When Claudel left I just sat there, my thoughts slip-streaming in and out of the conversation just concluded.

DNA doesn't lie. The victim's blood was al over the jacket, meaning Dorsey had kil ed Cherokee just as Claudel suspected. Or had he? Dorsey had said the jacket was not his.

The man knew nothing about Savannah Osprey. He'd been scamming me to save himself, and I had fal en for it.

And my visit to the jail had gotten Dorsey kil ed. Or had it? Was he kil ed because he was the kil er or because he was not the kil er? Either way, he was dead because someone feared what he would tel me.

dead because someone feared what he would tel me.

I felt burning behind my eyelids.

Don't cry. Don't you dare cry. I swal owed hard.

And there was Quickwater. He hadn't been glaring, he'd been reading my lips. Who had treated whom badly? But how was I to know?

And Kit. Were the surveil ance shots truly chance encounters as I'd said, or was Kit involved with the Bandidos? Did that explain the Preacher? Was the real reason he'd come here something other than anger with his father? Or fondness for his dim-witted aunt?

And the eyebal . Did Kit find it on the windshield?

Claudel had gotten his report. Dammit, where was mine?

I slammed my palms on the blotter and shot to my feet. Weaving through clerical staff carrying papers and folders and technicians pushing specimen carts, I strode down the hal , took the stairs to the thirteenth floor, and went straight to the DNA section. I spotted my target bending over a test tube at the far end of the lab, and closed in.

"Bonjour Tempe. Comment ça va?" Robert Gagné greeted me.

"Ça va."

"Your hair is different." His own was dark and curly, though graying at the temples. He kept it short and careful y combed.

"Yes."

"Are you going to let it grow?"

"It's difficult to stop it," I replied.

"It looks good, of course," he mumbled, laying down a glass pipette. "So, I guess that jacket wil nail this Dorsey character. Claudel actual y smiled when I gave him the news. Wel , almost. He twitched."

"I'm wondering if you've had time to do the comparison I requested."

"Unnumbered, right?" I nodded.

"Eyebal ?"

I nodded again.

"To be compared with sequencing from LML 37729."

"Yes." His memory for case numbers always impressed me. "Hold on."

Gagné walked over to a honeycomb of folders, riffled through those in a middle cel , and pul ed one out. I waited as he scanned the contents.

"The comparison is done, but the report isn't written."

"And?"

"It's a match."

"Without question?"

"Mais, oui!" His eyebrows shot up. "The eye and the tissue sample come from the same person.

Or persons, I thought, if they happen to be twins. I thanked him and hurried back to my office.