Lyndsay, Troy, and Ryan all arrived at the Schafer household. They were ready to get down to business. "The equipment for the fingerprint analysis is all set up in the dining room," mentioned Lyndsay as she led the guys to the station.
Lyndsay sat down in front of her laptop. Troy pulled a chair over to Lyndsay's left side, and Ryan sat on Lyndsay's right side. "Okay, Ryan. Why don't you go ahead and set up the Skype webcam," Lyndsay suggested.
Ryan pulled his laptop out of its case, logged onto it, and began to set it up. At the hospital, Rachelle's phone went off. She saw the Skype account activating. She was finally connected with Ryan on the other end. Lyndsay, Ryan, and Troy were officially connected with Rachelle through Ryan's laptop.
"Can you see us, Rachelle?" asked Lyndsay.
"Yeah, I can see you," responded Rachelle.
"Good."
There was silence.
"Let's get to work," Lyndsay began again. She put her glasses on and got all of her equipment ready to go. "Hand me the gun, please."
Ryan placed the evidence bag into Lyndsay's hand. Lyndsay snapped on a pair of plastic gloves, opened up the bag, and carefully pulled the gun out of the bag. She dipped a cotton swab into a container of white Talcum powder and dusted it onto the gun to locate the fingerprints. Seconds later, the powder formed into a print. She took a strip of Scotch tape, stuck it to the powder print, and gently pulled it off of the gun. She then took the strip of tape with the print on it, transferred the white powder fingerprint onto the paper. The piece of paper officially had the fingerprint on itself. Lyndsay carefully removed the tape which left the white fingerprint on the black sheet of paper.
"Perfect!" cheered Lyndsay with excitement as she held up the sheet of paper.
"Cool!" said Ryan, excitedly.
"Now to transfer the fingerprint into the computer."
Lyndsay pulled up the lid on her scanner machine, carefully laid the paper face down on the glass, and closed the lid. She turned on the machine and pressed the start button. The machine slowly began the scanning process as the fingerprint image slowly appeared on the screen of Lyndsay's laptop. Once the image of the fingerprint was completely scanned, Lyndsay saved the image as a jpeg file.
Lyndsay pulled the paper out from the scanner.
"Hey, Ryan! There's a manilla folder labeled, 'Rachelle Truman: Case No. 2' on the kitchen table. May you get it and bring it to me, please?" she asked him.
"Of course!" answered Ryan. He left to the kitchen and returned to the group with the required folder in his hands.
"Thank you," said Lyndsay as she grabbed the folder from Ryan. She removed the paper clip holding the paperwork together, place the black sheet of paper inside the folder, and reattached the paper clip. She then laid the folder down on the table next to her laptop.
Lyndsay opened up the Live Scan program on her computer and imported the jpeg file into it. "Okay, Ryan. Please tell me the characteristics off of that list that you have," she inquired.
"Yes ma'am! Here are the characteristics...," Ryan began. "Long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, full face of makeup, black belt in karate, left-handed, championship bowler, white-tip manicure, 5'7" in height, weighs around 120 pounds, and her initials are 'V.D.'."
Lyndsay quietly repeated all of the characteristics to herself as she typed them all in.
Ryan faced the computer. "Rachelle, are you sure that you don't know anyone with these characteristics? Anyone at all?" he asked.
"I'm 100% positive that I don't," answered Rachelle.
"Okay...," began Lyndsay as she removed her fingers from the keyboard. "Are you guys ready for this?"
Everybody took a deep breath as Lyndsay pressed the "ENTER" button on the keyboard. The computer took its time to generate the results. After it finished processing, it came up with three results found.
"We got a few matches," informed Lyndsay, excitedly. Troy and Ryan cheered for joy as the high-fived each other behind Lyndsay's back. Lyndsay opened up the results. "It seems that we have a 'Vanessa Dickinson,' a 'Valerie Doyle,' and a 'Vickie Duncan'," she said.
Rachelle spoke through the webcam. "Hey...that Vanessa was that skateboarder who tripped me in the park which made me fracture my ankle. That Vickie was that nurse who gave me an overdose on my medication and hydrogen peroxide."
"Okay...the first one that came up in the results was Vanessa Dickinson, so let's look at her profile." Lyndsay clicked on the name, and the computer directed her straight to the profile.
"Let's see." Lyndsay began scrolling through the information. "She competes in local skateboarding competitions, and she lives here in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her address is 102 South Midway Avenue."'
"So we can go nail her, right?" asked Ryan.
"Oh yeah...," replied Lyndsay, sneakily.
Ryan hugged Lyndsay. "That's my girl!"
