Rick Mofina - Perfect Grave

“The tickets.”

“Center court, fifteenth row.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” DePew winked.

He was a senior forensic scientist and a certified court expert. After setting aside his own file, he set to work on Cataldo’s case. The nun’s murder had profile and everyone in the building knew the pressure that came with a high-profile case. DePew photographed the cast of the partial shoe impression, then he loaded clean, clear images into his computer.

Next, he analyzed the information from the alley, comparing it with the cast-the soil, the depth, weather condition, the pressure and stress points of the partial impression.

Now, where things got tricky was with the partial impressions Kay’s people took from the hardwood floor of the apartment. They’d found impressions in the blood that had pooled around her, but they were smeared, the quality virtually unusable. The curious thing was they were not indicative of a set of exit tracks. The killer likely removed his shoes until he was out of the building.

Very smart.

But he never thought about his entrance because beyond the blood, they got lucky. Invisible to the naked eye in the microscopic layer of dust on the hardwood floor, he left something. Something they could work with. Using an electrostatic lifter they got a couple of partials on the clear floor a few feet from Sister Anne’s body.

A right shoe impression.

DePew analyzed the sharpest one, along with the field notes, photographed it, loaded it into his computer. And here we are: DePew’s computer screen split and he set to work configuring the two photographs to the identical scale and attitude.

Good, he thought.

Then he transposed one image over the other and began looking for points of comparison the same way he would examine fingerprints because DePew knew that shoe impressions can be as unique as fingerprints. The shape of the outsole, its size, its design, the material used to manufacture it, the wear patterns, the weight and gait of the wearer, all serve to create a unique impression.

And here, DePew thought as his computer beeped, we have a very consistent pattern of these right partials.

One taken from the murder scene. One taken from the alley where the murder weapon was found. He enlarged the transposed image dramatically, until it felt like the impressions had swallowed him.

The partials lacked any manufacturer’s logo, lettering, or numbering, but that was no problem. DePew focused on the wear and cut characteristics. The edges had channeling, with an array of lugs and polygons; there was a waffle pattern, but here was the clincher: this mark on the fifth ridge, indicating a stone, or foreign object was wedged into it with this nice little “x” cut.

It is in both exhibits. DePew was getting ahead of himself but he would duly swear on the Holy Bible that this is the shoe of Sister Anne’s killer.

Beautiful.

Now, why was that sense of familiarity gnawing at him even more?

By his calculations, DePew figured the shoe was a men’s size 11, a North American sports shoe. DePew moved quickly to check the reference books of brands and manufacturers’ designs and outsole producers, importers, and exporters who might know this impression.

But he stopped cold.

He had it.

DePew went to his file cabinet, flipped through case files until he found one in particular, pulled out a computer disk. Inserted it. He clicked through attachments and notes from the earlier case until he found images of shoe impressions.

He captured the outsole, configured it, then transposed it with the shoe impression from the nun’s homicide. DePew assessed the characteristics. There was no way this was the same shoe. The earlier case was a male size 9, taken from a burglary at a gas station near Tacoma. They’d cleared that one and the offender was back in prison.

DePew was not concerned. In fact, he almost smiled.

The style and brand were definitely similar. In fact, DePew had a photograph of the type of shoe.

It was a sports shoe, a men’s tennis shoe.

Standard state clothing that was issued only by the Washington Department of Corrections.

Whoever killed Sister Anne had done time.

H ome from school, Brady came through the door the usual way.

A pack-drop to the hall floor and a beeline for the fridge.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Have a good day?”

“Uhh-huh. No math homework. I thought we had chocolate milk.”

“You finished it last night. How’re you feeling?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Did you take your medicine at lunch?”

“Yup, did the doctor tell you what I got, or anything?”

Brady turned with the orange juice box he’d started at breakfast. “Today, I told Justin and Ryan about the MRI, how it was like going into a deep-sleep chamber in space. They thought it was cool.”

Rhonda watched his attention go to the papers, then to the booklet as he read the title: Will I Go to Heaven? She watched him blink a few times, open it, and begin reading. Awareness rolled over him and Rhonda felt the light in their lives darken.

Brady didn’t move.

She watched his chest rise and fall as he continued reading, understanding.

His eyes rose from the booklet to hers.

“Mom?”

“I know. We need to talk, sweetheart.”

He set the booklet and the unfinished juice box on the counter.

“Let’s go to your room.”

Brady’s room was all hard-core boy: walls papered with posters of Superman, King Kong, Spider-Man, and the Mariners; shelves lined with adventure books, model Blackhawk choppers and Humvees. In one corner, his skateboard rose like a rocket from his clothes heap. On his small desk, the secondhand computer Rhonda had picked up at a church donation sale. It was the best she could do. The N key stuck but Brady never complained.

Taking it all in, Rhonda succumbed to the reality that she might never see Brady’s life go beyond his world right here and now. That she might never see him with his first girlfriend, his first car, never see him graduate from high school, go to college, start a career, get married, never hold her first grandchild.

“Don’t cry, Mom.”

Rhonda sat him on his bed next to her.

“Oh sweetheart. I’m sorry.”

“I’m really sick with something and I could die, right?”

She searched his eyes.

“Brady.”

“Mom, am I right?”

She nodded.

“How did you know?”

“By the way you hugged me at the doctor’s office and stuff. I just knew it was serious.”

She looked at him.

“And before, at the hospital, by the way everyone was acting and being so nice to me, the nurses, the doctors, like being all extra nice and everything.”

Her eyes were shiny as she nodded.

“So is it cancer or leprosy or something?”

“You have a mass of cells, a tumor in your head and you’re going to need an operation to remove it.”

“Will it hurt?”

“No,” she shook her head, “but you have to have it.”

“And if I don’t have it, I could die, right?”

Rhonda’s chin crumpled, her tears flowed.

“Yes.”

“And if I have the operation, I won’t die, right?”

“Yes, the chances are tons better that you’ll be fine with the operation.”

“So when do I have it?”

“In a couple of months.”

Brady thought for a long moment.

“How’d I get this tumor? Is it hered-hair-did, you know, was I born with it?”

“They’re not sure.”

“Could it be from the time Dad hit me for dropping the drill on his foot?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the doctor kept asking me if I ever played sports, or got hit hard in the head. I never told him about Dad. I didn’t think it was right.”