Jes Battis - 04 Infernal Affairs by Jes Battis

Author:Jes Battis [Battis, Jes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

I arrived at the lab hungover, but focused. Derrick had agreed to meet me for coffee in the break room. I stifled a yawn as I was swiping my card to get in the building. That would definitely end up being the security snapshot of the day: me with my eyes closed, looking like I’m eating my own fist.

Cindée was examining a tray filled with fragments. They resembled grayish black shards of porcelain. They’d been charred, and bits of soil matrix still clung to them in places. They reminded me of a broken mug, or at least its aftermath. It’s a reality in forensics that we often have to work with small, broken, dirty things.

“There’s glass mixed in there,” Cindée said, “as well as what could be pottery shards. But they also have a faint porosity.”

“Like bone?”

“Possibly. We don’t know yet if they’re mineral or artificial.”

“How far down were they?”

“Less than two meters.”

I looked at the fragments. “They aren’t metal. The GPR only bounced off them because they’re radioactive.”

“They have a fraction of the energy released by a dental X-ray. But because it’s gamma radiation, it registers a lot stronger.”

The lab itself had materia-fed screens, which reconstituted nonexotic forms of radiation into low-band ultraviolet energy. The most I was going to get from these fragments was a mild suntan.

“What sort of trace are we looking for?”

“I doubt we’ll find a fingerprint. The pieces are too small. But we might find a few lazy amino acids still hanging around. We’ll bake the materia at a steady temperature. The charring may reveal something.”

I spaced out for a second. When I came back, Cindée was saying something about using a wet powder suspension on the fragments.

“Where’dja go, sweetheart?” she asked.

“I have no idea. I need a coffee.”

“Don’t taunt me.”

“Do you want one?”

“Nah. I just had my break, and I’m jittery as it is. Thanks, though.”

“Should I tell Selena something about the . . . wet powder suspension?”

Cindée grinned. “That’s not necessary. It’s kind of a Byzantine process, if you want to know the truth. Just tell her the fragments are being thoroughly analyzed. Oh—and Linus had a message for her. It’s on a Post-it he left.”

“Damn. I thought I was the only one using Post-its.”

“No, he pretty much invented it.” She pulled the Post-it off the keyboard and handed it to me. It read:

Boss, if you want me to run a Refractive Index test on any glass from the debris, we need to update our GRIM software. This will cost 1200.00.

“Really? I get to be the one who gives her this?”

“Just slip it under a file. She’ll notice it after you’ve left.”

“We’re awful employees.”

Cindée shrugged. “She has better things to worry about than a software update. And we don’t really need it tonight. But Linus will feel better if he knows that his request was delivered in due course.”

“You’re good, woman.”

“Yeah. Well, I’ve survived this long.” She rapped her knuckles against the counter. “Knock on Pyrex.”

I headed for the break room. As I walked down the hallway, I noticed that the door to Selena’s office was closed.

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