"I'm going to print out a copy of their profiles." Lyndsay pushed the printer button, and the printer shot out the pieces of paper.
"Good job, Lyndsay! I know that you guys can do this. Thank you! I'm going to get some sleep now," said Rachelle. Lyndsay and Ryan waved goodbye as Ryan closed his laptop.
"Let's roll!" encouraged Lyndsay. She shut down her laptop, placed it in her bag, and grabbed the required manilla folder with the profiles inside. The group then headed to 102 South Midway Avenue.
They arrived at the destination with the cops behind them. The group came across a house that didn't seem to fit the profile of Vanessa Dickinson.
The house was very simple as a one-story building. It was a light gray on the outerior with a dark gray brick roof. It had a white front door with one big window to the left side of it. There were two small windows on either side of the door with two bushes below them on the ground. It was mainly a cheap, old-timing little cottage house.
"This house doesn't look like the type for a skateboarding champion," said Lyndsay.
"Maybe this is the only type of house that she could afford," mentioned Ryan.
"Or she wanted the cheapest house so it could help her avoid the paparazzi," thought Troy. They all looked at each other with blank faces of concern. "Well?...," Troy began again. "Let's go take this criminal downtown." He began to walk towards the front door. Lyndsay and Ryan looked at each other and followed Troy.
The three of them got up to the front door and knocked on the wood. The door opened, and a woman in her mid- 20's showed up before the teens. She had shoulder-length hair that was long, wavy, and dark brown. She had bright blue eyes which were surrounded by such dramatic makeup. She wore an olive green button-down flannel with a light navy blue short sleeve shirt over it. She had on a pair of denim capris with a skinny, bohemian belt around her waist. Finally, she wore dark brown leather boots that were past her ankles and had a hoop septum nose piercing.
In a russian accent, she spoke, "Can I help you?"
"Vanessa Dickinson, you are under arrest for the attempted murder of Rachelle Truman," announced Lyndsay. The cop walked up to the woman, turned her around, and proceeded to handcuff her hands behind her back.
"What's going on?" the woman asked.
"Oh don't act like you didn't see this coming. We just busted you for your crime," said Ryan.
"You used your skateboard to trip our friend and almost killed her when she interrupted the town's construction," Troy added.
"Skateboard? I don't own any of these 'skateboards'," replied the woman.
"Oh really?" muttered Lyndsay. She looked at Ryan with a sly smile. "Well, we'll just see about that."
Three of the other officers ran into the house and began to search every room for any skateboards.
"What do you obnoxious kids think you're doing? You can't have the cops search my belongings without a search warrant," snarled the woman.
"Oh yeah?...," began Lyndsay sarcastically. She flung out a piece of paper from her folder. "Bah-bam! Search warrant..." She waved it in the woman's face.
The cops exited the house empty-handed. The teens became speechless to not see anything in the hands of the officers. "Don't tell me that y'all didn't find anything," mumbled Lyndsay, becoming worried.
"Negative...the house is clear. There's not even one skateboard in sight," reported one of the officers.
"Well then..." Lyndsay got up in the woman's face. "It seems to be that she got rid of all of them right after she committed the crime."
"That's prepostorous! How am I suppose to hurt somebody with a skateboard if I don't know what a skateboard is?" whimpered the woman.
"Oh, tell it to the judge," grunted an officer. He walked the woman to the police car and placed her in the back seat.
The cops took her downtown to the county jail and sat her down in a seat inside the available interrogation room. Lyndsay sat down in front of her on the other side of Lyndsay with their arms crossed.
Lyndsay began the questioning process. "Okay lady...why do you want Rachelle Truman dead?" she demanded.
"Who is this 'Rachelle Truman' that you're talking about? And what in the world is a skateboard?" the woman shrieked with agrivated confusion.
"Are you kidding me right now?" Lyndsay became agitated as her voice got higher. Her and the suspect stared at each other with no expressions. "Oh my God..." Lyndsay sighed. "Please hand me that folder..."
Ryan gave Lyndsay the manilla folder. She opened it up. "Okay...this is Rachelle Truman...," she began as she pulled out a picture and placed it on the table. "And this is a skateboard." She pulled out a picture of one and placed it next to the photo of Rachelle.
"You, Ms. Vanessa Dickinson, used your skateboard to try to kill her as she went flying into the middle of a construction site. Luckily, she only fractured her ankle," Lyndsay explained.
The woman became even more confused. "Vanessa Dickinson? My name happens to be Danica Bradford. I'm russian," she said.
"Oh please..." Lyndsay crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.
"It's true...don't you recognize the accent?"
