Cold Pursuit by Susan Sleeman

Author:Susan Sleeman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Edge of Your Seat Books, Inc.

15

Excitement burned in Alex over Sam’s discovery, but he quickly tamped it down. The phone had been buried in the snow for days, getting wet, and they might not be able to even turn it on.

On the other hand, it could be the break they’d been needing. “Where did you find it?”

Sam’s excited smile evaporated. “On the porch in the area I tarped. I figure John Doe was holding it and it flew out of his hand when he fell.”

“Are you positive it’s his?” Whitney asked, her expectant gaze one that tightened Alex’s gut, as he didn’t want her to be disappointed.

Sam frowned. “Not yet, but by now we’ve interviewed nearly everyone here, and no one mentioned losing their phone. I would think that would’ve come up. And I asked Tomio about it. No one reported a missing phone.”

“Then it’s likely his, so what are you waiting for?” Alex asked. “Let’s look at it.”

Sam shook her head and took the phone from the bag. “It’s been in snow for days and is powered down. I don’t know if that’s due to phone failure or the battery being drained. But before I can assess it, I need to dry it out.”

Whitney narrowed her eyes. “How wet could it get when the snow is frozen?”

Sam took it out of the bag. “It doesn’t take much moisture to fry electronics. I took precautions and dried it with a towel before bringing it inside and the snow melted on it. But I guarantee I didn’t get all the moisture. Powering it up can cause any water inside the device to activate a shortage and render it useless. Even warming it could cause a condensation issue.”

Whitney frowned. “Then what do you do?”

“I have no option but to let it gradually dry out. The heat in the room should do the trick. I can also open it to speed things up, but I need to talk to Nate about that before I do.”

“Why’s that?” Alex asked, as he couldn’t think of a single reason the sheriff needed to be involved in this.

“It’s evidence in a murder investigation. I’d be altering the state I found the device in, and it will affect the evidentiary value of the information it contains.”

“I’m going to pretend I understood that.” Whitney smiled.

“Think of it this way.” Sam said. “After we turn this phone on, the moment it starts running, it modifies files that might need to be changed to boot up. These changes are timestamped. So just by turning it on, it’s no longer in the same state as when I found it. If a jury is going to believe the information we might gather from it, they have to know that we didn’t change anything, or the data can’t be used as evidence.”

“That makes sense,” Whitney said. “But how do you do it because you have to turn it on, right?’

“Right. We make a copy of the drive, which I can still do once it’s dry without opening it. Someone

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