Temper

by Alex C. Hughes

  As expected, Armand appeared within five minutes, with a genuine smile on his face. He air-kissed both of my cheeks and clasped my upper arms with what seemed to be sincere delight to see me. If you knew the right gifts to bring, people did seem to be a lot happier when you arrived. I handed over the tickets, and he took them happily.

  “Isabella!” he said. “What can I do for you today?”

  “I’ve got a series of blackmail letters sent to one of my clients that I’d like you to do a full workup on. The letters, not the client. If possible, I’d love to have a DNA profile run in the next couple of hours. If you can find any DNA.”

  “I can always find DNA, Isabella.” His voice was vaguely scolding.

  “Apologies. Of course, you can find DNA.” Assuming that the blackmailer hadn’t worn gloves the entire time. “It’s just that three labs have already had trouble.”

  “I am not the three labs.”

  I waited patiently for him to think.

  Armand frowned, calculating. He was the co-owner who ran the laboratory part of the business, and thus, had complete discretion over how the work was apportioned. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on your perspective—he also ran a very tight ship with realistic deadlines, and was one of the leading experts on DNA genotyping, which is why the department kept giving him their overflow in this field.

  Finally, his face cleared, and the ghost of a smile appeared again. “As it happens this day, I am able to move a few things around and have another worker come in tomorrow. I am happy to run the tests on your materials. Paper? Soya-based or wood pulp?”

  I pulled out the box I’d gotten from the lawyer this morning and identified the letters within the plastic bags as what we were looking to analyze. “Something from the middle part of the pile should be sufficient, though I’d like to run the most recent letter against the rest. The base paper seems like mid-range wood pulp to me, just from eyeballing it, but the newspaper squares are almost certainly soya.”

  “Most are,” he agreed and took the box from me. “How tolerant are we with damage to these materials?”

  “They don’t have to stand up in court. I just need originals to give back to the client. A small piece missing here and there should be fine.”

  “Very well. Can you wait, or will you be back?”

  Now I really did smile. He was willing to do the work himself, right now, which nearly never happened with Armand. But the derby was a better show than most, and I’d gotten them tickets in the front row, where you were so close you could hear the squeal of the skates on the wood. Armand had a very keen sense of favors owed, for all he was more than willing to trade them. I liked that about Armand.

  “I can wait as long as it takes,” I told him.

  He nodded, a solid, confident nod, and went over to discuss a few details with Rhonda.

  An hour and three minutes later, Armand emerged from the back room to find me seated on the small bench they had at the front for visitors. He had the box in one hand and a thin file folder in the other.

  I looked up. My legs had fallen asleep on the uncomfortable bench, and I was bored out of my mind. Neither sensation was anything new in the world of police work—or I guessed, now, PI work. The reminder that I wasn’t a cop anymore broke something inside of me every time I thought of it. Right now, I was too tired to be truly angry; like a phantom limb, I felt the shape of where the emotion had been, should have been, rather than the anger itself, but I still couldn’t forget it.

  “Well?” I asked him.

  “I have good news and bad news for you. There is only one set of DNA on the letters, and I do not believe it is the result of whoever created the letters since it does not extend into the clippings or the glue.”

  “Um, what?” I asked, already feeling disappointed. “What’s the good news, then?”

  “It looks to me like your DNA is mostly from a small amount of mucus, the result of a cough or a sneeze perhaps, on the edge of all of the letters consistently. The DNA indicates a male with some allele shortening, middle-age I would say, of mixed race ancestry with a large African component typical to this section of the country. His cells are only on the edges of the letters, and all seem to be the same age, whereas the letters themselves seem to be of various ages.”

  I stood up, feeling a painful tingling as the blood rushed back into my legs. “So the lawyer could have done it, but you don’t think so.”

  “That is correct.”

  “There’s no other DNA here?”

  “None that I can find, unfortunately. But there is good news.”

  “How is that good news?”

  “You are familiar with bacteria printing?”

  “With what?”

  “It’s not commonly used with police cases since the forensic specialists on the subject tend to be expensive, and it’s not straightforward to explain in court. Basically, the idea is that each of us has a certain population of bacteria living on our skin, inside our mouths, under our nails and such. On a cell by cell basis, the human body has been estimated at about ninety percent micro biome—meaning bacteria, viruses, and fungus.”

  “Where is this getting us?” I asked, starting to feel grossed out by the thought that ninety percent of my body was crawling with germs.

  “Because of the Bacteria Project fifteen years ago, we have a very good understanding of how and why the bacteria portion of that population forms, and what exact species mean. What matters in this case, is that the exact population of bacteria is largely unique to every individual and can tell us a lot about the person the bacteria was inhabiting.”

  “So…you’re tracking germs?”

  “To tell us about the blackmailer. Yes. As I said, it may or may not hold up in court, but I now have a lot of information about your blackmailer from the bacteria colonizing her skin.”

  “Her?” I asked. Now my ears were perking up.

