Forensics Squad Unleashed (11 page)

“Very,” Nathaniel says.

Because those two have basically forgotten about
moi
, I have time to think. I think of Nathaniel’s dad’s gruff voice and his impatience with his own mother. Nathaniel’s dad is probably not a person who is easy to talk to—even if you’re his kid. Maybe that’s why Nathaniel misses his grandpa so much. Maybe his grandpa was a softer sort of person. Someone who listened.

I look at the T-shirt Nathaniel has on today. It is black with a giant white skull in the middle and, underneath it, a set of crossbones. For the first time it occurs to me that maybe Nathaniel’s fixation on skulls and crossbones isn’t because he’s into blood and gore. It’s about death.

FIFTEEN

Samantha and Lloyd exchange worried looks when we tell them about Nathaniel’s grandmother’s dog. They look even more concerned when we say there have been other dognappings in the city in the last few weeks and that the police department does not consider the missing dogs a priority.

Stacey notices their reaction too. “Do you guys have dogs?” she asks them.

“I don’t,” Samantha says. Then she adds, “Allergies,” as if she needs to explain why someone would not have a dog.

“Me neither. Our apartment building doesn’t allow them.” Lloyd’s forehead creases, which makes me wonder if something is troubling him. “But I grew up around dogs. My brother was a dog person.” When Lloyd uses the word
was
, I shiver. His brother must be dead. Judging by Lloyd’s age, the brother could not have been very old when he died. “Those missing dogs,” Lloyd says. “You don’t happen to know if they were purebreds, do you?”

I picture the posters I’ve seen. A Chihuahua, a standard poodle…and now Nathaniel’s grandmother’s Pomeranian. And didn’t Larry say he had heard someone was stealing purebred dogs? “I think so,” I tell Lloyd.

“Hmm…” is all Lloyd says. When he rubs his forehead a few times, I know for sure that something is bugging him.

At first, probably because we are all thinking about the missing dogs, it’s hard to focus on the case of the vandalized cafeteria. Samantha makes four columns on the whiteboard, one for each suspect. She puts their initials at the top: L.T. for Leo Tessier, the chef; A.L. for Amelia Lester, his assistant; J.C. for Jonah Cartwright, the student; and M.L. for Ming Lu. Or Mrs. Lu. Either way, the
M
works.

Samantha adds the words
evidence
and
possible motives
to the left side of the whiteboard.

“Excuse me,” I say. “How come we’re looking at possible motives? Didn’t you guys tell us forensic scientists don’t try to figure out the why? That that’s a detective’s job?”

“You’re right—technically,” Samantha says. “We’re just trying to make forensics camp as interesting as possible.”

“It’s working!” Mason calls out. “This camp is definitely interesting. I’m liking it as much as cooking camp.” Coming from Mason, that’s a big compliment.

Lloyd waves his cell phone at Samantha, signaling that he has to leave the room to make a call. “Give me ten minutes,” I hear him tell Samantha in a low voice as he slips out of the conference room.

Samantha’s eyes follow Lloyd as he closes the door behind him. I think she is worried about him. But when she turns back to us, she is all business again.

“This morning,” Samantha says, “we’re going to apply Locard’s Exchange Principle to our case. Let’s start by making a list of trace evidence that might have been taken from the scene, as well as trace evidence that was left. Can any of you think of evidence that could have been
taken
?”

“Willy,” Nathaniel says quietly. “Willy was taken.”

“Willy?” Samantha says. “What are you talking about, Nathaniel?”

Nathaniel bites his lip. “Sorry, I must have been thinking out loud.”

“Willy is his grandmother’s dog,” I explain. I stop myself from adding,
The one who got dognapped
. Nathaniel is already upset, and I am trying not to make things worse.

Samantha sits down at the table with the rest of us. “Look,” she says, resting her elbows on the table, “I’m going to level with you. I really wish there was some way we could help you find Willy. And don’t forget that it is always possible he and the other dogs ran away. If that’s the case, then chances are good they’ll be found and returned to their owners. If—and it’s a big if—there is evidence the dogs were dognapped, then we would have to leave the case to the professionals. Either way, Lloyd and I were hired to teach you guys about forensics, not help you investigate missing dogs.” She sighs in a way that makes me think she might be disappointed too.

