“Are you saying this is the evidence collected at Marcella’s? Have you looked in Marcella’s container?” said Diane.
“I was about to get it to see what kind of damage has been done,” said David.
Diane looked at the jumble of shoe prints Jin had separated out using the computer software. “The shoe prints too?”
“Yes,” said David, “especially the shoe prints.”
“You’re saying this is the boot print collected at Marcella’s?” Diane asked David again, pointing to a photo.
“I had to work on it to get it clear,” offered Jin. “There was a jumble of shoes on the electrostatic lifting film. I had the software separate out some of the prints from one another.”
David pointed at the photograph. “This is the hiking boot print from Marcella’s. Yes.”
“In that one, the heel was showing good,” said Jin. “I tried to filter out the other overlapping shoes from the rest of the print, but the heel is really clear.”
“The heel is all you need for an identification,” said David. “That’s how I know it’s the same. See these two chips in the heel?… Wait. Are you saying this isn’t a mistake?”
“I don’t see how it could be,” said Diane. “You think Jin took the evidence out of the bags and relabeled them?”
“No,” said David, “but I thought he was here when we were processing Marcella’s, and-”
“You had already processed Marcella’s evidence before we collected the Stacy Dance evidence,” said Diane. “I collected these shoe prints at the Stacy Dance scene. David, you owe Jin an apology. It’s the same print as the one from Marcella’s because the same boot was at both places.”
“What?” at least three of them said in unison.
All four of them looked at Diane as if she had said Kendel had just returned from her trip and had brought them a unicorn skeleton.
“What are you saying?” said David.
“She’s saying you need to apologize,” said Jin. “Hey, you mean it’s the same guy, don’t you? Jeez, Boss, that’s weird.”
It had taken a few seconds for it to dawn on all of them.
“But this would connect with the Lassiter crime scene too,” said David. “The same boot print was there. I don’t understand it. The MO is too different. They don’t look anything like crimes done by the same perp. Wasn’t there a lot of postmortem staging and cleanup in the Dance murder? Didn’t it have a definite sexual aspect to it?”
“Yes,” said Diane. “So it appeared. That’s what drew the Gainesville detective to the wrong conclusion.”
“Well, the attack on Marcella and the murder of the Lassiter woman had no sexual component. And not much evidence of planning at all. They look like crimes by an amateur looking for loot.”
“They would appear that way,” said Diane.
“Do you think the Gainesville guy may have thrown away the boots by the side of the road or something and the Rosewood guy found them?” said Jin.
“This makes no sense,” said David.
“I agree,” said Diane. “It doesn’t seem to. We also collected evidence of rope and other fibers in the Stacy Dance murder. The rope is the same too?”
“According to Jin’s report, it’s made of the same material,” said David.
Diane again read through portions of Jin’s evidence report on the Stacy Dance crime scene.
“I’ve read Marcella’s evidence report,” said Diane. “I’ve seen the blowup photographs of the fibers and read the chemical analysis of them. These fibers from the Stacy Dance scene are the same-the same dyed black wool and Manila hemp fibers. Granted, there are lots of ski masks like that and lots of rope. But you said, David, it was as if the masks and the rope were stored together. Could it be that…” She threw up her hands. “I can’t explain it. But this evidence described in Jin’s report is the evidence I collected at the Stacy Dance crime scene. He did not make a mistake.”
“You going to apologize?” said Jin.
“Sure,” said David. “Jin, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped all over you like that.”
“I understand. I would have thought the same thing,” said Jin.
Neva rolled her eyes.
“I’m not sure I’m getting this,” said Izzy. “Did the same guy do all three crimes? Or are we looking for somebody who fished clothes out of the trash in Gainesville and used them in two more crimes down here? Or are we looking at some bang-up-big coincidence?”
“I don’t know,” said Diane. “But if we can find Marcella’s attacker, or the Lassiter murderer, we can ask them where they shop. In the meantime, I guess I need to ask Hanks to come to the meeting too.”
Diane set up the meeting in the basement conference room near the DNA lab. She was holding it away from the crime lab to distance her involvement in Kingsley’s case as far as possible from the jurisdiction of Rosewood. The conference room had a large round table with a white quartz top and comfortable chairs. Jin had picked out the furniture for the room. She wasn’t sure why he wanted white, but it was a pretty table-one that King Arthur would have liked.
Diane asked her policemen bodyguards to be present. She didn’t quite trust Oran Doppelmeyer to remain civilized. There must be more to their history than Lynn Webber had told her. The policemen seemed pleased to actually be involved in what was going on, rather than just sitting on the sidelines in case something should happen. They were also pleased with the food Diane had sent them. The way to a policeman’s heart.
She called Hanks and told him about the boot print. He was as mystified as she and her crew were. He seemed to like the scenario that the boots were thrown away and retrieved by someone else-the ski masks too. That was how the rope fiber got on them. The masks were near the rope, picked up the transfer, and when Marcella’s attacker used them, the fiber was transferred again. It was the only scenario that made sense.
Diane put the Stacy Dance evidence in the DNA lab. Her bodyguards were in comfortable chairs near the door, and now she waited for the others to arrive. She was not looking forward to this evening. She’d rather be at home with Frank.
Chapter 46
Diane asked museum security to post someone at the information desk to greet her guests and bring them downstairs to the DNA lab. Ross Kingsley arrived first, looking, as usual, professorial. Lynn Webber came shortly after, looking rather stunning in a black gabardine suit with an olive silk taffeta blouse. She was dressed to be a presence in the room. Her black hair had a lustrous sheen and her makeup was perfectly applied.
Diane wondered whether she had remembered to run a comb though her own hair.
Sheriff Braden, who was in charge of the Mary Phyllis Lassiter investigation in the neighboring county, arrived shortly after Webber. He hadn’t changed from his sheriff’s uniform. Jin was already there, working in the DNA lab. Detective Hanks arrived after Braden. Now it was only the Gainesville contingent who had yet to arrive-Detective Ralph Fisher, Chief of Detectives Nancy Stark, and Medical Examiner Oran Doppelmeyer.
When Diane called Sheriff Braden, she had asked him to sit on one side of Lynn Webber. Diane was going to put Detective Hanks on the other side. Diane told Braden about her encounter with Doppelmeyer in the parking garage at the hospital and that she didn’t want him to get aggressive. Sheriff Braden, of course, was outraged. He was known to be fond of Dr. Webber ever since she arrived in the Rosewood area. Putting her between Hanks and Braden was to protect Webber from herself as much as from Doppelmeyer. Diane had a gut feeling that Lynn wasn’t ready to turn loose of him yet.
Diane mentally went over her ducks and calculated whether or not they were in a row. Close enough. The only problem she had with the meeting was any fallout for the Rosewood PD. Gainesville PD assumed that Rosewood had butted into their jurisdiction. She could see how that would piss them off. She hoped refusing to have Garnett there would reinforce her message that Rosewood wasn’t involved.