Read Online Evidence of Murder by Lisa Black - Free Book Online

too.”
    “Forget it.”
    “That’s a pity. You’d look good in them.” He clasped his hands behind his head and watched her work. He did not offer to help, no more than she would have offered to help him. The lab tried to maintain one forensic scientist per case—it cut down on staff time spent in court when the defendant came to trial.
    Jillian had worn white Keds with socks. Not the sort of thing Theresa would have picked to walk three miles in, especially in very cold weather. The treads seemed clean for having traveled through the woods, but then it had been much colder on Monday than today and even mud or slush would have been frozen to an icy solid. “Are you hiding from Leo?”
    “Yep. He has to meet with the companies bidding to handle the move to the new building, doesn’t want to leave his office or the coffee machine, and is looking for a handy substitute.”
    “That doesn’t sound that bad, really. At least you could get away from test tubes for a while.”
    “I like DNA. It don’t talk, just stays in its little incubator and multiplies. Besides, he wants you to take the moving companies—least you could do after bailing on that defense expert. He wants
me
to search the deep freeze for a piece of bone from a 1994 case.”
    Theresa cringed. The deep freeze, a walk-in subzero room used for long-term storage, smelled bad enough to sicken strong men, and anything placed there before she was hired could not be located without hours of work. Organization, like supervision, had never been Leo’s strong point. She turned on the alternative light source and a blue beam of light at 420 nanometers flowed out of the flexible head. She donned a pair of orange plastic goggles and said, “Hit the light switch, would you?”
    Jillian’s underwear did not glow, indicating an absence of semen. One errant fiber lit up on the sweatshirt, but the taping had removed most of them. The embroidered words stood out as the optical properties of the threads reacted with the ultraviolet light. Then Theresa turned it over.
    She heard Don approaching in the darkness. “What’s that?”
    The smudge on the right cuff glowed brightly under the light. “I think that’s the smear of oil I saw. Why the heck is it glowing?”
    “It’s not just glowing. It’s signaling the mother ship.”
    She marked the area with a Sharpie in case it became difficult to see in regular light. “Sounds like a job for the FTIR, Robin.”
    “Don’t call me Robin. You can be Batgirl if you want, but I ain’t going to be Robin. Stupidest name for a superhero ever.”
    A knock sounded at the door. The building’s receptionist, an older woman with the physique of a wren but not the sweet voice, cracked it open, turned on the lights, and gave them both a suspicious look, as if wondering just what the two had been up to in the pitch black. “That suicide you just brought in, name of Perry?”
    “Yeah?” Theresa asked.
    “There’s a guy here wanting to claim the body, and giving me the impression he’s going to stage a sit-down strike until he gets it.”
    “He’s working fast. She’s still on the table. Has he made an arrangement with a funeral home yet?”
    “No, and I doubt he’ll be able to. He’s not next of kin.”
    “Is his name Evan Kovacic?”
    The receptionist wrung her hands, though from daily contact Theresa knew that this action came as naturally to the woman as blinking. “No, Drew something. He told me he’s not the husband, but he wants the body, which of course he can’t have, but every time I tell him that, he asks more questions about her death, which of course I wouldn’t answer even if I could. Can you talk to him?”
    “Me? I can’t tell him anything either. The autopsy isn’t even—”
    “But the phones are ringing off their hooks and this guy just stands there, sniffling, half giving me the creeps, if you know what I mean. I need some help up there. I’ve got too much to do.” She cocked her head as if