The Girls in the Snow (Nikki Hunt #1) - Stacy Green Page 0,66
a Minnesota winter was futile.
Rory drove in silence, staring straight ahead. His wool hat lay on the seat between them, his dark curls held back by sunglasses.
“What?” His green eyes caught hers as he stopped for a yellow light.
Nikki flushed. “Nothing. I was just thinking…”
“About what?”
She wasn’t about to tell him she’d been admiring his hair. “Just about how awkward this is.”
He laughed and then cleared his throat. “I saw your jeep and then noticed Newport’s truck. I planned on laying into her, but when I saw Miller exit the diner with someone in handcuffs, I knew something was going down.”
“How’d you know I was out back?”
“Didn’t see you inside or in the car. Figured you made a quick escape.”
“Thanks for the ride,” Nikki said. “One of the protestors had a few things to say to me and it got out of hand.”
Rory glanced at her. “That kid from the other night?”
“No,” Nikki said. “He actually tried to defuse the situation. It was someone else who thinks they know better than the police.”
Rory didn’t say anything, and Nikki hurried to clarify.
“It’s not that I don’t support what the Innocence Project lawyers are doing. There are wrongful convictions that need to be overturned. And if this guy was serious and not trying to impress someone, then I respect his passion. But he doesn’t get to talk to me the way he did. What happened to respecting the badge?”
“Bad cops make people disrespectful. But you’re not a bad cop,” Rory said quickly. “And some people just have a problem with authority.”
“He pushed me,” Nikki said.
Rory’s jaw tensed. “He did what?”
“I kind of baited him into it,” Nikki admitted. “Miller had warned him once, so he arrested the guy. I’m not going to press charges, but he can sweat it out at the station for a while.”
“Good.” Rory circled around the government center complex. “Newport’s done nothing but rile people up. My parents think the documentary’s the only reason the Innocence Project is involved.”
“Newport uses that to her advantage,” Nikki said.
“But my mom did all the legwork. She’s the one who found out about the DNA—sorry. I said I wouldn’t talk about it.”
Saying anything more about Mark’s case was foolish, but Nikki couldn’t stop the words. “You mother found the samples that weren’t tested? How? I mean, why didn’t the defense already know about them?”
“I was going to tell you about that the other night before you left the bar. Mom ran into the deputy who’d done the evidence collection back then. He works in a different county now. He told her about the biological sample from your mother, and he mentioned some were taken from Mark that have somehow disappeared. He didn’t like the way the investigation was run from the beginning. Hardin was adamant the sample wasn’t bodily fluids. The other deputy had the latest equipment and training. He believed it was a big enough sample to test, even if the results wound up being inconclusive. He understood the science, Hardin and the sheriff didn’t. Hardin’s influence won.”
Why had Hardin been so against testing the sample? DNA had been used successfully in court by the early nineties and had been responsible for both convictions and exonerations by 1993. She understood the budgetary issue, but cops had been as afraid of DNA as they were excited by it. She’d heard countless stories in her first years on the job about detectives wanting everything tested because they didn’t want to have their convictions thrown out later because of DNA. A wrongful conviction was a huge black mark on a law enforcement career.
“That’s why Patsy Moran took the case.” It all made sense now. “She’s spoken with the deputy. He’s convinced her as much as Mark has.”
“There’s something else,” Rory said. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but it’s not your fault, and if some reporter like Newport finds out—”
“Finds out what?” Nikki was sick of being the last to know.
“That same deputy remembers the paramedic telling Hardin that you should have a tox screen, because you weren’t acting like a normal shock victim. It took her a while, but Patsy tracked down the paramedic. He’s working in Minneapolis now, but he remembers the case. He’s willing to testify that he completed the tox screen and sent it to the hospital to be tested. But the hospital has no record of receiving it.”
Nikki almost shouted in relief. She’d been right about the blood test, which meant her memories of the night were accurate.