Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner [67]
“It’s a scanned image. Actual size. Front and back.” Ray kept staring at him and finally Mac shrugged ruefully. “Sorry, man. It’s all we got.”
“A real leaf would be better, you know. I mean, much better. What’s this for again?”
“It’s a piece of evidence in a case.”
“Like from a crime scene?” Ray’s face brightened. “If I ID this, can it be used to catch the bad guy or locate a corpse? Like they do on CSI?”
“Absolutely,” Mac assured him.
“Groovy.” Ray accepted the paper with more enthusiasm. “A picture is definitely tougher, but I like a challenge. Let’s see what you got.”
He took out a magnifying glass and studied the image for a second. “Well, let’s start with the basics. It’s an angiosperm—to you, a broadleaf tree. Given the oval shape with pointed tip and coarse-tooth margins, it’s most likely from the Betula family—some kind of birch.” He looked up. “Where did you find this again?”
“I’m afraid I can’t comment further on that subject.”
Ray resumed staring at the picture. He frowned. “This is really all you’ve got? No bark, no flowers, no twig?”
“That’s it.”
“Well, then you also like a challenge.” Ray’s desk chair shot back. He jerked to a stop in front of the bookshelf across the way and rapidly skimmed titles. His fingers settled on a big volume labeled Gray’s Manual of Botany. “In the good news/bad news department, birch is one of the larger tree families, with a number of species commonly found here in Virginia. If you’re into history, the old Appalachian mountaineers used to make birch beer from the sap of black birch trees, which tastes a bit like wintergreen. They came close to harvesting all of the black birches in the mountains to make the stuff, then synthetic wintergreen oil was developed, and the mountaineers moved on to making moonshine. All’s well that ends well, you know.”
He shot back to his desk, propelling his chair as easily as a small automobile, while his fingers rapidly flipped through the thick index guide. Peering over his shoulder, Kimberly saw page after page of tree leaves, all richly photographed and documented with lists of words that appeared to be in Latin. Definitely not a light summer read.
“Okay, for starters we have Betula lenta, otherwise known as black birch, sweet birch, or cherry birch. Its leaves are approximately three to four inches long. Your picture is closer to two and a half inches long, but maybe our leaf isn’t mature yet, so that’s a possibility.”
“Where are black birches found?” Mac asked.
“Oh, a little bit of everywhere. You can find them in the mountains of the western half of the state, or around parts of Chesapeake Bay close to streams. Does that work?”
“I don’t know yet,” Mac said. Now, he was also frowning. “Other options?”
“The Betula lutea, or yellow birch, which is found generally higher up in the mountains than the black birch. It’s a significantly larger tree, however, growing up to eighty feet with five-inch leaves, so I’m going to guess that it’s too big to be our suspect here. Let’s see . . .” Ray rapidly flipped through the book.
“Okay, consider Betula papyrifera, or paper birch. Leaves also grow three inches in length, which is closer in size. It’s also found in the mountains, generally in clear-cut or burned-out areas. Then there’s Betula nigra, or river birch, which is found in low elevations along waterways or around streams, ponds, lakes, etc. It’s also a smaller birch with leaves two to three inches long. So that’s a possibility.” He looked up at them sharply. “You don’t have any catkins?”
“Cat what?”
“The flowers that are generally found with the leaves. In birches, they resemble long, conelike structures, dangling down from amid the leaves. Flower size varies dramatically, which would help narrow the scope. Better yet, would be a twig with bark. As you can guess from the names, black versus yellow versus paper, one of the key distinguishing features of birch is the color of the tree’s bark.”
“I only have a leaf,” Mac said, then muttered under his breath, “because our guy also likes a challenge.” He turned toward