On his way to find Penner, Grant passed by the interrogation room where Millar had been questioned earlier. He looked through the one-way window to see if Penner was there, but it was only Millar, still sitting in the same chair. ‘How could someone like him be responsible for this?’ Grant thought to himself. ‘Just doesn’t make any sense.’ He stood watching Millar for a minute before deciding to go in and talk to him.
‘What do you want?’ Millar asked as Grant closed the door behind himself. ‘I really have nothing to say to you, and I can’t be held responsible for my actions. I don’t think anyone could when you’re wearing that suit.’
‘Look, I was just doing my job,’ Grant said. ‘Put yourself in my shoes, what would you have done? Just sit on the information? Plus, if I didn’t mention it, someone else would have made the connection eventually, no?’
‘Maybe. Or maybe no one else would have thought to accuse a fellow cop,’ Millar said, feeling like he was getting close to losing his temper again. He had been feeling pretty calm until Grant came into the room.
‘Captain said he’s going to have the two of us take polygraphs. Figures it’s one of the easiest ways to see if we’re telling the truth, or not I guess,’ Grant said.
‘Fine by me. I have nothing to hide,’ Millar said, looking at Grant. ‘You look nervous. Worried you’ll fail?’
‘Just a whole new experience for me is all. Never thought I would be questioned for setting up a fellow cop,’ Grant said.
‘Imagine being the one who’s been set up,’ Millar said. ‘Do you really think I had something to do with this?’
‘I’m starting to have my doubts. If you were guilty, I don’t think you would agree to the polygraph so fast,’ Grant said. ‘Plus, you never asked for a lawyer. If I was in your shoes, I think I would have asked for one right away.’
‘And that would make you look guilty,’ Millar said.
‘Well, I didn’t set you up. I’m telling you the truth. What would I have to gain? Once word gets out in the precinct, and it will, that I got one of the top detectives arrested, how do you think the rest of my career’s going to go, eh? How’s it going to look to the rest of the cops? Think I’m going to be considered for any promotions? Anyone going to want to work with me? I really doubt it.’ It all seemed to hit Grant at once.
Millar thought about this for a minute. He was right. Even if Millar did have something to do with the murders, you don’t turn on one of your own. There was an unwritten code. Of course, no cop wanted anyone to get away with murder, and they would all want the murderer to be caught. But, if you had turned in a fellow cop, you’d still be avoided like the plague afterward. ‘Maybe he didn’t do this,’ Millar thought, even though it pained him to admit it. Millar stood up and took a step towards Grant, who flinched and took a step back. Millar reached out his hand. Grant looked at it, looked at Millar’s face, and took his hand, shaking it. ‘I hate to say it, but I believe you. I don’t think you set me up.’
‘I didn’t. And that means a lot, sir,’ Grant said, still shaking his hand. ‘So, what now?’
‘First, give me my hand back,’ Millar said, pulling his hand away.
Outside, Penner had returned to the interrogation room and was looking through the window to see if the Captain had come back yet. Instead she saw Millar and Grant standing face to face. She burst into the room. ‘Don’t hit him, Millar! It’s not worth it!’
Millar and Grant turned to look at her. ‘It’s all good, Penner,’ said Millar. ‘We’ve come to an understanding.’
‘What? Really?’ Penner asked, with relief and surprise.
‘Yeah, I don’t think he killed anyone, and he doesn’t think I set him up,’ Grant said.
Penner wasn’t sure what had happened while she was gone, but she wasn’t complaining. She really didn’t think either one of them had anything to do with the murders. And if they were going to figure out who did, they were all going to have to work together. ‘So, where does that leave us? What do we do now?’
‘Well, the Captain is going to give each of us a polygraph. He’s supposed to let us know if it’s going to be now, or later tonight,’ Grant said. ‘Other than that, where do we start looking?’
‘Well, if we can all agree I’ve been set up, things are going to be tough,’ Millar said.
‘Why’s that?’ Penner asked.
‘Think about it. Based on the profile, I thought we were looking for a big, single white guy, good job, possibly divorced with a kid, right?’ Millar said.
‘Right.’ Grant suddenly knew what Millar was getting at. ‘But it really could be anyone who had some knowledge of profiling, making the crimes look like they were done by someone fitting that description,’ he finished. Millar hated to admit it, but the kid did have a good head on his shoulders.
‘Bingo. So, how do we narrow it down?’ Millar said.
‘We could start by creating a list of anyone you put away who got out recently?’ Penner suggested. ‘Might not be too long a list.’
‘I’ll see what I can find out,’ Grant said. ‘I can run some cross-checks in the system, come up with some names.’
‘Perfect,’ said Millar. ‘Once the Captain gives me the go-ahead to get out of here, I’ll go through my old cases and see if anything jumps out at me. Maybe a case where one of the family members was more upset than usual. I know one or two threatened me after sentencing.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ Penner asked.
