The Survivors Club

Prologue

IT STARTED AS A CONVERSATION:

“The scientists are the problem-not the cops. Cops are just cops. Some got a nose for jelly doughnuts; others got a nose for pensions. The scientists, though… I read about this case where they nailed a guy by matching the inside seam of his blue jeans with a bloody print left at the murder scene. I'm not kidding. Some expert testified that the wear pattern of denim is so individual there's something like a one-in-a-billion chance that another pair of jeans would leave the same print, yada, yada, yada. Fuckin' unreal.”

“Don't wear blue jeans,” the second man said.

The first man, a kid really, rolled his eyes. “That's fuckin' brilliant.”

The second man shrugged. “Before you lecture me about Calvin's sending someone to the big house, perhaps we should start with the basics. Fingerprints.”

“Gloves,” the kid said immediately.

“Gloves?” The man frowned. “And here I expected something much more innovative coming from you.”

“Hey, gloves are a pain in the ass, but then again, so is serving time. What else are you gonna do?”

“I don't know. But I don't want to wear gloves if I don't have to. Let's think about it.”

“You could wipe down everything,” the kid said shortly. “Ammonia dissolves fingerprint oil, you know. You could prepare a solution, ammonia and water. Afterwards, you could spray it on, wipe stuff down. You know, including…” The kid's voice trailed off. He didn't seem quite able to say the word, which the man thought was pretty funny, given everything this “kid” had done.

The man nodded. “Yes. Including. With ammonia, of course. Otherwise they might be able to print the woman's skin using Alternate Light Source or fumigation. Instead of spritzing, the other option is to put the woman in a tub. To ensure that you're being thorough.”

“Yeah.” The kid nodded his head, contemplating. “Still might miss a spot. And it involves a lot of maneuvering. Remember what the textbook said: ‘The more contact with the victim, the more evidence left behind.' ”

“True. Other ideas?”

“You could leave fake prints. I once met this guy from New York. His gang liked to cut off the hands of their rivals, and use them to leave false prints at their own crime scenes.”

“Did it work?”

“Well, half the gang was in Rikers at the time…”

“So it didn't work.”

“Probably not.”

The man pursed his lips. “It's an interesting thought, though. Creative. The police hate creativity. We should find out where those people went wrong.”

“I'll ask around.”

“A fingerprint is nothing but a ridge pattern,” the man thought out loud. “Fill in the valleys between the ridges and there's no more print. Seems like there's gotta be a way of doing that. Maybe smearing the fingertips with superglue? I've heard of it, but I don't know if it works.”

“Wouldn't that interfere with feel, though? I mean, if you're going to lose sensation, you might as well return to gloves which you know will do the trick.”

“There's scarring. Repeated cutting of the fingertips with a razor to obscure the print.”

“No thank you!”

“No pain, no gain,” the man said mildly.

“Yeah, and no pleasure, no point. What do you think scar tissue is gonna do to the nerve endings of your fingertips? Might as well hack 'em off and be done with it. Keep it simple, remember? Another thing the textbook pointed out-simple is good.”

The man shrugged. “Fine, then it's gloves. Thinnest latex possible. That resolves the matter of fingerprints. Next issue: DNA.”

“Shit,” the kid said.

“DNA is the kicker,” the man agreed. “With fingerprints you can watch what you touch. But with DNA… Now you have to consider your hair, your blood, your semen, your spit. Oh, and bite marks. Let's not forget about the power of dental matches.”

“Jesus, you are a sick son of a bitch.” The kid rolled his eyes again. “Look, don't bite anything or anyone. It's too risky. They've nailed thieves by matching their teeth to indentations left in a hunk of cheddar in the fridge. After that, God knows what they can do with a human breast.”

“Fair enough. Now back to DNA.”

“Pull an O.J.,” the kid said grumpily. “Let the lawyers deal with it.”

“You really think lawyers are that good, all things considered…” The man's tone was droll.

The kid got hostile. “Hey, what the fuck is a guy supposed to do? Wear a goddamn condom? Hell, man, might as well fuck a garden hose.”

“Then we need a better idea. Blaming the cops is no kind of defense. They don't handle the DNA anyway. The hospital sends it straight to the Department of Health via a courier. Or don't you read the paper?”

“I read-”

“And a bath won't help there either,” the man continued relentlessly. “Just look at Motyka. He stuck the woman in a tub and that worked so well he's now facing life in prison. The semen goes up into the body. You need something more, some kind of flush action, I don't know. Plus there's the hair. Hair can also yield DNA, if they get a root, or they can simply match hair at the scene to hair on your head. Bathtub won't help with hair, either. Some anal-retentive crime tech will retrieve your hair from the drainpipes-they can retrieve blood samples from there too, you know. You can't approach this half-assed.”

“Shave.”

“Everywhere?”

“Yes.” The kid's tone was grudging. “Yeah, shit. Everywhere. Tell people you're into swimming. What the fuck.”

“Shaving is good,” the man conceded. “That resolves the hair. What else? They'll swab the woman's mouth. Remember that.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I read the same book you did.”

“No touching anything with your bare hands-not even an eyeball.”

“I read about that case, too.”

“No blue jeans, I guess.”

“Wear dust covers over your shoes to limit soil and fiber,” the kid added. “And, whenever possible, resort to social engineering. Breaking and entering leaves behind tool marks, and tool marks can also be matched.”

The man nodded: “That covers most of the trace evidence except for DNA then. We still need to figure out DNA. They get one little sample of semen, send it to the DNA database…”

“I know, I know.” The kid closed his eyes. He appeared to be thinking. Hard. He finally opened them again. “You could try confusing the issue. There was that guy who was arrested as a serial rapist based on DNA, then while he was in prison, another rape was reported with the same kind of DNA found on the girl's panties.”

“What happened?”

The kid sighed. “They busted the guy in prison for that, too. Perpetrating fraud, something like that.”

“He raped the other girl while he was behind bars?”

“No, man, he jacked off into a ketchup packet while he was behind bars, then mailed it to a friend who paid a girl fifty bucks to smear the stuff on her underwear and cry rape. You know, so it would appear like there was another guy running around with the same DNA, who was actually the rapist.”

“There is no such thing as two guys with the same DNA. Not even identical twins have the same DNA.”

“Yeah, and that would be the problem with the plan. The scientists knew that and the prosecution knew that, so they pressured the girl until she confessed what really happened.”

“Is there a moral to this story?”

“Pay the girl more than fifty bucks!”

The man sighed. “That is not a good plan.”

“Hey, you wanted an idea, I gave you an idea.”

“I wanted a good idea.”

“Ah, fuck you, too.”

The second man didn't say anything. The kid lapsed into silence as well.

“Gotta beat the DNA,” the kid muttered after a bit.

“Gotta beat the DNA,” the man agreed.

“The Raincoat on your John Thomas,” the kid mocked from Monty Python. “Ah, who needs it?”

“Wouldn't necessarily help anyway. Condoms leak, condoms break. Police are also getting better at tracing the lubricants and spermicide. That gives them a brand, then they start checking stores and next thing you know some pharmacy worker just happened to notice some guy buying some box…”

“You're screwed.”

“Yeah. Those scientists. Any little thing you introduce into the scene…”

The kid suddenly perked up. “Hey,” he said. “I have an idea.”