Scott Turow - Identical

“Cass?” Tim asked. “I thought he has different fingerprints from Paul.”

“No, that’s true. But telling them apart in a situation like this-it’s not that easy.” As he often did, Mo reverted to a lecture, explaining that most of what showed up in twins’ fingerprints, the basic skin patterns of loops and whorls and ridges, was identical, the product of shared genes. Subtle variations emerged during development, when the fetus touched the uterine wall, or itself, causing differences in what print examiners called ‘the minutiae,’ the areas where skin ridges ended or branched or ran together.

“Don’t misunderstand,” said Mo. “If I give any decent examiner ten-cards from Paul and Cass Gianis, they’d see enough to distinguish. But you know better than I do that latents at a crime scene don’t come in ten-finger sets. You get partials, a couple of fingers, whatever. You understand all that. And with, say, a partial print, you may not be able to tell which twin it’s from.

“So you know, the best way to do this kind of comparison is to start out with the ten-card from each man and isolate the differing points. When I didn’t get Cass’s prints from Greenwood, I called Tooley to get him to call the PA’s office. In the meantime, he sent over Cass’s intake prints from Hillcrest, which I guess he got when he subpoenaed Cass’s file for the pardon and parole hearing. It’s a laser copy. High-res, but it’s a copy. Nobody can testify from that. Which is why I need you to go back out to Greenwood and make them find Cass’s ten-card.”

“Got it, Boss,” said Tim. He thought calling Mo ‘Boss’ might get a smile, but Dickerman stood there, looking nettled instead. Something was weighing on him.

“There’s one other thing,” said Mo. “Which maybe you can help me figure out.”

Tim shrugged, feeling somewhat flattered. Generally, Mo didn’t think he needed any help figuring out anything.

“When I got that copy of Cass’s prints,” said Mo, “I decided I could use them at least to do some prep. I’ve got to go over to Italy for a week to give a lecture-”

“Poor soul,” said Tim.

“Yeah, it’s tough. But I wanted to get a head start. I had Logan Boerkle’s report from 1983 where he identified Cass’s prints. I figured I’d see what part of each print Logan had relied on, and then when I got Paul’s card today, I’d have someplace to start the comparison.”

Tim nodded. It made sense.

“Logan was barely sober in those days.” Logan had been the head of the fingerprint lab here whom Mo had displaced. He got hired in Greenwood County, but that was like going from the big leagues to A ball.

“Logan’s the one who died of exposure in his own cabin, right?” Tim asked.

“Right. He had some place up in Skageon with just an outhouse and he got drunk and went out to take a piss, and passed out in the snow and died there. Back in ’83, when he made Cass’s prints, he was already a shambles. Most of the time when he showed up for work, he didn’t know one end of a microscope from another. And damn me, when I start comparing his report and the lifts from the scene to the prints I got from Hillcrest-they don’t match. Close. Very very close. But in several cases, they display just the kind of minute differences you’d expect with a twin.”

“Which Logan missed?”

Mo hitched his shoulders. “Possibly.”

“So you’re telling me the wrong brother is in the can?”

“I’m telling you what I’m telling you.”

Tim considered this at some length, then shook his head.

“Paul Gianis is too smart to think he’d get away with that twice. He’s a former PA. The way he went strutting around that lobby-he knows his prints weren’t at the scene.”

“Or he thinks no examiner would bother to look again at the lifts identified as Cass’s in ’83,” said Mo. “Maybe Paul figures I’d confine my new examination to the unknowns. There’s plenty that would do it like that. But either way, I need Cass’s original prints. Maybe when I compare them with Paul’s, this will make more sense. Maybe I’ll see what Logan was talking about. But I’m buffaloed now.” He peered at Tim again.

“This stays right here,” Mo said. “I don’t want anybody hearing this, and then in two weeks thinking I’m a world-class bonehead.”

Tim agreed. He couldn’t make any more sense of this than Mo. They parted, joined in a weird compact, two old guys afraid they could be slipping.

Heather hadn’t moved out when Evon returned to the condo, last Sunday. She had opened a suitcase on their bed, but had gotten no further than that. In her nightgown, Heather was sitting on the covers in a butterfly pose, soles of her feet pressed together, her blonde hair flowing smoothly over her shoulders. She began weeping as soon as Evon appeared at the door to the room. Evon had no doubt that Heather had staged the whole thing, laid the case out and dressed herself in a casually revealing way.

‘You have to leave,’ Evon told her.

Heather begged, repeated her pledges of love, but ended up enraged. Evon couldn’t throw her out of her own home, she said. Heather was ignoring many facts-that Evon had paid every penny for the place, that the title was solely in Evon’s name and that Heather hadn’t contributed her share of the assessment for months. Evon had told her she had until next Saturday to go.

Now, on Saturday morning, Evon arrived at the condo, full of resolve. She knocked but of course Heather didn’t answer. When Evon tried her key, she found Heather had changed the locks. Evon hammered on the door for only a second, then called a locksmith and the head of the condo association. In the meantime, she went to her safe-deposit box to retrieve the deed to the place to establish ownership. Evon had the smith drill out the cylinder while Rhona, the association president, and her husband, Harry, both of whom lived next door, came into the hallway for a second to watch. She could hear Heather on the other side, threatening to call the police. When the drilling didn’t cease, Heather opened the door, just as the tradesman had bored through. Heather was in a negligee again and offered Evon both keys.

“I would have given them to you. All you had to do was ask.”

Evon didn’t bother responding. Heather would say anything at this point, no matter how obviously untrue. Evon left the locksmith at work on a new dead bolt, and drove to Morton’s and bought the biggest duffel bag they had in the store. Back at the condo, she started packing Heather’s stuff in front of her. Evon slammed Heather’s dresses, still on the hangers, into the bag, knowing that Heather, who treated every garment as if it were made of Venetian glass, could not bear the sight. When Evon was done, she took the duffel down to Heather’s car and hoisted it onto the hood. Heather followed her, weeping and screaming, which gave Evon the opportunity she needed. She flew up the stairs-she could still outrun most people she knew-and closed the new click-lock. Heather was now on the other side of the door. She phoned Evon inside more than forty times in a row. Evon answered once: “If you don’t go away, I will have no choice but to call the police.” Half an hour later, while Heather was still calling every five minutes, Evon opened the door to toss out Heather’s purse. Once the pounding and the texting and phone calls had ceased, once the woman was finally gone, Evon sat on the living room floor in the space that had been happily theirs and howled.

When Evon opened the door for the Sunday paper, Heather was asleep in the hall, still in her negligee, using her handbag as a pillow. Evon called mutual friends and watched from the window as the two guided Heather to their car across the street. One had her by the waist, one by the shoulders. Heather was hysterical and they were nodding at every word. Evon was able to do nothing all day but talk to Merrel and watch the Pro Bowl. She was right, she knew, had done what she had to. All she needed now was someone to explain all that to her heart.