Zehra and BJ waited to interview the man who had done the retesting on the DNA, Dr. Malcolm Stein, in his office.
The previous night, after Denzel’s call, Zehra had told Michael and what that meant for her case. They had hurried to her car. After putting the orchid on the floor of the back seat to make sure it couldn’t fall over, she turned to him to say good night. “Thanks so much for the great time. And thanks for the beautiful plant. No one has ever—”
“You’re welcome. I enjoy you, so the orchid is a natural thing to do to show my appreciation.” He smiled. “May I see you again?”
Every nerve in her brain told her to be careful, go slowly. This was too good to be true. She hardly knew him. As the thoughts ran through her mind, her mouth opened and words came from somewhere inside her. “Sure. I’m going to be swamped with the trial, especially with this new development. Let’s try to fit some time in.” She looked into his face. His skin seemed flawless.
“Well, thank you.” He twisted from left to right. “You better get to work on your trial.” He leaned forward and kissed her quickly on the cheek. When she didn’t move, he held her face in one hand as he kissed her deeply on the lips.
She could feel the warmth of his skin close to hers, and she felt herself blush like a teenage girl.
“Yo, Z—you still here?” Denzel’s voice boomed around the conference room of Dr. Stein’s office. His big hand rested on her shoulder and calmed her.
“Yeah . . .”
“Where were you? Dr. Stein works on Saturday mornings, so he agreed to meet us. I want to get this directly from him to make sure he didn’t screw up.”
In ten minutes, a large man with a moustache and a halo of curly gray hair came into the conference room. He wore a gold shirt and khaki pants. “Hello, folks,” he said. “I’m glad we could meet in person.”
BJ introduced Zehra and said about Dr. Stein, “Dude’s not all that bad—he’s a fan of jazz.”
“Even more, a fan of yours,” the doctor said.
“Can you tell us what you found with the sample?” Zehra asked.
“Of course. Want some coffee, water?” He sat awkwardly at the head of the table. A huge gold watch dangled from his wrist and tapped on the table when he gestured with his hand. “My brother in Tel Aviv has a company that developed a test that can distinguish real DNA samples from fake ones. I’ve started the US outpost of his company. We hope to sell the test to labs all over the country.” He leaned back in the chair.
“Is it complicated?” Zehra asked.
“You have to know the techniques of DNA sampling and how to run the tests. Once trained, anyone could do this, I suppose. Probably the average criminal doesn’t have the brains or training, but an undergrad biology major might be able to pull it off.”
“So the DNA sample tested by the BCA for the El-Amin murder case is fake? What does that mean?”
“It means someone planted false evidence at the crime scene. It’s really easier than planting false fingerprints. When the BCA took their samples of saliva from the face mask, they did all the correct tests and determined the donor was Ibrahim El-Amin, but we discovered it’s all faked. The sample doesn’t correlate with his DNA.”
“Who does it identify?”
“Can’t say unless we had a sample from the true donor. All I can tell you that is scientifically certain is that El-Amin is not the true donor.”
“How does your testing work?” BJ asked. He rested his big arms across the table.
“You start with a real DNA sample from the suspect. It could be a strand of hair or saliva off a drinking cup. It doesn’t need to be large. Then you amplify the sample into a larger quantity of DNA using a standard technique called whole genome amplification. Of course, you could use a strand of hair, but blood or saliva left at a crime scene is more convincing—which is what they did here.”
“Anything else needed to fake it?” Zehra asked.
“You could also take a small blood sample and centrifuge it to remove the white cells, which contain DNA. Then we’d take those remaining red cells and add DNA that’s been amplified from the person you want to falsely identify. Since red cells don’t contain DNA, all the genetic material in the ‘new’ blood sample would be from the other person.”
“And the real person’s white cells, with the true DNA, are thrown out?”
“Yes.” Dr. Stein removed his glasses and cleaned them with the end of his shirt.
Zehra said, “They used saliva and a little blood in the face mask here?”
“Right. The BCA did nothing wrong. In fact, they’re one of the best labs in the country. But if you give them a phony sample, they’re going to come up with a phony result.”
“You can prove this?” Zehra looked at Dr. Stein.
“It’s easy. Our test is accepted by many scientists and has been reviewed in scientific journals.”
“Why doesn’t the BCA do this test?”
“They don’t have it. And why should they? Ninety-nine point nine percent of their samples are legit. We’re working with a pretty sophisticated group of criminals in this case. Highly unusual.”
Zehra sat back and looked up at the ceiling. Now what? She turned back to Dr. Stein. “I thought DNA was so reliable.”
He smiled through gray teeth. “Oh, it is. But what’s happened is that DNA testing is so good, everyone depends entirely on it. We’re creating a criminal justice system that increasingly relies on this technology. It was only a matter of time before smart criminals figured out a way to beat it.”
BJ drummed his fingers on the table in a syncopated rhythm. “You gotta keep one step ahead of them all the time.”
Dr. Stein looked at his big watch. “Have to run, guys. Anything else I can help with? I’m available to testify at trial with advance notice. I charge mileage and courtroom time from the minute I walk out of this building. That okay?”