‘Get in touch with FIS, and see how their analysis of the items you took from my place is going. When they show no link to the victims, it will help show the Captain I’m innocent,’ Millar said.
As Penner and Grant were about to leave, the door opened and the Captain walked in. ‘Right, the technician is just setting up in the next room, the one without the window. I explained to him how important it is that he keep this under wraps. I don’t want it getting out that I’m having two of our own tested. Who wants to go first? Millar? Grant?’
‘I’ll go first, sir,’ Millar said. ‘The quicker I can prove to you that I didn’t do this, the quicker I can get back out there and solve these cases.’
‘Very good,’ the Captain said. ‘Constable, don’t go too far, it’ll be your turn in about forty-five minutes or so. Let’s go.’ The Captain opened the door and held it for Millar. They went into the next room where the test was going to be administered.
‘Right, let’s see what we can figure out in the next half hour, shall we?’ Penner said to Grant. ‘You can use the computer in my office.’
‘Perfect,’ Grant said checking his watch.
Penner went to the FIS lab in the basement of the building, scanning her pass to open the door. Inside, she saw three forensics technicians in lab coats, each concentrating on their own task.
‘Booties, cap and coat,’ one of the technicians called over to Penner. She grabbed a pair of disposable booties off of the shelf and slid them on over her shoes, put on a shower cap and lab coat and walked over to the closest workstation.
‘I’m Detective Penner. Some items were sent over earlier for a case I’m working on.’
‘Right, sorry, one second,’ the technician said, taking a vial out of a centrifuge machine and putting the contents on a microscope slide. ‘Pete, Detective here for ya!’
A second technician walked over. ‘Can I help you, Detective?’
‘Yeah, wondering if you’ve processed the items that came in earlier. Sweater, baton, pair of boots?’ Penner asked, looking around the lab. ‘Quite the set-up you have here.’
‘It is. Got lots of cool gadgets to play with,’ Pete said. ‘So, we’re just finishing up with the initial work on the items for you. If you want to come over here we can have a look.’ He led Penner to a desk on the other side of the room. ‘So first off, the sweater. Lots of hairs on it. We did an initial comparison of them and they all seem to come from the same person—there was no variation at all that we could see. We haven’t had a chance to run a DNA test on them yet. That will probably take a couple of days to get to.’
‘Any way you can get a rush on it? I need it compared to the hair that Constable Grant dropped off the other night,’ Penner said, hoping there wouldn’t be a match.
‘Still take a couple of days, but we can do a visual comparison now if you want,’ Pete said. He walked over to a workstation that had a microscope next to a computer. ‘Right, so we already have the hair from the other night in the system.’ He typed a few commands on the keyboard, causing an image to appear on the screen. ‘So now, we can put one of the hairs from the sweater on the slide here and see what the two look like side by side.’ He put a hair on a glass slide using a pair of tweezers. Looking through the eyepiece, he adjusted a dial on the side of the microscope, making the new image on the screen come into focus. The two hairs were side by side on the screen. ‘New hair is on the right. You can see that the colours look the same, so does the general structure. See here, the cores of the two hairs are the same size, as are their widths.’
‘So, did they come from the same person?’ Penner asked, trying to keep the worry out of her voice.
‘It’s possible. I can tell you that both hairs came from Caucasians. Other than that, I can’t say anything for sure without doing a DNA comparison. If I get to it tonight, I may have a result in a couple of hours, but we have other things to get to ahead of this.’
‘I’m pretty sure the Captain wants this done ASAP. I’ll get him to give you a call, if you want.’ Penner knew she was pushing her luck, but chances were the Captain would want this done before anything else.
‘I’ll see what we can do,’ said Pete, feeling the pressure. He turned the monitor off and put the hair aside in a plastic bag.
‘Thanks. Find anything else on the sweater?’ Penner asked.
‘No other foreign fibers on the sweater. We also sprayed it looking for bodily fluids. Other than sweat, there was nothing. No blood,’ Pete said looking at the report.
‘Not surprising. The person it came from said they used it for running,’ Penner said.
‘Explains the smell,’ said Pete. ‘As for the baton, there were no fibers or fluids of any kind on it. There was some dust, but that was about it. I don’t think it was ever used. Or if it was, it was cleaned quite some time ago.’
‘Can you tell how long ago?’ Penner asked.
‘Not really. But the fact there’s a dust buildup, it would have to be a couple of weeks to a couple of months, maybe years depending on where it was stored,’ Pete said. ‘Finally the boots. Men’s size twelve. We swabbed them to look for blood or other fluids but didn’t find anything. I did do a comparison to the photo of the boot print from one of your crime scenes. I can say that the boot is the same size as the one that made the impression. The tread pattern looks the same. However…’
‘Yes?’ Penner said, anxiously.
