Detective Sandra Brooks removed her sunglasses and ducked under the yellow police tape stretched across the entrance of the Walgreens. She stepped inside and paused to survey the drugstore crime scene through piercing blue eyes. Slowly shaking her head, she walked around a sea of merchandise strewn across the floor and spotted a uniformed officer at the farthest cash register.

           “Detective Brooks,” the officer said with a dose of deference as the detective approached. At five foot two, the redheaded detective commanded respect despite her diminutive stature. It was respect that had grown after a video of her using a trashcan to disarm a six-foot-five suspect high on PCP had gone viral.

           “What do we have?” Brooks asked, gesturing toward the overturned merchandise.

           “Assault and attempted robbery.”

           Brooks pulled out her small black notebook and flipped it open. She scribbled across a blank page and added the date. “Attempted robbery? Nothing was taken?”

           “No. Thanks to a bystander. The suspect pulled a gun on an employee at the register and demanded money. A customer stepped in and, shall we say, diffused the situation.”

           “A good Samaritan?”

           “That’s what it looks like.”

           “Any leads on the perp?”

           “Not much at this point. He was wearing a ski mask.”

           “Can’t beat a ski mask for full concealment. And you can roll it up and slip it in your pocket when you’re done. Any other description?”

           “Black male, between six foot and six two, faded jeans, burgundy T-shirt. We know the weapon was an older Glock 19 because he left it behind.”

           The uniformed officer pointed his nose in the direction of the nearest pile of merchandise. “The weapon was found under the remains of the battery display. Standard 9 mm with fifteen-shot capacity. The serial number on the gun had been removed. Forensics and ballistics will see what they can determine.”

           “Any chance for prints?”

           “There’s always a chance. It’s been tagged and bagged.”

           “What else?”

           “You should check out the surveillance video. It’s short and sweet.”

           “Let’s see it.”

           Detective Brooks followed the uniformed officer to the back of the store where a plain clothes police tech with thick glasses was seated in a chair next to the store manager. A bank of small security screens clung to the wall.

           “I hear we have an interesting security video,” Brooks said.

           “Just finished making copies,” the tech replied.

           “Can you run it from the beginning?”

           As the video played, the police tech emceed the recording he had clearly already watched several times.

           “The suspect entered the store at 1:23 in the afternoon. He was wearing a ski mask with a large single hole that stretched across both eyes. He seemed to walk a little stilted. Maybe a bad leg. Maybe he’s older. At any rate, he immediately brandished a firearm from the waistband of his pants and ordered the employee behind the register to open her cash drawer. As you can see, there were no customers in line at the time. This feed is from the camera behind the registers.”

           “It’s a little on the grainy side,” Brooks said.

           “Yes, it is,” the police tech replied.

           “I already told him that we’re due for a security system upgrade,” the store manager countered. “But you know how it goes when you’re dealing with a big company and headquarters. Everything takes twice as long as it should.”

           The police tech responded. “And I explained that a security system upgrade won’t produce a better image unless more memory is added. Good quality video takes up a lot of memory. There’s a reason law enforcement releases surveillance images of suspects and asks the public to help identify them. For most businesses, it’s too costly to save high-quality video that runs twenty-four seven.”

           Brooks’ eyes moved back to the screen and the tech continued with the surveillance recording. “The store also has overhead shoplifting cameras. The image is clearer, but the angle of view is less useful.”

           Brooks pointed to the screen as the perpetrator waved his weapon in front of the girl at the register. “Our perp is a lefty, assuming he held the weapon with his dominant hand. Good news for us. That narrows it down to ten percent of the population.”

           “Yep. Next, the perpetrator orders the female employee at the register to fill a Walgreens bag with cash.”

           “Can you pause it?” Brooks asked and the police tech complied. “Did the girl at the register notice anything about the way the suspect spoke? An accent? A left-handed perp with an accent would reduce our suspect pool to a select few.”

           “Nothing about an accent.”

           “Continue.”

           “As the female employee begins putting cash in a plastic bag, our good Samaritan appears from aisle three with a handheld shopping basket.”

           “He looks like an average middle-aged white guy with a goatee and baseball cap,” Brooks said.

           Heads nodded in agreement.

           “When the good Samaritan steps out from aisle three, the suspect turns his attention away from the register and points his weapon at the man. The man places his shopping basket on the floor, raises his hands, and stares straight ahead. He remains unmoved and compliant until our suspect pistol whips the employee behind the register, who apparently wasn’t filling the bag fast enough. At this point, we can see the good Samaritan says something to our suspect. The security footage doesn’t have audio, but the employee behind the register seemed to think he said something like ‘that’s unnecessary.’ Understandably, she wasn’t sure, given that she’d just been assaulted with a handgun.”

           Brooks watched the screen as the perpetrator stepped away from the register, walked back to the end of aisle three, and shoved the gun in the face of the good Samaritan.