“But what if the dogs
were
dognapped and the professionals don’t do anything?” Mason asks. “Nathaniel’s dad is a cop, and we heard him say missing dogs aren’t a priority for the police department.”

Samantha shakes her head. “I don’t know what to tell you—except that it’s too soon to jump to conclusions. And one more thing. If you focus on what you’re learning this week at forensics camp, and if some of you are serious about going into the field, well then, one day you might be able to use the skills you’ve acquired here to solve real cases. Like dognappings. If that’s what these are. But you’re not there yet. So what do you say we get back to my chart?” Samantha goes back to her spot in front of the whiteboard.

I try to focus on Samantha’s chart. Across the table, Mason straightens his back and studies the chart too.

But Nathaniel is staring out the window. “Nathaniel?” Samantha says. He yawns as he turns back to face her.

“I just realized there’s something Lloyd and I forgot to mention,” Samantha says. “Not every group of campers is able to solve their case. Sometimes they come up empty—which is disappointing, of course—and Lloyd and I have to reveal the culprit.”

Nathaniel swivels closer to the conference table. “We’ll solve the case,” he says.

When we turn our attention back to Samantha’s chart, we agree that, as far as we know, no trace evidence was removed from the cafeteria. Mason and Nathaniel report that they found forty dollars in the cash register. It is a sign that our suspect is a vandal, not a thief.

“Unless the vandal grabbed a slice on his way out,” Nico says. “Or a yogurt.”

No one laughs.

It is way easier to come up with the list of trace evidence
left
at the scene. We start with the fingerprints we found on the counter and the freezer-door handle. “And we still need to dust the mustard container for prints,” Muriel says.

“Unfortunately, that probably won’t work. The mustard container is textured plastic, and it’s hard to get prints off a bumpy plastic surface,” Samantha says.

Stacey shakes her head each time Samantha says the word
plastic
.

Nico mentions the footprints that were on the kitchen floor.

“We’ll need to get all of your footwear impressions so we can rule those out,” Samantha explains. She has started another list, this one of stuff we need to work on today. “Nico and Stacey, I’m putting the two of you in charge of taking footwear impressions.”

We are still discussing footwear—Samantha is explaining that Nico and Stacey will use tubs of sand and plaster of Paris to take everyone’s impressions—when Lloyd returns to the conference room, shutting the door behind him. He and Samantha do not speak, but she catches Lloyd’s eye and raises her eyebrows, as if she is asking a question. When Lloyd shrugs, I know the answer is that he is not sure.

“Why don’t we have a look at your photos of the crime scene?” Lloyd asks. Mason and Nathaniel take out their cameras, and the rest of us huddle around. Stacey makes
a clucking sound when she sees a photo of the coffee cup Muriel and I found in the garbage. “The exterior is paper, but the inside is plastic-coated,” Stacey says. And we know how she feels about plastic.

Samantha adds
coffee cup
to the list of trace evidence left at the scene.

“Not that I approve of plastic-coated cups,” I say, looking at Stacey before I turn back to Samantha, “but is it any easier to get prints off a smooth coffee cup than a bumpy mustard container?”

“As a matter of fact, it is,” Samantha says. “After we’ve had our snack break, you and Muriel might try dusting that cup. All right then, do you guys have anything else to add to our list?”

Mason nudges Nathaniel. At first I think it has something to do with the coffee cup, but then Nathaniel fishes a small brown paper bag out of his front pocket. The bag is folded over and sealed. “We found this at the crime scene,” Nathaniel says.

Lloyd raises his eyebrows. “So why didn’t you show it to us then?”

Nathaniel gives Lloyd the bag. “We, uh…we thought it would be cool to present a piece of surprise evidence. Like they do on
TV
.”

Lloyd examines the bag. Mason and Nathaniel have recorded the date, time and location of their find. “Nice forensics work on the labeling,” he tells Mason and Nathaniel. “But from now on, you need to remember that you’re all one team.
This isn’t about being some kind of
TV
star; this is forensics. You guys”—now Lloyd looks at the six of us—“are going to need to work together to solve this puzzle.”

Lloyd cuts open the paper bag, has a look inside, then passes the bag around so we can all see it. Inside is a single hair. The hair is black, straight as a stick and four inches long (the measurement is also included on the label).

I nearly raise my hand again. “I think this hair belongs to Mrs. Lu. Her hair is straight, black and medium-length. And she admitted she doesn’t like working at the cafeteria. I think Mrs. Lu is the vandal.”

