McKean S03 The Ghost Trees Read Online Free

stump rings,” McKean replied, “but a good defense attorney would attack the match and probably present some mismatches to confound the argument.” He began to pace with his hands clasped behind his back. Then he abruptly stopped and smiled. “But DNA should offer a much more irrefutable argument. Henry George said every tree has its own spirit. Regardless of the veracity of that claim, it is most certainly true that every tree has its own DNA.”
    Stanwood brightened. “You see, I knew calling you was a good idea.” She looked at Reynolds exultantly and he returned a look that implied he remained unconvinced. He eyed McKean narrowly.
    “You’re saying you could do some kind of test to compare the DNA of this woodpile to the stump in Puget Creek Canyon?”
    McKean drew his long fingers over his angular chin. “Answer: yes. It can be done. Time is the only uncertain variable. I’ll have to create an entirely new test.” He went to one of the bolts, pulled off a loose sliver of cedar and then turned for the exit door. “Quickly Fin,” he called, walking away without a goodbye to Reynolds or Stanwood, “Get me to my labs.”
    I shot a glance back as we left. Reynolds rolled his eyes and shook his head. Sturgis, still on the phone, glowered after us.
    I drove McKean back to his laboratory, first northbound on West Marginal Way past the sprawl of cement factories, scrap yards and rusty railroad tracks that overspreads the old Duwamish tribal homeland, and then across the West Seattle High Rise Bridge, which spans the Duwamish River in a single arch like a gray concrete rainbow casting its gloom over the polluted waterway. Buildings with tall stacks belched smoke here, steam there, in jarring contrast to what glittered to the north of us: the glass and steel towers of Seattle proper, home of high technology, coffee shops by the hundreds and great wealth that thrives, ignorant of the primeval beauty lost in its making.
    “A DNA map,” McKean mused as I drove, “could theoretically match the gene patterns in the splinter I took from the wood in the warehouse to the genes of the stump in Puget Canyon. That would tie Sturgis to his crime if he is the murderer.”
    “Great idea,” I congratulated him as I turned north on Highway 99. “Sounds like you’ll crack this case in no time.”
    “Perhaps,” McKean reflected. “The only thing lacking is the DNA test. Small detail.”
    “I see. But you have a plan.”
    “Answer: yes. And more work for Janet Emerson.”
    At a bench in the lab, McKean found his chief technician sitting on a tall stool in her lab coat and purple nitrile gloves with experimental beakers and apparatus spread on a lab blotter before her. Janet, a pretty brunette, put down a micropipet and gave McKean a pained smile. “Stewart Holloman stopped by. He wanted to talk to you.”
    “Rather to bore me with his endless need for productivity and budgetary responsibility. Ah, for the day when I don’t have a boss hovering over me.”
    “That day may be coming,” Janet said ruefully. “He seemed pretty steamed that you were out wandering around town, as he put it.”
    “Never mind the concerns of that small-minded money man,” McKean blustered. “I’ve got another fascinating project for you.”
    As he explained, Janet wrote in her lab notebook, occasionally responding with whatever information she could add. “Yes, I’m set up to extract DNA from the sample…No, I’m not aware of any specific tests available for trees…Yes, I can get started right away…No, I don’t mind working late tonight.”
    “Good,” McKean said. “Here’s the sample from the shingle bolt pile. You can start with that while Fin and I go after a scrap from the stump of the poached tree, and a piece from the stump Sturgis claims is in his yard.”
    “Going to Sturgis’ house sounds dangerous,” I said.
    “Yes, Fin. He might be desperate enough to try something drastic. We’ll go there first and get our