           “Here comes the good part,” the police tech said. “The man responds to the gun in his face by putting his hands even higher into the air. But when the suspect looks back toward the employee at the register, it’s the beginning of the end. The man lands a solid right to the perp’s face. The perp recoils but doesn’t drop the weapon. The next view of the suspect is the bottom of his shoes as the man hip throws him into the candy display.”

           “Karate? Judo?”

           “Something. Surprisingly, the perp gets right back up, then the struggle continues at the expense of the store’s merchandise. The batteries and gift card endcap is knocked over next, followed by several shelves of chips and salsa. The perp’s ski mask is pulled to the side in the scuffle and we see a little more of his face, but not enough to identify him.”

           “And somewhere in that melee is where the suspect lost his weapon?”

           “That’s our assumption. The suspect and the man grappled down the aisle until they reached the bottled water. The good Samaritan loses his cap at this point, and the best surveillance feed switches to an overhead shoplifting camera. From this angle, it appears that the suspect realizes he’s in trouble, and he pulls a knife from his back pocket. Unfazed, our hero seizes the hand holding the knife, moves his body to position the suspect’s elbow on his shoulder, and pulls down.”

           The video showed the perpetrator’s elbow being bent in the wrong direction.

           “That had to hurt,” Brooks said, wincing.

           “No doubt,” the tech replied. “The suspect grabbed his injured arm, stumbled through the debris on the floor, and headed out the front door of the store. He was reported to be heading north toward Gilpin. We’re in the process of trying to corroborate that intel.”

           “Was a BOLO issued?”

           “Yes, ma’am.”

           “How many employees were on the clock when the suspect entered the establishment?”

           “Three, not counting the pharmacist. One employee was at the register, one was stocking paper towels in the aisle furthest from the entrance.”

           “I was here in the office,” the store manager added. “I came out when I heard the commotion and immediately called 911.”

           “How long was the suspect on the premises?”

           “The entire incident lasted fifty-four seconds,” the police tech responded, pointing at the time stamp in the corner of the screen.

           “Witness statements?” Brooks asked.

           “We had a married couple perusing dental hygiene products in aisle six. They hustled over and took a peek at the fracas from the end of the aisle before retreating to the back of the store. They provided witness statements but nothing to help identify the suspect. A student from VCU was evaluating condom options at the rear of aisle eight. He also provided a statement and contact information, but nothing useful to assist in identifying the suspect.”

           “What about our good Samaritan?”

           “Nothing. He chose to leave the scene before the police arrived.”

           “Let’s get started collecting surveillance videos from neighboring establishments and knocking on doors in Gilpin. See if anyone can help find our perp.”

******

           Eighteen hours later, Brooks answered her phone, her voice cutting through the early morning silence of Richmond’s Major Crimes Unit.

           “I’ll be right down,” she said, hanging up the phone in her cubicle and checking the time. She took an elevator to the basement and wound her way through the windowless halls to forensics. She stepped through an institutional gray door and a lone latent print expert in the corner.

           “Over here,” the LPE said, raising one hand while using the other to click the mouse next to his keyboard.

           Brooks began speaking to the LPE in a loud voice as she crossed the room. “Tell me you got something good, Jimmy.”  When she arrived at Jimmy’s desk, she took a quick glance at the young man’s ear gauges, which had stretched his earlobes well beyond normal proportions.

“I’ll call it good news,” Jimmy replied, positioning two images side by side on the screen and then sliding over for Brooks to get a better view.

           “Take a gander and tell me what you see.”

           “Fingerprints,” Brooks replied.

           “Technically, yes, but I was asking about their similarities.”

           “I think you should tell me.”

           “You’re obviously not a morning person,” Jimmy replied with a smile.

           “Just tell me what you’ve got.”

           “Well, as you know, guns are designed with rough surfaces to improve grip and reduce accidental drops. It makes getting prints off a gun a little tricky. With that in mind, this gun actually produced three prints. Quite a bonanza, really. Two prints on the magazine and one on the slide. Neither location is a surprise as they’re two of the smoothest surfaces on a gun. I ran all the prints through AFIS, which identified a probable match for one of the three.”

           “Only one of the three prints matched?”

           “That’s right. A partial print off the slide of the gun resulted in a match. Of course, all potential matches are subject to human judgment and a second verification.”

           “I assume you’re the human doing the judging.”

           “I am.”

Jimmy pointed to specific locations on the prints. “We have a solid arch and whorl match. A little less accuracy on a loop. In total, we have six matching points, which is on the low end, but passable. Another LPE will be in shortly to verify the initial findings with AFIS.”

           “Any chance the matching fingerprint came with a name?”

           “No name. But it did come with an interesting history. The partial print pulled off the slide of the gun matched a partial logged as evidence in a thirty-five-year-old cold case.”

           “You’re kidding.”

           “I’m not. Have you ever heard of the Matoaka murders?”

           “Just the name.”

           “That’s better than I did. I’m from Wisconsin and before this morning I’d never heard of the case. I read up on it after I saw the old case reference. The Matoaka murders were a series of unsolved killings in Williamsburg, near the College of William & Mary. The only piece of evidence in that case was a print pulled off a Sony Walkman. That’s the partial you see on the right-hand side of the screen.”

