Whirlwind

47

Dallas, Texas

The Dallas County Forensic Sciences building was a three-story complex located northwest of downtown on the Stemmons Freeway.

The state-of-the-art facility contained a spectrum of sections: a ballistics testing unit, DNA, forensic biology, toxicology and autopsy labs, along with a morgue-making it one of the busiest full-service crime labs in the country.

Angela Clark, a senior forensic analyst, was the acting chief of the trace evidence section. She was in charge of leading the processing of evidence from the Tumbleweed Dreams Motel.

The FBI’s Evidence Response Team had worked the scene. They’d seized hair and fibers from Unit 21’s carpet, bathroom floor, curtains, furniture, as well as drains for the sink and tub.

The techs also lifted latents from the TV remote, door handles, the TV, the sink, toilet, mirrors, counter, tabletops, the light switches, the coffeemaker, the phone, the Bible and the Do Not Disturb sign. They’d also collected trash and linen believed to have been from the room.

The evidence had all been collected in envelopes, bags, and packets, and paper and plastic containers. The biological material they’d gathered was saved in breathable containers and allowed to dry to reduce the risk of mold contamination. All the required chain-of-custody documents had been completed with signatures, case and inventory numbers.

The case was a top priority, for the FBI and the Dallas PD.

Work at the lab had been piling up.

Angela’s boss had been seconded to work with the FBI Quantico for a month, leaving her to take on more responsibility. It also meant that, as a mother of two boys, aged ten and eight, she’d missed a few soccer games.

Adjusting her glasses, she studied her monitor and her master inventory log. She’d assigned the evidence to appropriate team members: those who were expert in analyzing hair, fibers, biological evidence, DNA and liquids.

Angela was certified in several areas. She was an expert latent fingerprint examiner. She also had two degrees in forensic science and was a PhD from Caltech. The courts had qualified her to give expert testimony on forensic matters.

Everyone had been going flat out, putting in long days.

On a personal level, many were dealing with the aftermath of the tornadoes. Angela’s neighborhood had been spared, but nearly everyone in the lab knew someone who’d lost relatives, friends or property. And now with the apparent abduction of a baby from its mother during the storm, another layer of stress had fallen on her shoulders.

Producing hard evidence from a motel was challenging at the best of times. Motel rooms were high-traffic areas. Unless you had outside evidence for which you were seeking a match, or comparative analysis, anything could be challenged in court. Still, that was not to say that you couldn’t harvest strong physical evidence to point investigators in the right direction. However, Angela and her team realized that this case also came with other unfortunate aspects. First, the motel’s security camera failed to record surveillance footage. And then, the unbelievable topper: immediately after the subjects left the room, an intoxicated dismissed employee-in an effort to get her job back-had cleaned the room, presenting the FBI’s Evidence Response Team and Angela’s team with a whole new set of problems and circumstances to deal with.

As Angela continued her work analyzing latent fingerprints, some of her colleagues had already submitted their preliminary reports.

She checked her monitor, the latest one was for hair.

The presence of 4-amino-2-hydroxytoluene and m-Aminophenol on strands of hair found in the sink indicated hair dye was used. The blood found in a crumpled tissue under the bed matched the type found on the baby’s romper discovered at the shelter.

Some of the puzzle pieces were coming together, Angela thought, as she worked on the latent prints the FBI’s ERT people had collected. Because of all the circumstances, they all knew the quality of the latents would be weak, yielding only a few good clear partials.

Angela scanned the first two into her computer and submitted them to the automated fingerprint-identification systems, AFIS, for a rapid search through massive local, state and nationwide databanks for a match.

It wasn’t long before she got hits for two licensed drivers in Texas: Arb Winston, a sixty-nine-year-old man from San Antonio and Ella Winston, a sixty-eight-year-old woman from San Antonio. They shared the same address. No arrests, no convictions. Nothing came up for the Winstons in any other databases.

Angela reasoned that the Winstons were not likely involved, but still would pass the data to the FBI.

The third and last usable latent print was taking longer. Angela studied the arches, whorls and loops. It was from the right thumb, which in a standard ten-card is number one. She carefully coded its characteristics then scanned the print into her computer and submitted it to AFIS.

Within a minute, Angela started getting hits as her submission was searched through local and regional information sharing networks and the FBI’s mother of all databanks, the IAFIS, which stored nearly seven hundred million impressions from law enforcement agencies across the country.

As the process continued Angela left her desk to freshen her coffee.

When she returned she had her results: four files closely matched her unidentified submission.

Angela took a sip of coffee then set out to make a visual point-by-point comparison between the motel print and the four on the list. She zeroed in on the critical minutiae points, like the trail of ridges near the tip.

The dissimilarities eliminated the first two candidates right off. For the last two Angela enlarged the samples even more to count the number of ridges, and distinct differences emerged for one of them.

That left only one.

Angela concentrated on her submission with the computer’s remaining suggested match. All the minutiae points matched. The branching of the ridges matched. Her breathing quickened as she began counting up the clear points of comparison where the sample matched.

This is looking good.

In some jurisdictions the courts required ten to fifteen clear point matches. She had fifteen and was still counting, knowing that one divergent point instantly eliminated a print.

We’ve got a match.

Angela then took the identification number of her new subject, and submitted a query into a number of databanks.

She knew that the state’s parole division worked with other agencies to ensure that offenders on parole had their fingerprints on file so their cases could be tracked.

Angela watched as her submission verified parolee history, offender identification, arrest records, convictions, and checked for any holds and commitments for other law enforcement agencies.

Within minutes Angela was staring at the hardened face of a white male on her monitor.

She went to the offender’s central file summary and read quickly through his offences, then reached for her phone to call Special FBI Agent Phil Grogan.

This could be our break.