I Am Death

Seventy-three

Hunter couldn’t remember ever taking a call so quickly. He dashed toward his desk, his feet almost scuffing against the floor, his hand shooting out in the direction of his cellphone.

‘Detective Hunter, Robbery Homicide Division.’

‘Detective,’ the male voice at the other end of the line said. ‘It’s Brian.’

In his excitement, it took Hunter a second to match the name to the voice, and then both of them to a face.

‘Doctor Brian Snyder, with SID,’ the doctor clarified, picking up on Hunter’s hesitation.

Maybe it had taken Hunter more than just a second.

Garcia looked at Hunter, the question practically written in his eyes.

‘Doctor,’ Hunter said, shaking his head at Garcia. ‘Of course. I’m sorry.’ He paddled back fast. ‘It’s been an eventful morning so far.’

‘Have you found your suspect?’ he asked, his voice shifting from calm to half-excited.

‘No, not yet, but we’re hopeful. Have you got something for us?’

‘I do,’ he confirmed. ‘The results of the handwriting analysis.’

‘OK. Just a sec, Doc. Let me put you on speakerphone.’ Hunter keyed in the necessary command and placed the phone back on his desk.

Garcia stepped closer.

‘All right,’ Doctor Snyder began. ‘Graphologists will need on average thirteen to fifteen different letters out of the twenty-six we have in the English alphabet to achieve a “one hundred percent” positive match. As I’m sure you’re aware, the annotation inside the book of matches you gave me — Midazolam, 2.5 mg — contains only eight different letters, and two numbers.’

Garcia glanced at Hunter.

‘So for us to achieve that indisputable positive match, you’d need to find something else with his handwriting on it.’

‘Well,’ Garcia said, before Doctor Snyder was able to continue. ‘For now, that’s pretty much out of the question, Doc. Any sort of partial confirmation?’

‘I was just about to get to that.’

‘Oh sorry,’ Garcia said, lifting his hands and quickly using Hunter’s ‘paddle back’ excuse. ‘Eventful morning.’

‘Our graphologist said that though legally he cannot one hundred percent confirm it as a match, by analyzing the curvature of some of the letters, together with the way in which the person who wrote them connects them to one another, he would stake his professional reputation on the assumption that whoever jotted down that annotation is the same person who wrote both of the notes. In short, he’s your killer.’