‘Seems like it would be awfully hard to get rid of all the blood,’ Grigg dubiously mused.
‘A drop cloth with a rubber backing might explain the absence of blood,’ Ring said. ‘That’s the whole point. So nothing leaks through.’
Everyone looked at me to see what I would say.
‘It would have been very unusual not to get things bloody in a case like this,’ I replied. ‘Especially since she still had a blood pressure when she was decapitated. If nothing else, I would expect blood in wood grain, in cracks of the table.’
‘We could try some chemical testing for that.’ Ring was a forensic scientist now. ‘Like luminol. Any blood at all, it’s going to react to it and glow in the dark.’
‘The problem with luminol is it’s destructive,’ I replied. ‘And we’re going to want to do DNA, to see if we can get a match. So we certainly don’t want to ruin what little blood we might find.’
‘It’s not like we got probable cause to go in Pleasants’ workshop and start any kind of testing anyway.’ Grigg’s stare across the table at Ring was confrontational.
‘I think we do.’ He stared back at him.
‘Not unless they changed the rules on me.’ Grigg spoke slowly.
Wesley was watching all this, evaluating everyone and every word the way he always did. He had his opinion, and more than likely it was right. But he remained silent as the arguing went on.
‘I thought . . .’ Lucy tried to speak.
‘A very viable possibility is that this is a copycat,’ Ring said.
‘Oh, I think it is,’ said Grigg. ‘I just don’t buy your theory about Pleasants.’
‘Let me finish.’ Lucy’s penetrating gaze scanned the faces of the men. ‘I thought I would give you a briefing on how the two files were sent via America Online to Dr Scarpetta’s e-mail address.’
It always sounded odd when she called me by my professional name.
‘I know I’m curious.’ Ring had his chin propped on a hand now, studying her.
‘First, you would need a scanner,’ she went on. ‘That’s not hard. Something with color capabilities and decent resolution, as low as seventy-two dots per inch. But this looks like higher resolution to me, maybe three hundred dpi. We could be talking about something as simple as a hand-held scanner for three hundred and ninety-nine dollars, to a thirty-five-millimeter slide scanner that can run into the thousands . . .’
‘And what kind of computer would you hook this up to,’ Ring said.
‘I was getting to that.’ Lucy was tired of being interrupted by him. ‘System requirements: Minimum of eight megs RAM, a color monitor, software like FotoTouch or ScanMan, a modem. Could be a Macintosh, a Performa 6116CD or even something older. The point is, scanning files into your computer and sending them through the Internet is very accessible to your average person, which is why telecommunications crimes are keeping us so busy these days.’
‘Like that big child pornography, pedophile case you all just cracked,’ Grigg said.
‘Yes, photos sent as files through the World Wide Web, where children can talk to strangers again,’ she said. ‘What’s interesting in the situation at hand, is scanning black and white is no big deal. But when you move into color, that’s getting sophisticated. Also the edges and borders in the photos sent to Dr Scarpetta are relatively sharp, not much background noise.’
‘Sounds to me this is someone who knew what he was doing,’ Grigg said.
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘But not necessarily a computer analyst or graphic artist. Not at all.’
‘These days, if you’ve got access to the equipment and a few instruction books, anyone can do it,’ said Frankel, who also worked in computers.
‘All right, the photos were scanned into the system,’ I said to Lucy. ‘Then what? What is the path that led them to me?’
‘First you upload the file, which in this case is a graphic or GIF file,’ she replied. ‘Generally, to send this successfully, you have to determine the number of data bits, stop bits, the parity setting, whatever the appropriate configuration is. That’s where it’s not user-friendly. But AOL does all that for you. So in this case, sending the files was simple. You upload and off they go.’ She looked at me.