Page 49 of A Forgotten Mistake

Jesse freezes then gives him a sheepish look. “Sorry. I get a bit… carried away.”

“What Jesse was trying to say, before turning into a weirdo, is that examination of the body is critical to finding quick answers.”

“What if they’re just bones?” Cole asks. “Can you still tell how long ago they died?”

“You can! Some of it depends on where the body was kept or buried. You can also rely on other things like the clothes they were wearing. Some fibers break down quickly and others take a significant amount of time to break down.”

“Is it true hair and nails grow after death?”

“No. It’s not. The skin pulls away from the nails after death as the body dehydrates, giving the appearance of longer nails.”

“That’s creepy.”

“Jesseispretty creepy, I agree,” I tell Cole. “He looks sweet and innocent because he never grew up into a big strong man like me, but that’s just hiding his creepy interior.”

“Thanks, Liam,” Jesse grumbles. “Let me show you around and then you can go up to pester the people in the lab. Literally anyone is better than pestering Liam.”

“I’m like a magical unicorn,” I say.

That makes Cole laugh, and Jesse gives me a look. I have to assume the look is there to hide the fact that Jesse also agrees.

“That was interesting… even if it was kind of creepy,” Cole comments as I lead him down the hallway.

“It is. Jesse makes it seem a whole lot less interesting than it is,” I tease.

“He made it interesting,” Cole says with a laugh. “I’m still not sure I could deal with dead bodies, though.”

Some find it easier to deal with than others.

I lead him into the lab where Penny is working at the computer. “This is Penny. She does really good work if you offer her cake or pie. If you don’t have cake or pie, it’s mediocre work.”

Penny swings around on her chair. “Excuse me?”

“This is what you call a passive-aggressive tone,” I explain.

“I’ll show you passive-aggressive,” Penny grumbles before turning to Cole with a smile. “I heard you were going to stop by, so I found some stuff you can look at. Come over here. So say, for example, we’re looking at a crime scene and we see some hair, but we need to determine where the hair came from. We can identify whether it’s human or animal. Let me show you.”

I lean against the counter and watch as she shows him the differences between hair samples and then shows him a few other things under the microscope.

“Can I see my hair under it?” he asks.

“Sure!”

“I’ll get the clippers,” I offer.

“I’d rather not be bald, thank you,” Cole says.

“He’s so picky,” I grumble. “And why are you so fascinated with this stuff? What I was teaching you was much cooler.”

“You literally just harassed your coworkers,” he says as he offers up a hair. “I’m not actually surewhatyou taught me.”

“That’s Liam’s love language. It’s how you know he cares,” Penny explains.

Cole seems to think that Penny is significantly cooler, which we all know is bullshit. “What’s this machine do?”

“I’ll show you!” she says as she rushes over, thrilled to take a mini break from work to show things to a kid who seems quite fascinated by everything she does. Much more fascinated than learning about the decomposition of bodies or how to stab Matthew.

After about an hour, Penny hands him back to me, and I take him to my office.

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