Ballard didn’t recognize the name or know the meaning of the initials VMD. She put the card aside and opened the cigarette box. The vial was still there and it appeared to be half full—as it was when Ballard had discovered it.
She decided to look through everything to see if anything else stood out to her as having been tampered with. The phone was now useless. It had long since used up its charge. She opened the tip apron next and saw what appeared to be the same contents as before, a fold of currency, more cigarettes, a lighter, and a small notebook. She took out the money and counted it. Not a dollar was missing, and there was no clue as to what Chastain had been up to.
Ballard pulled out her phone. She took off a glove, typed in Eric Higgs, and fired the name into her search engine. She got a variety of responses. There was an artist, a college football player, a chemistry professor at the University of California, Irvine, and several others. But none of the people with the name connected to Ballard on any level of significance.
She next typed VMD into the search engine and got numerous results, including references to Visual Molecular Dynamics, Veterinary Medicines Directorate, and Vector Meson Dominance. Far down the list, she saw the words Vacuum Metal Deposition, and the explanatory line beneath it grabbed her attention with one word.
The physical process of coating evidence with very thin metal film …
Ballard remembered reading something about this process. She clicked on the link to an article and started reading. VMD was a forensic technique in which applications of gold and zinc to evidence in a low-pressure environment revealed latent fingerprints on objects and materials usually deemed too porous to produce prints. The process had been successful in applications on plastics, patterned metals, and some woven fabrics.
The article was two years old and from a website called Forensic Times. It said the technique was complicated and required a sizable pressure chamber and other equipment, not to mention the expensive metals gold and zinc. Therefore, its study and application were primarily carried out on the university level and in private forensic labs. At the time of the article, it said neither the FBI nor any major metropolitan police department in the United States had a VMD chamber and that this was hindering law enforcement use of the technique in criminal cases.
The article listed a handful of private labs and universities where the application of VMD was either offered or being studied. Among these was UC Irvine, where Ballard had just determined that an Eric Higgs was a chemistry professor.
Ballard quickly repackaged all of Cynthia Haddel’s property back into the brown paper bag and resealed it with tape from a dispenser on the counter. She then carried the bag back to the detective bureau, where she went to work tracking down Professor Higgs.
Twenty minutes later, and thanks to the University Police Department, she placed a call to a lab assigned to the professor. Ballard judged the voice that answered as being too young to be a professor.
“I’m looking for Professor Higgs.”
“He’s gone.”
“For the day?”
“Yeah, for the day.”
“Who is this?”
“Well, who is this?”
“Detective Renée Ballard, Los Angeles Police Department. It’s very important that I reach Professor Higgs. Can you help me?”
“Well, I …”
“Who is this?”
“Uh, Steve Stilwell. I’m the grad assistant in the lab.”
“Is this the VMD lab?”
“Well, it’s not exactly a VMD lab, but we have the setup here, yeah.”
Ballard grew more excited with the confirmation.
“Do you have a cell phone for Professor Higgs or any way I could reach him?”
“I have his cell. I guess I could … I’m not sure it’s allowed.”
“Mr. Stilwell, I’m calling about a murder investigation. Do you understand? Either give me that number or call Professor Higgs yourself and ask permission to give it to me. I need you to do one or the other right now.”
“Okay, okay, let me get the number. I have to look it up on this phone so I won’t hear you if you say anything.”
“Just hurry, Mr. Stilwell.”
Ballard couldn’t contain herself while waiting. She got up and started pacing one of the aisles in the detective bureau while Stilwell got the number out of his phone. Finally, he started to call it out as he read it off his phone screen. Ballard raced back to her workstation and wrote the number down. She disconnected the call with Stilwell just as he brought the phone back to his mouth and said, “Got it?”
She dialed the number and a man answered after only one ring.
“Professor Higgs?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Ballard. I’m a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department.”
There was a long moment before he responded.
“You worked with Ken Chastain, didn’t you?”
Ballard felt a bolt of pure energy go through her chest.
“Yes, I did.”
“I thought you might call. He told me that if anything happened to him, I could trust you.”
38
It was a brutal drive in heavy traffic down to Irvine in Orange County. Professor Higgs had agreed to come back to the school and meet Ballard at his lab. Along the way, she thought about the lead she was chasing. Ken Chastain had very clearly left it for her to find. He knew he was on dangerous ground and he had a backup plan that would kick in if something happened to him. Ballard was that plan. By redirecting the Haddel property back to her, Chastain guaranteed that she would get it after the weekend and would find the clue leading to Professor Higgs.
When she finally got to UC Irvine, she had to call Higgs twice on his cell to get directions to the Natural Sciences Building, where he was on the fourth floor.
The building seemed empty as Ballard entered, and she found Higgs alone in his lab. He was tall and gangly and younger than Ballard had expected. He greeted her warmly and seemed relieved of some weight or concern.
“I didn’t know,” he said. “I’m so damn busy I don’t have time to read a newspaper or watch TV. I didn’t know what happened until yesterday, when I called the number he gave me and his wife told me. It’s an awful thing and I hope to god this had nothing to do with it.”
He gestured toward the back of the lab, where there was a steel pressure tank about the size of a washer-and-dryer stack.
“I’m here to try to find that out,” Ballard said. “You spoke to his wife?”
“Yes, she answered the phone,” Higgs said. “She told me what had happened and I was completely stunned.”
It meant that Chastain had given Higgs his home number, not his office line or his cell number. This was significant to Ballard because it was another indication—along with his actions at the crime scene and his handling of the Haddel evidence—that Chastain was trying to keep at least some of his moves on the Dancers case below the surface and untraceable through normal measures.