"Me? I'm Todd Stanton I work for Mr. Dudley." He squinted. "Who are you?"
"Taylor Lockwood. A paralegal." She forced indignation into her voice.
"A paralegal." His tone said, Oh, well, that doesn't really count. "Does Mr. Dudley know you're here?"
"No."
"If you need anything, you can ask me for it. Mr. Dudley doesn't like" – he sought the least disparaging term – "anyone in his office when he's not here."
"Ah," Taylor said and then turned back to the book and slowly finished reading a long paragraph.
Stanton shifted then said with irritation, "Excuse me but -"
Taylor closed the book softly. "Hey," she said, offering a concerned glance. "Don't sweat it. You're excused." And walked past him back into the deserted corridor.
CHAPTER EIGHT
"Dactyloscopy," the man said. "Repeat after me, dactyloscopy."
Taylor did.
More or less.
"Good," the man said. "Now you know the first thing about fingerprinting. It's called dactyloscopy. The second is that it is a royal pain in the butt."
She sat in the office of John Silbert Hemming. His card explained that he was a vice president in the corporate security department at Manhattan Allied Security, Inc.
The man, in his mid-thirties, had been recommended by a friend from the music world who did word processing for Allied Security to support his addiction to the saxophone.
Taylor had spent most of the day at Hubbard, White, poring over records of the New Amsterdam Bank v Hanover & Stiver case, trying to find a reference to anyone who might have shown unusual interest in the promissory note or who'd requested files on the deal when there didn't seem to be a reason for them to do so.
But after nearly eight hours of mind-numbing legal babble Taylor found not a shred of evidence to suggest that Ralph Dudley or, Thom Sebastian – or anyone else – was the thief.
She'd decided to give up on the subtle approach and try a more traditional tack, a la Kojak or Rockford Files.
Hence, the tall shamus she was now sitting across from.
When Hemming had come to meet her in the reception area, she'd blinked and looked up. He was six feet ten. His height had led, he had explained on their way back to his office, to his becoming a backroom security man – the company technical and forensic expert.
"You've got to be unobtrusive in private detective work. A lot of what we do is surveillance, you know."
She said, "Tailing."
"Pardon?"
"Don't you say 'tailing'? You know, like you tail somebody?"
"Hmmm, no, we say 'surveillance'."
"Oh."
"If you stand out like me that's not so good. When we recruit we have a space on our evaluation form – 'Is subject unobtrusive?' We mean 'boring'."
His hair was tawny and unruly and Taylor 's impression of Hemming was that he was a huge little boy. He had eyes that seemed perpetually amused and that belied a face that was dramatically long (what else could it be, given that it sat atop a body like his?) Despite this quirky appearance there was something rather appealing about him.
Now, John Silbert Hemming was aiming a startingly long finger at her and saying, "I hope you mean that, about wanting to know everything. Because there's a lot, and here it comes. Let's start with What are fingerprints?"
"Uh -"
"I know. You paid the money, I've got the answers. But I like people to participate. I like interaction. Time's up. No idea. I'd suggest you avoid Jeopardy! Now. Fingerprints are the impressions left by the papillary ridges of the fingers and thumb, primarily in perspiration. Also called friction ridges. There are no sebaceous glands in the fingertips themselves but people sometimes leave fingerprints in human oils picked up elsewhere on the body. Yes, in answer to the first most-often-asked question, they are all different. Even more different than snowflakes, I can say safely, because for hundreds of years people have been collecting fingerprints from all over the world and comparing them, and nobody – none of my close friends, I'll tell you – have been doing that with snowflakes. Go ahead, ask the next-most-popular question."
"Uh, do animals have fingerprints?"
"Primates do, but who cares? We don't give apes government clearances or put them on the ten-most-wanted list. That's not the question. The question is twins."
"Twins?"
"And the answer is that twins, quadruplets, duodeceplets – they all have different fingerprints. Now, who first discovered fingerprints?"
"I have a feeling you're going to tell me?"
"Guess."
"Scotland Yard?" Taylor offered.
"Prehistoric tribes in France were aware of fingerprints and used them as cave decorations. In the sixteen and seventeen hundreds they were used as graphic designs and trademarks. The first attempt to study them seriously was in 1823 – Dr. J. E. Purkinje, an anatomy professor, came up with a crude classification system. Fingerprints became sexy in the late 1800s. Sir Francis Galton, who was a preeminent scholar in the field of…" He cocked his eyebrows at Taylor. "Daily Double?"
"Dactyloscopy?"
"Nice try but no. In the field of heredity. He established that all fingerprints are different and they never change throughout one's life. The British government appointed Edward Richard Henry to a commission to consider using fingerprints to identify criminals. By around the turn of the century, Henry had created the basic classification system they use in most countries. His system is called, coincidentally, the Henry system. New York was the first state to start fingerprinting all prisoners. Around 1902."
While she found this fascinating the urgency of the Hanover case kept prodding her. When he came up for air she asked, "If one were going to look for fingerprints, how would one do it?"
"One?" he asked coyly. "You?"
"No, just one."
"Well, it depends on the surface. You – excuse me, one – should wear cloth gloves – not latex. If the surface is light-colored one would use a carbon-based dark powder. On dark, one would use an aluminum-and-chalk mixture, it's light gray. One would dust on the powder with a very soft, long-bristle brush. Then one removes the excess -"
"How?"
"Flip a coin," the detective said.
"One blows it off."
"A lot of rookies think that. But you tend to spit and ruin the whole print. No, use a brush. Now, powders only work on smooth surfaces. If you've got to take a print from paper there are different techniques. If the print's oily maybe it'll show up in iodine vapor. The problem is that you have to expose it in an enclosed cabinet and take a picture of the print very quickly because the vapors evaporate right away. Sometimes latents come out with a nitrate solution or ninhydrin or superglue. But that's the big league, probably over your – one's – skill level.
"Now, once one has the print, he or" – a nod toward her – "she has to capture it. You lift it off the surface with special tape or else take a picture of it. Remember Fingerprints are evidence. They have to get into the courtroom and in front of an expert witness."
"Now," she said, "just speaking theoretically, could someone like me take fingerprints?"
"If you practiced, sure. But could you testify that prints A and B were the same? No way. Could you even tell if they were the same or different? Not easy, mama, not at all. They squoosh out, they move, they splot. They look different when they're the same, they look identical except for some little significant difference you miss. No, it isn't easy. Fingerprinting is an art."
"How 'bout a machine, or something? A computer?"
"The police use them, sure. The FBI. But not private citizens. Say, Ms. Lockwood?"
" Taylor," she prompted.
"Perhaps if you told me exactly what your problem is I could offer some specific solutions."
"It's somewhat sensitive."