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"Such a shame, isn't it? There are cameras in here; I won't be able to show you how I really feel about a man in a uniform."
Ignoring her when she's done, I walk out to make the call that will free me from her. What was Nisa thinking about giving me her to interview? And I'm not even in a uniform.
Chapter Seven
Daphne
After Archer leaves, I have about twenty bills to go. He didn't do wrong for someone who's never trained in forensics. Definitely helped me more than he realized. After he left, I found two more fingerprints. So, there are five that I'll have to run through the machine to see if anyone's identity matches them. I have no doubt one or two of them might be Archers, but he swears he wore gloves. There also might be prints from bank tellers. But wait. Didn't Rory work in a bank?
I spin my chair over to my computer, and sure enough, looking at his file, he definitely did work in a bank. Holy shit. This changes everything. How could we forget he works in a bank. This smells fishy, especially if these prints match other people who worked at the same branch. We're going to have to get files on every employee, and they should've already been fingerprinted, so that will be easy.
If they do match, then they might have been running an underground organization for laundering money. But I swear Nisa
told me Rory's boss said nothing was missing. And Archer was the one who interviewed him. Unless he was the ringleader. I have to text Nisa right away. I grab my phone out of my coat pocket.
Daphne: Hey, when you get the chance, can you come to my lab? I may have figured something out.
Nisa: Yeah, let me just finish up this meeting, and I'll be right down. Hopefully, it's something that can move us forward.
Daphne: Oh, it's something alright. I'm going to tell Archer to join us if he's done with the interview. Is that alright?
Nisa: That's fine with me.
Daphne: Hey, can you come to the lab in like ten minutes? I think I found something.
Archer: Be right there, little fox.
My stomach does a little flip. What is this man doing to me? I'm supposed to be tough and not feel things. But he's making me feel on top of the world.
I go back to finishing the rest of the bills. No more fingerprints. I guess five out of eight hundred is better than nothing. Mainly because we scientists aren't really sure how long fingerprints last on money.
Since Nisa and Archer aren't here yet, I can start running the prints to see if we have any matches. I have no idea how long this will take, so I guess I can do another sweep over Rory to see if I missed anything.
I feel like I've looked up and down his body about a million times. There's just nothing, not one trace of evidence. That's pretty sad, knowing that this might go unsolved even if we have evidence from other places. I don't know why this one is hitting too close to home. I think I just feel guilty because I just saw him alive and dancing just mere hours from his downfall.
I grab new gloves and start my exam again. This time, I start from his feet. The only thing here is his two calluses on each foot. Which makes sense, given that he worked in a bank and was probably on his feet all day. Going up, I don't see anything else, nothing that I've missed. At his stomach, I see the same bruises that show me that a hammer or another tool must have caused them. I think I would've stopped breathing with the first hit, but he's got about ten.
I get to his face, his beautiful face is destroyed, all black and
blue. His eye sockets are empty. I wonder where those eyes went. Maybe a trophy for whoever did this? But we would definitely have seen other cases like this one, and we haven't.
Looking at his eye sockets, I grab a magnifying glass to help me in my search. They look like they've been spooned out. I'm probably not going to be able to eat anything with a spoon after making that analogy.
Examining his left eye, there's nothing there. I move around him to go look in his right eye, and I see something bright in it. What the hell. I move closer, and it turns dull, covered by my shadow. I move out of the way again and lean on an angle so it is still as bright as ever. I grab my tweezers and quickly but steadily hold the piece.
It's a white piece of something. Well, this is good news indeed. I go to my desk and make a slide up to put the piece on it.
Looking through the microscope, I notice that it has the same smoothness as a glove. It's definitely a piece of latex. Well, this small piece isn't going to have many fingerprints. Since I figure the unsub might have worked in the medical field once in their lives, I need to get gloves from the nearest hospitals. Then, once I get packs of gloves, I can compare the color from this piece to the colors of the
gloves. That might help narrow it down. Especially if we make connections to someone in the bank and if they have any medical background.
I hear a knock on the door, and Nisa walks in. That's really all the notice she ever gives me. There is a knocking sound that someone is coming in, but still, no privacy since she doesn't wait for my call to come in. I think she does it to scare everyone else, but it doesn't scare me. Behind her is Archer. He looks like he went through hell. I giggle.
He looks up, "Not funny, that little prissy girl that was up there got on every one of my last nerves."
"I'm sure a twenty-one-year-old will do that to someone as uptight as you." I jokingly mock him.
"Let's get back on track, guys. I don't want you two killing each other on this lovely day. What did you find, Daphne?" Nisa looks at me.
