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She thought about possible solutions for a few moments and then got out and opened the back door of the Defender. She had a plastic carton there that contained her crime scene equipment—overalls, booties, rubber boots, gloves, hats, crime scene markers, extra notebooks, and a camera. She hadn’t needed most of it during her time in the Open-Unsolved Unit because the crime scenes in those cases were long gone. But she needed it now. She put the bag containing the Red Bull can on top of the carton, kicked the door of the Defender closed, and carried the whole thing to the building.
As she went through the automatic doors, Ballard exaggerated the weight of the carton and tried to hurry by the check-in desk,where a security guard sat. She recognized him, but he was fairly new and might not recognize her. She quickly read his nameplate—Eastwood—as she moved by, and it prompted her to remember his obvious nickname.
“Hey, Clint,” she said. “Ballard, Open-Unsolved, going to see Rico in Latents. Can you put me down?”
“Sure thing,” Eastwood said. “Badge number?”
“Seven-six-five-eight.”
“All you need is a nine.”
“What?”
“To make a straight.”
Ballard threw out a fake laugh. “Oh, yeah, right. Can you hit the door?”
“Sure can. You need help with that? Looks heavy.”
“No, I got it. Thanks.”
Eastwood buzzed the automatic door and it opened. Ballard was in. She walked down the hall to the latent-prints section and put the crime scene carton down next to the door. She went in with the evidence bag containing the can.
Federico Beltran was already in his cubicle looking at side-by-side fingerprints on a large computer screen. Ballard knew this was the last step in making a print match. The computer pulled matches from all databases the department subscribed to around the country, and it was the tech’s job to eyeball the matches for accuracy and make the call.
“Rico, my favorite print man,” Ballard said. “How are you this fine morning?”
Beltran looked up at her; she was leaning on the half wall to the right of his screen. “Ballard,” he said. “I’m busy this fine morning.”
“Well, I’m going to have to add to your plate,” Ballard said. She raised her hand from behind the wall so he could see the evidence bag containing the can. Beltran groaned like Ballard had known he would.
“Come on, now,” she said. “Cheer up. I’m only laying one item on you. It could be a lot worse.”
“Leave it on the desk and I’ll get to it,” Beltran said.
“Actually, I need this on a priority, Federico. I’m going to wait on this one.”
“You can’t. I’m in the middle of a case here.”
“And I can see you’re at the end of it, so finish that and run with mine. You’re our guy and the key to solving this case. You could be a hero, and we won’t forget to mention you in the press release.”
“Right. We never get the kudos. You people hog all the glory.”
“But not this time. I just need you to vape this can and see what you get. Two hours tops, and if there’s any kudos to hand out, your name’s first on the list.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before and I think it was from you.”
But Beltran turned away from his screen and took the bag from Ballard. She knew she had him.
“What’s the case number?” he asked. “I’ll have to see if a vaper is free.”
The vaper was the glass case where small objects were exposed to vaporized cyanoacrylate, which crystallized on the ridges of fingerprints, raising them and turning them white. They could then be collected by tape or photographed and compared to other prints in the databases.
But whether or not the vaper was free was not Ballard’s immediate problem. All work submitted to the latent-prints section for processing and comparison had to be filed under a case number. The problem was that Ballard had no case number because there was no official investigation into the theft of her badge, gun, and other property. Ballard had to be careful about which legitimate case number to give. If she gave Beltran a case that was solved someday, her request for a print run would become part of discovery during a prosecutionand could hand a defense attorney all that was needed to question the integrity of the case.
This was why Ballard was prepared with a murder case that would never be solved. She gave Beltran the number, 88-0394, and the name, Jeffrey Haskell. Beltran wrote the information down and realized the case was more than three decades old.
“Eighty-eight?” he said. “How can this be a priority?”
