Chapter 12 · My Forensic Husband Personally Dissected Me

Chapter 12

The conference room door was pushed open from the outside. It was slammed open, not gently.Chloe stood in the doorway. She wore a dark gray hoodie, her hair loose around her shoulders. She was biting her lip so hard that it had turned pale.Samuel frowned. "Chloe, this is an internal meeting. You're not supposed to be here.""I'm not supposed to be here?" Chloe strode in and took her place at the head of the conference table.Her gaze swept over everyone in the room. "You've been in here for half an hour, trying to wrap up the case of a Jane Doe. You said she drowned, and her identity was unknown. You said you couldn't find any dental records."She fixed her eyes on Samuel. "Samuel, I was standing outside the door for five minutes. Do you realize what you said?""What are you talking about?" Samuel shot back.She pointed at the photo of the corpse's left wrist on the projection screen. "An old fracture on the left wrist. Back in the winter of 2019, Emily fell off her bike while bringing you lunch."She had it set at East General Hospital. You signed the consent form yourself. What does that prove? A fracture isn't exactly unique."She raised a second finger. "The burn scar on her right shoulder blade. During your first year of marriage, she was learning to make onion rings, and the oil splashed onto her right shoulder blade."You held her arm under cold water for ten minutes. She told me about it herself, laughing as she said you called her clumsy, but your hands were gentler than anyone else's."Samuel's jaw tightened. "It's a coincidence."Chloe raised a third finger. "The appendectomy scar on the right side of her abdomen. Emergency surgery. The stitches weren't straight across. They were done in a special way."In the winter of 2018, you drove her for forty minutes in the middle of the night to the emergency room. You waited outside the operating room for three hours."When she woke up, you said, 'If your stomach hurts again, tell me right away. Don't tough it out.'"Her voice started to shake. "Samuel, three features. All on the same body. Are you really telling me that's a coincidence?"No one spoke in the conference room.Ben sat in his chair, his jaw dropped, and he couldn't close it.Winona's hand was on her notebook. Her fingertips dug into the cover.Grace took off her glasses, clutching them in her fist.Samuel stood in front of the projection screen with one hand resting on the report.His hand didn't shake, but his fingers kept moving over the report unconsciously, as if he were trying to find something that wasn't there.He couldn't find it because what he was looking for was already lying in the morgue fridge, three steps behind him."Chloe, you're letting your emotions get the better of you. These features do look like my wife's, but you can't go by appearances. That's not how forensic identification works," Samuel said."Then what does?" Chloe shot back.The conference room door opened again. This time, there was no loud bang.Richard stood in the doorway, holding a manila folder. His face was expressionless. "Sorry to interrupt."He walked in and set the folder on the conference table. "This is a DNA comparison report. Sample one is from the body tissue of the corpse labeled 0017 in the morgue fridge here, and sample two is from Emily Foster's hair."Winona's fingers sprang off her notebook. "Richard, who authorized this test? We can't send case samples to outside labs.""I did," Richard replied, meeting her gaze. "Under the regulations for major cases, I have the authority to request independent DNA comparisons of biological evidence."He didn't pause. "The lab is a third-party facility designated by the state police. The certification, authorization, and receipt are all in here."He opened the folder and pulled out the report. He flipped to the last page.He fixed his gaze on the numbers, then looked up and locked eyes with Samuel."The match is 99.97%," Richard said.

Chapter 12