the Star - Advertiser .”
“Oshiro?”
I nodded. “There was some talk, apparently, that she might be taking the kids to the mainland. He wasn’t happy about that.”
“We’ve got Kimo’s friend looking into her emails, too,” Ray said. “See if there’s anything there might lead us to someone interesting.”
“You’ve got your hands full, I see. Keep me in the loop.”
He picked up his phone, which meant we were dismissed. As we walked back to our desks, Thanh Nguyen, the fingerprint tech, stepped out of the elevator.
He was a wiry guy in his early sixties, and word around the building was that he’d been in the South Vietnamese army. “I did some work on that dragon pendant you sent down,” he said, as we met at my desk. “A couple of the prints on it match the pawnbroker. But there was a pretty decent thumbprint that doesn’t match anyone in our files, so I ran a couple of other tests.”
“What kind of tests?”
“I’ve been reading about new work from England that extrapolates information about the subject from the sweat in their fingerprints. Our prints contain a mixture of skin cells, sweat secretions and other stuff we pick up. Metabolites – breakdown parts of substances people consume – end up in our pores, and they get transferred along with our fingerprints.”
“Cool,” Ray said. I nodded in agreement.
“I got the department to authorize some research and thought your case would be a good test. I used gold nanoparticles to give me some idea of the profile of the person behind the print. Based on what I found, I can say that the print belongs to a woman, and there was a good chance she was a heavy coffee drinker, based on the secretions in the print.”
“Great, let’s stake out every Kope Bean in town and take comparison prints,” Ray grumbled.
Thanh held up his hands. “Hey, just trying to help.”
“It’s interesting stuff,” I said. “Anything else?”
He shook his head. “The print tested negative for tobacco or any controlled substances, so that’s all I’ve got.”
We thanked him, and after he left we decided to go look for Freddie Walsh. Since it was Ray’s turn to drive, we climbed up into the Highlander, pulling into traffic behind a woman in a blue convertible who appeared to be applying makeup and talking on her cell phone at the same time she was driving.
“Makes you wish for the old days when you were on patrol, doesn’t it?” I asked. “If we were in a squad car we could light her up and pull her over.”
“Nothing is going to make me wish for those days,” Ray said. “You know how bad the snow and ice get in Philly in the winter?”
“Nope, and I don’t want to.” We rocked along to a classic Bruce Springsteen CD until we arrived at the homeless shelter on North Vineyard. We parked behind a pickup truck with a bumper sticker that read “Talk is cheap until you hire a lawyer.”
The homeless shelter was a former church, a one-story building with a gothic arched roof and a makeshift addition out back. The receptionist told us Walsh was in the back courtyard, and there were five guys there, each one sitting by himself. A skinny moke with ropy upper arms sipping coffee in the shade of an anemic palm tree matched the description we had. “Mr. Walsh?” I asked, showing him my badge. “HPD. Can we ask you a few questions?”
Freddie was a tough-looking haole with a brown buzz cut and tribal tattoos on his biceps. I noted that and wondered if Shinichi, the waiter at Simple Sushi, had gotten his body parts wrong; he had said the man with Zoë Greenfield the night she died had tattoos on his forearms.
“What’s this about?” Walsh asked.
“Mind if we sit?” I motioned to the two other chairs at the wire table.
“It’s a free country.”
I thought I’d try the direct approach. “You know a woman named Zoë Greenfield?”
That wasn’t what he was expecting, and it threw him. “Zoë? Yeah. We grew up together in that rat hole
“Oshiro?”
I nodded. “There was some talk, apparently, that she might be taking the kids to the mainland. He wasn’t happy about that.”
“We’ve got Kimo’s friend looking into her emails, too,” Ray said. “See if there’s anything there might lead us to someone interesting.”
“You’ve got your hands full, I see. Keep me in the loop.”
He picked up his phone, which meant we were dismissed. As we walked back to our desks, Thanh Nguyen, the fingerprint tech, stepped out of the elevator.
He was a wiry guy in his early sixties, and word around the building was that he’d been in the South Vietnamese army. “I did some work on that dragon pendant you sent down,” he said, as we met at my desk. “A couple of the prints on it match the pawnbroker. But there was a pretty decent thumbprint that doesn’t match anyone in our files, so I ran a couple of other tests.”
“What kind of tests?”
“I’ve been reading about new work from England that extrapolates information about the subject from the sweat in their fingerprints. Our prints contain a mixture of skin cells, sweat secretions and other stuff we pick up. Metabolites – breakdown parts of substances people consume – end up in our pores, and they get transferred along with our fingerprints.”
“Cool,” Ray said. I nodded in agreement.
“I got the department to authorize some research and thought your case would be a good test. I used gold nanoparticles to give me some idea of the profile of the person behind the print. Based on what I found, I can say that the print belongs to a woman, and there was a good chance she was a heavy coffee drinker, based on the secretions in the print.”
“Great, let’s stake out every Kope Bean in town and take comparison prints,” Ray grumbled.
Thanh held up his hands. “Hey, just trying to help.”
“It’s interesting stuff,” I said. “Anything else?”
He shook his head. “The print tested negative for tobacco or any controlled substances, so that’s all I’ve got.”
We thanked him, and after he left we decided to go look for Freddie Walsh. Since it was Ray’s turn to drive, we climbed up into the Highlander, pulling into traffic behind a woman in a blue convertible who appeared to be applying makeup and talking on her cell phone at the same time she was driving.
“Makes you wish for the old days when you were on patrol, doesn’t it?” I asked. “If we were in a squad car we could light her up and pull her over.”
“Nothing is going to make me wish for those days,” Ray said. “You know how bad the snow and ice get in Philly in the winter?”
“Nope, and I don’t want to.” We rocked along to a classic Bruce Springsteen CD until we arrived at the homeless shelter on North Vineyard. We parked behind a pickup truck with a bumper sticker that read “Talk is cheap until you hire a lawyer.”
The homeless shelter was a former church, a one-story building with a gothic arched roof and a makeshift addition out back. The receptionist told us Walsh was in the back courtyard, and there were five guys there, each one sitting by himself. A skinny moke with ropy upper arms sipping coffee in the shade of an anemic palm tree matched the description we had. “Mr. Walsh?” I asked, showing him my badge. “HPD. Can we ask you a few questions?”
Freddie was a tough-looking haole with a brown buzz cut and tribal tattoos on his biceps. I noted that and wondered if Shinichi, the waiter at Simple Sushi, had gotten his body parts wrong; he had said the man with Zoë Greenfield the night she died had tattoos on his forearms.
“What’s this about?” Walsh asked.
“Mind if we sit?” I motioned to the two other chairs at the wire table.
“It’s a free country.”
I thought I’d try the direct approach. “You know a woman named Zoë Greenfield?”
That wasn’t what he was expecting, and it threw him. “Zoë? Yeah. We grew up together in that rat hole