Stacey is not convinced. “Mrs. Lu’s hair has gray streaks.”

“Only in the front,” I say. “This hair could have come from the back of her head.”

Samantha adds
strand of hair
to our list of trace evidence, and then, in the space for possible motives, she writes that Mrs. Lu dislikes her job at the cafeteria.

“They all dislike their jobs,” Nathaniel says.

“Not Jonah Cartwright,” Nico corrects him. “Jonah doesn’t
have
a job.”

“Yeah, but Jonah has a prior history,” Muriel calls out. “He’s been in trouble for vandalism before.”

Samantha writes
prior history/vandalism
in the box for Jonah Cartwright’s possible motive. Then she adds
dislikes job
under
possible motives
for both Amelia Lester and Leo Tessier.

“I don’t think Leo Tessier did it,” Stacey says.

“Why not?” Nico asks her. “There’s something suspicious about his mustache. Do you think he glues it on?”

Stacey does not realize Nico is joking. “The mustache is definitely real. I just don’t think a man who likes meat as much as he does would leave it to rot on the cafeteria floor.”

“Good point,” Muriel says.

Nico raises one finger in the air. “Maybe the meat was past its best-before date.”

“That’s another good point,” Samantha says. “Didn’t you and Stacey check the labels?”

“All we got was the weight,” Nico tells her. “The ink on the labels was too runny to read the rest.”

There is still a little time before snack break, so Samantha and Lloyd show us images of the fingerprints we lifted from the counter and the freezer. There are four different fingerprints. We are getting faster at identifying whorls, loops and arches.

“Nice work,” Samantha tells us. “Now we have something else to show you—fingerprints for each of the four suspects.”

“When did you get those?” Muriel asks.

“Last week,” Lloyd answers. “You guys were on summer holiday, but Samantha and I were busy preparing for forensics camp.”

“Can we see Mrs. Lu’s first?” I ask. I still think she might be our culprit.

Samantha puts Mrs. Lu’s fingerprints up on the screen. I see that some of them are arched, like mine. When Samantha puts them next to the fingerprints we found at the scene, I realize I am breathing hard. All four fingerprints seem to be Mrs. Lu’s! We’ve got a match!

“I told you so!” I say to the others. “The hair, her complaints about her job, and now these prints. I bet you anything Mrs. Lu did it! Maybe she even washed the grease trap on purpose—to get rid of the evidence.”

“Whoa, Tabitha!” Samantha says. “Not so fast!” I remember Lloyd saying I’m a fast walker. I guess I’m a fast thinker too. “It is possible that Mrs. Lu vandalized the cafeteria, but don’t forget that she also could have left her prints when she was cleaning the cafeteria.”

“If she was cleaning, wouldn’t she have worn gloves or wiped off her fingerprints?” Nathaniel asks, and I have to admit I wish I had come up with that question.

Samantha thinks about that for a moment. “What I’m saying is, it’s too soon in our investigation to say with any certainty that Mrs. Lu did it.” Samantha pauses. I know she is about to say something important, maybe share a fact we have been overlooking. Instead she adds, “Besides, it’s only Thursday morning.”

SIXTEEN

We eat our snacks at a picnic table outside the Life Sciences Building. Samantha and Lloyd are deep in conversation at another table, probably planning our next activity.

Nathaniel does not bother opening his bag of trail mix. When he catches Mason eyeing it, Nathaniel slides it over to him. “All yours, dude,” he says. Nathaniel checks his cell phone for messages. When he sighs, I know it means there is no news about Willy.

Nico plays pretend piano on the picnic table, his fingers tapping on invisible keys.

I nudge Muriel. “Does he play piano for real?” I ask her. I would not have pegged Nico as the musical type.

Muriel snorts. “Playing piano requires the ability to concentrate. Nico only plays tables.”

Nico sweeps the back of his hands against the picnic table to indicate his imaginary performance is over. Then he looks up at us. “I still say the chef did it,” he says. “So he could
get a day off and apply for a job at a decent restaurant,” he says.

“It’s not much of a motive,” I say. “Couldn’t he just have taken a sick day?”

“Maybe he used them all up,” Nico says. “Or how about this? Maybe he wanted publicity for the cafeteria. He seems like the kind of person who needs a lot of attention.”