, then photographed it.
“The gang’s all here,” he is saying to Scarpetta over speaker phone. “Who wants to start?” he asks the people assembled around the examination table. “Randy?”
DNA scientist Randy is an odd little man with a big nose and a lazy eye. Matthew has never liked him much, and is reminded why the instant Randy starts to talk.
“Well what I was given were three potential sources of DNA,” Randy says in his typically pedantic way. “Two gloves and two earprints.”
“That’s four,” Scarpetta’s voice enters the room.
“Yes sir, I meant four. The hope, of course, was to get DNA from the outside of the one glove, and primarily that meant from the dried blood, and perhaps DNA from the inside of both gloves. I already got DNA from the earprints,” he reminds everybody, “which I managed to swab nondestructively by avoiding what might be considered individual variations or potentially characteristic features such as the inferior extension of the anthelix. As you know, we ran that profile in CODIS and came back empty-handed, but what we just found out is the DNA from the earprint matches the DNA inside one of the gloves.”
“Just one?” Scarpetta’s voice asks.
“The bloody one. I didn’t get anything off the other glove. I’m not sure it was ever worn.”
“That’s peculiar,” Scarpetta’s puzzled voice says.
“Of course, Matthew assisted because I’m not really up on ear anatomy, and prints of any type are his department more than mine,” Randy adds, as if it matters. “As I’ve just pointed out, we got the DNA from the earprints, specifically from the areas of the helix and the lobe. And it’s obviously from the same person who was wearing one of the gloves, so I suppose you could conjecture that whoever pressed their ear against the glass at the house where those people disappeared was the same individual who murdered Daggie Simister. Or at least was wearing at least one latex glove at her crime scene.”
“How many times did you sharpen your damn pencil while you did all that?” Marino whispers.
“What’s that?”
“Wouldn’t want you to leave out even one fascinating little detail,” Marino says quietly, so Scarpetta can’t hear. “I bet you count the cracks in the sidewalk and set your timer when you have sex.”
“Randy, please continue,” Scarpetta says. “And nothing in CODIS. That’s a shame.”
He goes on in his long-winded, convoluted way to confirm yet again that a search of the Combined DNA Index system database known as CODIS was unsuccessful. Whoever left the DNA isn’t in the database, possibly suggesting that the person has never been arrested.
“It also came up empty-handed with DNA from blood found in that beach shop in Las Olas. But some of those samples aren’t blood,” Randy says to the black telephone on the counter. “I don’t know what it is. Something that caused a false positive. Lucy mentioned the possibility it might be copper. She thinks what might be reacting to luminol is the fungicide that’s used down here to prevent the canker. You know, copper sprays.”
“Based on?” Joe asks, and he’s another staff member Matthew can’t stand.
“There was a lot of copper at the Simister scene, inside and out.”
“Which samples, specifically, were human blood at Beach Bums?” Scarpetta’s voice asks.
“The bathroom. Samples from the storage-area floor aren’t blood. May be copper. Also the trace from the station wagon. The carpet in the front seat driver’s side that reacted to luminol. Also not blood. Another false positive. Again, could be copper.”
“Phil? You around?”
“Right here,” Phil, the trace evidence examiner, says.
“I’m really sorry about this,” Scarpetta’s voice then says and she sounds like she means it. “I want the labs in overdrive.”
“I thought we already were. About to over-torque, in fact.” Joe couldn’t keep his mouth shut if he were drowning.
“All biological samples that haven’t already been analyzed, I want them analyzed ASAP,” Scarpetta’s voice says and it’s sounding more adamant. “Including any potential sources of DNA taken from the house in Hollywood, the one where the two boys and two women disappeared. Everything in CODIS. We’re going to treat everybody as if they’re dead.”
The scientists, Joe and Marino look at each other. They’ve never heard Scarpetta say anything quite like that.
“Now that’s optimism for you,” Joe remarks.
“Phil, how about running the carpet sweepings, the trace from the Simister case and trace from the station wagon—trace from everything—through SEM-EDS,” Scarpetta’s voice says. “Let’s see if in fact it’s copper.”
