The Things you find in Rockpools: A psychological Mystery and Suspense Thriller by Gregg Dunnett

Author:Gregg Dunnett
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780995778221
Publisher: Pole Hill Press
Published: 2018-02-11T23:00:00+00:00

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The Records Division of Lornea Island Police Department employed two people: Sharon Davenport, a young technician in her thirties, and her boss, Diane Pittman, an older woman who had worked there for longer than anyone could remember, and who had a reputation for ruthless efficiency. Had the task of processing the paperwork generated by Billy Wheatley's activities fallen to Mrs. Pittman, she would almost certainly have acted upon it more quickly. And that might have made all the difference.

Unfortunately, Diane Pittman didn't work Saturdays. So it was Sharon Davenport who found the paper card imprinted with Billy Wheatley's fingerprints in her in-box, with Detective West's handwritten instructions to enter them into the national fingerprint database. The detective hadn't stated that this was urgent, so Sharon delayed acting upon it until she had written a long email to her sister, answering a series of questions about the plans for her upcoming wedding.

With that done, Sharon turned to the fingerprint card. Sharon had grasped most of what went on with Billy Wheatley, and she didn't fully approve. In her view, he seemed a nice kid who had simply tried to help. To be rewarded by being marched around the station and given a talking-to by those detectives from the mainland was a bit much. The boy had been close to tears, and that father looked mad enough to near kill him. And now he would have his fingerprints locked away in the database until he was sixteen.

But she did understand why they had to be entered - there was a possibility his prints might have contaminated a crime scene, especially now the poor girl had turned out to be dead after all. So there was no question of Sharon not fulfilling her duty. And so, at about half past nine, she picked up Billy's fingerprint card and walked over to the terminal with the scanner.

The computer used to input fingerprints in the Lornea Island police station sat at the back of the technicians' office. It wasn't the most up-to-date piece of equipment. It looked like a standard scanner and computer, in fact it was – the only difference was the software loaded onto it. The scanner converted the inked prints into digital files, and the computer could then upload them to the central database. They would be indexed and filed, and then could be searched for by any authorized internet-connected computer. Should a fingerprint containing the same pattern of loops and swirls be found linked to any crime or investigation anywhere in the United States, and in a great number of other countries, too, it would come up in a matter of minutes. All Sharon had to do was create a new entry, with Billy Wheatley's details as written on the card. But when she tried to do so, an error message came up that Sharon hadn't seen before. Eventually, she reached for a telephone.

"Langley. What is it?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Lieutenant Langley. It's Sharon here from the tech office. I've had something strange come up on the Billy Wheatley file.

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