“Sure,” said Zehra. She stood with BJ. They both shook the doctor’s hand.
After they left the office, riding in BJ’s Bronco, she sighed and slumped into the seat.
“Wha’s up, girl? We caught a home run.”
“I don’t know. With a case this big, publicity . . . even after we tell Harmon, he won’t dismiss it.”
“But if it’s not El-Amin, who did it?”
They drove to her condo, and she invited him in for coffee. In her third-floor unit that overlooked the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, she pushed aside her bike at the front door and led him inside. As she ground coffee beans, BJ walked to the deck and admired her plants. “The Garden of Eden,” he called back to her.
In a few minutes, the coffee was ready. He came back in, sat at the small table and sipped. His cell phone rang. His expression crashed as he talked.
“It’s my momma in Chicago. She’s on dialysis twice a week. She’s having troubles. I may have to go visit her since I’m the only family close by.”
“Of course. Let’s move outside; it’s such a beautiful day.”
On the spacious deck, BJ spotted the new orchid. “Hey, what’s this?”
“Don’t you even know what an orchid is? A friend of mine, Michael, gave it to me.”
BJ studied it. “I know what he’s got on his mind.” His eyes darted up to her. “You tight with this dude?”
“None of your snoopy business. But the answer is, no. A friend.”
“I could check him out.”
“Butt out, Denzel.” She wagged her finger in his face. “Let’s talk about something important. Now what do we do? Who really killed the boy?”
“Remember Dr. McWhorter said the mask was commonly used in hospitals? Maybe the real killer worked in a hospital. The mask is unusual; I’ve never seen one before.”
“Trouble is, we don’t have the time or resources.” She looked off at the new bridge that spanned the river downstream. “Wait a minute. My friend Paul. I’ll check with him. Maybe he’d be willing to run this down. The FBI has got lots of money.” She stopped talking and re
membered that Paul had known about the alibi witness before she told him. Could she trust Paul?
A few minutes after BJ left, Jackie called. She sounded out of breath. “Hey, Z, I think we got something good.”
“What?”
“I was going over the autopsy reports line by line.” She paused. “Gruesome stuff. Those photos . . . Anyway, there’s a note from Dr. Wong in the report about something odd she found but couldn’t explain.”
“I don’t remember anything.”
“The victim had red blotches on his palms and the bottom of his feet. There’s also photos in the file.”
“That is odd. Wonder why she didn’t analyze them?” Zehra thought for a moment. “We could get a second opinion from the Ramsey County medical examiner. We’ll have to email all the autopsy reports to him.”
“I’ll get on it.”
It was late in the afternoon, but Zehra thought Steven Harmon was probably still in his office. She called him.
When he answered, he sounded out of breath. “I started doing push-ups in the office every day.” He paused. “Trying to stay in better shape. I spend too much time chained to this damn desk. How are you?”
“Are you familiar with a test done to determine if the original DNA testing is accurate?”
“Never heard of it.”
She explained what Dr. Stein had taught her and how he had retested the DNA sample from the BCA. “He said it’s not hard to plant phony DNA evidence at a crime scene if you know how to do it.”
“I know this is part of your job, but I’m not going to throw out the case. Reason one is I think your guy is guilty. Reason two is my elected boss. How do you think he’d look to the public if we dumped this horrible murder case? The voters would kill him.”
“I understand, and it’s not because I feel sorry for my client—just the opposite. But what if you’ve really got the wrong guy? This new testing procedure looks impressive. And you combine that with the alibi witness we found—don’t you see? You have an ethical duty to let him go.”
“If you were any one of a dozen other defense lawyers, I’d hang up on you now. But here’s what I can do. Give me all the info you’ve go on this new test. If it’s legit, I will review the case, but I have to warn you: it will take a bulldozer to get my boss to back down on this case, so don’t get your hopes up.”
“Tell him to think about justice. You can’t prosecute an innocent man.” Her voice rose more than she expected.
Harmon didn’t respond for a few minutes. “Look, Zehra, don’t give me that crap. I know it. But I’ve got my boss, the FBI, the media, and the victim’s family all breathing down my neck. Everyone’s looking to wrap this whole mess up with a conviction.” He changed to a softer voice. “I said I’ll look at this DNA stuff. If it was faked, we’ll deal with it. But for now, I say your client is guilty.”
She sputtered some more but knew it was hopeless. Hanging up, she looked outside over the deck. It wasn’t like her to blow up and yell at a prosecutor, but the pressure on her had exploded out of control for a moment. She was normally very disciplined, so to have that occur was scary.
The hardest part would be when Zehra told her client. What would he do? She smelled an electric freshness in the air from the open door to the deck. Good—her oasis on the deck needed rain badly. She shook out her hair, trying to shake out all the conflicting problems facing her.
The orchid caught her attention, and Zehra thought of Michael. It caused her to feel lighter. Of course, it was too early to say, but compared to all the other guys she’d met lately, he shone like a prize. Like the breeze from outside, he was a fresh and electric presence in the midst of the problems that pressed on her. With him, her loneliness lifted a little bit.
Chapter Twenty-Two