an inner door. He was a portly East Indian with swollen lips and tiny eyes that glinted with humor, offsetting the authority of his police uniform.
“Princess!” His voice was the high squeal of a eunuch. He crossed the small room to greet us, one of his hands grasping Courtney’s shoulder with sausagy fingers and squeezing the delicate fabric of her blouse. She held her bright pink smile. Behind the Plexiglas I saw Tanisha roll her eyes.
“How am I so lucky today? What brings you? You know I would kill someone myself if that is what it took to get you hunting for evidence.”
“You don’t need to go that far to get my attention, Anand. I always look forward to seeing you.” And on his round cheek she planted a kiss that left a pursed set of bubblegum lips on his skin. He must have known it was there and yet he did nothing to wipe it off; in fact, that kiss stayed on his cheek throughout our visit.
“I see you brought a friend,” he said.
Oh, this was ridiculous. We were
colleagues
. But I went along with it and introduced myself. We pressed our palms together in a damp handshake.
“Anand,” Courtney said, “we’re doing a follow-up on the Innocence Project. It seems like there’s been a lot of activity in the past year on DNA testing of old evidence. We’re working on a chart. Mind if we poke around in the stacks and check some of the voucher logs for dates?”
“Why should I mind? Come, come.”
We followed Anand through the door and into a huge warehouse filled with metal shelving on which large cardboard barrels were stacked. There were thousands of barrels and on each one black handwritten numbers had been scrawled. Voucher numbers, I presumed, like the one Abe Starkman had given me. I wondered why Anand didn’t question us for coming to the warehouse for this information when certainly it was available in a database. But the deeper we walked into the yawning space and the more I listened to him prattle with Courtney, the better sense I got of what she had alluded to on the taxi ride over. An atmosphere of unprofessionalism permeated this place. Which explained why someone had chosen to send the alleged bones here instead of to another one of the city’s evidence storage facilities … because, as Courtney had explained, this was where it was easiest to lose evidence you weren’t keen on being found.
The mildew smell in the giant warehouse was worse than in the reception area; here it had a ripe pungency that seemed to seep into my skin. The air itself felt soggy. The walls were raw cinderblock and the floor was covered in cracked linoleum that bulged upwards in places.
“Go to town, Princess. If you need me, you know where I’ll be.” Anand waved us toward the barrels and walked off in the opposite direction. At the far end of the warehouse I saw another officer seated at one of two pushed-together desks. He had what appeared to be a thermos. A newspaper was spread open in front of him. The other desk held an open laptop and this, I assumed, was where Anand intended to post himself.
“That was too easy,” I said to Courtney when Anand was out of earshot.
She grinned. “You see what I mean about this place?”
“I do. So where do we start?”
“The barrels are stored chronologically, so we’ll start with the latest arrivals.”
We walked past four empty rows of shelving where evidence from as yet uncommitted crimes had been allotted real estate, until we reached the beginning edge of a sea of barrels. We checked each voucher number that had come in over recent weeks but the one Abe had recited, 12-84992, was not among them.
“It’s not here,” I whispered. “So maybe it doesn’t exist.”
“This is Pearson. We have to keep looking.”
We finally located it in the third row on the ground level shelf, tucked behind another, older barrel that had arrived here over a year ago. One detail Abe had neglected to tell me was that someone had assigned this voucher number the wrong
“Princess!” His voice was the high squeal of a eunuch. He crossed the small room to greet us, one of his hands grasping Courtney’s shoulder with sausagy fingers and squeezing the delicate fabric of her blouse. She held her bright pink smile. Behind the Plexiglas I saw Tanisha roll her eyes.
“How am I so lucky today? What brings you? You know I would kill someone myself if that is what it took to get you hunting for evidence.”
“You don’t need to go that far to get my attention, Anand. I always look forward to seeing you.” And on his round cheek she planted a kiss that left a pursed set of bubblegum lips on his skin. He must have known it was there and yet he did nothing to wipe it off; in fact, that kiss stayed on his cheek throughout our visit.
“I see you brought a friend,” he said.
Oh, this was ridiculous. We were
colleagues
. But I went along with it and introduced myself. We pressed our palms together in a damp handshake.
“Anand,” Courtney said, “we’re doing a follow-up on the Innocence Project. It seems like there’s been a lot of activity in the past year on DNA testing of old evidence. We’re working on a chart. Mind if we poke around in the stacks and check some of the voucher logs for dates?”
“Why should I mind? Come, come.”
We followed Anand through the door and into a huge warehouse filled with metal shelving on which large cardboard barrels were stacked. There were thousands of barrels and on each one black handwritten numbers had been scrawled. Voucher numbers, I presumed, like the one Abe Starkman had given me. I wondered why Anand didn’t question us for coming to the warehouse for this information when certainly it was available in a database. But the deeper we walked into the yawning space and the more I listened to him prattle with Courtney, the better sense I got of what she had alluded to on the taxi ride over. An atmosphere of unprofessionalism permeated this place. Which explained why someone had chosen to send the alleged bones here instead of to another one of the city’s evidence storage facilities … because, as Courtney had explained, this was where it was easiest to lose evidence you weren’t keen on being found.
The mildew smell in the giant warehouse was worse than in the reception area; here it had a ripe pungency that seemed to seep into my skin. The air itself felt soggy. The walls were raw cinderblock and the floor was covered in cracked linoleum that bulged upwards in places.
“Go to town, Princess. If you need me, you know where I’ll be.” Anand waved us toward the barrels and walked off in the opposite direction. At the far end of the warehouse I saw another officer seated at one of two pushed-together desks. He had what appeared to be a thermos. A newspaper was spread open in front of him. The other desk held an open laptop and this, I assumed, was where Anand intended to post himself.
“That was too easy,” I said to Courtney when Anand was out of earshot.
She grinned. “You see what I mean about this place?”
“I do. So where do we start?”
“The barrels are stored chronologically, so we’ll start with the latest arrivals.”
We walked past four empty rows of shelving where evidence from as yet uncommitted crimes had been allotted real estate, until we reached the beginning edge of a sea of barrels. We checked each voucher number that had come in over recent weeks but the one Abe had recited, 12-84992, was not among them.
“It’s not here,” I whispered. “So maybe it doesn’t exist.”
“This is Pearson. We have to keep looking.”
We finally located it in the third row on the ground level shelf, tucked behind another, older barrel that had arrived here over a year ago. One detail Abe had neglected to tell me was that someone had assigned this voucher number the wrong
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