Page 13 of You'll Be Sorry

Betty chortled. She was well aware of Ian Grady’s ongoing dislike of TV cop shows. If only I had their unlimited budgets, he’d growl, to test every piece of evidence with every forensic tool ever invented. Then have some computer magically spit out the name and address of the perpetrator. Yeah, that’s exactly how it works.

“I don’t know about DNA, but I know Ian was fixated on the bloody footprints.”

Mandy stilled. In his later years, her father had compiled an entire binder devoted to forensic podiatry. Which she knew from sorting through his study after his death. But how did…

“We talked about it many times during our meetings,” Betty continued, chewing thoughtfully.

“Your meetings?”

“Oh, yes. It was your mother’s idea, I believe. She’d grown tired of him shutting himself away in his study for days on end to stare at old crime scene photos. Since he was clearly stuck, why not fresh eyes and a new perspective. She convinced him to bring one of his binders to our monthly dinner club, and after that, it became a thing. Every few months, we had a murder-mystery night. Really quite fascinating. I had no idea what all went into police work before then.”

Mandy felt slightly dazed. “How did I not know this? Who, what? My father shared hisbinders?”

“It involved the usual crew. You know, your father, your mother, me, Paul, Howie, and Gretchen. Your father had amassed quite a bit of information, and wow, that wall in his office. The stuff of obsessive-compulsives everywhere.”

“Why did I never hear about this?”

“You were in New York, dear. With a nice young lady, according to your mom.”

Mandy absolutely, positively refused to blush.

Betty winked at her knowingly. “I’m not quite that old, you know. Love is a many splendored thing—”

“And we’re done with that subject,” Mandy intervened hastily. “But the footprints. What was he thinking?”

Because Mandy knew why there’d been floorboards missing from the now Collinses’ home—to extract the clearest impressions for further testing at the lab. Did the Collinses have any idea, or did they simply believe the holes had been additional damage inflicted by drunk kids partying some Friday night? It would be an interesting litmus test to run in the future, to see just how deep their knowledge of the original investigative efforts ran.

“As you’re aware,” Betty said now, “thirty years ago footprints were mostly collected in hopes of matching them against a suspect once they were apprehended. Now, however, footprints can be used to helpidentifythat perpetrator. Isn’t that wild? For weeks after Ian explained it, I went around studying every shoeprint I could find. I even stepped in mud one day and made tracks of my own to see how well the impressions gave me away. Quite a bit of fun, I must say.”

Mandy stared at her neighbor wide-eyed. Mandy had taken basic forensics courses as part of her mandated sixteen-week police academy training. But after going through her father’s extensive collection of articles on podiatry, she’d done a deep dive into the subject. It was rather wild, to borrow Betty’s phrase.

Originally, analyzing footprints and shoe impressions had been used to determine basic facts. The prints themselves might contain pertinent trace evidence, not to mention a clear print could be matched against a suspect.

But then forensic podiatry had gone next level. Foot and shoe impressions were currently being used as possible indicators of gender, weight, and age. Men’s feet were generally longer, while women’s heels were narrower. Females also had a larger arch, creating prints with more negative space. Add to that the composition of the print itself, rolled to one side, or weighted heel-toe versus toe-heel, and suddenly an investigator had insights into gait patterns and even possibly injuries. As Betty put it, in some cases the detectives no longer needed to find a suspect to match to the footprint, but could use the impression to go get the suspect.

“I thought in the Dixon case, the prints were of limited use,” Mandy stated slowly.

“Yes and no. The length of the bloody prints was too short to match Dave Dixon and too long to be the three younger kids. That leaves Janet and twelve-year-old Henry as the possible candidates. Unfortunately, there are too many similarities between the foot of a small woman and that of a growing adolescent to break that tie.”

“Which brought my father back to the blood evidence.” This much Mandy knew. “The sample tested O-positive. Unfortunately, a third of the population is O-positive, including Janet and Henry.”

“We wanted to do computer modeling,” Betty announced brightly. “So we could better understand the individual tracks. You’ve seen your father’s photos of the scene. It’s a confusing mess of bare feet racing back and forth on top of each other.”

Mandy nodded. The tracks were confusing. Her father had tried on many theories over the years. Last Mandy knew, however, the meaning of the crisscrossing tracks remained a mystery.

“Could the top prints be separated from the ones beneath it for a clearer view?” Betty was musing now. “Given everything computers can do now, it certainly sounds feasible—”

“TV forensics,” Mandy coughed out.

Betty smiled. “You are your father’s daughter.”

“Here’s the problem.” Mandy leaned forward. “All of this assumes the blood belongs to someone who lived in the house, say, Janet or Henry. Except what about someone who wasn’t a family member? Two out of six Dixons had the same size foot, but there are probably a hundred others in this town alone who’d also be a match. And the quality of prints—they are too smeared for a more detailed analysis.”

“Oh, that’s not the only problem, dear. We came up with loads of issues. Your mother was personally fixated on the source of the blood. Starting with, where did it come from? There was no blood pool or spatter.”

“Cut on the foot itself?”

“That continuously bled out?” Betty arched a brow. “Without a single other family member cross-contaminating the trail? Also, shouldn’t there be paw prints? There was blood on Dog’s fur. But none of his prints on the floor. It starts to feel stranger and stranger. Even…”