"Both, actually. Fingerprints came back first. Full print, no smudging. DNA confirmed it a few hours later,” Dani told them. She put her raging hormones back where they belonged. But…wow. They just did not make men like that often. And this was Payton’s brother? Dani shot a look at the Payton in question. No way. "Peter Arthur Graves. Currently residing in Poseyville, Indiana."
"Poseyville," Hot Guy Asher said. "That's about forty-five minutes from Washington."
"Give or take," Dani said. She’d looked at the map, and then tried to find everything she could about good old Pete Graves online. He didn’t have much of a presence. Just the same standard ‘Me go hunt, wife go cook my dinner…now me live alone, me sad…all her fault…’ type posts that classified men of his age bracket, education level, and work history. She’d seen his type before.
"Why was he in the system?" Miranda asked.
"Felony conviction. Assault." Dani scrolled through the file she had pulled. It had been typical, too.
"Plea deal?"
"Aggravated assault. Served two years, got out on parole. He's been clean since, at least on paper."
"What do we know about him now?" Miranda asked.
"Fifty-two. Current address is in Poseyville. I'm still running his history, but I can tell you he worked at the same factory as Derek back then. For a little while. Guy is a job jumper. Line worker, sanitation worker, stock at grocery stores, that kind of thing."
"So they probably knew each other," Pierce said. He was all rumbly when he talked. And his eyes…wow. Those were some powerful eyes.
"Looks like it." She’d just sit there and drool, as long as she could. Dani just couldn’t help it.
"What about the fingerprint?" Miranda asked. "You said it was a full print?"
"Right thumb. Full print. Almost textbook. He pressed down hard when he wrote that letter."
"Angry," Pierce said.
"That would be my guess. And…there may have been…spit… on there.”
"Really angry. What about the sticky note?" Miranda asked.
Dani glanced at Payton. This was her territory. The two of them had discussed the sticky note already. And Payton’s brother, to some extent. Payton had said this case really haunted her older brother. And it hurt him. Well, Dani could understand that.
Payton leaned over Dani’s shoulder from behind. "Nothing definitive yet. The handwriting on the sticky note doesn't match Graves’s samples that we were able to find—he wrote out a confession for the plea deal, so I have that. Different person entirely."
"Any matches in the system?" Miranda asked. “I know it’s a long shot.”
“No. Nothing that compares with what I already have—which handwriting samples weren’t part of the investigation back then, so…get me something to compare it to…and then we’ll go from there,” Payton said.
"What about the ink?" Miranda asked.
"Standard ballpoint. Black. Nothing distinctive about it."
"So we have Graves for the threat," Miranda said. "But we still don't know who wrote the sticky note. What about the coat?"
"Nothing unexpected," Dani said. She had the reports from Biological and DNA departments in front of her now. Most of the physical evidence for the cold case files filtered through her. It was just easier that way. "DNA was consistent with Derek. Skin cells and a few hairs. All his."
"No secondary DNA?"
"Some trace amounts, and a few things that matched his kids or his wife. But nothing that gave us a new profile. Degraded, mostly. That coat sat in a box in a garage for a long time."
"So it's a dead end."
"For DNA, yes. Unfortunately. I sent fibers, too, but I'm not expecting much. There's nothing unusual about the material. I’ll keep you posted, but…other than the letter, I don’t think Hannah’s box will give us much more." And that was the way it was. Some cases had thousands of pieces of physical evidence—and still sat on a shelf somewhere, unsolved.
Just like Dani’s own case was still sitting there. Rotting.
"Pierce, before you go," Payton said. "Fair warning. Luc's going to call you again tonight.”
