“Okay.” I dash up to my room and carefully return the file box to the attic. Now that Victor knows about it, I don’t know how long I will get to keep it. I haven’t told him about the matching shirt tie that Journey found in his van. I have a feeling that if he knew this was connected to my mother’s murder, he’d start acting like Rachel. He’d take it all away and I wouldn’t get to see any of it.
I return to the kitchen with my laptop and a smaller shoe box containing the evidence I’ve been collecting on Miss Peters’s murder. Victor has cleared the table, and propped his huge brown leather briefcase on a chair beside him. The top of the briefcase gapes open and Victor is flipping through a notebook. I pause to reflect on just what a perfect moment this is. In all of his books, Victor stresses the importance of keeping detailed notes. And here he is … in my house … at my table … waiting to see mine.
I set the shoe box on the table and hand over my notebook. It’s not leather-bound like his, but it’s what’s inside my cardboard cover that counts. “I kept a detailed journal on everything, just like you describe in your books.”
He gives me an appreciative smile as he flips through the pages, stopping to jot something here and there in his own notebook. When he’s done, he sets it aside. “Okay, hit me with it.”
I open the box and begin to spread things out on the table. “Remember those fingerprint cards you spotted the other night? Well, one of those sets of prints belong to Chief Culson.”
“How did you…?” Victor frowns.
I bring up my e-mail from the IAFIS search and swivel the laptop so he can see it.
“I’ll explain everything, but just listen first.” I rummage in the box and find the Ziploc bag containing the scrap of paper. I slide it across the table to Victor.
“I found this lodged in Journey’s seat belt. He says it’s not his handwriting and an ink test shows it matches the chief’s special pen.”
Victor snorts. “Chuck and his special pens. What else?”
I pull out the pages Spam gave me and put them on the table. “Phone records. Miss Peters received a buttload of calls from the chief’s private line in the days right before she was killed.”
“Wait. How did you get private phone records?”
“Um. I don’t want to reveal all my sources just yet. Just let me keep going.”
Victor rolls his hand in the air for me to continue.
I’m down to the last two pieces of paper in the box. “Last but not least, DNA results from Miss Peters’s lab computer.” I push the DNA printout to the middle of the table and slide the page with the footprint I found in my room off to the side.
Victor nods at the footprint. “What’s that?”
“It’s a footprint, it connects, I just don’t know exactly how.” Actually, I know how. I’m pretty sure the person who left this footprint was looking for the tie that matched my mother’s shirt. But since I don’t want to tell Victor about the tie just yet, I can’t really explain the shoe print either.
Victor frowns. “Where’d you find it?”
“In my bedroom.”
Victor uses the smooth end of his pen to slide the footprint back into the middle of the table. “For now, it stays in. Everything stays in until we eliminate it.”
I shrug okay and curl onto my chair. I watch him review one item after another on the table. His hand hovers over the group until he picks up the page Spam printed from Miss Peters’s computer files. Donning a pair of reading glasses, he gives me a pointed look over the rims.
“What makes you think these are DNA results, and why do they implicate Chuck Culson?” he asks.
“Duh.” I lean in and point out the obvious. “Subjects are down the left and markers across the top—thirteen of them. The exact number needed for comparison DNA.”
Victor gives me a slight nod. “Impressive. But what about these letters: EB, JM, ME, and CC?”
He’s testing me. “Initials. EB is probably me. And JM could be Journey Michaels. ME could be Miss Peters.”
Victor peruses the page. “It fits.”
“What do you mean?”
Victor lays the paper on the table between us and uses his pen to point to the markers at the beginning of each string. “Well, these early markers here indicate the sex. EB is female. JM is male. ME is female as well.”
“What about CC?”
“Male.” Victor gives me an appreciative nod.
I turn my palms up. “CC … Chief Culson. Works for me.”
“Or it could just as easily be Charles Culson,” Victor says with a slight grin. Then he adopts a serious look. “I don’t know, though. DNA tests require special equipment and some expertise. I’d be surprised if your science teacher had the know-how to pull this off in the classroom.”
“Yeah, except Miss Peters had a degree in chemical forensics and I’m pretty sure I found the actual samples in the lab freezer at school.”
“You what?” Victor sits forward. “Where are those samples now?”
“In a safe place.”
“How safe?” he asks.
“What’s your position on peas?”
“I hate them. I’d rather die than eat peas.”
I point to our refrigerator. “They’re that safe.”