with his perusal.
"If this is the right Wesley Boss, I do." Sebastian signaled so he could make a left onto Jackson Road. They were heading toward a string of historic gold-rush towns in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Since coming to Sacramento, Sebastian had studied the whole area. According to what he'd read, Ione wasn't a mining town, 87
but it had been a staging and agricultural center for the mining towns around it.
Jane braced herself with a hand against the door as he took the corner a little too fast. "DNA evidence is pretty reliable."
"I know. Malcolm's certainly been able to rely on it." He passed the vehicle in front of him. They'd only left the office fifteen minutes ago, but his impatience made the drive seem interminable. "He was a cop. He knew the men who'd be taking the samples, how they'd go about it, where they'd store them after they were collected, where they'd be tested."
"You think he traded them out or something?"
When she stated it that way, it sounded far-fetched, even to him. But stranger things had happened. He'd once read about a UCI professor who found that DNA evidence as evaluated by a certain police lab had resulted in a young man's wrongful conviction of rape. Sloppiness, sample corruption, dishonesty, human error, overstatement of the odds--all of it could potentially "prove" the wrong thing. "He could have. They were bone-marrow samples. But it might not have been necessary to go that far. He had half a mil to buy the help he needed."
She whistled softly. "I can see why the police might not have bought your accusations. If what you say is true, they have a bigger problem than one bad cop."
"Definitely not a possibility they want to consider. I would've been happy just to convince them to take a new sample. But by the time I realized something wasn't right, it was too late. Malcolm's family had already cremated the remains of whoever was in that car."
"Do you have any idea who that person was?"
"No."
"No one else in the area suddenly went missing."
"No. I'm guessing it was a homeless person or a corpse he dug up. Or he paid off some mortician who had a body awaiting cremation." That was part of the reason the police were so convinced by the DNA match. There'd been no corresponding missing-persons report or disturbance of a cemetery plot--at least, that had come to their attention. They hadn't bothered to look very carefully.
Sebastian had tried, but he'd come up empty.
"So what tipped you off?" she asked. "How'd you figure it out?"
The Prius ahead of them was traveling more slowly than Sebastian would've liked, but it was only a two-lane highway and traffic streaming in the opposite direction wouldn't let him pass at the moment. "There were too many unanswered 88
questions."
"Such as?"
"Why didn't he shoot himself? He used his firearm to kill Emily and Colton.
He could easily have turned it on himself and ended his life right there in the house with them. Instead, he ran his car off a steep embankment, after which it burst into flames."
"Making it impossible to visually identify the body."
Finding an opening in the traffic, he floored the accelerator. "Convenient, don't you think?"
"What about dental records?" she asked.
He eased back into the right-hand lane. "What about them?"
"They're often used to identify burn victims."
"Not in this case. The police didn't see any reason to go to the extra trouble.
As far as they were concerned, they already had a positive ID. The car they found was Turner's. They had a bone-marrow sample. They even had a suicide note he'd e-mailed to his sergeant saying that he'd lost a huge sum of money in an investment and his wife was having an affair with her ex."
She held on to her seat belt as he swung out to pass again, but she didn't complain about the aggressiveness of his driving. He suspected she was too preoccupied. "Wait, you're the ex."
"I'm the ex."
"Was it true? Were you involved with Emily?"
He'd faced that question a
"If this is the right Wesley Boss, I do." Sebastian signaled so he could make a left onto Jackson Road. They were heading toward a string of historic gold-rush towns in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Since coming to Sacramento, Sebastian had studied the whole area. According to what he'd read, Ione wasn't a mining town, 87
but it had been a staging and agricultural center for the mining towns around it.
Jane braced herself with a hand against the door as he took the corner a little too fast. "DNA evidence is pretty reliable."
"I know. Malcolm's certainly been able to rely on it." He passed the vehicle in front of him. They'd only left the office fifteen minutes ago, but his impatience made the drive seem interminable. "He was a cop. He knew the men who'd be taking the samples, how they'd go about it, where they'd store them after they were collected, where they'd be tested."
"You think he traded them out or something?"
When she stated it that way, it sounded far-fetched, even to him. But stranger things had happened. He'd once read about a UCI professor who found that DNA evidence as evaluated by a certain police lab had resulted in a young man's wrongful conviction of rape. Sloppiness, sample corruption, dishonesty, human error, overstatement of the odds--all of it could potentially "prove" the wrong thing. "He could have. They were bone-marrow samples. But it might not have been necessary to go that far. He had half a mil to buy the help he needed."
She whistled softly. "I can see why the police might not have bought your accusations. If what you say is true, they have a bigger problem than one bad cop."
"Definitely not a possibility they want to consider. I would've been happy just to convince them to take a new sample. But by the time I realized something wasn't right, it was too late. Malcolm's family had already cremated the remains of whoever was in that car."
"Do you have any idea who that person was?"
"No."
"No one else in the area suddenly went missing."
"No. I'm guessing it was a homeless person or a corpse he dug up. Or he paid off some mortician who had a body awaiting cremation." That was part of the reason the police were so convinced by the DNA match. There'd been no corresponding missing-persons report or disturbance of a cemetery plot--at least, that had come to their attention. They hadn't bothered to look very carefully.
Sebastian had tried, but he'd come up empty.
"So what tipped you off?" she asked. "How'd you figure it out?"
The Prius ahead of them was traveling more slowly than Sebastian would've liked, but it was only a two-lane highway and traffic streaming in the opposite direction wouldn't let him pass at the moment. "There were too many unanswered 88
questions."
"Such as?"
"Why didn't he shoot himself? He used his firearm to kill Emily and Colton.
He could easily have turned it on himself and ended his life right there in the house with them. Instead, he ran his car off a steep embankment, after which it burst into flames."
"Making it impossible to visually identify the body."
Finding an opening in the traffic, he floored the accelerator. "Convenient, don't you think?"
"What about dental records?" she asked.
He eased back into the right-hand lane. "What about them?"
"They're often used to identify burn victims."
"Not in this case. The police didn't see any reason to go to the extra trouble.
As far as they were concerned, they already had a positive ID. The car they found was Turner's. They had a bone-marrow sample. They even had a suicide note he'd e-mailed to his sergeant saying that he'd lost a huge sum of money in an investment and his wife was having an affair with her ex."
She held on to her seat belt as he swung out to pass again, but she didn't complain about the aggressiveness of his driving. He suspected she was too preoccupied. "Wait, you're the ex."
"I'm the ex."
"Was it true? Were you involved with Emily?"
He'd faced that question a
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