“It must be everywhere down here.”
“No, it’s not,” Scarpetta’s voice says. “Not everybody uses it. Not everybody has citrus trees. But so far in the cases we’re dealing with, that is a common denominator.”
“What about the beach shop? I wouldn’t think there are citrus trees around there.”
“You’re right. Good point.”
“Then let’s just say some of that trace is positive for copper…”
“That will be significant,” Scarpetta’s voice says. “We have to ask why. Who tracked it into the storeroom. Who tracked it into the station wagon and now we’re going to have to go back to the house where the people disappeared, look for copper in there, too. Anything interesting about the red paint-like substance we found on the floor, the chunks of concrete we brought in?”
“Alcohol-based, henna pigment, definitely not what you see in topcoats, wall paints,” Phil replies.
“What about temporary tattoo or body paints?”
“Certainly could be, but if it’s alcohol-based, we wouldn’t detect that. The ethanol or isopropanol would have evaporated by now.”
“Interesting it would be back there, and appears to have been there for a while. Someone keep Lucy up on what we’re talking about. Where is she?”
“Don’t know,” Marino says.
“We need the DNA of Florrie Quincy and her daughter, Helen,” Scarpetta’s voice then says. “See if it’s their blood in the beach shop. Beach Bums.”
“Single-donor blood in the bathroom,” Randy says. “Definitely not the blood of two people, and if there were, we could certainly tell if the two people were related. For instance, mother and daughter.”
“I’ll get on it,” Phil says. “I mean the SEM part.”
“Just how many cases are there?” Joe says. “And are you assuming they’re all connected? Is that why we’re supposed to treat everybody as if they’re dead?”
“I’m not assuming everything’s connected,” Scarpetta’s voice answers. “But I’m worried it might be.”
“Like I was saying about the Simister case, no dice with CODIS,” Randy resumes, “but the DNA from the inside of the bloody latex glove is different from the DNA of the blood on the outside of it. Which isn’t surprising. The inside would have skin cells that were shed by the wearer. The blood on the outside would be from someone else, at least that’s what you might suppose,” he explains, and Matthew wonders how the man can be married.
Who could live with him? Who could stand it?
“Is the blood Daggie Simister’s?” Scarpetta bluntly asks.
Like everybody else, she logically would suspect that the bloody glove found at the scene of Daggie Simister’s homicide would, no doubt, be covered with her blood.
“Well, actually, the blood from the carpet is.”
“He means the carpet by the window where we think she might have been hit on the head,” Joe says.
“I’m talking about the blood on the glove. Is it Daggie Simister’s?” Scarpetta’s voice asks, and it is beginning to sound strained.
“No sir.”
Randy says “no sir” to everyone, regardless of the person’s gender.
“That’s definitely not her blood on that glove, which is curious,” Randy tediously explains. “Now, you would expect it to be her blood.”
Oh God. Here he goes again, Matthew thinks.
“Here are these latex gloves at the crime scene, and the blood’s on the outside of one but not on the inside.”
“Why would blood be on the inside?” Marino scowls at him.
“It’s not.”
“I know it’s not, but why would it be?”
“Well, for instance, if the perpetrator injured himself somehow, bled inside the glove, perhaps cut himself while he was wearing gloves. I’ve seen it before in stabbings. The perpetrator has on gloves, nicks himself and gets his blood inside a glove, which clearly didn’t happen in this case. Which brings me to the important question. If the blood is the killer’s in the Simister case, why would it be all over the outside of a glove? And why is that DNA different from the DNA I got from inside that same glove?”
“I think we’re clear on the question,” Matthew says, because he can stand Randy’s supercilious side winding monologue maybe one minute longer.
After a minute, Matthew will have to walk out of the lab, pretend he has to visit the men’s room, run an errand, eat poison.
“The outside of the glove is where you’d expect blood to be if the perpetrator touched something bloody or someone bloody,” Randy says.
They all know the answer, but Scarpetta doesn’t. Randy’s building up to the crescendo, playing it out, and no one can steal his thunder. DNA is his department.