Absolute Power by David Baldacci

Author:David Baldacci [Baldacci, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Fiction, Espionage, Murder, Suspense, Political corruption, Secret service, Presidents, Legal
ISBN: 9780330419642
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2003-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter SIXTEEN

LUR-A SIMON HAD JUST ABOUT GIVEN UP HOPE OF FINDING U.

The exterior and interior of the van had been minutely dusted and then fumed for prints. A special laser from the state police headquarters in Richmond had even been brought up, but every time they found a match, it was someone else's prints. Someone they could account for. She knew Pettis's prints by heart now. He was unfortunate enough to have all arches, one of the rarest of fingerprint compositions, as well as a tiny scar on his thumb that had in fact led to his arrest years earlier for grand-theft auto. Perps with scars across their fingertips were an ident tech's best friend.

Budizinski's prints had shown up once because he'd stuck his finger in a solvent and then pressed it against a piece of plywood kept in the back of the van, a print as perfect as if she had fingerprinted him herself.

All told, she had found fifty-three prints, but none were of any use to her. She sat in the middle of the van and glumly looked around its interior. She had gone over every spot where a print could reasonably be expected to exist. She had hit every nook and cranny of the vehicle with the hand-held laser and was running out of ideas where else to took.

For the twentieth time she went through the motions of men loading the truck, driving it--the rearview rniffor was an ideal spot for prints-moving the equipment, lifting the bottles of cleaners, dragging the hoses, opening and closing the doors. The difficulty of her task was increased by the fact that prints tended to disappear over time, depending on the surface containing them and the surrounding climate.

Wet and warm were the best preservatives, dry and cool, the worst.

She opened the glove compartment and went through the contents again.

Every item had already been inventoried and dusted. She idly flipped through the van's maintenance log.

Purplish stains on the paper reminded her that the lab's stock of ninhydrin was low. The pages were well-worn although the van had had very few breakdowns the three years it had been in commission.

Apparently the company believed in a rigorous maintenance program. Each entry was carefully noted, initialed and dated. The company had its own inhouse maintenance crew.

As she scanned the pages, one entry caught her eye. All the other entries had been initiated by either a G. Henry or an H. Thomas, both mechanics employed by Metro. This entry had J. P. initialed beside it.

Jerome Pettis. The entry indicated that the van had run low on oil and a couple of quarts had been added. All that was terribly unexciting except that the date was the day the Sullivan place had been cleaned.

Simon's breathing accelerated slightly as she crossed her fingers and got out of the van. She popped the hood and began looking at the engine.

She shone her light around and within a minute she found it. An oily thumbprint that preened back at her from the side of the windshield washer fluid reservoir.

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