Girl, 11 by Amy Clarke (grave mercy TXT) 📗

he said it sounded more astonished than mocking, but Elle had had enough. She stood up and walked out of the room, ignoring Sam’s half-hearted calls for her to come back.

She was waiting at the elevator when Ayaan poked her head out the door. “Hey, Elle, do you have a minute?” When Elle met her gaze, Ayaan pulled back. “Whoa, are you all right?”

“Hyde,” Elle said, too tired to explain more.

Ayaan nodded. “I hear that. He’s a new transfer. Does good work, but he’s a bit of a prick.”

“You don’t say.”

“Well, maybe this will take your mind off things.” Ayaan stepped into the lobby between the elevator and the door to the station, folding her arms across her white blazer. “I’ve got a missing person, presumed kidnapped yesterday morning while waiting for the school bus. The girl’s mom loves your podcast. She’s losing her mind with worry, but all she keeps talking about is that she wants you on the case. I’ve just gotten approval from the brass to bring you on as a consultant, if you’re interested.”

Elle’s eyes widened and she straightened up. She had been certain the police chief didn’t trust her, even after everything she had done to try to prove herself. She clarified, “A consultant on an active case?”

Ayaan nodded. “If you want. I’d be happy to have your insights.”

It would mean less time to work on the podcast, chasing leads and recording new content. On the other hand, it would take her mind off the garbage in her email inbox. Plus, if she turned Ayaan down now, she might never get an opportunity to help with a Minneapolis PD case again.

Biting the inside of her cheek, Elle looked past Ayaan into the station. She could see Sam’s office from here, see the back of his head where he sat at his desk. He would hate it if she was working on an active case. That was an added bonus, but the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to do it anyway. Someone wanted her; someone thought she was a good enough investigator to trust with their own child’s case.

Elle locked eyes with Ayaan again and gave her a firm nod. “I’m in.”

13

Justice Delayed podcast

January 2, 2020

Transcript: Season 5, Episode 4

Elle voice-over:

Minnesota has thousands of log cabins. Family homes dotting the countryside, hunting shacks hidden in clusters of trees. Mansions that belie the diminutive connotation of “cabin” hug the shores of some of our famous ten thousand lakes. They are beautiful, practical structures brought over from Scandinavia in the era of pilgrims and pioneers. But they are also fire hazards.

Fire needs only two things to thrive: fuel and oxygen. By their nature, cabins are constructed of fuel—thick, dry logs notched together tight to keep out the wind and snow. Understandably, many of the people who own log cabins have a nostalgia for the past and forgo more modern heating systems in favor of fireplaces or wood-burning ovens. These families lie in their beds each night, listening to the wind whistle around their sturdy homes, soaking up the heat from the fireplace snapping in the corner. They might feel safe, but it only takes one element to turn their home into a pile of kindling. One small thing could transform this place of safety into a fiery death trap.

A spark.

[THEME MUSIC + INTRO]

Elle voice-over:

Police records are confidential, but between my inside view from Detective Sykes and the vague answers I’ve been able to glean from Minneapolis Police, no one is investigating the Countdown Killer case in any official capacity at this time. The position of investigators is that nothing more can be done until new evidence comes to light. That’s why I’m here, digging. Finding new evidence is my specialty. But I’m not the only one. After releasing the first episode of this season, I was contacted by a forensic scientist in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. She wishes to remain anonymous, although her employer has authorized her to give me the information she is about to reveal. She simply doesn’t want to be contacted by anyone in the public or the media about her role in this case, and I respect her wishes. I’ll be calling her Anne.

Elle:

Thanks for agreeing to meet me here. I understand you have some information you want to share about the state of the bodies found in TCK’s cabin in 1999?

Anne:

That’s correct. To be clear, I wasn’t with the Bureau when the bodies were found. However, as you know, on the twentieth anniversary of Nora’s escape last winter, there was a temporary push in the media to solve this case, and I was assigned to review the forensic evidence in the case file. Of course, we’d never found any of TCK’s DNA, but they had found a long hair on the fourteen-year-old victim, Carissa Jacobs. This isn’t public knowledge—well, I guess now it is. The hair came from an unknown adult female; the mitochondrial DNA was not a match for any of the girls TCK had kidnapped, and at the time, that was the only DNA they were able to extract from a rootless hair.

In my review of the evidence, I was able to use advancements in DNA extraction to get a better sample from the charred bones of the female victim in the cabin. It was so degraded that in 1999, they weren’t able to amplify the genetic markers enough to be confident in making an identification. However, in this recent round of testing, I was able to generate a stronger sample, as well as extract nuclear DNA from the strand found on Carissa’s body. Within a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, I can say that the woman whose hair was found on Carissa Jacobs’s clothing was the same woman who was found dead in TCK’s cabin.

Elle:

That’s a significant discovery. I’m sure there are some people who will wonder why you’re sharing it here for the first time, and not in, say,