The Soul Collectors

59

The finger belonged to a woman. The long fingernail had chipped red polish on it.

Sarah Casey had worn the same red nail polish, the same red elastic hair-band, in the pictures tacked to the bedroom closet. The blood on her T-shirt had come from the severed finger and she hadn't been screaming in fear in those pictures; she had been screaming in pain.

Darby placed the finger and USB drive on the dish Coop had waiting.

'I want to get this printed,' the former profiler said, his voice trembling.

Coop said, 'I'll do it.'

Casey moved away from the table and she said to Coop, 'The second you're done printing that finger, put it on ice and then have one of the feds or Secret Service take it over to Mass General to give to Dr Izzo.'

'That the guy who fixed Dale Brown's finger?'

'That's him. Izzo managed to reattach it because we put it on ice.'

Coop darted away. Darby looked at Ellis and said, 'I need two buccal swabs, the ones with the brushes.'

'They're in the same place they always are,' he said, pointing across the room.

'I know. I need you to get them for me.'

Ellis gave another theatrical sigh as he moved to get the packets. He came back a moment later, ripped open one and handed her a long plastic rod with a tiny white scrub brush on the end. She stuck the brush inside the victim's mouth, scrubbed the frozen cheek lining, then removed it and placed the brush inside the sterile plastic cylinder Ellis had pinched between his fingers.

The first sample she could use for PCR-ready DNA identification. The second buccal swab she could save in case further DNA identification was needed.

The samples collected, she grabbed the kits she needed to collect fingernail scrapings. Ellis assisted without any further bitching and moaning. He had even got into the spirit of things by picking up Coop's clipboard and making notes.

Darby turned off the bright autopsy light. Switching to a forensic light with a green filter, she searched the victim's mouth for trace evidence, finding a small fibre — possibly a rug fibre, judging by its size and shape. She dropped it into the glassine envelope Ellis had waiting.

There was more. A single blond hair, which was sadly missing its DNA-packed root bulb. A black speck that could have been a piece of leather, stuck behind the back-right molar. She prised it out carefully with the tweezers.

Dr Ellis leaned over the body. 'Is that a bumblebee?'

'It's definitely a bee,' she said, 'but not an ordinary one.'

'And you know this how?'

'It doesn't have the usual yellow or red bands. The body is entirely black and the eyes are abnormally large. Dr Perkins, hand me one of those specimen jars on the shelf across from you… No, the next shelf, the bottom one. Thank you.'

She dropped the bee into a specimen jar, and then she ran her forensic light back and forth inside the victim's mouth, searching the crevices between the lip and gum line, and caught a faint glow from the corner of her eye.

Darby turned, blinking and moving the hand holding the flashlight. The glow had vanished.

Something was there. She had seen something on the soft lining behind the man's lip.

Darby moved away from the body, grabbed the UV forensic light and turned back to the victim's mouth, examining the smooth cavity between the teeth and cheek. Nothing glowed. She turned the light slowly, trying different angles and then different light sources. She had seen something, she knew she hadn't -

There, on the soft area behind the bottom lip, the labial sulcus: a bright fluorescent glowing shape now visible to the naked eye. She fumbled around for the best angle and distance, and then had to steady her head in order to see it fully:

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ellis leaning in for a closer look.

'What in God's name is that?' he asked.

'Looks like some sort of symbol. Where's Coop?'

'He's in here. Hold on.'

Darby didn't know what the symbol meant, but knew it had been tattooed into the skin using some sort of ink invisible to the naked eye. She thought about the stamps used at nightclubs, amusement parks and some kids-themed restaurants. A hand was stamped with a fluorescent but invisible ink as the person entered. Then, if they had to exit the place and come back in, the person placed their hand underneath a black light, which illuminated the stamp and let the business know the person had already paid the entrance fee. That ink washed off and eventually faded. The ink on the lip had been tattooed into the skin. In a hidden area.

Coop stepped up on the other side of the table and leaned in across the body for a closer look. She showed it to him and then they talked about the best way to photograph it.

'We don't have that kind of equipment here,' he said.

'What time is it?'

'Quarter to six.'

'Call Ops, have them page ID.'

He used the wall phone in the autopsy suite to call Operations. Boston lab techs, as well as those who worked for ID, the separate section that dealt with forensic photography, had to live within a certain radius of Boston so they could report to a crime scene or the lab within an hour.

Dr Perkins calmly asked her to step aside. She did and watched the man use a pair of long tweezers to grab a small brown spider trying to crawl its way out of the victim's mouth.