Behind the Yellow Tape by Jarrett Hallcox

Author:Jarrett Hallcox [Hallcox, Jarrett]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-07-09T23:37:49+00:00

The UCIT unit is composed of eight Texas Rangers dedicated full time to investigating cold cases, as well as serialized or unusual murders. The office is located in San Antonio in a nondescript strip mall, bookended by what just about everything in Texas is bookended by—a Whataburger fast-food restaurant on one side and a mom-and-pop Mexican joint on the other. This office contains the highest concentration of Texas Rangers anywhere in the state, except for the Department of Public Safety home office in Austin, where the bureaucratic “suits” reside. Other Rangers are spread throughout the state, most working alone covering nine county areas.

The offices at UCIT are very sparse and minimalistically decorated, save for a few pieces of cowboy paraphernalia. Ranger Martin’s office is no different. He has only one “I love myself” tribute displayed in his office: his U.S. Air Force commendation for outstanding military service, served mostly in Guam as a military police officer. (We did, however, notice one other piece of John Martin regalia, pushed back on his bookshelf between the DSM-IV psychology text and another book titled Practical Homicide Investigation Techniques: the Class Leader Award presented to him by the staff for serving as the Session VIII class president at the NFA.) Martin has a lot of books crammed on his shelves, all dealing in one way or another with the psychological aspects of crime scene investigation. Martin is the Texas Rangers’ one and only behavioral analyst, classically trained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and stationed at the UCIT unit to analyze criminal behaviors related to cold-case murder investigations.

Nearly all of the sixty-some-odd cold-case investigations that the unit is working on at any one time are truly the worst of the worst. Not necessarily worst in the way that the crime was committed, but in how the case was worked. We refer to these cases as the “cream of the crap.”

“It’s hard to work a cold case,” John Martin began, a little preoccupied. On the day we arrived in San Antonio, he’d been busy on the Internet, requesting a custom-crafted gun to replace the one that had been stolen from his house just a few weeks before. In typical Ranger fashion, Martin worked his own crime scene, pissed off beyond belief that something like this had happened. God, Texas, women, children, and guns are the things most valued by Rangers, and we’ll let you put them in the proper order. “I bet the son of a bitch who stole it is back across the Rio Grande Valley, laughing with his buddies as to what he did,” Martin said, through gritted teeth, as he continued researching his gun. “But I found prints where he looked into the house and entered them into AFIS; one day, I’ll get a hit.” Martin had discovered one of the most common prints left at a scene—the karate chop print, which appears where a perp, usually a burglar, cups his hands around his eyes to look into a window, casing a place he wants to break into.

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