"It can be fake. You could just be lieing to us so that you wouldn't have to be charged. We know that it's you Vanessa, so quit the Russian nonsense."
"Why do you keep calling me that? The name is Danica Bradford. I'm a champion figure skater from Russia"
"Well what are you in the U.S. for?" asked Ryan.
"I'm competing in my next competition. It's a couple of miles away from here, so I bought that house to stay in. It's a rent house just so you know," said Danica.
"We did a fingerprint analysis from this gun," began Lyndsay as she pulled the evidence bag from her backpack. "And one of the results listed a 'Vanessa Dickinson'. We then traced that fingerprint online, and the address to your rent house was listed under that name," Lyndsay fully explained.
"I'm sorry, kid. I don't know what to tell you. That rent house has been up on the market for a couple of months until I moved into it." The teens sighed with depression. They huddled up in a group in one of the corners of the room to speak.
"So now what do you want to do, Lyndsay?" asked Ryan.
Lyndsay sighed depressingly. "I don't know..." She began to have doubts.
"Well it's your call. We'll do whatever you want us to do," said Troy.
Lyndsay took a few minutes to think.
"Well...," Lyndsay began again. "I still don't believe that she says she's 'Danica Bradford'. I have the feeling that she's just making that up to cover for Vanessa."
"Okay...then let's have her commit to a fingerprint test," encouraged Ryan.
"Okay..."
Ryan nodded his head and smiled. The teens released the secret huddle.
Lyndsay sat back down in front of the suspect. "Alright, Ms. 'Danica Bradford'. We're going to have you ink your fingerprints in order to compare them to the pair that we collected from the gun. You might say that you're Danica Bradford, but we need actual proof," she reported.
"If you want me to prove my identification, then I'll be happy to. I am not going to go to prison for something that I didn't do. I'm totally innocent," said Danica.
"Good." Lyndsay rose up from the chair. "My work is done here."
The teens exited the room until Troy popped his head back into the door. "Correction, Ms. Bradford. Everyone is guilty until proven innocent," he smirked as he snapped his fingers with a wink. He leaned out of the room. Danica opened up her eyes in shock.
The teens told the officer that they needed the suspect's fingerprints. The officer grabbed the fingerprint inking. Mr. Fong entered the interrogation room. He pressed all 10 of the suspect's fingers onto the ink pad, rolled them onto a piece of paper, and scanned it into the computer. He grabbed the fingerprints from the gun and scanned them into the computer as well. Mr. Fong opened both of the images into the required program side-by-side and clicked on the "match" button. A couple of seconds later, the results came up, and he immediately left the room.
Mr. Fong approached the teens in the hallway. "Excuse me?" he greeted as he walked up to them.
The eyes of the teens perked up with suspicion as their hearts suddenly stopped beating.
"I've completed the test." Drake took a deep breath. "After trying to match both of the prints, the results have come out negative."
Their mouths dropped with surprise.
"What?..." freaked Lyndsay. "What do you mean that they came out negative?"
"Your suspect did not touch that gun. Then again, she really is Danica Bradford. She is a champion figure skater from Russia," answered Drake.
"Well...if she's not Vanessa Dickinson, then who is?"
"Oh yeah, that reminds me. This so-called 'Vanessa Dickinson' that y'all are looking for? Apparently, she doesn't exist."
"What?" cried the teens altogether.
"There's absolutely no 'Vanessa Dickinson' located anywhere in the state of Nebraska. I checked the whole state since I didn't get any results here in town," said Drake.
"But that doesn't make any sense. That name was one that popped up on Lyndsay's screen when she did the fingerprint analysis on the gun. Why would that name be listed on her computer screen if that person clearly doesn't exist?" thought Ryan.
"It depends on what program you were using to do the analysis?"
"Um..." Lyndsay pulled out the laptop from her backpack and opened up the program. "This one..." She showed it to Mr. Fong.
Mr. Fong took a look at the screen and discovered what was wrong. "I know what the problem is. This program that you're using is apparently having some glitches. When a type of program like this has glitches, it will just randomly create a name with a profile, " he explained.
"But it wasn't doing anything like this with any of the previous cases that we've done," pleaded Lyndsay.
Drake raised an eyebrow and sighed. "Unfortunately, I guess that someone may have hacked into the system which messed up your work. I'm sorry, Ms. Schafer."
Lyndsay, Troy, and Ryan looked at one another in dissatisfaction.
Lyndsay sighed and looked at the police officer. "I guess that you can go ahead and release Ms. Bradford. She's clearly innocent," she informed him in a mumble. The officer dabbed his head down in response and entered the interrogation room to release the suspect.
