The Roman Lee Series "Beneath Devil's Lake" ....is it human blood?......

THE ROMAN LEE SERIES

 

"BENEATH DEVIL'S LAKE"

 

A dark blue MSP lab van with its distinguished insignia entered the lot stopping to park next our squad car.  A door opened revealing a lab tech that was not Monica Spencer.  I was a little disappointed.  He walked over to us carrying a box similar in size to a tackle box used for fishing.    

“Do you have a test kit for human blood that can give you immediate results?”

He looked back at me as though I just insulted him.

“Of course, and the response is almost instantaneous.  We use what’s called an Isoantigenic Body Fluid kit. It is a blood assay that will determine specifically if the sample contains the human Glycophorin A Antigen.”

“Then it’s fairly specific in identification?”

“The test itself should determine whether its human blood specifically if it’s absent of any cross reaction with saliva, semen, urine or amniotic fluid.  We’ll have the results in about five minutes.”

Lonnie and I canvassed the parking lot area for good measure.  A brown paper bag was rolling around near a tree at the end of the lot.  It was odd given there wasn’t a breeze of any kind.  Picking up the wrinkled brown bag I peered inside immediately met with a small pair of eyes staring back at me.  The little hair ball pinned his ears back hissing and spitting taking a swipe at me with its’ claws. 

“Did you find something Roman?”

I opened the bag for Lonnie to view.

“Feisty, isn’t he?”

“Probably our missing occupant from the cage.”

 The MSP Lab Tech walked over carrying his field kit.

“The specimen sample is positive for human blood.  It’s all from the same individual.  I collected more samples to see if we can build a DNA profile.  We have enough to determine age, gender and a variety of other information.  Whoever this is suffered some serious trauma from the blood loss.”

“There really that much of it?”

“The luminol that I sprayed around it’s perimeter was fairly large considering.”

“Any guess as to how long that blood has been there.”

“Long enough for it to still be transferable by touch.”