The Dying Breath: A Forensic Mystery

pairs from the autopsy suite.” He turned to Ben. “Do you have evidence tape? We’ll have to cut the bag open and reseal it with my name and date, so I’ll need fresh tape.”
    “Sure. It’s put away but I’ll go with you and grab it out of the drawer. You know, I’ve never worked on this end of things before, and I got to say I’m curious to see how it’s done.”
    Snorting, Justin said, “That’s the thing—it’s never done like this. This is all Cammie, all the way.”
    “Yeah,” Ben agreed. “It’s all about bending the rules. We’ll do whatever it takes.”
    “And I,” Cameryn said, shooting a look that was deadly serious, “am all about saving Justin. You keep forgetting that Kyle typed your name, too. This isn’t just about me anymore.”
    “I can take care of myself,” Justin growled.
    “How about this? We’ll save each other.”
    In spite of himself, Justin grinned. “All right, Cammie. I guess I can live with that.”
    She could hear their voices trail away as they made their way down the hall. Now only Cameryn and her father remained in the lab. From the corner of her eye she saw Patrick lean toward her in his chair, his large hands clasped between his knees. He was not heavy but solid, and today he was wearing a clan Aran sweater knit in the Mahoney clan pattern. Her mammaw had made it out of natural wool, a color her grandmother called báinín. In the middle there was a diamond row, representing a wish for wealth, flanked by two cables that symbolized luck, and next to it she’d created a link that stood for the unbroken chain between the Irish who emigrated and those who remained at home.
    Absently, her father began to rub his fingers along the luck cable. “I’m beginning to like Justin,” he said.
    “Me, too,” she replied. The book intrigued her, as did the plants. “Dad, how long do you think Leather Ed was dead in that chair?”
    “Three weeks, more or less.”
    “The automatic food and water dog dish probably held about a three-week food supply, so that timeline fits. And there’s the outline the note left on the table. Which in itself is kind of weird because the house was a sty. So Kyle must have dusted before putting down the note. But why would he do that?”
    She could feel her father watching her as she flipped from photograph to photograph, and although she tried to ignore it she could feel her father’s eyes boring into her. Finally, exasperated, she set down the photographs and said, “Dad! Why are you staring?”
    There was a pause characteristic of her father. “I’m looking at my daughter,” he answered.
    “A daughter who is trying to concentrate. I can’t do it if you’re watching me.” Once again she turned her attention to Leather Ed and the pale green plants that bloomed next to his side. Slanting her eyes, she tried to read the top line of the book. If she rotated it just right, she could maybe make out the word hydration . A little further she teased out polymer and crystals .
    It almost startled her when her father spoke again. “I’m looking at my daughter and thinking she’s not the same anymore.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    He didn’t answer. Sighing, she let her hand with the photograph drift to her lap, because she knew there was something he wanted to say to her that couldn’t wait. His white hair had been combed back, gelled in place so that the teeth of the comb left tiny furrows. Judge Amy Green, the woman he was dating in Ouray, had reinvented Cameryn’s father. Instead of heavy work boots, he now wore cowboy boots made with tooled leather. The denim on his jeans was never faded, the hem no longer frayed. While she had to admit he looked more polished, she somehow missed the bear of the man he’d once been. Nothing ever stayed in place, though. Everything in life shifted like sand beneath a tide.
    “When I wasn’t looking, you grew up on me,” said her father. “It happened and I didn’t even see it.”
    “Yeah, well, a couple of death threats will do that.”
    “This isn’t funny, Cameryn. This whole thing is surreal. We’re sitting here, going over evidence left by a killer, and you’re so . . . mature. How are you doing it?”
    “I guess it’s the Irish in me. I mean, we’re tough, don’t you think? And it’s not like you haven’t changed, Dad. Look at you, all fancy now.”
    “You’re not a girl anymore, are you.” The way he said it made it a statement, not a question.
    How