dactylogram
[ dak-til-uh-gram ]
noun
- a fingerprint.
*******************************
Derrick always thought of himself as a practical man. He had always tried to live in a simple way, and had little room for the unusual. It was why he had become a detective. Direct, clear cut, and everything had an explanation. And he saw no reason to change that when he had been inexplicably brought to another world.
Just because the people around him had magic didn’t mean there wasn’t laws and rules to things. Really all it meant was a greater variety of crimes being committed. Turns out people could still make dumb choices and leave obvious clues, even when they could shoot lighting from their hands.
“Alright, what’ve we got.” He asked the officers. Sure they called themselves guards here, but they did the same thing.
“Just a normal knifing.” One of them said. “No magic, thank the gods.”
That was good. Derrick had always been amazed that in a world with magic, people still got killed in many of the same ways as they did in his previous world. He entered the scene and took a look around. One of the mage guards had created an illusory image of the victim, which was sprawled on the floor with several knife wounds. Blood, real blood, pooled out from beneath the image.
“Oh no, what do you want?” One of the mages said.
“Same thing you do. Catch a killer, go home.” Derrick replied, already looking around. “We got any suspects?”
“Several. And it’s only a matter of time before our truth tellers can find them.”
Derrick groaned. Truth tellers. Glorified polygraphs more like it. These people relied on them too much, even with the numerous ways they could be beaten. Hell, Derrick had beaten one on his first day, and the people here were still none the wiser.
“Great. Well until then, I’m going to do something that actually works.” The mage sneered at Derrick’s words. “Has anyone dusted for prints yet?”
“Why would anyone clean yet?” One of the guards asked. Derrick felt like kicking himself. He almost forgot this world was woefully underdeveloped when it came to forensics. This would not be the first time he had to explain basic concepts to them.
“Not cleaning. Dusting for prints. Fingerprints. Get some power, uh, chalk powder will do. Go over anything that’s likely to be held and lightly coat things until we get some readable fingerprints.”
“That sounds idiotic.” The mage said. “Why would we waste time doing that? It’s not like such markings will be left anyway.”
“That’s what you said about blood that’s been wiped up. Look, human skin gives off a tiny amount of oil, and that sticks to things. Leaves imprints of out fingerprints on everything we touch. So we find the prints and we find the killer.”
“How?” The guard asked.
“Seriously? You don’t even know that? Everyone’s fingerprints are unique. We get the suspects, use some ink to get their prints, and then compare them to what we can find around here. If we can find the murder weapon, that’d be best, but even without it, we can work out who was where. Most of what we find will be the victim’s, but the killer’s should be somewhere. Now get to it. We’ve got a crime to solve.”
******************************
I'm a bit tired right now. Long periods of travel will do that to you, you know? So yeah, this probably isn't my best work. Maybe next time.