"Like a jigsaw puzzle," he said. "Highly unlikely. It's too small."
"Unlikely but not impossible," said Aiden.
"That's right," he said.
"Are you willing to give it a try?" she asked.
"I'm very- " he began, but Aiden interrupted.
"Two men were shot and crucified in the last three days. If you can match these pieces…"
"I can try," he said with a sigh.
"You'll be paid as an expert consultant."
"Of course," he said. "My fee will depend on how long it takes and how much trouble I run into."
"Bill us," she said flatly.
Danny wanted to stay away from the lab but he kept getting ideas, "what if?" ideas. There was a twelve-year-old boy missing. His family had been murdered. An image of the slaughter scene flashed in his mind. He willed it to go away. Mercifully, it did.
"You all right?" Chad Willingham asked, turning from the pile of clothes spread out on the table in front of him.
He had run the boy's clothing that had been found in the woods through more tests. They had just come out of the gas chromatograph.
"Fine," said Danny.
"Suit yourself," said the lab tech in the white coat. "I believe in minding my own business." He paused and added, "And everyone else's."
"Lights," he said, putting on a pair of wraparound amber plastic glasses. He handed another pair to Danny.
Danny moved to the wall and turned off the lights. Chad moved back to the table with Danny behind him and switched on a ceiling-mounted red light.
"I've come to two conclusions," said Chad seriously. "And I'm about to make a third."
"What are they?" asked Danny.
Chad grinned and carefully moved around the clothing, examining the items, smelling them. At one point he put a finger in his mouth to moisten it, touched the pullover shirt and the underwear and smelled his finger.
"Three conclusions," Danny reminded him.
"Yes," said Chad, raising his eyebrows and continuing a careful examination of the underwear, T-shirt, jeans, socks and shoes.
"First," said Chad. "The Who were definitely the best. Beatles, Grateful Dead, Stones, great, but The Who, immortal. I have an uncle who almost went deaf at one of their concerts."
"Second conclusion?" asked Danny, trying not to show signs of impatience.
"You've got a tremor in your right hand," Chad said, leaning over the spread-out clothing. "Come take a look."
Danny moved to the table.
"What was I…," said Chad. "Tremor."
"You noticed," said Danny with a touch of irritation.
"Cop's syndrome number four," said Chad.
"It has a name and number?" said Danny.
"I gave it one," said Chad. "Job stress. I've noticed it more lately, started with 9/11. It goes away or it doesn't. You see Sheila Hellyer?"
"I saw her," Danny said. "What did you want me to look at here?"
Danny was standing at Chad's side in front of the table.
"Pants, underwear, socks, shirt," Chad said, pointing at each item. "Latent signs of grass, insect fecal matter, dirt, residue from a joint smoked at least four or five days before you found the evidence. But that's not what's interesting."
He pointed to the shirt on the table and said, "What do you see?"
"Bloodstains," said Danny.
"Anything else?"
"No," said Danny.
"You got it," said Chad. "I owe you a Thai dinner when I get my next upgrade. Make it the one after that. These clothes only show signs of dirt where they were dropped."
"So?" asked Danny, wanting to take off the glasses, get out of the room.
"So," said Chad. "There should have been something, not much, but something- dirt, leaves, grass, weeds- on the clothes other than where they lay on the ground."
"I still don't- " Danny began.
"The shirt shows traces from those woods on the front," said Chad. "The pants show traces only on the back. The underwear shows traces only on the front, and the shoes are the oddest of all. One has scene traces on the bottom. The other shoe shows it on the side."
Danny cursed himself silently and went to the computer, where he pulled up photos of where they had found Jacob Vorhees' bicycle and clothing. He should have thought of this before.
"What?" asked Chad over his shoulder.
Danny went slowly through all twenty-three photographs and then sat back. If Kyle Shelton had undressed the boy or forced him to take his clothes off, why were they all over the scene?
"They were thrown around to make it look random," said Danny. "Maybe Jacob Vorhees was never in the woods."
"Way I see it too," said Chad, "but wait, there's more. You know what that is?"
Chad was pointing at a small, black-plastic-covered box at the edge of the table.
"STU-100, scent transfer unit," said Danny.
"Right, almost forgot," said Chad, hitting his forehead with an open palm. "You're a crime scene investigator."
Inside the portable forensic vacuum was a slot for five-by-nine-inch sterile gauze pads. The airflow system provided a safe method for collecting human scents from small objects, clothing, bodies, windowsills. Human scent particles, gaseous or airborne, could be moved to the pad using the vacuum in much the same way as smell. Breathing creates a vacuum that draws odors into nasal passages, where the smell kicks in.
"Human scent," said Chad, "has historically been defined as a biological component of decomposing dead skin cells, the skin raft theory."
"I know," said Danny with exaggerated patience.
"Current research suggests human body odor is much more complex," said Chad. "Like Latin."
"Latin?"
"Well, it was complex for me," said Chad.
"The STU," Danny reminded him.
"Right," said Chad. "Scents collected from expended cartridge casings in drive-by shooting cases have been used to track down the shooter. Collected the scent of Jacob Vorhees from the shoes and the scent of Kyle Shelton from the samples of his clothing you brought from his apartment. No trace of the boy's scent on the clothes. But," said Chad, holding up a finger, "they had been touched. The only human scent on the shorts, shirt and jeans was Kyle Shelton's."
"Shelton wore the boy's clothes?" asked Danny.
"How could he…," Chad began. "You're kidding me."
"I'm kidding you," said Danny. "Shelton handled the boy's clothes."
"A conundrum that echoes through the history of life's vagaries," said Chad.
Danny nodded. Chad wanted to say more but saw that he did not have an attentive audience.
"I'll run your samples through the gas chromatograph," said Chad.
Danny nodded and headed for the door as Chad said, "You like Barenaked Ladies?"
"Who doesn't?" said Danny.
"Sexist," said Chad.
"I'll live with it," said Danny.
Chad noticed that Danny's hand was no longer trembling. Danny wouldn't notice for another ten minutes, after he had called Mac to tell him about the clean clothes and the scent of Shelton but not the boy on them.
"Fits," said Mac.
Danny wasn't sure how, not until Mac explained.
Stella entered her apartment. It was still relatively early in the day, but she knew she needed at least a few hours' sleep. It wasn't just her allergies. She had been working long days and knew that if she got too tired she might well miss something. It had happened to her before. Mac had on more than one occasion ordered her to get some rest. She had learned less from her trust in his judgment than from her experience when she didn't get at least a minimum of sleep.
She kicked off her shoes and left them by the door. Her plan was to drink some bottled water, eat a banana yogurt and a slice of toast, and get out of her clothes.
She hadn't finished locking her door when she sensed that something was different. It wasn't ESP. Stella knew that even a minimal human or animal scent would be registered by the brain. So too with the flow of air if furniture had been moved. Or a slight move of an object- furniture, a vase of flowers, one of the paintings on her walls. She considered taking her gun out of her holster. What was the line from that old Night Stalker episode? "If you don't look up, maybe it's not there." Stella turned into the room and looked up.