  “I’d estimate more than an eighty percent chance of genetic female, or at least a comprehensive female hormonal system. We have species here that strongly prefer that hormonal and endocrine system mix. She is most likely a smoker or someone who spends a lot of time around tobacco, such as a cigarette packer. Again, certain species prefer this. She’s not a healthy eater—far more processed foods than vegetables. She wears expensive petroleum-based cosmetics or skin treatments regularly. And she’s been treated with government-sponsored anti-radiation treatments regularly for at least ten years.”

  “Radiation treatments, in a female,” I said. “You’re sure.”

  “Better than eighty percent on gender, near certainty on the anti-radiation treatments. Those leave an extremely notable shift in bacterial population. I hope this is helpful to your case,” he said.

  “If that’s accurate, that’s everything to the case,” I said. I had one female involved in this thing, and she lived right smack in the middle of the radiation plume, where her radiation treatments would be more than covered by the government. She also smoked, I thought, and didn’t seem to be a super healthy eater, not that it mattered too much. The ex-girlfriend’s story had seemed to check out to me, but I had been wrong before.

  “This is all kind of new to me,” I said. “Why do you think this set of bacteria is different from the ones the lawyer would carry around? And why do you think it’s the blackmailer I’m looking for?” I asked. “For that matter, how do you get bacteria on the paper but not your DNA, if the bacteria are sitting on the skin like you said?”

  Armand smiled at the questions like a teacher smiling at a precocious student. “All excellent thinking, as usual, Isabella. I tested the lawyer’s bacteria population when I tested the woman’s, and, of course, they are distinct. The best and most consistent population of bacteria for what we will call the female sample is on the soya-paper cut out letters themselves, and within their glue, so I have every reason to believe they were left by the blackmailer, the person who created the specimens. It is very likely that the person used a pair of scis
sors or similar instrument that she had used many, many times before while cutting up the letters from the newspaper, and left the scissors on top of the pile of cut-outs more than once. It is possible that a skin cell or two is also within that population, but if so, it’s at too small a concentration for me to detect DNA. A hair or other material containing that bacteria makeup may also have fallen into the glue and been subsequently removed.”

  “Okay….” I said. “I assume I need to bring you a sample to compare to, just to be sure.”

  “It would be helpful, especially if you intend the comparison to hold up in court.” “Thanks, Armand. I really appreciate you putting a rush on this.”

  He handed me the file folder then. “I am glad to help, especially when you bring me such good tickets.”

  I smiled. “Always happy to help a good cause, Armand. I hope your daughter loves the Derby.”

  “I have no doubt that she will. Her mother and I are very grateful.”

  Both Abby Joiner and my client Collins had mentioned some kind of major driving accident or event—one bad enough to justify a police record. If Abby was really the blackmailer, as the bacteria suggested, that seemed like a good thread to pull now. I’d promised Collins a solution, one I could live with.

  All of which explained why I was standing at the bottom of the large stone steps on the front of the DeKalb Police Department Headquarters building in Decatur, staring up at a place that didn’t want me anymore.

  I took a breath and started climbing.

  I’d waited a few minutes until shift change, just to let it all get more chaotic, but there were still coworkers who noticed me as I walked through the front doors and through the main secretaries’ and patrol officers’ staging areas. Nobody dared talk to me, which was just fine. I kept up my measured pace, the walk that said I had somewhere to be and shouldn’t be bothered in the meantime, and they left me alone.

  Once I thought I saw Michael Hwang, my former mentee—and that made me duck into the ladies’ room until he was safely gone. Michael was a good guy, a good detective in the making, and I’d spent countless hours helping develop his already-good instincts into great detective work. I couldn’t face him now, not with what the department had said I’d done. Michael was as much an idealist as any cop could be, an idealism I’d encouraged, and he’d rightly have nothing to do with me now. I looked into the mirror in the ladies’ room and couldn’t meet my own eyes. That made me angry. No, pissed. And pissed was a better place to be, at least right now. Pissed at least didn’t make me feel so helpless.

  I emerged from the ladies room and paused and found the small hallway that connected to the Records department in the neighboring building. Monterey Jones was still behind the counter, I saw. Behind him, behind the chain-link cage, currently open, were a thousand sets of files and more evidence boxes than any human being could possibly count. Monterey and his fellows kept track of them all, letting cops in and out, keeping the chains of evidence going well enough to hold up in court.

  I walked up to the counter and pulled over the top clipboard with its attached pen. “Hi, Monterey,” I said.

  “Isabella,” he said with a slightly confused smile. “I thought you were still out on disciplinary action.”

  I smiled. Apparently, the rumor mill was still unspecific, and I was totally going to get away with this. That is, assuming Adam wasn’t close by and paying attention—he’d know I wasn’t supposed to be here even if no one else did. “I just got back today, actually. Learned my lesson and glad to be working again. Got a case that may tie into a traffic stop. Can you pull a couple of traffic records for me?”

  “Not a problem. I’ll just need your department ID number.”

