The Mourning Mail (final release candidate #7)

Chapter 15

It was a pleasant surprise to get a phone call from Marci early the next afternoon. After the usual pleasantries, she said, "It didn't take long to get answers to your questions. But Danny's taking me to lunch tomorrow. I thought you might want the information without waiting until our calendars synced up again for coffee or some Italian food."

"That's very kind of you—I'll give you a rain check," I said with a little laugh. "What did you find out?"

"First, as to Brian Pierce," Marci began. "We collect both prints and DNA at crime scenes if they are available. Prints are quickly and cheaply processable, can be matched immediately to online databases, and have been databased since before anyone alive was born. DNA hasn't been reliably collected into databases nearly as long. And, unlike a print, DNA is from one person to another, and therefore can be suspect. It also takes money and time to process – some of our rape kits have taken months, even years. In this case, we were lucky and have both. There were two sets of viable DNA and prints, palm and finger, taken from the body. We've also got fibers and hairs that we could likely match to environments or subjects once we have candidates."

"So, a good beginning," I offered.

"Not sure yet," Marci replied. "Nothing matches anything currently in the AFIS or CODIS databases. That could mean one or more of several things. Chances are good that our killers haven't served in the military since 1992. They probably don't have professional licenses. The perps likely hadn't spent time in prison recently—at least not in a place or at a time when they collected DNA for the national databases. They haven't been suspects in a major crime. If they were, it was in a jurisdiction which doesn't submit investigative candidate samples for non-convicts."

"The detectives still have a lot of work left to do...," I thought out loud.

"Exactly," Marci agreed. "The good news is that once we have matching suspects for either of the two assailants, we should be able to prosecute them for Brian Pierce's murder."

"That tells me exactly what I needed to know," I said. I hoped my gratitude at learning the status of the investigation into Brian's death came across over the phone. If I could figure out the people involved with the crimes mentioned in the contents of Brian's letters, I should have at least a few candidates for suspects.

"But there's something a little odd that we haven't released to the public," Marci added, sounding hesitant. "I'm assuming this is all off the record, and you won't be sharing it—do I have your word on that, Debra Ann?"

"You have my word, Marci," I assured her. "I'm not taking notes, and anything you tell me will remain confidential between us."

"I could lose my badge if this gets out," Marci said, lowering her voice slightly, "but it could be important for identifying the doer. When they found the body, there were traces of ink on his fingertips and thumbs. The victim's got a record, small-time stuff. So at first, we thought maybe someone in the department had picked him up, then booked and released him in short order, before he had a chance to wash his hands. The offender would have killed him sometime soon after we let him go. But the forensic tech was on his toes—he tested the ink because he didn't think it looked right."

"What did he find?" I had to ask.

"That ink wasn't the same as what we use for fingerprinting," Marci answered. "It was the cheap bulk ink for notary public stamps and fountain pens."

"Somebody who wasn't a law enforcement professional took Brian's prints around the same time he died? Does that mean what I think it means—that whoever killed him didn't know him beforehand?" I asked.

"Nothing else suggests law enforcement was involved," Marci said. "If someone tried to process Brian's prints and didn't have direct access to the AFIS system, it would take time to get the results back. The ink should have washed or worn off if the subject was still alive. That it was still there when we found him suggests someone took the prints after his death. They likely killed him without knowing who he was and wanted to know his identity after the fact."