“How do you figure that?” Marino asked.
“Nylon upholstery and carpeting degrade very quickly in sunlight and heat, as you might imagine,”
Hanowell said. “If the fibers aren’t treated with a premetalized dye, thereby adding UV and thermal stabilizers, car carpet will bleach out or rot in short order. By using X-ray fluorescence I was able to detect trace amounts of metals in four of the nylon fibers. Though I can’t say with certainty the origin of these fibers is car carpeting, they are consistent with that.”
“Any chance of tracing them back to a make and model?” Marino wanted to know.
“I’m afraid not,” Hanowell replied. “Unless we’re talking about a very unusual fiber with a patented modification ratio, tracing the darn thing back to a manufacturer is pretty futile, especially if the vehicles in question were manufactured in Japan. Let me give you an example. The precursor to the carpeting in a Toyota is plastic pellets, which are shipped from this country to Japan. There they are spun into fibers, the yarn shipped back here to be made into carpet. The carpet is then sent back to Japan to be placed inside the cars coming off the line.”
He droned on. It only got more hopeless. “We also have headaches with cars manufactured in the United States. Chrysler Corporation, for example, may procure a certain color for its carpeting from three different suppliers. Then halfway through the model year Chrysler may decide to change suppliers. Let’s say you and I are both driving ‘eighty-seven black LeBarons with burgundy interior, Lieutenant. Well, the suppliers for the burgundy carpet in mine may be different from the suppliers in yours. Point is, the only significance of the nylon fibers I’ve examined is the variety. Two may be from household carpeting. Four may be from automobile carpeting. The colors and cross sections vary. You add to this the finding of olefin, Dynel, acrylic fibers, and what you’ve got is a hodgepodge I find most peculiar.”
“Obviously,” Wesley interjected, “the killer has a profession or some other preoccupation that puts him in contact with many different types of carpeting. And when he murdered Beryl Madison, he was wearing something that caused numerous fibers to adhere to him.”
Wool, corduroy or flannel could account for that, I thought. But no wool or dyed cotton fibers had been found that were thought to have come from the killer.
“What about Dynel?” I asked.
“Usually associated with women’s dresses. With wigs, fake furs,” Hanowell answered.
“Yes, but not exclusively,” I said. “A shirt or pair of slacks made of Dynel would build up static electricity like polyester, causing everything to stick to it. This might explain why he was carrying so much trace.”
“Possibly,” Hanowell said.
“So maybe the squirrel was wearing a wig,” Marino proposed. “We know Beryl let him in her house, translated into she didn’t feel threatened. Most ladies ain’t going to feel threatened by a woman at the door.”
“A transvestite?” Wesley suggested.
“Could be,” Marino replied. “Some of the best-looking babes you’ll ever see. It’s friggin’ sickening.
Even I can’t tell with a few of ’em unless I get right up in their faces.”
“If the assailant were in drag,” I pointed out, “how do we account for the fibers adhering to him? If the origin of the fibers is his workplace, certainly he wouldn’t have been dressed in drag at work.”
“Unless he works the streets in drag,” Marino said. “He’s in and out of Johns’ rides all night long, maybe in and out of motel rooms with carpeted floors.”
“Then his victim selection doesn’t make any sense,” I said.
“No, but the absence of seminal fluid might make sense,” Marino argued. “Male transvestites, faggots, usually don’t go around raping women.”
“They usually don’t go around murdering them, either,” I answered.
“I mentioned an exception,” Hanowell resumed, glancing at his watch. “This is the orange acrylic fiber you were so curious about.”
His gray eyes fixed impassively on me.
“The three-leaf clover shape,” I recalled.
“Yes,” Hanowell said, nodding. “The shape is very unusual, the purpose, as is true with other trilobals, to hide dirt and scatter light. Only place I know you’ll find fibers with this shape is in Plymouths manufactured in the late seventies–the fibers are in the nylon carpeting. They’re the same three-leaf clover shape at cross section as the orange fiber in Beryl Madison’s case.”