room door.
‘– wasn’t able to trace it,’ Banville was saying to Evan.
‘Trace what?’ Darby asked. She took the seat next to Leland and handed him a file folder.
‘Dianne Cranmore received a call at her home an hour ago,’ Banville said. ‘The answering machine picked it up. It was a message from Carol saying she needed to talk to her mother and would call back in fifteen minutes. She did but didn’t stay on long enough for a trace. Dianne Cranmore confirmed it was her daughter. One of my guys dropped off a copy of the tape. We were just about to listen to it.’
Banville hit the PLAY button on the tiny micro-cassette recorder and leaned back in his seat. Evan finished typing on his laptop. Darby folded her hands on the table and stared at the recorder sitting a few inches away.
On the tape, the phone picked up. ‘Carol? Carol, it’s me, are you okay?’
Darby heard stifled tears, the clearing of the throat.
‘Carol, honey, is that you?’
‘Mom, it’s me. I’m… He hasn’t hurt me.’
Swallowing. Rapid breathing.
‘Where are you?’ Dianne Cranmore said. ‘Can you tell me?’
‘I can’t see anything, it’s too dark.’
‘Where… What can I – Carol, listen to me –’
‘He’s here inside this room. He’s got a knife.’
‘You need to protect yourself, like I showed you.’
Click.
Banville shut off the recorder.
Evan looked to Leland. ‘With your permission, I’d like to send this tape to our lab. We can enhance the background noises, see if there’s anything there. I’d also like to send the mailer and pictures. Questioned Documents can identify the type of typewriter used on the mailing labels and see if it matches another case.’
Darby could tell Leland wanted to say no, but he was boxed in a corner where he couldn’t. The FBI’s Document Section was composed of seven different units that investigated anything to do with paper. The Boston lab simply couldn’t compete.
‘As long as we share everything,’ Leland said. ‘I take it the federal government has improved its communication.’
‘See for yourself Evan reached across the table and dialed the number on the conference phone.
The sound of the phone ringing echoed over the speakerphone.
A voice picked up: ‘Peter Travis.’
‘Peter, Evan Manning. I’m calling from the Boston lab. I’m with lab director Leland Pratt and the forensic investigator on this case, Darby McCormick. Also joining us is the lead investigator, Detective Mathew Banville, from the Belham police. They may have a question or two for you, so I’m going to tell them to just jump right in.’
‘Absolutely,’ Travis said.
‘Did you get all the digital pictures I sent you?’
‘I’ve got them loaded up on my screen. The quality of the writing on the mailing labels isn’t all that clear. I’ll need the originals if you want me to identify the typewriter.’
‘You’ll have them. Let’s start with the pictures first.’
‘HP one-seven-nine is the brand of photo paper published by Hewlett-Packard. The paper is manufactured specifically for digital photo printers. You slip the memory card in, or you download the digital pictures from your computer or disc key, and it prints out a three-by-five picture.’
‘That’s the same size we have here.’
‘I can take ink samples from the picture and try and narrow down the type of printer cartridge, but you’re talking about a very big market,’ Travis said. ‘You’re not going to find Traveler that way.’
‘Traveler?’ Darby asked.
‘We’ll get to that in a moment,’ Evan said. ‘Go ahead, Peter.’
‘I can match the photo to the printer, if you have the printer.’
‘I don’t have a printer, I don’t have a suspect, and a seventeen-year-old girl is missing. What about analyzing the pictures using digital image processing techniques?’
‘It’s not a bad way to go. The problem is digital photography has evolved to such a point where you can doctor photographs without leaving any evidence.’
‘Meaning our guy could have, say, erased a window from the photograph.’
‘He could have erased a window, added a window – he could add and delete whatever he wanted if he knows how to operate the software. Given our past experiences, I doubt he’d leave anything in there that would lead us to his doorstep. I did find a new piece of evidence you can add to your list. Hold on a moment.’
A brief sound of pages being snapped back. ‘Okay, here it is,’ Travis said. ‘The mailer he used most likely belongs to a small paper company named Merrill, based out of Hollis, New Hampshire. The company went under in ninety-five. They don’t make them anymore.’
‘So our guy has a