‘There is nothing in the photo or the tread of the boot that can definitively show they are one in the same. The tread on the boot is in really good shape, no nicks or anything, nothing stuck in the tread that would alter the pattern. Same with the picture. I can say that the mark in the photo could have been made by a similar style boot, or possibly by this boot itself, but I can’t say for certain.’
‘And it seems like it’s a pretty common boot, too,’ Penner said.
‘Very,’ Pete said. ‘Actually, I think my son has the same pair.’
‘So,’ said Penner, ‘all in all, nothing conclusive.’
‘Correct.’
‘Right,’ Penner said, feeling like she could finally breathe a little easier. ‘Thanks for getting to this stuff so quickly. Let me know as soon as the DNA test is done, whenever you get to it.’
‘No problem,’ Pete said, turning to walk away.
‘Oh, one more thing,’ said Penner, reaching into her pocket. ‘Anything you can tell me about this?’ She passed the technician the bag with the button in it. He opened it up and slid the button onto a tray, turning it over with a pair of tweezers so the top of the button was visible.
‘Dress uniform button,’ Pete said. ‘Bit of an older design, I think. The department changed the design about five years ago. What do you want to know?’
Penner thought for a second. ‘Can you see if there are any prints on it?’ She figured if it did come back with Millar’s print in the system she could explain it away before telling him.
‘Might be tough, but I can try.’ Pete opened a drawer and pulled out a little bag containing a brush and a container of very fine black powder. He dipped the edge of the brush into the powder and dusted it onto the button. Before their eyes, a couple of lines and swirls appeared. ‘Got a partial print.’
Penner swallowed nervously. ‘Now what?’
Pete moved the button carefully to the slide on the microscope, using the tweezers to make sure not to disturb the dust. He looked through the eye pieces and turned a dial, bringing the image into focus. ‘Good,’ he said, turning on the monitor again where an image of the button appeared. ‘Now, I just select five points in the print, like this and we click to do a search.’ He moved a mouse on the counter, clicking to highlight certain lines in the print and clicked on a button.
‘How long does it take?’ Penner asked.
‘Not long at all. It’s amazing how quick computers are these days,’ Pete said as they watched the screen. Penner found that she was holding her breath again. After a couple of minutes, a message came up in the middle of the screen. ‘NO MATCH FOUND’
‘No match?’ Penner was surprised and relieved. Millar’s prints would be on file. All cops have their prints on file so if an unknown print is found at a crime scene, it can be ruled out as being evidence without wasting too much time. ‘So, the person who left the print isn’t in the system?’
‘Looks that way,’ said Pete. ‘Anything else we can do?’
‘No, that’s it for now. Thanks again for putting a rush on all this,’ Penner said. ‘Mind if I take the button back?’
‘Sure thing. We have the print stored, if we ever need to go back to it. It will also be compared to the database on a weekly basis. It gets updated all the time with new prints.’
‘Great,’ said Penner, putting the bag with the button back in her pocket. She glanced at her watch and started taking off her cap and booties. ‘I’ll let you guys get back to work,’ she said, hanging the lab coat back on the hook by the door before she headed back upstairs.
Grant logged onto Penner’s computer and made himself comfortable in her chair. ‘Must be nice having your own office instead of just sharing common equipment with all the other grunts,’ he thought. ‘Now, how am I going to do this?’ he wondered. On the intranet, there were databases full of all the information he needed, but he wasn’t exactly sure how to link them together.
The first database he went into had information on all the arrests made by members of the force. With some refinement and manipulation, he could filter the information down to only show people arrested by a certain officer. He put Detective Millar’s name into the search area and hit enter. The screen flashed and the information updated. ‘347 people. He’s been busy.’ He opened up a second database that contained a list of all criminals that had been released from prison, ordered by release date, latest to earliest. Unfortunately, it didn’t list the name of the arresting officer in this database. ‘Of course,’ he thought. ‘That would have been too easy.’ He started clicking on the different headings in the menu bar, looking for something that would be helpful. He checked the time—he couldn’t be late for his test. Under the heading Format, there was an option for linking databases. ‘Worth a try,’ he thought, clicking on it. A screen opened up with several places to input data. ‘Right, so here I can put the names of the two databases.’ He checked the names of the databases he had opened and entered the information in the fields. ‘Search criteria.’ He flipped back to the first database and found the name of the column which stored all the criminals’ names. ‘Offender Name. Right, so I have the two databases, searching on offender name. Looks good, I think.’ He hit enter. Another flash of the screen and there was a new set of data being displayed. ‘Well, that’s not right,’ he said out loud, seeing that it returned more than 28,000 rows of data. He went back to the screen where he could put in the search information, made some changes and tried again. After several more tries, he finally got what he needed. Out of the 347 arrests made by Millar, only 38 had been released. A few of these arrests were only for petty crimes. It didn’t seem too likely that someone arrested for stealing a car and doing five months’ time would ramp up to revenge killing. He went back to the original database and filtered the data down to only include people sentenced to more than ten years. He ran his comparison again and this time it returned only six names. ‘Much better.’ He looked at the information for the six names. Only two of them had been released in the last year. ‘Might be a good place to start.’ He selected the information and hit print. As the pages started printing, the police radio on Penner’s desk crackled to life.
