Page 22 of Cut Off from Sky and Earth
He sighs heavily. It’s almost a moan. “Not me. But not you either. Sit down, Tristan.”
He gestures toward my stool, and I lower my butt to it reluctantly. Does he intend to loom over me while we have the unpleasant conversation that’s clearly coming? But he rolls over the stool from the next workstation and sits so close to me our knees almost touch.
“What’s going on?”
Whatever Graham has to say, I want to get it over with. Peel the bandage off and move on, that’s my mantra. Dr. Wilde thinks I could do with slightly more introspection and sitting with my feelings. I think he’s full of it.
Graham’s sick expression makes me think he’s not one for sitting with his feelings either. He confirms this hunch a second later when he says without preamble, “You’re suspended.”
I stare at him for a long moment while my tired brain tries to make sense of the short sentence. Failing to do so, I end up repeating, “I’m suspended?”
He gives a brisk nod of confirmation, then tries to ease the blow. “With pay, of course. It’s procedure whenever an analyst contaminates evidence. It’s out of my hands, Tristan.”
My head spins. “I contaminated evidence?”
He cocks his head and frowns. “Didn’t you get a message from Human Resources? You should have.”
“Oh. I guess I did. I saw the Rowland cold case file in my inbox and skipped down to that,” I explain. Now I’m frowning. “I can’t believe I contaminated evidence, Graham. You know how careful I am.”
“I do, which is why it’s so surprising that you’d screw up. Especially on such an important case.” Another big sigh. “But DNA doesn’t lie.”
“An important case? Are you saying it’s the Ward case?” My heart is pounding wildly. This can’t be happening.
“Afraid so. Remember that brown hair they found on her body?”
I nod, swallowing hard. “Sure. There was no root attached, so I couldn’t order nuclear DNA testing.”
“I saw that in your report. I sent it out for mitochondrial testing.”
“Why?” I give him a confused look. Mitochondrial DNA is used to identify bodies or missing persons, but it’s of limited utility in a murder investigation. It’s not unique to the individual the way nuclear DNA is.
His eyes narrow. He doesn’t like being second-guessed. “The killer left us a jack-all to go on. I figured if nothing else, we could use mitochondrial DNA to rule out her siblings.”
Right. Giselle Ward had two sisters and a brother. “So you used her DNA as the reference sample?”
“Correct. And there wasn’t a match to that sample.” He pauses. “But there was a match to your sample.”
My heart picks up the pace from pounding to galloping. “My sample?” I ask, buying time to think.
Every crime scene analyst provides both a nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA sample when they join the lab. It’s a sound practice. It avoids screwups like the Phantom of Heilbronn, the prolific female serial killer who German police were unable to catch because she turned out not to exist. A woman working in a cotton swab factory had accidentally contaminated the Q-tips used to collect DNA evidence with her own. There have also been cases of secondary transfer, where a person’s DNA appears on an item it’s been established they’ve never touched. Forensic science is science, but it isn’t infallible. So, the analysts provide reference samples, just in case there’s an anomaly.
Graham gives me a bracing clap on the shoulder. “Chin up. A two-week paid suspension while we investigate how the transfer happened isn’t the worst thing in the world.”
He’s right. It’s not. But being taken off this case, right now, is. Still, there’s no point in arguing. He must see the defeat in my face because he stands, yawns, and stretches.
“By rights I should stick around and escort you out …”
That is the procedure. But it’s almost one o’clock in the morning. And he’s about to be down one investigator on the biggest case in the lab. The coming days are going to be hectic, and he knows it.
“Go home and get some sleep. I’ll just respond to these emails then shut down my computer and leave. I’ll be right behind you,” I promise.
He pretends he’s considering it. Then he says, “Okay. Appreciate it. I also appreciate your handling the news so professionally. Two weeks will go by before you know it.”
I force a smile. “Right.”
He pauses with his hand on the door and looks back. “Forward me that cold case from Arizona.”
“Will do.”
