The Silent Girl

heard another hiss of luminol, and more glowing patches materialized.
    “I see footprints here,” said Ed. “Maybe a woman’s size five, six.”
    “Those are in the crime scene photos, too,” Tam said. “The cook’s wife was the first person to enter. She lived in the apartment right upstairs. When she heard the gunshot, she walked in through the alley door and found her husband. Tracked his blood into the dining room, where she found the other victims.”
    “Well, that’s what it looks like here. Shoe impressions move in the direction of the dining room.”
    “The cook was right where I’m standing now,” said Maura. “We should focus here.”
    “Cool your jets, Doc,” the criminalist said, and Maura could hear his irritation. “We’ll get to that spot.”
    “I’ve got this section recorded.”
    “Okay, moving on.”
    Maura heard more spray, and new footprints appeared, a luminous record of the wife’s movements that night. They followed the prints backward, until suddenly a bright pool bloomed. Here was where Wu Weimin’s blood had collected, spilling from the wound on his temple. Maura had read the autopsy report, had seen the close-up photo of what was just a small punch through skin and skull, belying the devastation to the brain. Yet for a few moments, his heart had continued pumping, and blood had poured out to form a congealing halo. Here was where his wife had crouched beside him, leaving her shoe print.
His body would still have been warm
.
    “Lights.”
    Maura blinked at the floor where she now saw only bare concrete. But as Ed refilled the bottle with luminol, she could still see that pool, and the evidence of the wife’s presence.
    “We’ll finish up over there,” said Ed, pointing toward the kitchen exit leading to the alley. “Did the wife leave the same way she came in?”
    “No,” said Tam. “According to Ingersoll’s report, she ran out the front exit, down Knapp Street. Headed toward Beach Street to call for help.”
    “So there shouldn’t be any blood at this end.”
    Tam peered at his laptop. “I don’t see any in this crime scene photo.”
    Maura saw Ed glance at his wristwatch, a reminder that it was growing late. What they had captured so far on video was exactly what they’d expected to find. She thought of what these two men would probably say to each other later, comments that would no doubt circulate among the rest of Boston PD.
Dr. Isles sent us on a wild goose chase
.
    Was this a mistake? she wondered. Have I wasted everyone’s evening, all because I listened to the doubts of a sixteen-year-old boy? But Maura, too, had shared Rat’s doubts. After he’d returned to school, leaving her alone in a house that seemed sadly silent and empty, she had spent many hours combing through all the reports and photos from the Red Phoenix files. The baffling details that the boy had so quickly spotted became more and more troubling to her as well.
    “Let’s wrap this up and go home,” said Jane, sounding both weary and a little disgusted.
    The lights went out again, and Maura stood with hands clenched, glad that her face was hidden in the darkness. She heard the spray bottle once again deliver its mist of luminol.
    Suddenly Ed blurted: “Hey, are you seeing this?”
    “Lights!” Jane called out, and Frost turned on the lamp.
    In the glare, they all stood silent for a moment, staring at bare concrete.
    “That didn’t show up in any of the crime scene photos,” said Tam.
    Ed was frowning. “Let me replay this video,” he said. As they crowded around the camera, he rewound and hit Play. Glowing in the darkness were three blue-green patches that moved in a line toward the alley exit. Two were smeared and misshapen, but the third was unmistakably a tiny footprint.
    “Maybe they’re not related to the shooting at all,” said Jane. “These stains could be cumulative, over years.”
    “Two bloody incidents in the same kitchen?” said Tam.
    “How do we explain the fact that these footprints aren’t in any of the crime scene photos?”
    “Because someone cleaned them up,” said Maura softly. “Before the police arrived.” Yet the traces remain here, she thought. Invisible to the human eye, but not to luminol.
    The others looked stunned by what had just been revealed. A child had been in this kitchen, a child who had stepped into blood and had tracked it across the floor and out the door, into the alley.
    “The cellar,” said Jane. She crossed to