Every Second

25

New York City

Across the city, near the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge at NYPD Headquarters, Mae Clarke downed the last of her tepid coffee, fighting the urge to get a fresh cup.

She was trying to cut down. Besides, she couldn’t leave her desk because at any moment she was expecting prints on the red ball out of Queens, the bank robbery abduction case. The lab had called her supervisor to say the file was on its way.

Mae shoved a stick of Juicy Fruit in her mouth.

She was one of the NYPD’s best fingerprint techs and she was ready. Investigators had already obtained a set of elimination prints for each of the family members-from the parents’ workplaces, and through a child ID safety program for the son.

That was good.

Although Mae didn’t have prints for their relatives, or for friends or neighbors who may have been invited into the family’s home, she knew that having prints for the key players was a big advantage.

Mae’s computer chimed.

Here we go.

Chewing faster on her gum, she opened the file-a clear set of unidentified impressions from the right hand: one from the right thumb and one from the right forefinger. They’d been collected from balled duct tape.

Mae began studying the loops, whorls and arches, analyzing and comparing them against the elimination set. It didn’t take long to confirm that the prints on the tape did not come from any member of the family.

With a few keystrokes she submitted the unidentified prints to the New York State Criminal History Record Database-the state’s primary system for fingerprint identification. The database stored prints belonging to anyone arrested for a finger-printable offense.

It allowed for rapid searching through a range of state fingerprint files-those taken from crime scenes, from gun permit holders, from various professional license applications and also from unsolved cases.

After some thirty seconds, her submission came back with two hits.

That’s a start.

Her keyboard clacked as she submitted the prints to the mother of all databases, the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or IAFIS. The system held the criminal histories and fingerprints for more than seventy million people in every state across the country, drawn from every local, regional, state and national network.

This search would take a bit longer, so she returned to the lunchroom where she talked herself into a bottle of water instead of the coffee she was really craving. By the time she’d returned to her desk, her search was done.

IAFIS offered a list of five “possibles” who closely matched her unidentified submission. With the two from the New York system, she now had seven candidates.

She unwrapped a fresh stick of gum, enjoying its sweetness as she began making a visual point-by-point comparison between the duct tape prints and her seven samples. This was when she was at her best, zeroing in on the critical minutiae points, like the trail of ridges near the tip of the forefinger where she’d found dissimilarities. That eliminated the first two candidates right off.

For the next set she enlarged the sample to the point where she could count the number of ridges on the thumb. Definite differences emerged.

That eliminated all of the others but one.

Mae sat up, narrowing her eyes as she compared her submission from the duct tape with the computer’s remaining sample. She concentrated on cluster details, spots, hooks, bifurcations and tented arches.

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 two samples aligned. Some courts required ten to fifteen clear point matches. She had twenty-three and was still counting, knowing that one divergent point would instantly eliminate a print. By the time she’d compared the left slanting patterns from the thumb, she had twenty-eight clear points of comparison and was thinking ahead to what it would be like when she was testifying in court.

These prints are consistent with those collected at the crime scene.

She confirmed the identification number of her new subject and submitted a query to several databanks, including the FBI’s National Crime Information Center.

Who are you?

While waiting, forever-thorough Mae submitted the elimination prints-those that belonged to Dan, Lori and Billy Fulton-to the New York State and FBI databases, as well.

It was a routine check.

After a few more minutes she got a response to her query for her unidentified mystery print lifted from the duct tape.

The print was out of California.

The query had been run through an array of California’s systems, the California Law Enforcement Telecommunication System, California’s DMV, the Department of Corrections, including the Parole Law Enforcement Automated Data System, and the Automated Criminal History System, which could verify parolee history, offender identification, arrest records, convictions, holds and commitments for all California law enforcement agencies, even create All Points Bulletins and drop warrants.

The single hit identified the prints from the duct tape. The face of a white male appeared on her monitor, and Mae read the accompanying information, then hurriedly went to the subject’s central file summary to search for offenses.

It was blank.

His prints were on record because he’d once been charged for a misdemeanor drunk driving offense, but the charge had been dropped because the blood test results were lost.

Mae’s supervisor had cleared her to call the primary detective immediately once she had a hit, so she reached for her telephone. The line was answered on the second ring.

“Tilden.”

“Detective Marv Tilden?”

“That’s me.”

“Mae Clarke with the latent print section. We got a match on a print from the duct tape in your case. Ready to copy?”

“Go.”

“Jerricko Titus Blaine. I’ll send you the spelling.”

“Got it.”

“Age, twenty-three. Last known address, Dallas, Texas.”

“His sheet?”

“He’s clean. A misdemeanor drunk driving charge that was dropped. I’ll send you everything I’ve got, DOB, height, weight, et cetera.”

“Thanks, Mae.”

After sending Jerricko Blaine’s file to Tilden, Mae finished her water, then let out a long breath.

Now we’ve got a lead, something to work with.

She was preparing to return to her other cases when her computer pinged.

Another hit?

She wondered if Jerricko Blaine popped up in another jurisdiction, but instead it was a new hit-one from Lori Fulton’s prints.

Mae’s brow creased when she read the notice.

She reached for her phone to call Detective Tilden again.