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She found the device and made two images of the prints. Carefully slipped them into a paper envelope.
Sachs returned to the post. "And here's a bit of straw from the broom."
"From?--"
"Sorry," Sachs said quickly. "We don't know where it's from. A bit of straw. I'm picking it up and bagging it."
Getting good with these pencils. Hey, Lincoln, you son of a bitch, know what I'm doing to celebrate my permanent retirement from crime scene detail? I'm going out for Chinese.
The ESU halogens didn't reach into the side tunnel where Monelle had run. Sachs paused at the day-night line then plunged forward into the shadows. The flashlight beam swept the floor in front of her.
"Talk to me, Amelia."
"There isn't much to see. He swept up here too. Jesus, he thinks of everything."
"What do you see?"
"Just marks in the dust."
I tackle her, I bring her down. I'm mad. Furious. I try to strangle her.
Sachs stared at the ground.
"Here's something--knee prints! When he was strangling her he must have straddled her waist. He left knee prints and he missed them when he swept."
"Electrostatic them."
She did, quicker this time. Getting the hang of the equipment. She was slipping the print into the envelope when something caught her eye. Another mark in the dust.
What is that?
"Lincoln . . . I'm looking at the spot where . . . it looks like the glove fell here. When they were struggling."
She clicked on the PoliLight. And couldn't believe what she saw.
"A print. I've got a fingerprint!"
"What?" Rhyme asked, incredulous. "It's not hers?"
"Nope, couldn't be. I can see the dust where she was lying. Her hands were cuffed the whole time. It's where he picked up the glove. He probably thought he'd swept here but missed it. It's a big, fat beautiful one!"
"Stain it, light it and shoot the son of a bitch on the one-to-one."
It took her only two tries to get a crisp Polaroid. She felt like she'd found a hundred-dollar bill in the street.
"Vacuum the area and then go back to the post. Walk the grid," he told her.
She slowly walked the floor, back and forth. One foot at a time.
"Don't forget to look up," he reminded her. "I once caught an unsub because of a single hair on the ceiling. He'd loaded a .357 round in a true .38 and the blowback pasted a hair from his hand on the crown molding."
"I'm looking. It's a tile ceiling. Dirty. Nothing else. Nowhere to stash anything. No ledges or doorways."
"Where're the staged clues?" he asked.
"I don't see anything."
Back and forth. Five minutes passed. Six, seven.
