To Catch a Killer(57)

“How’s it going?” Rachel appears behind me in the doorway and I jump about a mile. My knees shake when I realize Chief Culson is with her.

“Oh. You scared me.”

“Sorry.” Rachel hangs by the door but Chief Culson saunters all the way in. I freak as he goes straight to the scanner and straightens it on the desk. “Aha! I have you now.”

Gripped with fear, I glance around. Is there a security camera in here or something? My insides quake, but I struggle to keep my outside looking calm. “M-m-me?” My voice is a ragged squeak.

The chief idly lifts the cover on the scanner, but finds it empty. “That depends, Erin,” he says. “Have you done something I should know about?” I look up as he raises a pair of giant caterpillar eyebrows in my direction.

“Ah … just homework,” I joke, gesturing at the computer screen and the two fake paragraphs of my book report.

“Well, that is a crime on a day like today. Shouldn’t you be out having fun with your friends?” He tosses a laugh over his shoulder to Rachel.

I don’t know how the two of them can avoid hearing my heart hammering from across the room, since the sound is deafening inside my head.

“Don’t encourage her,” Rachel says. “She works hard for her grades.”

I flash her a grateful smile, since I’m still trying to get my breathing under control.

“I’m going to lock up my office,” Rachel says. “Get your stuff ready, Erin, we’re going to leave a little early and give Charles a ride to pick up his car.”

“I’m ready when you are,” Chief Culson says. As Rachel leaves, I poke around on the keyboard, trying to form my face into a neutral mask even though I’m freaking out inside. I have to figure out how to cancel the IAFIS search before it’s finished.

Chief Culson wanders around the copy room, lining up pins on the bulletin board and nudging stains in the carpet with his toe. Rachel returns. “Ready?”

“Um. Yeah. Almost,” I say.

I’m so stressed I can hardly breathe. This is so not good.

I can’t clear the IAFIS search from the screen without them seeing it. And I can’t very well leave it running and walk out of here for someone else to find.

I’m so royally screwed.





28

A profiler studies a crime scene and makes educated guesses about the personality and identity of the perpetrator. This helps to narrow our search.





—VICTOR FLEMMING


My terrified brain is forced to multitask. One: Look normal. Two: Breathe in and out. Three: Pray for a cataclysmic distraction. A volcanic eruption would be nice … or maybe a homicidal maniac alert. At this point I’d be happy with a basic robbery in progress.

“Earth to Erin,” Rachel says.

“Sorry.” I wave over my shoulder, eyes glued to the monitor. “I messed up trying to send this file to myself. I just need a second.” Or a miracle. Yeah. That’s what I need, a freakin’ miracle.

“I’m in no rush,” Chief Culson says as he busies himself tidying things up around the copy machine.

His chatter reminds me that I know the number to his private line by heart. It’s two numbers away from Rachel’s. With my phone concealed against my middle, I key in his number and hit send. “Okay. I’ll hurry,” I promise.

A phone begins ringing in a nearby office. Someone hollers, “Hey, Chief … it’s your private line.”

“I better get that.” Chief Culson moves off.

One down … one to go.

Rachel fluffs her hair and digs in her purse for her lipstick while I gather my books at the speed of Jell-O melting. Finally, she checks her watch and says, “I’m going to stop at the bathroom. Meet us up front.”

“Okay,” I say.

Just as Rachel leaves, the computer beeps, signaling the IAFIS search is complete. Thank God. I glance at the door before checking the results. IAFIS only matched one of the two prints, but it was the most important one. It was the full handprint I found on the back seat of the van. According to IAFIS, that print belongs to Police Chief Charles A. Culson.

Bah. I went through all of that to get the prints of the chief of police. The only thing that’s a surprise about this is that he touched Journey’s van without putting on gloves.

Maybe Victor’s right. He is incompetent.

I forward the results to my e-mail for safekeeping, clear the cache on IAFIS, and power down. I grab my stuff and head out the door just as an exasperated Rachel is coming back for me.

I ride in Rachel’s backseat and Chief Culson rides next to her. They make pleasant conversation between themselves while I stay quiet. Victor’s car is in the driveway when we pull up, so Rachel doesn’t even turn in; she just pulls over to let me out. She leans around her seat.

“I’ve got plans for dinner; do you think you and Victor can fend for yourselves?”

“Yeah, no problem.” My mind is still kind of blown over the way the evidence seems to be tilting. I was hoping one of those prints would reveal something important. I wave good-bye to Rachel and the chief and amble away from the car without looking back. I climb the back stairs and bang the door into the wall as I enter the kitchen.

I start to smile because Victor’s sitting at the kitchen table. But a second later, I see what’s sitting on the kitchen table and it stops me cold.