a drawer. He pulled out a thin sheaf of printed paper held together with a clip. ‘That letter you were interested in. I called up the labs, dropped your name and had them put a rush on it.’ He handed the documents to Franklin.
It was a report from the Questioned Documents Unit. The top sheet displayed a unique file number and brief description of the items under scrutiny. The next few pages were filled with various test results: pen identification, video spectral comparisons, thin layer chromatography, Raman spectroscopy, paper tests. The final sheet took all these results and translated them back into something the field agents could use. The results for the letter were peppered with the acronym CS/WU, which stood for Common Sample/Widespread Use, basically meaning the item was too commonplace to be of any use in an investigation. But the results for the postcard were more interesting.
The card is a CS/WU low-grade high-acid paper pulp mass-produced item sold in multiple outlets online. However the thicker card-like material has rendered excellent nib impressions revealing much about the type of pen used.
Cross-referencing the chromatography results shows the sample was written with a fountain pen using something like a 33 Reverse Fine Oblique nib by someone who is either left-handed or fluidly ambidextrous.
The ink is Parker Quink Black Permanent (CS/WU); the pen is also most likely a Parker make, possibly from the 75 range.
Running this sample through the database resulted in 2 hits.
Signature on petition from Operation Fish.
Signature on letter to the Governor of South Carolina objecting to the building of a mosque in Charleston.
In both cases the signatory was the Reverend Fulton Ronald Cooper, head of the Church of Christ’s Salvation, based in Charleston, South Carolina.
‘The TV preacher?’ Shepherd looked up at Franklin. ‘He’s our suspect?’
‘So it would seem.’ Franklin turned to Ellery. ‘Thank you for this Chief, most helpful. Now, if you wouldn’t mind giving us a moment here.’
The effect was crushing. Ellery rose from his chair and left the room without another word, the door banging shut like a coffin lid as he closed it behind him.
‘Couldn’t you maybe go a little easier on him?’
‘You mean old hitch-up-his-pants, “I’m the Sheriff round these here parts” who gave us such a warm welcome? I am going easy on him.’
‘Well go easier.’ Shepherd glanced nervously up at the photo like it was listening. ‘He gives us a lead and you humiliate him by sending him out of his own office to stand in the hall.’
Franklin looked amused. ‘Ah, he deserves it for letting us walk into that exploding building while he stayed back and hid behind his pension. And the reason I sent him out is not because of some badge-related pissing contest, it’s because I need to talk to you in private.’ He turned so he was facing him. ‘How you feeling, Agent Shepherd – any concussion, anything broken?’
‘I’m OK.’ He wondered where this was going.
‘Want to carry on with this investigation? See where it goes? Help your Professor if you can?’
Shepherd tried to read his mood. If anything his tone seemed conspiratorial, which at least hinted at a degree of inclusion. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes I would.’
‘Good.’ Franklin rose and moved behind Ellery’s desk, settling in his empty chair and pulling the desk phone towards him. ‘Let me tell you the facts of life, son.’ He held up the documents from the Questioned Documents lab. ‘Ellery did us a favour by chasing these up because, even though he used my name, I doubt anyone has linked it to this investigation yet. If they had they would already have handed the information to someone in the field office in Charlotte to go apprehend the good Reverend and have a little talk about his penmanship. Do you want that to happen? Of course you don’t want that to happen.
‘But there is another way to play this. The way I see it, by the time we’ve brought another agent up to speed, we might just as well have gone to Charleston ourselves. We can fly there as fast as they can drive it and be first on the scene. So providing you’re not seeing double or deaf in both ears, I say we keep on with this thing and follow this lead.’
‘What about Professor Douglas?’ Shepherd said, sensing a trap. ‘Shouldn’t we head over and check out his home address like we did Kinderman’s?’
‘You think we’ll find him there? Man blows away billions of dollars’ worth of space hardware, you think