‘Alright. So, that’s the end of the test. If you can just remain seated for a minute, I’ll get you unhooked,’ the polygraph technician said to Millar.
‘So, did I pass?’ Millar asked.
‘Sorry, I can’t say. I can only tell the Captain.’ He unclipped a heart sensor from the index finger of Millar’s right hand, and unfastened a sensor strap from around his chest. ‘Okay, all done, Detective. If you don’t mind sending in the Captain, I’ll finish up compiling the data.’
‘Thanks. Definitely an experience I never thought I’d have,’ said Millar, opening the door. The Captain was standing just outside. ‘Ah, good. So, I’m all done, sir. Can I go or…?’
‘Not yet. So, what did the test show?’ the Captain asked. The technician looked at the Captain, then at Millar. ‘Oh, it’s fine. He’ll find out as soon as you tell me anyway.’
‘Well, I asked him questions about each of the three murders and for each of them, he said he had nothing to do with them,’ the technician started.
‘And?’ the Captain asked.
‘He was being truthful.’
‘Told you, sir,’ said Millar. The Captain gave him a cold glance that made Millar wish he hadn’t spoken out.
‘So, he’s clean?’ the Captain asked, relieved.
‘Well, more or less.’
‘What?’ the Captain and Millar said, almost in unison. ‘What do you mean more or less?’ the Captain asked.
‘Well, I asked him if he knew who committed the crimes and he said no, but that showed some deceit. Not enough to indicate that he was lying per se, just not being completely honest.’
The Captain looked at Millar. ‘So?’
‘I don’t know, sir. The only thing I can think is that I may still have some doubts about Constable Grant, sir. Could that do it?’ he asked the technician.
‘It could. Any form of doubt will show as a deceitful response, so that could be the cause.’
‘Alright. Well, if forensics hasn’t found anything, I’m going to start leaning towards believing you,’ the Captain said. ‘Do me a favour and go and get Constable Grant, I want this mess wrapped up as quickly as possible.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Millar turned to walk away and then stopped. ‘And, sir? Thanks for keeping this civil and not treating me like a complete criminal.’ The Captain nodded and waved Millar off down the hall.
Millar walked back to the interrogation room to see if Grant was back yet. He wasn’t, but Penner was there.
‘How’d it go?’ she asked. ‘No bruising, so he didn’t try to beat a confession out of you.’
‘It went well. I was telling the truth, just like I told you,’ Millar said. ‘Where’s Grant? It’s his turn to get hooked up.’
Penner looked at her watch. ‘He’s not back yet. Let’s give him another minute, and then I’ll go look for him.’ She watched Millar standing awkwardly near the door. She just wanted to clear the air between them. ‘So, forensics didn’t find anything except for a lot of your hair and stink on the sweater. They said it could be a match to the hair found at the second scene, but it also could have come from any Caucasian. They’re going to do a DNA comparison—should have the results in a couple of hours, hopefully. And they also said that it didn’t look like the baton had ever been used.’
‘Really?’ Millar sounded mildly indignant. ‘I had used it a couple of times, back in my patrol days. I remember one night, there was a brawl in the Ladyslipper Lounge. You wouldn’t think a place with a name like that would be violent, but man, did they ever have a lot of fights there. I remember responding to a call this one night and almost got my butt handed to me. Ended up having to crack a couple of guys pretty good.’ Millar swung an arm, reliving the memory. ‘Man, there was a lot of blood.’
‘Well, you must have cleaned it pretty good, cause they didn’t find any of it,’ Penner said, with a smile, as she realized that Millar was trying to lighten the mood.
‘If I did, I don’t remember,’ Millar said. ‘Doesn’t sound like me to clean anything, really.’
‘Yeah, I’ve seen your office,’ Penner said. They were interrupted by the sound of running footsteps, and suddenly Grant stopped in the doorway.
‘There’s been another murder!’ Grant panted, trying to catch his breath. Hearing the commotion, the Captain poked his head out of the next room. ‘I just heard on your radio, there’s been another body found, over on Queen Street.’
Both Penner’s and Millar’s phones buzzed. ‘Dispatch!’ Penner said, looking at the number.
‘Go! The three of you, I want this son of a bitch caught!’ the Captain shouted.
They were already running toward the parking garage.