FINGERPRINT

Here's chapter one of a story I've been playing with titled FINGERPRINT (working title). Takes place in my hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska. Enjoy:

The Fingerprint

University of Alaska, Fairbanks 2021: “Good morning class.” Steven Harris, instructor for the senior level Technology and Law Enforcement course said with a smile as he walked in front of his class of twelve students.

A grumble from the class brought Harris to a stop as he looked up from his laptop computer, “Come on now, I know it’s Friday and all, but how about a little enthusiasm---good morning class!”

The second grumble he was greeted with just made Harris smile and shake his head as he continued hooking a small, cell phone-sized device to his laptop.

“You’re in a pretty good mood this morning Mr. Harris.” Said a young woman sitting in the front row.

“Yes, I am Mandy.” Harris replied as he powered up the in-room projector, “Let me tell you why.  Thanks to a friend of mine at the Alaska State Troopers we are going to get to play with a piece of their newest tech!”

Holding the cell phone-looking device up for the class to see Harris announced, “This little beauty is the Mobile Fingerprint Identification System.  It’s in the final stages of field testing and about to be deployed out to Troopers in the field across the state.  Pretty neat right!?”

“Josh.” Mr. Harris said as he pointed at a young man sitting in the middle of the class with his hand up.

“So, what’s it do?” Josh asked.

“Well, how about if I answer that question with a question.” Mr. Harris replied, “Who here can tell me when fingerprints became an accepted form of identification?  Janet, please enlighten us.”

“It was in 1911 that the courts recognized fingerprints as a method of identification.” Janet answered.

“Very good.  And when did law enforcement first start working with fingerprints?”

“Uhm, sometime in the 1800’s, I think?” Janet said, unsure of her answer.

“Close enough.” Mr. Harris said with a smile as he took a drink from his coffee cup, “Janet’s right, in the year 1911 the courts held that fingerprints could act as an accepted form of identification, or suspect identification in criminal cases.  Now as we all know from class last week it was in 1908 that police agencies first began using fingerprint cards, and thanks to the State of Alaska Police Museum we happen to have one of those early cards with us today, sort of.”

Mr. Harris held up a computer-generated copy of a piece of paper that looked to be browned by age which had several fingerprints on it, “This is a reproduction of a fingerprint card done in Nome in 1910 by then United States Marshall Jeffery McMasters.  Now, which one of you history buffs can tell me the significance of Marshall McMasters and what happened in Nome in 1910?”

Sipping from his coffee cup, Mr. Harris stood in silence as he watched the students in his class look around at each other, hoping that the person sitting next to them had the answer.

“Yes, Sarah.” Mr. Harris said as he motioned toward one of the students sitting off to the side of the class.

“Are you referring to the murders that happened at Blind Man’s Point?” The young woman asked.

“Yes, I am.” Mr. Harris replied, “The murder of at least fifteen people, their bodies discovered in a cave at what was known then as Blind Man’s Point.  It was Marshall McMasters who captured and booked the only suspect in that case.  A man named Declan Parfoye.  This is Mr. Parfoye’s fingerprint card.”

“I remember reading about that case, didn’t he escape?” One of the students sitting in the front row asked.

“Yes, he did.” Mr. Harris answered as he sat on the edge of his desk, coffee cup in hand, “In fact, there’s an entire legend built around the event.” 

An uneasy quiet fell across the classroom as Mr. Harris, blowing steam from his coffee cup, relayed the story to his students, “If you believe the folklore Mr. Parfoye was some sort of an occultist who had made a deal with the devil.  The account goes that he was conducting ritual sacrifice of his victims.  Performing a ceremony of some sort as he murdered them.”

“A ceremony?” Sarah asked as she shifted in her seat.

“That’s the legend, yes.” Mr. Harris continued, “He would drug, and then kidnap his victims, taking them to an old, abandoned church at Blind Man’s Point.  There he performed a ritual as he killed them, damning their souls.”

Setting his coffee cup down on his desk, Mr. Harris continued, “When he was finally captured by Marshall McMasters it’s said that the devil sent one of his demons in the form of a raven to free Parfoye so that he could continue his work.”

“Wow, Mr. Harris, I never took you for the paranormal sort.” One of the students remarked.

