Макс Коллинз - You Can’t Stop Me

This news narrowed the eyes of the other forensics experts, and their attention was rapt as she went on to explain the circumstances — including the severed wedding-ring finger — and how the case had gone cold, until she’d spotted the leaf.

Laurene asked, “How did you even know to look at that leaf? Even the state investigators missed it.”

Carmen’s grin was not terribly professional, if very winning. “Hey, I’m a farm kid. You use what you know. And I knew that leaf was wrong... but that was all I had for sure. I took it to J.C., and he was able to hook me up with the right expert — Dr. Brent Caldwell at Settler Seed.”

Slack-jawed, Choi asked Harrow, “You knew lookin’ at the leaf what seed company made it?”

Before Harrow could explain, the DNA scientist, Pall, did it for him: “No, but he knew that Settler Seed would have DNA samples from every plant put out by every commercial seed company in the world. Naturally, they have samples from every plant they manufacture; but also samples from every competitor’s plant. They need to make sure that they don’t infringe on someone else’s patent and, likewise, to make sure the competition isn’t infringing on theirs.”

Choi said, “Chess club, right? Captain?”

Pall frowned. “Chess club, yes. Captain, yes, but not of chess club — wrestling team.”

Choi held up his palms in mock surrender.

Anderson said to Carmen, “Very nice thinkin’, Miz Garcia. But what d’yall find out?”

“As it happens, this particular leaf came from Settler itself — field corn KS1422, which is sold exclusively in Kansas and is, as I said, field corn not sweet corn, which is the type grown in that part of Florida.”

Choi said, “I know there’s sweet corn and popcorn, but what the hell is field corn?”

Everybody gave Choi a look.

“What?” he asked, injured. “Where I come from, corn’s in a can or frozen or frickin’ microwavable.”

Harrow held up a palm. “Billy, you’re doing exactly what I expect from you, and everybody on the forensics team.”

“I am?”

Harrow’s eyes traveled around the table. “I don’t expect any of you to know everything. God knows, I don’t. And if you don’t know, for God’s sake, say so. Screw your ego — we have a killer to catch.”

Laurene said, “J.C. is right — we’re all going to have holes in our game that the others of us’ll need to fill.”

Harrow asked, “How many people saw that corn leaf and saw nothing but a leaf, until Carmen came along and saw something different?”

Choi opened his hands and said to Carmen, “So? Enlighten the ignorant.”

“Field corn,” she said, “is grown for uses other than human consumption — animal feed, some plastics, biofuels such as ethanol, although it’s used as fuel in bio-gas plants in Europe, where it generates power.”

“Thanks,” Choi said. He said to the others, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Carmen said, “Anyway, the point is, this is a type of field corn sold exclusively in Kansas.”

“The question that comes to mind is,” Anderson said, “how does a leaf from a corn plant grown in Kansas wind up in a cul-de-sac in Florida... a state where they only grow sweet corn?”

“That,” Harrow said, “is what we’re to find out.”

Pall said, “If the killer left that leaf behind — whether accidentally or on purpose — it’s a reasonable assumption that his area of operations extends beyond Florida.”

“Yes,” Laurene said. “It extends to the Midwest, where we have a similar crime, in another corn-growing state — Iowa.”

Choi said, “How do we know the Florida victim didn’t have an Uncle Silas from Kansas who walked that leaf in? Helluva leaf of faith, guys. Sure you want to make it?”

Carmen said, “I’ve already researched the families of the victims, and of the neighbors, and there’s no Kansas tie. Trust me. None.”

“Okay,” Harrow said, shaken a little by Choi’s valid undermining of their clue. “Anybody think this lead is too thin to be worth taking?”

No one did. Thank God.

“All right, then,” Harrow said with a sigh. “Jenny?”

Jenny looked up quickly, a rabbit who’d heard the bark of a nearby dog.

“Use those computer skills to find me a link between my case and the Ferguson murders in Florida.”

She nodded and reached down for the briefcase that held her laptop.

“Also, check for similar crimes, particularly in the Midwest. The Florida case slipped through our fingers for a while, so maybe there are more.”

Jenny was already getting out her computer. She gave Harrow another quick nod and turned to her keyboard and monitor, focusing on her task.

“Laurene,” Harrow said, “as our chief crime scene analyst, I want you on a plane to Placida today. Find out what else they missed.”

Laurene nodded, asked, “When was this murder?”

“September,” Carmen said.

“Not what you’d call a fresh trail.”

“Billy,” Harrow said, ignoring that, “you and Carmen will go with Laurene — I want you two to interview the cops and any potential witnesses. Treat them right — they worked hard on the case. They’ll look at you as poachers, so play nice.”

Choi crossed his heart. “My best behavior, boss.”

“Now I can sleep better, hearing that. Oh, and see what you can get on the guns too.”

Choi nodded.

Pall asked, “What about us?”

“Michael, you and Chris do lab analysis of the evidence from both the Iowa and Florida cases. Make sure nothing else has been missed.”

Anderson’s expression was lazy, but his eyes were not. “Where is the evidence?”

“In your lab.”

“We got a lab ?”

“Sure.”

“You’re not talkin’ about a retriever are you?”

“No, Chris. A fully pimped-out crime lab.”

“Here at this TV studio?”

Harrow shook his head. “Outside.”

The forensics team, the camera crew, and Carmen and her little army all followed Harrow out, paraded down the hall and through double doors into the bright LA morning sunshine. The smog had rolled back to cast a brighter light for the occasion.

Parked before them were a semi-trailer rig and two tour buses, each vehicle bearing Crime Seen! Killer TV, and UBC logos.

“Am I seeing things?” Pall asked, staring wide-eyed, hands on hips, tie flapping a little in the breeze, seeming very Clark Kent to Harrow. Mini Clark Kent...

“Not a mirage, Michael,” Harrow said to the DNA expert, and led the team to the semi-trailer first. “And there’ll be a makeup/wardrobe motor home, and a satellite uplink truck joining the wagon train, when we head out.”

Though they stood on the driver’s side of the trailer, their attention was on the drone of a motor, just out of sight.

“The motors you hear,” Harrow said, “are the air conditioner and refrigeration unit for the crime lab that takes up the trailer’s front three-quarters.”

The whole team seemed dumbfounded, and were exchanging colorful reactions, the TV crew catching it all.

Toward the front of the trailer, three metal stairs hung down. Harrow climbed them, pulled open the door, and led the team inside the white-walled world, neat work stations set up on either side: a fingerprint hood, a drying closet, a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer, an AFIS, NIBIN, CODIS station, and a water tank to catch bullets fired for testing also lined the walls. Three long tables ran down the middle, one a regular work table, another a backlit table with bulbs under the surface, a third holding a Kodak MP3 evidence camera in its stand.

The team looked around in wonder. Most came from state crime labs that weren’t nearly this up to date.