Dead Guilty by Beverly Connor Page A

to
identify with the team. The intercom squawked with
the receptionist’s voice announcing that Sheriff Braden and Chief Garnett wanted to see her.
‘‘Buzz them in.’’
That must be a pair, thought Diane. She knew that
Sheriff
Braden
and
the
chief
weren’t
the
best
of
friends. But neither were she and Garnett. These days,
it seemed that Garnett was trying to rebuild a lot of
burnt bridges. The two of them looked cordial enough
as they walked into the crime lab.
‘‘The sheriff was discussing with me a possible link
in our murders, and I thought I’d bring him over to
see the lab.’’
Sheriff
Braden
scrutinized
the
room
as
he
ap
proached. ‘‘This looks real modern.’’
‘‘We’re proud of it,’’ said Diane.
‘‘It has the latest equipment,’’ said Garnett.
‘‘You do DNA work here too?’’ asked the sheriff.
‘‘No. We send that to the GBI lab in Atlanta.’’
‘‘I know you
aren’t finished analyzing all
the evi
dence yet,’’ Garnett said, ‘‘but we’d like to see what
we have so far.’’
It
appeared
that
Garnett
wanted
to
get
down
to
business before the sheriff asked about any other pro
cedures they didn’t do.
‘‘Sure,’’ Diane said, ‘‘but perhaps the sheriff would
like a tour of the facilities first.’’
Diane
didn’t
wait
for
a
reply,
but
immediately
began
showing
the
sheriff
the
labs
and
the
glasswalled work spaces. She explained to him how each
of the different microscopes revealed hidden charac
teristics in all manner of trace evidence. The sheriff
nodded as she explained to him about opaque mate
rial versus transparent material and the type of mi
croscopes they required, about polarizing and phasecontrast microscopes.
‘‘The museum has an electron microscope that we
contract
to
use,’’
said
Garnett
with
pride
that
sug
gested that it was his own piece of equipment. Appar
ently, this made up for not doing DNA analysis.
‘‘We
contract
with
the
museum
for
several
pro
cesses,’’
said
Diane.
‘‘Pollen
analysis,
soil
analysis,
questioned and damaged documents. It’s one advan
tage of being in a museum.’’
‘‘But
don’t
your
researchers
here
do
some
DNA
work?’’ said the sheriff. ‘‘During the museum tour last
year, some of the biologists said they were working
with DNA.’’
‘‘They’re
heavily
involved
in
their
own
research
projects,’’ said Diane, ‘‘and what they do is very differ
ent from what we need. They’re not set up to process
crime scene evidence.’’
Diane hoped the gas chromatography, spectral anal
ysis and electrostatic detection and the amazing range
of
national
and
international
databases—AFIS
for
fingerprint identification, CODIS for DNA identifica
tion, databases for fibers, shoe prints, cigarette butts,
bullet casings, tire treads, paint, hair, plus all the soft
ware that matched, categorized, imaged, mapped, and,
correlated—was sufficiently interesting to get him off
his DNA analysis obsession. The last stop was David’s
bug-rearing chambers.
‘‘These are the insects from Cobber’s Wood. They’ll
give us a pretty good estimate of time of death.’’
‘‘Dr.
Webber
said
the
bodies
had
been
out
there
about a week,’’ said the sheriff.
‘‘More like three,’’ said David.
The sheriff laughed. ‘‘Three weeks in this climate
gets you bones.’’
‘‘Hanging slows decomposition.’’
‘‘I’ve
found
that
Lynn
Webber is
always
right
on
the money,’’ said the sheriff, still smiling.
‘‘We’ll grow out the bugs and give you a report,’’
said Diane.
‘‘You do that, but I have to tell you, I respect the
mind of a human more than I do the mind of a bug.’’
‘‘When
it
comes
to
brains,
so
do
I,’’
said
Diane.
‘‘But we’re talking about sex, and bugs are very pre
dictable in that area.’’
Laughter broke the contentious mood that threatened.
‘‘We’re just starting to process the evidence,’’