With a crooked smile Mr. Harris replied, “Yeah, I’m really not.  But it’s important to remember that every legend is based on some sort of fact.  In this case, it was the pursuit and capture of a mass murderer by Marshall McMasters.  Now, do I believe that the devil sent a demon in the form of a raven to break Parfoye out of jail, no.  Do I believe that Parfoye escaped, and was then shot and killed by Marshall McMasters?  Yes.”

“Mr. Harris, is it true that they never found his body, Parfoye that is?” Sarah asked.

“Yes, that part is true.  The incident report filed by Marshall McMasters states that Parfoye was moving along a ledge above the bay, trying to get back to the abandoned church he had been using when he was shot by Marshall McMasters.  He fell into the ocean and his body was never recovered.  Interesting side note, there are some paranormal investigators who say that church, which is real and still standing today, is really a gateway to hell.”

Smiling to himself as he looked out over the faces of his young students Mr. Harris nodded and chuckled, “Well, I wanted to spice things up a little by bringing in a rather interesting piece of law enforcement history, Declan Parfoye’s fingerprint card, and using it to demonstrate a new piece of technology.”

With the tap of a key on his laptop computer, the screen in the classroom jumped to life as it displayed the startup sequence for the fingerprint ID system.

“So, as you can see on the screen the fingerprint ID system offers two options, facial recognition, and fingerprint analysis.  Since we’re talking about fingerprints this week, I thought we would start with that.  The unit is linked to the Automated Fingerprint Identification System or AFIS.  You can either roll a print across the screen or use a lifted print from say a crime scene.  The internal sensors of the unit can clean the print up, and then it’s immediately sent to AFIS for comparison.” 

Mr. Harris continued as he admired the small device connected to his laptop, “If there’s a hit on the submitted fingerprint then the operator will see all the information about that person to include recent arrest history, booking photos, and so on.  If there is no hit, well it just says no match.”

Setting the reproduction of Parfoye’s fingerprint card on the table next to his laptop Mr. Harris took the mobile fingerprint scanner in hand, “So, for the sake of our discussion this morning, let’s say that we have responded to a burglary and while processing the scene we managed to lift some mediocre prints.  Mr. Parfoye’s card here will act as our lifted prints.”

Holding the scanner above the fingerprint card Mr. Harris hit a button on the side of the device, which emanated a dull blue light across the fingerprint card, “As you can see here, the unit is scanning the provided fingerprints.”

The light stopped as the screen displayed the word processing above a growing taskbar.  The students all looked on with curiosity as the scanner’s readout was projected onto the large screen in the classroom.

A few seconds later the scanner read completed.  Setting the unit back on his desk Mr. Harris turned and faced the class, “It’s as simple as that.” 

“Now, if there had been a match for the fingerprints in AFIS we would be seeing all of the relevant information being displayed instead of what you’re seeing on the screen behind me.”

Mr. Harris’s sense of excitement at getting to play with some new technology was suddenly tempered by the confused looks on the faces of his students.

“Uh, Mr. Harris?” Janet said as she pointed at the screen on the wall behind him.

Confused, Mr. Harris turned, “What the hell!?”

There, projected on the screen, were the words exact match, and then in bold red letters, Officer Safety – known violent offender – currently incarcerated AK DOC Fairbanks, release pending.

“That can’t be right.” Mr. Harris remarked as he and his students stared at the criminal history displayed in front of them.

“Mr. Harris, who is Tyler Bahun?” Janet asked as a booking photo of a man in his thirties with a military-style haircut, chiseled features, and deep, almost distant pale blue eyes was displayed bearing the name of Tyler Bahun.

“Oh my God!” Sarah blurted out before Mr. Harris could respond to Janet’s question, “Mr. Harris, look at the list of aliases, the last one from the bottom, Garret the tinkerer?”

“Yeah, it does seem a little odd for an alias doesn’t it.” Mr. Harris replied as he, along with the rest of the students, continued to inspect the very unexpected results of their fingerprint search.

“No, that’s not it.” Sarah said as she tried to compose her thoughts, “The tinkerer was the nickname that the New Orleans Police Department gave to a serial killer in the late 1930’s.  The only suspect that they ever had, who they never were able to catch, was named Michael Garret.”

“Why did they call him the tinkerer?” Josh asked.

“Because he used to take the bodies of his victims apart and arrange them---he, tinkered with them.” Sarah replied, her response sending a chill through the room.

