Snapped (7 page)

“Doyle? You with me?”

“Sir?” She glanced up at Reynolds.

“I said you’re our liaison with the campus on this thing. You’re here because you’ve got all the contacts over there, and we’re hoping you’ll get some cooperation. I want you to shop this picture around, see if you can get a name. Talk to every security guard, every maintenance
worker, every resident adviser you can find. This guy was able to access the roof, which tells me he has some kind of inside connection.”

“We don’t think he’s an employee,” the campus security chief said defensively. “I combed through our last five years’ worth of personnel records myself. But it’s hard to tell for sure because of the shaved head. Maybe that’s a disguise. Or maybe he worked for us in the distant past.”

“Either way,” Reynolds said, “he gained access to that roof somehow, which means he knows his way around, which means someone should know him.” He looked at Allison. “Maybe you’ll get an ID off the picture before we get a hit with the prints or the guns. Use your contacts over there—anyone and everyone you can think of who might have seen this guy.”

Chief Noonan gathered up his files and tapped them against the conference table, signaling an end to the meeting.

“That’s it, people,” Noonan said. “We need an ID, and we need it fast. I’ve got angry parents ringing our phones off the hook. I’ve got lawyers threatening lawsuits against the town and the school. I’ve got news crews on every corner yapping about the Summer School Massacre.” He stood up and looked straight at Allison. “And I’ve got a press conference at four o’clock. Don’t make me go in there empty-handed.”

Jonah hiked up the steps to the Delphi Center and took a moment to look around. The brown, freeze-dried lawn he remembered from January had been replaced by a carpet of lush green, and the building’s marble columns
gleamed in the noon sun. If you forgot about the fact that the lab sat in the middle of a body farm, it wasn’t a bad place to work, really.

“You been back here since winter?” Jonah asked Ric as they walked in. Compared to the ninety-plus temperature outside, the lobby felt like a meat locker.

“Not officially. I’ve dropped by to see Mia a few times.”

Mia Voss was Ric’s girlfriend. She also happened to be one of the top DNA tracers at the lab. Strained budgets and local politics prevented SMPD from calling on her for all but the most important cases—their evidence usually went to the state crime lab in Austin, where it languished for months or years before being tested. The sad fact was, most police departments didn’t have the money to make use of all the fancy technology available now. Even when DNA was available from a bloody murder weapon, a rape kit, it typically gathered dust in some evidence room until the case was headed to trial, if it ever went.

But nothing about this case was typical, starting with the fact that every aspect of it was being picked apart on CNN.

Jonah approached the reception desk, where detectives usually encountered a dazzling smile that made the drive out here worth it. But Sophie wasn’t around today, and Jonah’s half-hour road trip was rewarded with a sour look.

“IDs?” a woman asked, holding out a hand.

The sound of hammering drifted from down the hall as they flashed their credentials and waited for her to enter them into the system. Jonah made a point to befriend gatekeepers—even grumpy ones—so he gave her a smile.

“A little remodeling?”

She rolled her eyes. “New evidence room. They’re doubling the storage space.”

“Sounds nice.”

“I’ve had a headache all morning.”

She handed over visitors’ badges, and they went their separate ways—Ric to the evidence room and then up to fingerprinting, while Jonah paid a visit to ballistics down in the basement.

As the elevator made its grumbling descent, he thought about Sophie. He’d been looking forward to seeing her here, but it was probably good she was off. She needed the rest, and he definitely needed to focus. He had a clear objective in front of him, and if there was one thing Sophie had a talent for, it was distracting him. He followed a long, windowless hallway to the firearms lab, where he found Delphi’s head ballistics expert shooting a handgun into a steel tank. Jonah tapped his knuckles on the glass window and Scott Black walked over to let him in.

“I was just about to call you.”

Jonah nodded at the nickel-plated pistol in his hand. “Nice piece.”

“A little flashy for me. Belongs to a gangbanger out of Houston.”

“You get those numbers yet?”

“Made some headway on that Remington. Come take a look.”

Scott led him to a long counter where the rifle was sitting atop a piece of butcher paper. The barrel looked wet.

“Is that oil?” Jonah asked.

“I’m using the magnaflux method. You know it?”

“No.”

“Basically, the idea is that when a gun is pressure-stamped with a serial number, the metal is indented with the number, but the material underneath the number also undergoes a change. So, you can file off the numbers, but it’s still possible to restore them.” Scott pointed to the very faint numbers on the left side of the barrel. “In this case, I applied a magnetic force to the gun, then sprayed it with an oil that has iron particles suspended in it. The particles collect in the places where the metal is disordered, which reveals the number. We got a pretty good read here. Our guy’s running the number through some databases right now.”

“What about the handgun?”

“That’s a little trickier.” Scott leaned against the counter. “The first method didn’t work. Looks like your shooter, or someone, really got after those serial numbers. Most people just file until the numbers aren’t visible, but in this case, someone shaved off a lot of metal.”

“Think it’s a hot gun?”

“Could be. I can probably still get the numbers for you, but I’m going to have to move to a method that’s what we call ‘destructive.’ Chemical etching. You guys done collecting prints and taking pictures of it?”

“We have what we need,” Jonah said.

“Then I recommend this procedure, but I’m going to need official approval.”

“You got it.”

Making this ID was top priority, and Jonah was
authorized to do damn near anything to get the shooter’s name. He signed off on the test and headed upstairs to see Mia.

As the Delphi Center’s crown jewel, the DNA section occupied a lofty place on the building’s top floor. The glass corridor leading to Mia’s office offered sweeping views of the Texas Hill Country. It was a nice place to work. Beat the hell out of Jonah’s cubicle. Still, he would never trade places with a lab rat, even a crime-fighting one. He got way too much satisfaction from slapping on the cuffs.

