Chapter 30

THE DHL Express delivery box was well made. The fingerprint technician, sitting at a table under hot lights in the seating area of Mason's room, carefully backed out the screws with an electric screwdriver.

The broad silver bracelet was held on a velvet jeweler's stand braced within the box so the outer surfaces of the bracelet touched nothing.

" Bring it over here, " Mason said.

Fingerprinting the bracelet would have been much easier at Baltimore Police Department's Identification Section, where the technician worked during the day, but Mason was paying a very high and private fee in cash, and he insisted the work be done before his eyes. Or before his eye, the technician reflected sourly as he placed the bracelet, stand and all, on a china plate held by a male attendant.

The attendant held the plate in front of Mason's goggle. He could not set it down on the coil of hair over Mason's heart, because the respirator moved his chest constantly, up and down…The heavy bracelet was streaked and crusted with blood, and flecks of dried blood fell from it onto the china plate. Mason regarded it with his goggled eye. Lacking any facial flesh, he had no expression, but his eye was bright.

" Dust it, " he said.

The technician had a copy of the prints off the front of Dr Lecter's FBI fingerprint card. The sixth print on the back and the identification were not reproduced.

He dusted between the crusts of blood. The Dragon's Blood fingerprint powder he preferred was too close in color to the dried blood on the bracelet, so he went to black, dusting carefully.

" We got prints, " he said, stopping to mop his head under the hot lights of the seating area. The light was good for photography and he took pictures of the prints in situ before he lifted them for microscopic comparison. " Middle finger and thumb of the left hand, sixteen-point match – it would hold up in court, " he said at last. " No question, it's the same guy. "

Mason was not interested in court. His pale hand was already crawling across the counterpane to the telephone.

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