“Okay, I don’t get it.  If this new tech is supposed to be so top of the line, then why is it showing a match between the fingerprints of someone who was killed in 1910 in Nome with someone who’s sitting over at Fairbanks Correctional Center waiting to be released?” Another one of the students asked in a slightly sarcastic tone.

Looking sideways at the male student sitting in the back of the class, Mr. Harris replied in an equally sarcastic, and disappointed tone, “Well Mitchell, obviously there are still some kinks to work out.”

With one last look at the screen and a shake of his head, Mr. Harris turned the scanner off and disconnected the unit from his laptop, “Okay class, what’s the main lesson we can take away from this?”

Getting no answer as he looked out over the group of young faces Mr. Harris pointed to the back of the class, “Mitchell, what do you think?”

“I don’t know Mr. Harris, don’t come to class on Friday?”  Mitchell answered with a smirk.

“Electronics fail.” Mandy said as she raised her hand, “Always have a backup plan.”

“That’s right Mandy!  Electronics fail.  Nice to know someone was paying attention.” Mr. Harris said as he put the fingerprint scanner into a soft-sided case, slightly shaking his head in disappointment, as he then dismissed the class for the weekend.

“Hey, check it out, there’s Sarah and Janet.” Josh said to his friend Mitchell as the two of them walked into the campus library later that day.

“Yeah, looks like Mandy from Criminal Justice class is with them too.  Maybe you can grow a pair and go talk to her finally.” Mitchell replied with a boyish grin as he gave Josh a slight shove.

“Grow up!” Josh said with a shove of his own as the two walked over to the table where the three girls from their Criminal Justice class were sitting.

“Ladies, what’s happening over here?” Mitchell said as he took a seat next to Janet and spun the book, she, Sarah, and Mandy were looking at, “Oh, the history of Nome Alaska.  Looks like someone was moved by Mr. Harris’s demonstration this morning.”

“Don’t you have hockey practice to go to?” Sarah said in a slightly annoyed tone to which Mitchell just shook his head and smiled.

“Are you guys really researching that?” Josh asked as he sat down next to Mitchell, “Didn’t Mr. Harris say that the system had some problems that needed to be worked out?”

“Yes.  He also said that the unit was getting ready to be sent out to Trooper stations across the state, so that tells me that they have already worked out most of the bugs.  At least the ones that would send you incorrect suspect information.” Janet said as she pulled the book they had been looking at from Mitchell’s grasp.

“So, what?  You think that the system was reading the fingerprints correctly and that what’s his name, Tyler something is that killer from Nome---in 1910?” Mitchell asked as he leaned forward in his chair.

“Go ahead Mandy, show them.” Sarah said, still sounding somewhat annoyed that Mitchell was there.

Reaching into her backpack Mandy pulled out a book on New Orleans serial killers.

“This is a drawing of Michael Garret done by a New Orleans Police sketch artist in 1938.”  Mandy said as she opened the book, “It was put together from information they got from the only surviving witness of Garret the Tinkerer.”

As Josh and Mitchell leaned in to inspect the image Sarah slid her cell phone across the table, “I snapped a few pictures in class this morning.”

“Jesus Christ!” Josh muttered under his breath, “They’re the same guy!”

“I don’t know about all that.” Mitchell said, his tone changing from one of cocky confidence to intrigued uncertainty.

“Dude, that’s the same fucking guy!” Josh exclaimed loud enough to draw the ire of library staff.

“Okay, calm down.” Mitchell said as he slid Sarah’s cell phone back to her.

Sitting back in his chair and pointing at the picture in the book, Mitchell asked, “Okay, so you think that this Tyler Bahun, who is sitting in jail here in town, is really this guy Michael Garret, a serial killer from 1930’s New Orleans, who is in fact Declan Parfoye, who killed all those people in Nome, in 1910?  That would make this guy one-hundred-ten, one-hundred-eleven years old?”

“At least that old!” Janet said.

“What does that mean?” Mitchell asked as he again leaned in to look at the drawing in the book on the table.

“Well, think about it.  If this is legit, who knows how long this guy has been alive, and how long he’s been killing people.” Janet replied.

As he looked at the faces of Sarah, Mandy, and Janet, and then over at Josh, Mitchell suddenly realized that he was the only one at the table who was not on board with the idea that his could actually be real.

“Wow, okay.” Mitchell said with a slight snort, “Have you guys talked to Mr. Harris about this?”