A few seconds later, the door to the interrogation room opened. Danica walked out the door with the officer behind her. "Excuse me, Ms. Bradford?" muttered Lyndsay.
"Now what do you want?" hissed Danica. "Are you going to accuse me of killing someone else?"
"No ma'am. I just want to apologize for accusing you of being someone else, and for almost killing my best friend when you clearly didn't. Anyway, I'm sorry for my actions."
"Sure you are..."
Lyndsay dabbed her head back as she lowered her eyebrows into a glare. "What is that suppose to mean? I am literally sorry."
"Oh save it blondie. We both know that you were just accusing me, because you have a thing against brunettes."
"Excuse me?..." Lyndsay snapped her fingers and raised her eyebrows in disgust. "What makes you think that I have a thing against brunettes?"
"Oh come on sweetie...you're a blonde. Everyone knows that blondes and brunettes never get along."
"That's very funny, Danica," Lyndsay laughed sarcastically. "It's just that my best friend, whom I've been friends with ever since Kindergarten, happens to be a brunette. I actually get along with her just fine."
"She's probably just friends with you, because she feels sorry for you. I know I do," muttered Danica, sarcastically.
"She happens to love me like a sister."
"She probably just does, because she feels sorry for you being a dumb blonde."
"What makes you think that I'm a dumb bonde?" Lyndsay was fixing to lose her temper.
"Well it's obvious that you lost your intelligence when you accused me of committing a crime which I obviously didn't do."
Lyndsay lowered her eyebrows in fierce anger.
"And may I remind you that you did that because I happen to be a brunette," Danica continued.
Lyndsay grunted her teeth and hissed with clenched fists.
"Now if you excuse me, I can't be seen with an obnoxious, yet dumb, blonde," finished Danica as she proceeded to walk away in the opposite direction.
"Why you!..." Lyndsay charged at Danica in an attempt to jump her until she was stopped by Ryan. He grabbed her around the waist and slung her over his shoulder.
"I don't think so," said Ryan, trying to hang on to a squirming Lyndsay.
"You'll pay for that! This isn't over, Danica Bradford!" yelled Lyndsay.
"Let's go, Lyndsay...," said Ryan as he carried her out to the truck.
Everybody climbed into the vehicle, and Troy started the ignition. He let out a deep breath. "So...do you guys want to go talk to this 'Vickie Duncan'?" he suggested.
"Sure, but there's only one problem," said Ryan.
"What?"
"We don't even know where to find her."
"On the contrary Ryan, we do know where she is," corrected Lyndsay.
"Huh?" responded the boys.
"According to the files that I printed off, she happens to be a nurse down at the hospital where Rachelle is staying."
"Awesome!" cheered Ryan as him and Troy high-fived each other.
"Well what are we waiting for? Let's go get this woman," said Ryan. The teens cheered for joy as Troy put the gear into drive and headed downtown.
As soon as they arrived at the hospital, the teens headed straight to the Nurse's Station. "Good afternoon! I'm Wanda Slaughter. How may I help you?" the nurse greeted.
"Mrs. Slaughter, we need to speak with one of your fellow nurses immediately," reported Lyndsay.
"Who is it?"
"Vickie Duncan."
Wanda became confused. "I'm sorry, who?"
"Vickie Duncan..." Lyndsay showed her the profile picture from her manilla folder. "It says here that she's a registered nurse who works back and forth from the hospitals in town. According to what I've heard from the forensic analysist down at the county jail, she should be working at this hospital."
"To be completely honest, I've never even heard of that name before." Wanda rose up from her desk chair. "Let me go talk to my boss and see if she knows anything." She left her desk and walked into the room.
"Oh man...," Lyndsay became shaky on her words. "I have a bad feeling about this..."
"Usually if someone has to go talk to their boss, it only means that they don't know anything."
"Well maybe this time is going to be different," opinionated Troy in a suggestive tone.
Nurse Wanda approached the kids with her boss in tow.
"Hello kids! I'm Penelope Dunn, the head nurse. My employer was telling me that y'all need to speak with a 'Vickie Duncan'." said Wanda's boss. She took a deep breath. "I'd really hate to tell you this, but 'Vickie Duncan' doesn't exist."
"What!" cried the boys as their eyes opened wide and their mouths dropped.
Lyndsay suddenly lost consciousness and reluctantly fell backwards.
"Lyndsay!" the boys screamed.
YOU ARE READING
Invisible Killer
Misterio / SuspensoStrange things have been happening in Lincoln, Nebraska; Stranger things have been happening to Rachelle Truman, unexplainable things. When the gang finds out that Zack Allen dies in prison, they begin to wonder if his spirit has come back to haunt...
