Hidden - Laura Griffin Page 0,59
lying or making something up.
“Who else did you see on the trail that morning?” Kendra was pure chill, no urgency at all. She’d taken over the questions, because the witness seemed more comfortable directing his answers at her.
“I don’t know. The usual.”
“What’s the usual?” she asked.
Jacob had a pretty good idea already, because they’d spent two mornings canvassing this place.
“There’s a running club. Some people with dogs. You know.”
“What about individuals?” she asked. “You remember anyone specific?”
“I passed a couple track guys. UT track.” He paused. “There was someone near the nature center.”
Jacob’s pulse picked up.
“A man?” Kendra prompted.
“Some guy. He was crouched near a tree, tying his shoe.”
“What did he look like?”
“I don’t know. Dark hair? He was looking down. I didn’t see his face.”
“Was he white? Black? Hispanic?” she asked.
“White. And he had gloves on.”
“Gloves?”
“Golfing gloves. I noticed his hands when he was tying his shoelace.”
Kendra shot Jacob a look. Holy shit.
“Did you think that was odd, someone wearing golf gloves to run?” Kendra asked.
“I thought it was random, yeah.” He darted a look at Jacob. “But so what? Some guy out here rides his bike in a G-string. People are weird.”
Kendra lifted an eyebrow at Jacob. He was right about the biker. Police called him Captain Butt Floss, and he was known to shout at tourists and pass out religious flyers on Sixth Street.
And so far, everything Christopher Reynolds said seemed credible.
Jacob looked at his partner, and he could tell she was feeling the same rush of adrenaline he was. After six long days, they had a potential eyewitness. It was a huge break. Maybe they could get him with a sketch artist and get something solid.
“What about his height? His build?” Kendra asked.
“I don’t know. He was kneeling.”
“And his hair?”
He sighed. “Dark. Short. That’s all I remember. I really barely noticed him.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his arm. “Look, I need to get to work soon. Are we almost done here?”
“Uh, no,” Kendra said. “Not even close.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY
BAILEY FOUND NICO in a conference room with his computer and stack of file folders. He plucked out his earbuds as Bailey walked in.
“You writing?” she asked.
“Transcribing an interview. What’s up?”
She set a cold can of Dr Pepper in front of him, and his look turned suspicious.
“Thanks for setting up the interview with Seth,” she said. “He says hi, by the way.”
“I talked to him. He thinks you’re hot.”
“He does?”
The corner of Nico’s mouth curved up. “You sound so shocked.”
She perched her hip on the conference table. “I just didn’t get that read from him.” Well, maybe she had a little. At certain points in the interview, he’d seemed like he wanted to impress her, but that was pretty standard for people talking to a reporter.
Nico folded his arms over his chest. “So, is there a story there?”
“Nothing yet. I’m just doing background on something, like I said.” She studied Nico’s face. “What’s that look?”
“You sure you’re not poaching?”
“No. I told you.”
“I thought you liked the crime beat,” he said. “You got nominated for that AP award after the vice squad exposé.”
“I love the crime beat. And I’m not poaching.”
“But you can’t tell me what you’re working on.”
“Not yet. But if it turns into anything big, we can work on it together.”
He watched her for a long moment and seemed to believe her. He pulled the soft drink toward him and popped it open.
“So, what’s up?” He took a long swig. Dr Pepper was his favorite, and she’d brought it as a goodwill gesture because she knew he was sensitive about her treading on his turf. Reporters were territorial.
“I’ve been reading about this FBI program. Next Generation Identification.”
“Yeah, NGI. There’s a company in town that developed some of the software. I wrote a piece about it last year.”
“I know. What can you tell me about iris scans? Your article didn’t go into much detail.”
“Well, they’re building a criminal repository of iris images. But that’s just a small component of the overall project. NGI also includes fingerprints, palm prints, faceprints. The thing they love to talk about the most is the fingerprint database. The faceprint database is kept a lot quieter.”
“How come?”
He leaned back in his chair. “Fingerprints are less controversial. They’ve got public opinion on their side. People generally figure if you’re being fingerprinted for some reason, you must have done something wrong. Faceprints are a whole other matter.”
“Why?”
“A lot of the images in the database are taken from noncriminal contexts, like state driver’s license databases