           “Incredible.”

           “That was my thought as well. Incredibly lucky.”

           Brooks mulled over the implications of the fingerprint results. “Who knows about the matching print and the connection to the cold case?”

           “So far, you and me.”

           “Let’s keep it that way until I run it by the captain. If the press catches wind of a print from a cold case, this place will turn into a circus.”

           “Will do.”

           “And email me those images,” Brooks said, pointing back at the screen.

           “I already did,” Jimmy replied.

******

           Detective Brooks knocked on the frame of the open door and waited for her boss to respond. A gold plaque and a myriad of other commendations adorned the wall behind him, the accolades indicating the man inside was the captain of Richmond’s Major Crimes Unit.

           “Come in. Have a seat,” Captain McFarland replied from across the office, closing the folder he had been reading and placing it on the desk. The captain stood, towering over Brooks as she settled into a chair at a table on the other side of the room.

           “Good morning, Captain. Thanks for making the time.”

           “It sounded urgent.”

           “It may be. Better safe than sorry on this one. We found intriguing forensic evidence from the crime scene at the Walgreens on Broad Street.”

           “The attempted robbery and altercation?” the captain asked for confirmation.

           “Correct.”

           “Do we have a suspect?”

           “Not yet, but we did pull a partial print off the weapon used. Forensics hit on a probable match in AFIS. No name, just a match to a print from another crime, in another jurisdiction. A cold case, as it turns out.”

           “How cold?”

           “Thirty-five years.”

           “Antarctica cold.”

           “Actually, Williamsburg cold.”

           The captain’s eyes seemed to jump. “What was the case?”

           “The Matoaka murders.”

           Captain McFarland leaned back in his chair and muttered unintelligibly about somebody’s mother. “That’s not an easy case to forget.”

           “I only vaguely remember hearing about it. I was nine years old at the time.”

           “Well, I can assure you any teenager or college student who lived between Richmond and Virginia Beach at the time remembers the case. Four murders in six months. 1986-1987. I believe three of the murders occurred in the immediate vicinity of Lake Matoaka. That’s where the moniker came from. Most of the victims were found on the running trails near the lake, adjacent to the William & Mary campus.”

           “Did the authorities ever name a suspect?”

           “No. The state police aided Williamsburg on the investigative side, but I don’t think they ever named a person of interest.”

           “Did the FBI get involved?”

           “The FBI didn’t start investigating serial killings until the mid-nineties. I believe they offered a behavioral criminal profile, but profiling was in its infancy at the time. DNA wasn’t collected as a matter of course until the following year and the first DNA database wasn’t created until a few years after that. And most of the early cases involved rape. None of the Matoaka victims were sexually assaulted.”

           “So the investigation fizzled?”

           “I don’t know if ‘fizzled’ is the right word. But I do know it was a scary time. For almost a year, the city of Williamsburg and the College of William & Mary were on high alert. And then the killings stopped.”

           “And it’s been quiet ever since?”

           “Pretty much. The chief of police in Williamsburg keeps the case active. He has some personal interest in the murders.”

           “How’s that?”

           “He’s from Williamsburg. And his sister was one of the victims.”

           “You’re kidding.”

           “Nope. His younger sister. The chief was in law school at UVA at the time of the murders. He took a year off, returned the following fall, and graduated near the top of his class. Then he took his fancy degree back home to become a cop.”

           “Sounds like you know him.”

           “We’ve met a few times over the years. I know his story. He’s sharp. Knows his way around the legal system.” The captain wrung his hands together. “How sure are we about the print?”

           “It’s on the low end for the number of matching characteristics. We’re confident but we’re going to run it again for verification. Prints analyses aren’t infallible.”

           “I agree. Have we had any luck with security cameras?”

           “We’ve collected surveillance feeds from a dozen businesses in the blocks surrounding Walgreens. One of the supplied feeds indicated the perp took off his ski cap after he rounded the corner, but we only have a shot of him from the rear. We have a lot more videos to go through. I feel good about our chances that one of the feeds will provide an image that can help us identify the suspect.”

           “Let me know if you require more manpower. We need to find this guy or know where he got the gun.”

           “Yes, sir. Do you want help from the public on this one?”

           “Not yet. And let’s keep the bit about the cold case to ourselves. That stays within these walls.”

           “Yes, sir.”

           “Have we contacted the hospitals to see if they’ve received anyone with a serious elbow injury?”

           “We have calls into all city hospitals and urgent cares. We’ve heard nothing yet.”

           “Let’s expand the range on that request. Contact the hospitals in Charlottesville, Norfolk, and Fredericksburg. Our perp is going to need a doctor if he wants to use his arm again.”

           “Yes, sir,” Brooks replied, unsure if her walking orders were complete.

           The captain pensively stared at his phone. “Come back in five minutes and let’s make a call.”