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She furrowed her brow. “You said my case, not my claims.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t understand why you’re not assuming the worst.” Everyone else did. Well, nearly everyone else. Gratitude for the three who believed her welled inside.
Christian tapped the wheel. “I don’t judge people at first glance. I look at all the information before making a determination.”
Lightning struck the ground on her side of the vehicle, the thunder rattling her window. She liked storms, just, perhaps, not that close.
“What happened with Mitch’s case?” he asked.
She swallowed and fought the panic rising in her throat as horrid memories flooded back. She shook it off as best she could manage. “I was in the lab the night of the murder—Anne Marlowe’s. Evidencecame in, and I worked the DNA. I found Mitch’s DNA on the one recovered item that didn’t belong to the victim.”
“Which was?”
“A man’s red polo-style shirt.”
“I remember Deckard telling me it belonged to some judge, I think.”
“Yes, Judge Simmons. The detectives on the case tracked it to him.”
“How?”
“The shirt was stitched with Eagle’s Nest Country Club, where the judge was a member.”
“But surely all members have a shirt like that.”
“Yes, but they stitch the member’s first name on the shirt, and given Judge Simmons was having an affair with Anne Marlowe, they—”
“Wait. Deckard told meMitchwas having an affair with Anne.”
“According to the detectives, he was. Anne had broken off her affair with the judge when she met Mitch.”
“Okay ...” He shook his head, then glanced back at her. “So ... back to the lab that night, to your work.”
“I found the blood on the shirt belonged to the victim. I then started looking for any trace of second-party DNA. I swabbed the inside of the shirt and found several epithelial skin cells in the sleeve. I then amplified the cells using polymerase-chain-reaction technology, known as PCR, to create identical copies that are large enough for proper analysis. I ran the sample, and it came back a match for Mitch Abrams. Since it was trace evidence and only a limited number of cells, I testified it was a partial DNA match, but the estimated chance of obtaining matching DNA components to someone else unrelated to Mitch Abrams is approximately one in one billion.”
“Was any of Judge Simmons’s DNA found?”
“No.”
“How is that possible?” he asked.
“I believe they said the shirt was stolen from the cleaners, but your brother—since he worked for Mitch—might know more than me.”
“Okay. I’ll ask him. So ... you tested the sample and then..?”
“I stored it properly and put the shirt in the evidence locker.”
“And then?”
“The investigation ruled out Judge Simmons based on the shirt having gone missing from the dry cleaners, no DNA matching his, and an airtight alibi. So they switched the investigation to Mitch based on my findings, and he was convicted and went to prison.
“His parents immediately hired your brother to work his case.” She swallowed, the pain of false judgment sinking in her gut. “They found the shirt missing from the evidence locker and the DNA sample compromised. Having no other physical evidence and no way to retest the DNA sample for an appeal, the judge vacated Mitch’s sentence. I got labeled as botching my job so bad that I sent an innocent man to jail and was immediately let go from the Bureau.”
“But you believe it was Mitch’s DNA—that he was guilty?”
“I know the work I did and the match it made. Though partial, as I said, it belonged to Mitch Abrams. I’m sure of it. And I preserved the sample properly and never took the shirt back out of the evidence locker.”
