Brad Meltzer - Dead Even

“Good. Next up, where are we on Sunken Cheeks?”

“Same place we always were,” Guff said. “Lost.”

“When are the photographs supposed to get here?” Sara asked.

“Right about now,” Conrad said, looking at his watch.

“Can you-”

“I’m on my way down.” Conrad got up from his seat and headed for the door. “As soon as they hit the mail room, they’re ours.” Seeing that Sara looked more antsy, he added, “It’s okay. It’s going to work out.”

“I don’t know,” Sara said. “What if they know about me and Jared?”

Conrad looked back at her. “Don’t worry,” he said. “They don’t.”

As he turned the corner and walked past the funeral home, Elliott noticed that a dark blue Town Car was waiting in front of his apartment. He headed straight for the car, and the window rolled down. When he leaned inside he saw Rafferty.

“Everything okay?” Rafferty asked.

Elliott didn’t like the tone of the question. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“No reason. Just wanted to know if you heard anything new about Sara.”

Now Elliott knew something was wrong. Rafferty either had something, or he was fishing for something. “Nothing out of the normal,” Elliott said. “Why? You seen anything?”

“Nothing out of the normal,” Rafferty said, his answer smothered in sarcasm. “But once the trial starts, I’m expecting a hurricane.”

“Should be exciting. You have to let me know how it goes.”

“Of course I will. I’d never cut you out.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Rafferty said. “Just making sure we understand each other.”

“Always have and always will,” Elliott said. “So I’ll see you when it’s over?”

Rafferty nodded.

As Rafferty’s car pulled away from the building, Elliott turned back to his front door. Don’t let him rattle you, he told himself. It’s all coming together. When he reached his apartment, he headed straight for the living room and unlocked the padlock on the storage trunk that served as his coffee table. Carefully, he lifted a box from the trunk and put it on the couch. He opened the box and pulled out one of six sets of plastic mannequin hands. At the base of the hands, written in thick black ink, was the name WARREN EASTHAM.

Elliott carried the hands back to the kitchen and stood them upright on his table. Then, carefully, he rolled up his sleeves and removed from his own hands the transparent, skintight latex gloves that held the sculpted fingerprints of a man who had been dead for almost eight months. And in that moment, as he slipped the gloves back on to their plastic holders, Warren Eastham once again returned to the dead and Elliott came back to life.

“Where the hell is he?” Sara asked, looking up from the outline of her opening statement. “It’s been almost twenty minutes.”

“You ever been in the mail room?” Guff asked as he assembled the witness files. “Pulling a package early takes at least a month and a half.”

“I don’t have that long – we’re running out of time here.”

“We’re doing the best we can, Sara. You know that.” Changing the subject, Guff picked up the wedding photo that was perched on the corner of Sara’s desk. “Did you and Jared have a big wedding?” he asked.

“Monster. Jared’s family doesn’t do anything small.”

“So you know all of his family? It’s not like there’re any secrets between you two?”

Sara stopped reading her outline and looked up at her assistant. “You’re having second thoughts, aren’t you?”

“They’re not second thoughts – it’s just that Conrad usually has a good hunch about this stuff. Plus, Jared’s story…”

“I admit, it has a couple of holes. But each of them can be explained.”

“No, you’re right. Forget I said anything. You have to trust him.” Turning her attention back to the outline, Sara asked, “What about Conrad? You think I can trust him?”

“Don’t even start with that. Conrad would never-”

“It’s just a question. I mean, if we’re going to raise the microscope, we might as well examine everyone.”

“So you think Conrad’s involved with Victor?”

“Actually, I don’t think anyone’s involved with Victor. But you do have to wonder why Conrad’s so anxious to keep me and Jared from talking.”

“I think we all know the answer to that one.”

“Maybe,” Sara said. “It’s still something to think about. And speaking of which…” She flipped through her Rolodex and picked up the phone.

“Who’re you calling?”

“Our favorite medical examiner,” she explained as she dialed.

“Great,” Guff said. “While you do that, I have a few more phone calls to make.” Sara nodded to her assistant, and Guff left the room.

“This is Fawcett,” he answered.

“Hi, Dr. Fawcett, it’s Sara Tate, from the DA’s office. I just wanted to remind you to send over a clean copy of the autopsy report before the trial – I need to submit it as evidence and mine’s all marked up.”

“Are you sure you haven’t gotten it yet? I sent my final version over weeks ago. Messenger and all.”

“Really,” Sara said suspiciously.

“Yes, indeed. Of course, it’s easy to make another copy, but-”

“Guff, did you send a messenger to Fawcett’s office?” she called out, covering the phone.

Guff stuck his head back in the office. “Not me, boss.”

Sara shook her head. “Let me ask you another question,” she said, turning back to the phone. “Is it possible to fake a fingerprint?”

“Define ‘fake.’”

“Do you need someone’s actual hand to leave their fingerprint on something?”

“A few years ago, the answer would be yes. Not anymore. The beauty these days is that everything’s possible. If I want to leave your fingerprint on something, I just need a copy of your print on a piece of paper. If I have that, I can make a photocopy of your print. Then, while the photocopy is still hot, I put a piece of fingerprint tape on the print and lift the tape.”

“Off the copy?” Sara asked.

“Right off the copy,” Fawcett said. “The toner from a copy machine is sometimes used for fingerprint powder. Once I have it on the tape, I can put that piece of tape anywhere. Bam – you’re wherever I say you are.”

“But what if there’s no tape involved? Could someone do it by themselves? Maybe keeping someone else’s fingerprints on top of their own?”

There was a prolonged pause on the other line. Eventually, he said, “If you wanted to, you might be able to do it with latex gloves. Of course, then you’d have to keep the gloves a little wet, but it’s sufficiently possible.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Real prints usually have remnants of sweat gland secretions or some other contaminant like grease or dust. But if you kept licking the gloves, or just rubbed them with a little bit of oil, you might be able to make it look like a real print. The real trick, of course, is copying the original prints, but as I said, it’s not impossible. Why? Do you want to make a set of gloves?”

“No, I want to find a set of gloves.”

Ten minutes later, Conrad returned to the office carrying a medium-sized box, which he dropped on Sara’s desk. “Here’s our new best option.”

Sara got out of her seat and saw that the box was filled with thousands of neatly stacked photographs. Each of them was a portrait of a man in his army uniform, posed in front of an American flag.

“Kozlow was stationed at Fort Jackson in South Carolina when he first joined the army,” Conrad explained. “He made it halfway through basic training, got in a fight with a fellow recruit and got the boot soon after. Apparently, he didn’t want to face the consequences that went along with his attitude problems.”