Mia stepped out of her office and spotted him. “Oh, hey.” She smiled. “I heard you guys were here.”

She was in her typical lab coat, which Jonah was pretty sure she wore to balance out her ponytail and freckles. But even the coat and the official-looking clipboard in her hand didn’t make her look a day over thirty.

“Ric’s downstairs,” he told her.

“He just called.” She checked her watch. “I’d go down and say hi, but I’m late for a staff meeting. Walk with me?”

They retraced his steps toward the conference room near the elevator.

“If you talked to Ric, then you know a blood sample just came in that’s about to get bumped to the front of your line,” Jonah said.

“The university shooter.” Mia shook her head. “I still can’t believe it. I’m just sick that you guys were up there with him.” She gave Jonah a grim look. “Thank you for taking him out.”

“He took himself out.”

“Well, you helped. Anyway, I’m surprised his prints didn’t come back.”

“Could be this is his first rodeo.”

“I’ll get to the sample as soon as possible. But if he’s never been arrested, odds are slim we’ll get a hit with the Offender Index.”

“I was thinking he could be in the Forensic Index,” Jonah said. “Maybe we can link him to an old crime scene, then I’ll call up the detective somewhere and see if they’ve got a suspect list. If someone’s local or has a connection to the college, it could lead to an ID.”

“Good thought.” Mia stopped in front of the conference room. “I’ll start on it right after this meeting.”

“Actually—”

“Aha.” She pulled the clipboard to her chest. “Now I see why I’m getting the personal visit. You want me to drop everything now.”

“This is important,” he said, without a scrap of regret about torpedoing her day.

But Mia looked unmoved. “They’re all important.”

Jonah turned and gazed out the window. He nodded beyond the rolling green hills, in the direction of Austin. “You heard of the Charles Whitman shooting back in ’66? One of the first mass murders in U.S. history—the original school shooting.”

She nodded. “He killed seventeen people.”

“Before he climbed to the top of that clock tower, he paid a visit to his mother and bashed her skull in. Then he went home and stabbed his wife through the heart while she slept in their bed.” Jonah paused to let his words sink in. “The sooner we get an ID on this guy, the sooner we get a handle on what we’re dealing with.”

Mia cast an anxious look at the conference room, where it sounded as though her meeting had already
started. “Point taken,” she said as the elevator dinged and some lab-coated people stepped off. “Here, I’ll ride down with you.”

Mia went to retrieve the blood sample, and Jonah returned to the reception desk. Ric wasn’t there yet, and Sophie’s fill-in was busy playing solitaire on her computer.

Jonah noticed the purple iPod at her elbow. He’d seen it last night. He wandered over to one of the lobby’s side doors and peered through the glass at the cluster of picnic tables beneath a leafy pecan tree. Ninety degrees in the shade today. Not much of a picnic spot, although somebody seemed to think so.

Jonah muttered a curse. He pushed open the door and went out to see Sophie.

Sophie focused on the picturesque landscape and thought once again that she really should take up yoga. Maybe if she learned to breathe better and twist herself into a pretzel, she’d have another tool in the arsenal she used to battle her tension headaches. She took another chomp of the Hershey bar she’d bought for lunch. She’d tried aspirin, classical music, and now chocolate, but nothing seemed to be able to get rid of the pounding that had been dogging her since eight
A.M
.

“Thought you were off today.”

She turned to see Jonah stepping into the shade of her pecan tree.

“Why would you think that?” Sophie adjusted her blouse and took inventory of her appearance. She was having a decent hair day, but her skin was dewy with sweat. And she didn’t kid herself about what a night of tossing and turning had done to her eyes.

“Little Miss Sunshine’s taken over your desk.” Jonah stepped closer. For an instant his gaze darted to her cleavage. “I figured you called in sick.”

Sophie stuffed the rest of the candy bar in her purse
and swung her legs over the picnic bench, taking care not to flash him. “That’s Diane. She covers my lunch shift.” She glanced at the door behind him. “You here alone?”

“Ric and I drove out to deliver evidence.”

Sophie’s stomach knotted at the reminder of the case. As if she’d managed to forget it for a single minute since she’d woken up this morning.

“Mind?” He nodded at the bench.

“No.”

He took a seat beside her and leaned his elbows back on the table. “Hot out here for a picnic.”

She cast another glance at the building. She should get back, but she was dreading it. She distracted herself by checking out the man next to her. Jonah was huge—six-four, probably 230. A solid 230, not the doughy kind. Today he wore his typical detective’s uniform of button-down shirt and dark slacks with his badge pinned to his hip, just beside his gun.

Sophie looked away. Every time she got around Jonah, she felt a warm wave of security. Maybe it was his size. Maybe it was the badge and gun, although she knew plenty of other cops, and none of them had this effect on her. She needed to tread carefully here. Security went hand in hand with dependence, and dependence on a man was not on her agenda.

Jonah nudged her elbow. “So, I meant to ask you. What were you doing on campus yesterday?”

She gazed out over the hills. “Oh, you know. Just passing through.”

She felt him watching her.

“I’ll find out,” he said. “You may as well tell me.”

He
would
find out. He was a thorough detective, liked to pin down the details.

She sighed. “I was enrolling in a class, all right? What’s the big deal?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

She looked at the hills again. “I’ve been taking some public relations courses.”

“Why is that a secret?”

“It’s not, I just … I don’t know. I haven’t really told anyone.”

“PR, huh? You looking to go corporate?”

She had a different goal in mind, but she didn’t feel like discussing it with him at the moment. She didn’t feel like discussing any of this.

“I thought you liked working here.”

“I do.”

He looked at her expectantly.