Page 70 of Shadow of Doubt
Brooklyn gasped and wrapped her arms around her body as she pushed away. “This is awful. Just awful,”
Dev and Reid each took a look.
“It could be our victim’s missing finger,” Reid said.
“We need to get Kelsey up here to look at it.” Blake got out his phone and dialed.
As Blake talked, Colin moved closer to her. “Are you all right?”
“It’s all a bit gruesome, right? I mean, I know Kane. Dated him even, and yet it looks like he cut off a person’s finger.” Her tone was intensifying with each word, headed toward panic. “And why? To shove it in a box and hide it under the house? Why do that?”
Colin wished he knew. It made no sense to him, and when a suspect began not to make sense, he became even more dangerous, as it often hinted at escalating in loss of control and added violence.
“That’s a question we’ll need to answer,” he said evenly to help calm her down.
“Typically we see this in a kidnapping,” Reid said, “where the kidnappers provide proof they have the victim. But they remove the finger and deliver it to the family, not put it in a lockbox.”
“There’s a burner phone in here too,” Dev said from where he stood over the box.
“I’ll take some photos, then print the phone and swab for DNA,” Sierra said. “Then I’ll need to get the phone to Nick to image it so we can see what it contains.”
From the counter on the back wall, Sierra grabbed a camera and evidence markers.
“Why the image?” Brooklyn asked, seeming as if she was coming back to rational thinking. “Why can’t we just take a look at it now?”
“Evidentiary procedures require the device to be in the same state as when discovered,” Colin said as Sierra started snapping pictures of the box.
“And just turning it on to look at the files can change the state,” Brooklyn said, catching on. “So you image it and work from the image instead of the phone.”
“Exactly,” Colin said.
Blake ended his call. “Kelsey’s on her way up. While we wait, I’ll call Grady to see if he has any information on the bullet recovered at the scene.” He stepped back again and tapped his phone’s screen.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but would you all mind if I started processing the phone?” Sierra set down her camera on the paperless end of the table. “That way Nick can get to imaging it sooner.”
“Please start,” Colin said. “Ignore us.”
She put on a clean pair of gloves, then laid fresh white paper on the table. Only then did she take out the phone and set it down. From under the table she retrieved a bin of supplies. Colin had seen prints lifted enough times to recognize the items as fingerprint powder and a brush, along with white swabs, sealed vials, and sterile water.
She adjusted a light over the phone. “Looks like some solid prints, which is where I’ll start taking DNA samples.”
She ripped open a swab package and released a few drops of sterile water onto the tip. She then rolled it over the phone, placed it in a vial, and continued to follow the same procedure a few times.
Blake came back to them. “Grady has an update, too, so we’ll go see him next.”
The door opened, and Kelsey clipped across the floor, her heels clicking and her pleated skirt swishing. The other staff paused to take notice, then returned to work, but Colin caught a few sidelong glances as if they were wondering what was going on to bring the anthropologist to their lab.
Kelsey took disposable gloves from her lab coat and slid her hands inside. “Where’s the finger?”
“In the box,” Sierra said. “No one has touched it.”
Colin stepped aside to give Kelsey room.
“It’s not fresh by any means, but has been in this box for some time.” Kelsey picked up the digit and set it on the white paper. “It’s from a left hand, that I have no doubt of.”
She measured the finger through the bag and studied it, turning it several times. “Longer than a typical female’s index finger. Still, could be a female with a long finger, but the nail and nailbed aren’t well cared for. Also it’s meaty and blunt. And the skin hasn’t aged, so I’d say young male.”
Kelsey looked up. “If I can get a clear print I could confirm that.”
