Dead Ringer by Susan Sleeman

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

Emory so desperately wanted to find a lead to help them locate her grandmother and Cait, so when Trent opened the conference room door, a smile on his face, a surge of hopefulness pulsed through her. Sam and Sierra passed him to enter the room, and Trent closed the door behind all of them.

Excited at the possibilities of a lead, Emory got to her feet. “Please tell me you found something Helen missed.”

Blake cleared his throat. “I’m hoping for the same thing, but not for Helen’s sake.”

Emory didn’t want any new discovery to mean trouble for Helen for not locating it in the first place, but if it did, Emory would go to bat for her.

Sierra set her kit on the table. “Actually, we did find a few additional items, but Helen was instrumental in helping us.”

Emory didn’t know if that was true or if Sierra was being diplomatic. She was always sensitive to other people and would do something like that. But either way it didn’t matter. They had new evidence, and Blake wouldn’t blame Helen for failing on the initial crime scene processing.

“What did you recover?” Emory sat and the others followed suit.

Sam tugged out a paper envelope. “A broken fingernail. I looked at pictures of Cait and she most always had hers polished. This one is jagged and unpolished so could be from our suspect.”

“We can run DNA comparison to the blood. And to DNA from the hair recovered from our only suspect.” Emory shared about Floyd Otter.

“He also fits the suspect’s description from our eyewitness.” Trent shared Otter’s description.

“We found a few blond hairs at the scene.” Sam said. “The strands are longer than a typical male so we thought they might have come from a female friend or even someone who lived in the apartment before Cait, but from your description of Otter, the hair could be his.”

“We should consider the fact that the suspect could’ve dyed his hair to throw us off track,” Sierra said. “I’ll want to look at all the samples to rule that out.”

“Will you use SERS for that?” Sam asked.

Sierra nodded.

“Explain for the lay people please,” Blake said.

“Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy. It’s a surface-sensitive technique that enhances Raman scattering by molecules absorbed on a surface.”

“Oh, right, yeah. That’s clearer.” Blake rolled his eyes.

Sierra chuckled. “Just know if the hair’s been dyed, I should be able to tell you the type of treatment and even the manufacturer of the product.”

“That could be valuable info.” Blake looked quite impressed now, and Emory was so proud of her partner’s knowledge and skills in using a cutting-edge technique.

“We also lifted a nice sample of saliva from a corner in the shower,” she continued, smiling.

“Seriously.” Emory shook her head. “Her abductor wore coveralls likely to contain evidence transfer. Why would he do something stupid like spit in the shower?”

“Because there’s no such thing as a perfect crime,” Blake said. “In the heat of the moment, criminals react and do things they can’t plan for.”

Sierra nodded. “And thankfully they do, or they might never get caught.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.