“No, not yet.” Sarah said, “We wanted to do a little more follow-up before we presented anything to him.”

“Hell yeah, count me in!” Josh said with determination.

“Follow up?  What sort of---oh my God!  You’re gonna go and visit this guy in jail, aren’t you!?” Mitchell said with an overriding tone of disbelief.

“And what if we are?” Sarah defiantly asked as she closed the book on the table and handed it back to Mandy.

“If we did, do you want to go with us?” Janet asked.

Stunned into a few seconds of silence Mitchell took a deep breath as he put both of his hands on the table in front of him, “Okay, look.  I admit that the picture in that book looks a hell of a lot like the booking photo from class this morning.  But you guys are taking this too far!  You’re gonna get yourselves into some trouble with this.”

“So, looks like you’re out.” Sarah said in a slightly dismissive tone, “Josh, how about you?”

“Yeah, I’ll go!” Josh replied.

“Seriously!?” Mitchell said with a sneer of disbelief as he raised his hands.

“Yeah, it sounds like fun!”

“Nice!  It’s settled then, Mandy’s driving.  She’ll pick us up in front of the gym tomorrow morning.”  Sarah said with a smile.

“You all have lost your God damn minds!” Mitchell remarked as he looked at his watch and stood from the table, “I got to get to practice.  Don’t forget about the party at my place tomorrow.”

“See ya there.” Josh said as he tried, with little success, to hide his enthusiasm at the thought of this new project.

It was a brisk ten degrees below zero the next morning as Josh came jogging over to meet Sarah and Janet in front of the on-campus gym.

“What, nothing for me?” Josh joked as he walked up to Sarah and Janet, both sipping a coffee as they waited inside the entrance to the gym.

“There’s Mandy.” Janet said as Sarah grinned and raised her cup in a pseudo toast to Josh.

Walking quickly through the cold morning air the three jumped into Mandy’s late model Ford Explorer.  The warmth inside the SUV was a welcoming environment as Josh and Sarah got into the back seat, and Janet jumped into the front passenger.

The three looked at each other, and then at their driver as Mandy put the SUV into park, and with a heavy sigh, took her hands off the wheel.

“Mandy, what’s wrong?  Are you okay?” Janet asked as she exchanged quick glances with Josh and Sarah.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Mandy replied, “I’m just---do you guys think that we should be doing this?  Going and trying to talk to this guy I mean?”

“I don’t get it.  You were all for this yesterday, why the change of heart?” Sarah asked as she leaned forward from the back seat.

“I know.” Mandy said as she ran her hands across the steering wheel, “Last night I was talking to my friend Simone who’s into Tarot cards and I mentioned that we were gonna go and try to meet this guy at the jail today.  She did a quick impromptu reading and told me that we would be asking for some real trouble if we did.  She was throwing around words like death, and eternal darkness, kind of freaked me out.”

“Come on Mandy!  You mean to tell me that you believe in Tarot cards?  That’s a little childish, isn’t it?” Josh remarked from the back seat.

“You mean childish like going to the jail to meet someone none of us know because we think he might be responsible for killing a bunch of people back in 1910?” Mandy sarcastically answered back.

“Okay, fair enough.” Josh said with a smile, “Look, the reality is that they probably won’t even let us in to see the guy since none of us are family.”

“He’s right.” Sarah interjected with a smile, “We will probably be turned away at the front desk and be left with a good story to tell at Halloween.”

With a sheepish look on her face, Mandy turned to Janet who was sitting next to her up front.  Grinning and nodding her head Janet mouthed the words, it will be okay, and then offered Mandy some of her coffee.

With pressure coming at her from all angles Mandy finally relented and put the SUV into drive, “Fine!  But if he does turn out to be an immortal serial killer, I’m gonna be really pissed!”

The drive from campus to the Fairbanks Correctional Center took about twenty minutes with a stop at a coffee shop so Josh would stop complaining about not having any caffeine.

 A strange feeling began to come over them as Mandy pulled into the main parking lot of the jail.  What had been shaping up to be a nice morning suddenly became somewhat gloomy.

As they parked and started walking towards the front door the feeling evolved into a different vibe.  It was one of slightly scared apprehension, like a little kid standing at the entrance to their first haunted house.  They want to go in with the other kids, but part of their brain is telling them to run away!