“I would if I could, Virgil. But the state lab’s pipes burst five years ago. They lost eight whole years’ worth of evidence when the FTA cards were destroyed. It’s like 1999 through 2007 never happened.” The smile on my face stiffens. “Thanks anyway,” I tell him, and I slip out of the PD before anyone can see me.
I’m still trying to figure out how I’m going to break this news to Jenna when I pull up to my office building and see Serenity’s VW Bug parked out front. As soon as I get out of my truck, Jenna is in my face, peppering me with questions. “What did you find out? Is there a way to figure out who was buried? What about the fact that it’s been ten years, is that going to be a problem?”
I glance at her. “Did you bring me coffee?”
“What?” she says. “No.”
“Then get me some and come back. It’s too early for the third degree.”
I climb the stairs to my office, aware that Jenna and Serenity are trailing behind. I unlock the door, stepping over the hills of evidence to get to my desk chair, where I collapse. “It’s going to be more challenging than I thought to find a DNA sample from whoever we identified as Nevvie Ruehl ten years ago.”
Serenity looks around the office, which is marginally more disarrayed than a bomb site. “It’s a wonder you can find anything at all in here, sugar.”
“I wasn’t looking here,” I argue, wondering why I am even bothering to explain the flowchart of police evidence preservation to someone who probably believes in magic, and then my eye falls on the small envelope tossed on top of the other detritus on my desk.
Inside is the fingernail I’d found in the seam of the victim’s uniform shirt.
The same uniform shirt that had freaked Jenna out, because it was stiff with blood.
Tallulah takes one look at Serenity and throws her arms around me. “Victor, this is so sweet of you. We never get to hear how the stuff we do in the lab plays out in the real world.” She beams at Jenna. “You must be so happy to have your mom back.”
“Oh, I’m not—” Serenity says, at the same time Jenna goes, “Um, not quite.”
“Actually,” I explain, “we haven’t found Jenna’s mother yet. Serenity’s helping me out with the case. She’s a … psychic.”
Tallulah makes a beeline for Serenity. “I had this aunt? She told me her whole life she was going to leave me her diamond earrings. But she dropped dead without a will, and wouldn’t you know it, those earrings never turned up. I’d love to know which one of my sleazy cousins stole them.”
“I’ll let you know if I hear anything,” Serenity murmurs.
I lift up the paper bag I have brought to the lab. “I need another favor, Lulu.”
She raises a brow. “By my count you haven’t paid me back for the last one.”
I flash my dimples. “I promise. As soon as this case is solved.”
“Is that a bribe to push your test to the front of the line?”
“Depends,” I flirt. “Do you like bribes?”
“You know what I like …,” Tallulah breathes.
It takes me a moment to untangle myself from her and shake the contents of the paper bag onto a sterile table. “What I’d like is for you to take a look at this.” The shirt is dirty, shredded, nearly black.
Tallulah takes a swab from a cabinet, moistens it, and rubs it over the shirt. The cotton tip comes away pinkish brown.
“It’s ten years old,” I tell her. “I don’t know how badly it’s been compromised. But I’m hoping like hell you can tell me if it looks at all like the mtDNA you took from Jenna.” From my pocket, I pull the envelope with the fingernail inside. “And this one, too. If my hunch is right, one is going to be a match, and one isn’t.”
Jenna stands on the other side of the metal table. The fingers of one hand just graze the edge of the shirt fabric. The fingers of the other hand are pressed into her own carotid artery, feeling the pulse. “I’m going to throw up,” she mutters, and she bolts from the room.
“I’ll go,” Serenity says.
“No,” I tell her. “Let me.”
I find Jenna at the brick wall behind the building where we laughed ourselves silly once. Except now she’s dry-heaving, her hair in her face and her cheeks flushed. I put my hand on the small of her back.
She wipes her mouth on her sleeve. “Did you ever get the flu when you were my age?”
“I guess. Yeah.”
“Me, too. I stayed home from school. But my grandma, she had to go to work. So there was no one to pull my hair out of my face or to hand me a washcloth or get me ginger ale or anything.” She looks at me. “It would have been nice, you know? But instead I get a mom who’s probably dead and a father who killed her.”