Читать книгу The Memory Killer - J. Kerley A. - Страница 16

We exited the store and cut between the buildings to the alley, finding Canseco in the cruiser. “Where’s Ocampo?” Canseco said as we walked up. “He wasn’t there?”

“Yep,” Gershwin said. “He was there.”

“He’s not going to the lockup?”

“Not unless you’ve got a flatbed truck, amigo,” Gershwin said.

I put the soaked tissue in an evidence bag, then called Roy and told him we were coming in empty-handed and we’d explain when we arrived. We entered his office and I gave a thirty-second rundown.

“You’re certain it’s impossible?” Roy asked. “Absolutely?”

“I pulled away the covers to make sure it wasn’t some kind of trick.”

Roy shot a look at Gershwin for his take.

“I doubt Ocampo’s dick pokes out of his fat far enough to, uh, make the journey,” Gershwin said. “And even if he tried to sneak up on someone, they’d smell him coming.”

“Bad BO?”

“Like he was sweating onions. I figure the only way Ocampo gets a full bath is if he goes through a truck wash.”

Roy turned to me. “He sells stuff right? How’s he run the shop?”

“A clerk. Ocampo seems tied in via cameras and microphones.”

Roy paced for a few seconds, pausing to stare out his window at the glittering skyline of Miami. The sparkling Biscayne Bay was visible between buildings, bright pleasure boats cutting white swaths through the blue water. Roy clapped his hands, turned to us. “Still, lab fuck-up or not, we need a DNA rule-out sample from Ocampo. Think he’ll consent?”

“Not necessary,” I said, pulling the bag from my pocket. “The guy has allergies and was pouring from his nose and eyes. This tissue went straight from his face to my pocket.”

“You’re beautiful,” Roy said.

We headed to the lab, cursorily flashing ID at the security check-in. I’d been working with the FCLE for nine months and was known by everyone. Gershwin was known as well, especially by the young woman at the front desk, pretty and Gershwin’s age, twenty-six.

“I’ll run the sample back,” I said. “You go fill in your dance card.”

He trotted to the desk, me to the lab, a maze of offices opening to a wide expanse of tables topped with microscopes, centrifuges, computer monitors and the like. A large overhead door opened to the lot, useful when entire vehicles had to be inspected. I stopped at the day-officer’s cubbyhole and was pleased to see Deb Clayton. I tossed the bagged tissue on the desk.

“Part of the rapist case, right?” she said. “You want results in a couple hours?”

“Take your time, Deb. It’s gonna be exculpatory.” I explained the circumstances.

“This happen much?” Gershwin asked, stepping into the room. “A mix-up?”

Deb leaned her small frame against a table. “Big testing labs handle thousands of samples daily. Sometime whole batches get screwed up.”

“What if it got mixed up at the test site?” Gershwin asked. “At the university.”

“Happens less often, since protocols tend to be tighter. But it’s a possibility.”

I saw where Gershwin was going: instead of thousands of candidates for the mix-up, it might be dozens.

“Let’s head to the U,” I said.

Medically oriented studies were handled, naturally, by the medical department, a complex of buildings with related disciplines. We were directed to the Office of Experimental Research and entered a room looking more business than academe: russet carpet, peach walls hung with color-coordinated abstracts, a half-dozen chairs along the wall.

We announced ourselves to a receptionist and wandered the office, footsteps suctioned into the soft cushion of carpet. Dr Marla Roth appeared seconds later, a slim woman in her late fifties with short and graying hair and intelligent brown eyes that stared over the tops of half-circle reading glasses. When we produced badges she hid the surprise and led us down a short hall to her office, more cluttered than the entrance, three walls holding bookshelves arrayed with binders. Her voice was warm, but precise, like a friendly accountant. She directed us to sit, and I outlined the reason for our visit.

“Yes,” she said. “I was in charge of that survey. May I ask what you’re looking for?”

I gave her the Reader’s Digest version and she frowned, probably at the implication of a mistake. She went to a shelf, fingers flicking over files until pulling one and bringing it to her desk.

“Since you’re alluding to a potential mix-up in our process, I want to be exact.” She read for a minute, looked up over the glasses. “The study involved two phases. The first was purely observational, accruing data from participants ranging from moderately to morbidly obese. Eligibility criteria included repeated attempts to lose twenty per cent or more of body mass, but failing. A major percentage of those who lose that much weight regain it within two years.”

“Were you looking at factors other than obesity?”

“Psychological factors were a second eligibility requirement. Participants depressed by the inability to shed weight, with resultant problems. Insecurity, self-directed anger, that sort of thing. If you’d attempted suicide because of weight-related issues, you were automatically chosen. Group therapy was part of the study, both moderated and off-site, much like AA meetings.”

“What was phase two?”

“That was more quantitative and involved study of caloric intake and so forth. That’s when the DNA sampling was done, the intent being to determine whether obesity has genetic markers.”

“Who sponsored the testing?”

“The National Institutes of Health. Total enrollment was one hundred fifty-seven, males and female, about equally split.”

I looked at Gershwin. We could eliminate the females from the study, obviously. But investigating seventy-five potential suspects was a huge task.

“May I ask the name of the person you’re talking about?” Roth asked.

“Gary Ocampo,” I said. One name in seventy-five. “Do you recall him?”

A brisk nod. “Gary was as troubled as he was intelligent – and he’s very smart. He used self-deprecating humor to mask very deep insecurities, the result of a rather nasty childhood as well as a lifetime of being mocked about his weight. As with most of our larger participants, we did the tests and interviews at his home. For the support-group work he had to come to our facility. He was hesitant at first, but something changed and he really got into it.”

My breath stopped. Had we caught a break?

“How is sampling accomplished?” I asked.

“A nurse hands the patients a swab and explains how to gather material from between gum and inner cheek. The swab is immediately put into a vial and labeled with name and patient code. One swab, one pre-labeled vial. Swab to volunteer, to mouth, to nurse, to vial. No way to make a mistake.”

I sighed, the precise chain-of-custody not what I’d wanted, hoping the nurse tossed Ocampo’s spitty swab into a purse with a half-dozen others and didn’t think to label them until getting back to the U. I thanked Roth and stood to leave.

“Happy to help,” she said. “By the way, how much does Gary weigh these days?”

“About five hundred pounds.”

She looked down at her records and brightened. “Five hundred? Wonderful.”

“Why wonderful?”

“He must have gotten motivated. He’s lost over a hundred fifty pounds.”