“I consider her a friend, too.” Which wasn’t saying much, as Angie didn’t do girlfriends, or at least not very well—the relationships never lasted when she tried. She cut right to the chase because she was squeezed for time. “I’m looking into a cold case from 1986 for a friend.” She explained to Jacob Anders what she knew of the cradle case to date and how she’d come into possession of the evidence and files.
“I did open one of the evidence bags, the one with the teddy bear, which I probably shouldn’t have, but I used gloves, and it was done in a fairly sterile environment. What I now seek is interpretation of the old lab reports and to see if there’s any viable biological evidence worth testing for DNA using current technology and whether the photographic images of the bloodied handprints and fingerprints can be digitized. Given that the VPD was going to destroy the evidence before the detective took it home, and given that he reopened the boxes at home and his family has been storing the boxes in a basement, even if there is viable evidence in there, it could be compromised.”
He sat back, relaxed as he assessed her and the merits of her case.
“Would you be interested in taking it on?” she said, glancing at her watch, pressure ratcheting up.
“You’re aware of our fee structure?”
“It won’t be a problem.”
He moistened his lips, watching her features. Angie felt her cheeks begin to redden—the man could tell she was hiding something. She adjusted the collar of her uniform and bit the bullet. “In full disclosure, there is something else I should add.” She paused, her gaze locked on his. “It’s confidential.”
“We treat all our work as confidential,” he said. “Confidentiality, discretion—it’s a necessary and absolute cornerstone of our business.”
She wavered. “I . . . I am the child who was found in the cradle, but I have no recollection of the event, nor of my life preceding the event.”
He didn’t blink. Not a thing changed in his face. It gave her an odd rush of relief at having gotten it off her chest, as if handing this information over to him lifted some of the dark weight she’d been shouldering in secret. This had to be how her suspects felt on the other end of her interrogation table when they finally confessed to what they’d been trying to hide from police.
“And you’re certain?”
Angie blinked. “You mean, am I certain that I am the cradle kid?”
“Yes.”
“I . . . from what I understand, from what I’ve been told, yes.” Her brain reeled in a totally new direction. This was something she had not thought of.
“And you say that the cradle child’s DNA is likely in this box?”
She nodded. “Her blood is on the teddy bear and the dress. There could be hairs, too. She had—has—the same color hair as me. I mean, if it was me, it’s my hair. And I have the scar on my mouth—same as in the photos.”
“To be a hundred percent certain, we should take a fresh biological sample from you before you leave. We’ll compare it against the DNA contained in the evidence. Is this acceptable to you? I can have my tech provide you with our contract, which includes a full disclosure statement and the relevant privacy clauses.”
Anxiety twisted through her belly. “Yeah. Sure, yes. I do want to be certain.” A shadow moved in the corner of her eye. Angie’s attention shot to the monitor on the wall that showed the underwater footage. She stared as an elastic, amorphous thing stirred up a cloud of silt and grainy detritus, expanding to smother the cage, making it disappear from view. Tentacles came into view as it then contracted to squeeze itself through one of the small square gaps in the cage wiring. Octopus. Once inside the cage it expanded again, and a cloud of white maggotlike organisms erupted and squiggled wildly away. The octopus smothered the white object inside like a blanket.
She leaned sharply forward. “What is that?”
He turned to the screen. “Ah.” He smiled as he wheeled closer to the monitor. “Giant Pacific octopus. Come to feed on the porcine flesh being secured to the seabed by the cage. This is part of our underwater taphonomy study being conducted in conjunction with Dr. Karen Schelling at Simon Fraser University.” He turned to face Angie. “She’s an entomologist who—”
“I know who Dr. Schelling is. She often gives talks to law enforcement. I’ve been to one of her lectures on what insects do to corpses.”
“Well, she’s trying to learn more about the rates of decomposition in various marine environments. This is her equivalent of an underwater body farm. Except we can’t put human donors out there in the open water, so we use pigs fresh from the butcher to approximate decomp rates on human bodies. Underwater taphonomy is a field a lot less studied than taphonomy on land, and there are so many more variables.”
“So this is a live feed? From out there?” Angie tilted her chin toward the bay beyond his window where a series of docks led out into the water. At the end of one of the longer docks was a small building being lashed by wind and rain.
“Correct. Karen, however, is based at SFU on the mainland, but she can operate her underwater cameras remotely from anywhere in the world. I have a feed here, but anyone can log on to the project via the Internet and watch live.”
A chill crept into Angie’s bones as she regarded the octopus now feeding on the dead pig trapped underwater in the cage. She thought of that little shoe on the news and imagined a child lying on that seabed instead, being consumed by sea lice and crabs and octopuses and fish. The chill in her bones turned to ice, and a strange pressure filled her lungs. Clearing her throat, she said, “I . . . I should probably get back to work. I apologize for the rush, but I’m on a fixed schedule at the moment.”
His gaze ticked briefly to her uniform. “Understood.” He reached across his desk to press an intercom button on his phone. “Maryanne, could you bring Officer Pallorino one of our contracts to sign and take her through to the lab for a buccal swab and blood sample.”
“On my way,” came a woman’s voice.
Jacob Anders released the button and said to Angie, “When did you learn that you were the cradle child?”
“A few weeks ago.”
Something acute and unreadable entered his eyes, as if he were seeing her anew, recalibrating his initial assessments of her. It made her uneasy. He was probably going to run his own background check on her as soon as the door shut behind her.
“How soon might we have results?” she said.
“I can expedite things if it’s urgent, but it will depend on how well that evidence was packaged and stored. While DNA is incredibly resilient and can last thousands of years if buried a few feet below ground, or even a few hundred thousand years if frozen in ice, any exposure to heat, sunlight, water, or oxygen will have degraded it. And the more degraded the DNA, the more complicated and lengthy the lab work. Sometimes the decay makes it unworkable. I’ll give you a call and an idea of timelines once we’ve made a full assessment of the evidence.”
“Fair enough.”
A knock sounded the door. It opened, and in came the purple-haired pixie, a file clutched in her hand. Angie got to her feet.
“Thank you again, Dr. Anders, for—”