Nerves pinging, Emma has to step backward suddenly as Cooper reverses course to find Glenn Neilsen.

“He’s in here, on the scope,” Dixon calls out.

Neilsen’s hair sticks up at the back in that peculiar way as he angles over a microscope eyepiece in the lab. When Cooper arrives, Neilsen just waves briefly with one hand, his attention still on the slide.

“Glenn?”

“I’ve got, um—” Neilsen raises his head and blinks owlishly. “A curly hair from the attendant, and what looks like a piece of a whisker. There’s a stain, which I think is from the superintendent’s hand cream. Carlos is doing a comparison.”

“Gerry wants to send it to Linda, you okay with that?”

“Go for it. I’m still working these up.”

Cooper nods, and then they’re backtracking again, this time to an office where a woman in her early forties is waiting patiently, knees crossed. Linda Brown is wearing a necklace of mahogany beads that glow against her umber skin, and she is as neat and put-together as her office space.

“Good morning, Ed. Gerry said it’s on its way.”

“Linda, this is Emma Lewis and Travis Bell. They’ve been working the detail on Gutmunsson.”

“Nice to meet you—I won’t shake while I’m wearing gloves. Find a seat.” Her chin lifts as Westfall arrives with the document case. “Here we are.”

Westfall is puffing a little. “I’d like to fume it when you’re done, Linda.”

She nods. “I’ll look after it. Gerry, you need to quit smoking if that walk was enough to make you blow.”

“May as well ask me to quit breathing.”

“Get out of my office, then, if you want to smoke.”

Brown takes the case and opens it, carefully transfers the letter onto her dark work blotter with forceps, leaving the envelope. She switches on a strong lamp. The office air goes quiet as she reads the letter’s contents. Emma feels heat climb up her neck, then remembers that Brown doesn’t know what the final lines mean. Once Brown is finished with the content, she photographs the entire letter in sections.

“I’m going to need some additional time with the phrasing and grammar, to be thorough. But the use of contractions like ‘there’s’ and ‘you’ve’ already suggests a younger subject. There’s no coded language I can make out.”

“That’s fine,” Cooper says.

She switches on another lamp at a sharply oblique angle to examine for indented writing. She tries again with a filter.

“No impressions.” A different filter. “Just the press here, on the left and right edges from the typewriter bail rolls. A bit of tracking—could be a crumb or a bit of trace stuck on the cylinder. This typewriter has seen some action.”

“What makes you say that?” Cooper asks.

“Some of the keys are sticky—do you see where the lowercase a drops sometimes? Most of the capitals are quite strong, which makes me think we’re dealing with someone who’s not a comfortable touch typist. But the machine itself is old. It’s using a fabric ribbon, and the type design is very cute—I think this was written on an older model Olivetti, maybe even a Valentine. I’ll need to examine more, but I’m pretty sure.”