  Which he would almost certainly compare against the current De-Authorized List to make sure I was current in the system, well before I got my records. Damn it. I forced myself to smile, and on impulse, gave him Tyler’s ID number, which I’d memorized at dinner from his files, mostly out of habit. Then I gave Monterey James Collins’ name, a random name too, just in case, and Abby Joiner.

  Monterey nodded and went to the back.

  After what had to be fifteen minutes—far too long, I thought, starting to get nervous—Monterey reappeared with three file folders and a strange expression.

  “Thanks much,” I said and signed something unreadable, taking the files from his hands before he could think better of it. Then I went out the back door of the Records building, through the very cold courtyard, my breath fogging in the air, and back to the department’s main area. I’d planned to read the notes outside, but I didn’t have a coat, and thirty-eight degrees was not anything my body was prepared to tolerate without a hell of a lot more protection than a basic sweater, a button-down, and a pair of pants.

  Instead, I took a page from Adam’s book and found myself in the coffee closet, where at least it was warm and smelled decent. His flashlight was still in the corner under the tiny coffee table, and the batteries were on their way out, but it was still bright enough to read by. Judging from the sludge at the bottom of the coffee pot and the time of day, I’d probably have the place to myself for at least a little while.

  Why was I delaying reading the files? Being back at the department was getting to me, and I needed to pull myself back together. I briefly considered taking the files to my car to read—it would be easier—but I wasn’t likely to be caught here, and anyway, the penalties for improper removal of files were way worse if you took them off-site.

  I pushed the dummy file for the random name I’d given over to the side and picked up Collins’. He had a whole group of accidents attributed to his insurance and his car, but few where he’d been driving. Whoever had gotten his car into trouble had totaled it, which might explain why he’d reported Abby Joiner if she’d been the one driving. Collins had a single DUI from twenty years ago, as well, but had voluntarily submitted drug testing paperwork for eighteen months to prove he’d gone clean—copy to the police, copy to the insurance, well documented. Good for him. Thirty-five parking tickets, most of which were in restricted zones, were less good. Arrogance on a colossal scale there—like the rules didn’t apply to him. But I’d met the man in person and couldn’t say I was surprised.

  Then, Abby Joiner, the real person I was here for. Far more traffic violations than you’d expect from one person, going back years. She apparently had quite a history of road rage; hard to believe that someone so slight could cause so much damage, perhaps, but I’d been a cop a long time. People constantly surprised you, often for the worse. Her blackmail had certainly surprised me.

  For Abby Joiner to have caused tens of thousands of dollars in property damage, only some of which she and her insurance had paid for, well, it didn’t make me like her. And it didn’t quite make sense with the blackmailing, which was typically more white-collar crime done from a distance. But she had made a point about standing up for herself, and implied a zero-sum worldview. Maybe she just figured that anything she could take, she deserved, especially against a guy who’d wronged her in the past.

  Wait. I was on the last page of the file, and there was a handwritten note from a detective I hadn’t worked with, a detective from the same precinct as Tyler. The man must have come all the way to headquarters to leave the note in the file.

  Abby Joiner strongly circumstantially linked to a hit and run near Cooper Park. Elderly man hit and killed on impact September 7th while walking on sidewalk one mile from senior center. Insufficient evidence to prosecute at present—warrant for car a no-go due to local judge. Any information or leads, please contact me, day or night.

  Then the note listed the detective’s name, ID number and precinct, a date from two years ago, and a telephone number.

  I sat back in the small chair in the coffee closet and put down the flashlight. Wow. Anyone who would come down to headquarters to leave the note in the file personally, not by copy, was somebody who was certain Abby was linked to the crime. He’d probably called around to th
e other precincts in the area as well to leave the information, but he’d wanted to be sure—sure—that the main records had this note. Wanted to make sure it would be copied to the others in the next review. I liked the detective already, and given his certainty, I had no doubt that Abby Joiner had been involved in this crime somehow, even if he couldn’t yet prove it.

  I heard people moving around in the hallway then, and someone saying my name.

  Well, crap. I copied down the note and the detective’s information so that his original note would stay intact and tucked my copy into my bra, usually more comfortable spot to store that sort of thing than the pockets in this style of slacks, which pulled at my hips.

  I settled things back in order, putting Adam’s flashlight back in the spot beneath the table. I took another look at the sad coffee sludge on the bottom of the pot—it would be shift change soon, and second shift deserved better than that. So I pulled out the carafe, opened the door, and took the pot down to the ladies’ room to rinse and fill. If I kept my head down and the coffee pot in hand, maybe they’d overlook me. Wouldn’t be the first time.

  I was halfway back with the carafe from the ladies’ room when I heard someone clear his throat behind me.

  “Cherabino? Ms. Cherabino?”

  My heart sank and I turned, slowly, keeping my hands where they could easily be seen. Well, I guess it had been inevitable. “Yes?”

  A guy in the uniform of a beat cop but with the spit and polish of someone used to being obeyed frowned at me. The emblem on his collar said Internal Affairs if you knew how to look. Great. Real trouble. His hand was uncomfortably close to his gun, tense but attempting not to be, and his face was trying to be friendly; I’d be much better off letting the friendly happen here.