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“Gavin Sharp,” she repeated, still reeling at the sound of his name spoken out loud by her own voice. “Not the one from Mount Chester, who’s missing… not my father. There’s another one, in San Francisco.”
Doc Whitmore’s gaze lingered on her for a moment more, scrutinizing, impenetrable. “Isn’t that an odd coincidence?… I’ll say.” He stood and peeled off his gloves, then rinsed his hands at a small sink by the end of the long lab table. Patting them dry, he glanced at Kay quickly as if to see if she really meant what she’d said. Then he walked over to the computer that was running the CODIS database, and started typing on its plastic-covered keyboard. “Gavin Sharp, you said?”
“Yes,” Kay replied, holding her breath. All evidence pointed to the San Francisco man who’d lured Jenna into meeting with him.
Doc Whitmore typed the name in the search field, then waited for a brief moment. The system returned two results. “Selecting the one in San Francisco,” he said, highlighting the second database entry, then hitting enter. The system beeped quietly, and a message framed in a red box appeared on the screen.
“Not a match,” Doc Whitmore said, looking at her for a moment as she struggled to contain her disappointment.
If not Gavin Sharp, then whom? What were they missing? She shot Elliot a glance; he looked just as dismayed as she was feeling.
“It’s only one unsub, right?” she asked, unwilling to believe Gavin Sharp was in the clear.
“The same fingerprints were found on both condom wrappers, and they’re not in AFIS. They’re not a match with this man’s prints.”
They had nothing… and Kendra’s time was running out.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Doc Whitmore said, “how sure are you of this man’s identity? This name coincidence… that’s strange, to say the least.”
Pressing her lips tightly together, she nodded. Of course, he was suspicious. Everyone with half a brain would be, and Doc Whitmore was smart as a whip. “It’s how we got to him, Doc. He’s the man Jenna was chatting with online, and dating at times, when he drove over from the city.”
The ME leaned closer to the computer screen and squinted a little. “This man is fifty-six years old! Dating? That’s not dating, that’s—” He’d raised his voice, but then stopped abruptly, lowering his fiery glance. “I guess I’ve seen worse. We all have. I was just wondering if you’d mind if I run the other Gavin Sharp, that’s all.”
She shrugged, already knowing the answer. “Go right ahead, Doc. You were going to run the sample against the entire CODIS anyway, right?”
The ME ran the name search again, and selected Kay’s father, then hit enter. A moment, and the disappointing beep warned no match was found. “Oh, well. I’ll continue running it and, hopefully, we’ll get a match soon. But it could take a while.”
“Why did you call us, Doc?” Elliot asked. He’d held his distance, observing. He was quiet, but his keen attention caught things she sometimes missed.
“Ah, yes,” Doc Whitmore, replied, straightening his back and sliding his hands into his lab coat pockets. “I have a few interesting results to share.” He walked over to the table and grabbed the remote. The wall-mounted TV came to life. He clicked the buttons a few times, then stopped on a side-by-side view of hair fibers. “The two hair fibers we found on Jenna’s clothing were not hers. I suspected that, considering the length and color; I believe I’d already shared that with you.”
Kay had almost forgotten about the hair fibers… her initial mental image of the unsub was that of a male with longer hair, possibly bleached. When she’d come across the Gavin Sharp from San Francisco, she’d been so shocked she’d forgotten all about those two hair fibers.
Damn… this was sloppy work, unforgivable. Her logic had been flawed, warped by emotion. Screw all the Gavin Sharps of the world.
“Was it bleached, Doc?” Her voice was tentative, not her usual assertive tone.
“Yes, it was. I thought I’d… well, I’m sorry. Yes, it’s bleached. Here,” he pointed with his index finger at the screen, “this is the natural color of the hair, um, caramel brown. Too bad we don’t have root follicles.”
“Got it,” she said, ready to go. Doc Whitmore’s assistant, Cheryl per her name tag, deposited Jenna’s diary in Kay’s hands, and vanished. She’d sealed it in a new evidence pouch, signed and dated it.
“Thanks, Cheryl. Please let me know when you have a match.”
“It’s all Jenna’s,” she replied. “I didn’t dust all the pages, but—”
Kay shook her head. “There’s no need, thank you.” She turned to the doc, but he held his hand in the air to stop her.
“I’m not done yet; there’s more.” The image shown on the TV screen shifted to a photo of two purple condom wrappers taken at the scene. “I believe I told you the prints found on these wrappers belong to the same man, but he’s not in AFIS.”
Kay felt a pang of anxiety coursing through her veins. Another thing she’d missed… Gavin Sharp’s fingerprints would’ve been in AFIS; he was an ex-con. She’d wasted precious time chasing this man, when evidence was telling her he wasn’t Jenna’s rapist.
Oblivious to her internal turmoil, Doc Whitmore continued. “I was able to match the lubricant found in these wrappers to the traces lifted off Jenna’s body. It’s a perfect match; you’ll be happy to hear that, because these wrappers were found in a public place, and defense could have them thrown them out during trial. However, the match was done at an enzymatic level, taking in consideration the duration the lubricant had been exposed to air once the seal was broken. You see, its chemical composition slightly alters in the presence of oxygen. Both samples, the wrappers and the trace lifted off Jenna’s body, had been exposed to oxygen for approximately the same period of time. It’s a solid match that will hold in court.”
Court.
The word resonated in her mind, echoing strangely as if it were a notion eons away.
Before court, they needed a suspect, a lead that would take them to Kendra, and they needed it quickly, if there was any hope to find that girl alive. She shuddered at a thought; every minute Kendra spent in captivity was on her and her flawed thinking. If she died, her blood would be on Kay’s hands.
