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“Uh . . . this is . . . Robert Simpson. He’s a friend of mine and was curious how we check fingerprints. Hope you don’t mind if he watches.”
“A friend, huh?” Jasmine winked at Greta.
Oh, Christ, Greta thought. She thinks he’s my boyfriend or something.
“Hi there, Robert. ’Bout time the big girl here got a social life.”
“Oh, Greta can be right sociable when she wants to be,” Simpson deadpanned, “and there’s a lot to be sociable with.”
Jasmine cackled and slapped her knee, then turned to her monitor.
I might shoot them both right here, Greta thought. Is there a round in the chamber?
“Here we go,” said Jasmine. “Let me find the image file, and I’ll get it right off.” With several keystrokes and a punch to the enter key, she sat back.
“Okay, there goes. Shouldn’t take long to come back if it’s like before.”
She was right. In about thirty seconds, a message came up stating “Restricted Access.” Simpson frowned.
“That’s . . . uh . . . interesting. Maybe it would be clearer if I knew exactly all the steps.”
Jasmine raised an eyebrow. “All the steps? Sure, why not. Greta here sends me these two sets of prints, and I send them in for an identification match. That’s it. Not much else to say.”
“Two sets of prints?”
“Yeah.”
Greta cleared her throat. “As I was telling you . . . Robert . . . ,” she almost called him Simpson, a sure giveaway he wasn’t a friend. “ . . . I lifted prints off two glasses and sent them to Jasmine here.”
“Two glasses?”
Jasmine looked questioningly to Simpson.
“Like I said,” Greta repeated.
Simpson gave Greta a look. “Since there were two sets of prints, I wonder if the restricted access only applied to one of the prints,” he asked casually.
Greta stared at him, dumbstruck. Two sets of prints run at the same time. Why didn’t I ask Jasmine to run them separately? Duh! Still . . . that doesn’t add up either. It was only Simpson and Reverend Balfour.
Greta cleared her throat. “Uh . . . Jasmine, can you run each of the two sets of prints by themselves?”
“Sure. You sent them as two files, then I linked them, so I could do a batch submission. Let me find the two originals.”
When the records clerk turned back to her computer, Greta eyed Simpson. He shrugged.
“Here we go,” sai
d Jasmine. “The first one’s off.”
The answer came back in less than ten seconds. Restricted Access.
“Just like before. Here goes number two.”
The same amount of time passed with no response. Then a few more seconds.
“Not coming back?” Jasmine mumbled just as the screen popped up a record. “Hey, I think that’s the same record that came up the first time I tried these prints.”
Greta leaned toward the screen. “Ohio. Roman Pererra. Assault, check fraud, petty larceny, impersonating a police officer. Served time on three occasions. Five months, fourteen months, and one year. Charged with assault once where charges were dropped.” The last entry on the record was ten years old. Nothing since then.
