Till drove back along Ventura, studying the mirrors to be sure there was nobody he had missed following him, and returned to Sherman Oaks. “Look around,” he said. “Anything that’s different is important.”
When they approached Linda Gordon’s house, Wendy said, “There’s a car in the driveway. And I see a car in front of the house that wasn’t there before. See? It looks like a cop car.”
“That’s Poliakoff. And across the street, that red Saab is Jay Chernoff’s. It looks as though everybody is already inside.” He drove around the block once, but saw no other signs of change. When he came around again, he parked, and they walked together to the front door. Till stayed close to shield Wendy with his body. Poliakoff opened the door for them, his eyes scanning the street. He closed the door as soon as they were inside, and went to the front window to check for any activity on the block.
Jack Till said, “If there was ever a time for introductions, I think it’s come. The lady with me is Wendy Harper.”
Poliakoff moved from the window, and shook Wendy’s hand. “I’m Sergeant Max Poliakoff. I’m pleased to meet you. Thanks for coming out for this.” Then he shook Till’s, much harder. “Hi, Jack.” He turned and pointed to a man in his early thirties with light hair. “This is Officer Tim Fallon, from Forensics.”
Fallon muttered something to Wendy about it being a pleasure as Jack saw Jay Chernoff standing in the entrance to the kitchen with Linda Gordon.
Till said, “This is Jay Chernoff, Eric’s lawyer, and the lady is our hostess, Assistant District Attorney Linda Gordon.”
Linda Gordon had been staring intently at Wendy since she came in the door. Now she nodded, but did not smile. “Good afternoon.”
“Good to see you, Jack.” Chernoff came forward to shake Wendy’s hand. “And Miss Harper. I’m honored to meet you.”
Linda Gordon’s eyes narrowed. She turned to Chernoff. “Shall we get on with this?”
Chernoff raised his voice. “Let’s get started, if we may. Miss Harper, what we need is to ask your cooperation so that we can establish positively and officially that you are who Jack says you are.”
“I’m willing,” she said. “What do I do?”
“Officer Fallon is here because he’s an expert in collecting and interpreting evidence. He’ll take over the next phase of this.”
Fallon stepped to the end of the living room, where he had a big briefcase and a metal toolbox. He opened the metal box and approached Wendy. “We’ll start by taking a couple of head shots, if you don’t mind, Miss Harper.”
“Okay.”
“You may or may not look exactly the same as you did six years ago, but the biometrics will be the same. Your eyes will be the same distance apart, have the same flecks in them, and so on.”
“I understand,” she said.
Fallon was uncomfortable working with so many people watching him, and he performed each task with exaggerated care. He asked Wendy to stand by a plain white wall, then took four digital photographs of her from the front and four from the side. He held a tape measure up beside her and muttered, “Same height,” apparently to himself. He used a counter in the kitchen to lay out his fingerprint equipment, then inked her fingers and pressed her prints onto a card. Then he had Wendy sit at the kitchen table while he drew three small vials of blood and scraped two cotton swabs on the inside of her mouth. When he had finished, he packed up all of his samples.
“Well?” Chernoff said. “When will we have the results so we can get an official concession from the DA’s office that what we can see with our own eyes is accurate?”
“It should be a faster identification than usual,” Fallon said. “Our own print people are backed up for months. But Miss Harper has been in the federal system for six years as a missing person, and the FBI Fingerprint Identification Records System can probably do an online match today. The DNA gets sent to two private labs, both of which have analyzed other samples of Miss Harper’s DNA during the earlier parts of this investigation. The National DNA Index System has it, too, and they may be faster. We’ll have a positive answer within a couple of weeks.”
“You took photographs,” said Chernoff. “When can you analyze those?”
“Right now, if you’d like.”
“Then please do it.”
Fallon took a laptop computer out of his briefcase and turned it on, then connected his digital camera to it and transferred the pictures he had taken.
Wendy stepped close to Linda Gordon and said, “I really am Wendy Harper.”
Linda Gordon only turned her head to look at her long enough to say, “We’ll see,” then turned away again. As Till watched the exchange, it occurred to him that the argument for Wendy’s identity might have seemed stronger to Linda Gordon if the two women had not looked so similar. They were both in their thirties, about the same shape, and blond.
Fallon’s screen was changing. “Okay. This photograph was taken at the DMV when she renewed her driver’s license the last time six years ago, and here’s the one four years before that, when she first moved to California.”
“For Christ’s sake, look at that!” Chernoff said triumphantly. He pointed at the screen, then at Wendy Harper.
Linda Gordon said nothing.
Fallon continued, as though he had not heard. “I’m putting the first picture I took today beside the most recent DMV photo. Now I’m superimposing the two. What we can see right away is that the general shapes are identical. We can see the measurement from chin to crown is the same, the eyes and nose are the same size and in the same positions. We’ll do much more scientific measurements and comparisons when we’re at the lab.”
“Come on,” Chernoff said. “You’d have to be blind not to see it’s the same person.” He turned to Linda Gordon. “Can’t you drop the charges on the strength of these pictures?”
Linda Gordon said, “Your client was granted bail the day after he was arrested. Waiting to be certain of the evidence imposes no hardship on him.”
“But it’s an obvious injustice. Eric Fuller is accused of killing a woman who is standing here in front of us. What could possibly be the point of prolonging this?”
“She looks like Wendy Harper. We all knew that from the minute she walked in the door. Do you imagine that if someone wanted to bring in an impostor, they would bring in someone who didn’t look like Wendy Harper?”
“I am Wendy Harper. Who would be crazy enough to impersonate me? People are trying as hard as they can to kill me.”
Linda Gordon turned to Wendy. “You think you can stroll in here, say you’re Wendy Harper, and the whole criminal-justice system will move instantly to do your bidding? Well, it’s not quite that easy. The system works on its own time, after all the evidence is in. When we hear what the FBI’s experts have to say about the fingerprints and the DNA, then we’ll know who you are.”
Till said, “This isn’t fair. Miss Harper came here voluntarily because you said her presence was the only proof you would accept to prove she hadn’t been murdered. There was an assurance that if she took that risk, the charges would be dropped.”
“Who assured her it would all happen in ten minutes?”
“The whole point of framing Eric Fuller was to get her to Los Angeles. Every minute that she’s here, the danger increases.” He turned to Fallon. “What more can we give you?”
“I think I’ve got everything I need,” he said.