Vanishing Acts Read Online Free PDF Page B

what Madison’s friends were saying, but Madison’s instincts were telling her something completely different.
    â€œIs Dad in?” Madison asked, wanting to change the subject.
    â€œHe’s in his office.”
    â€œSee you later.”
    Madison walked down the hall. The door to Hamilton’s office was open, and she rapped her knuckles on the jamb to get his attention. Hamilton’s office was as disorganized as his clothes. Papers were stacked seemingly at random on his desk, more papers stuck out from between the covers of the law reports that filled his bookshelves, and case files were spread across parts of the floor. Madison was always amazed at how such a sloppy person could be so organized in court. More than once, her father had astonished her when he broke down a witness with a razor-sharp cross-examination or cited a case, chapter and verse, from memory when he was arguing a legal point to a judge.
    Hamilton didn’t look up from his work when Madison knocked. To Madison it seemed that most dads would be dying to hear about their only child’s first day at school. Some days Madison felt like Hamilton didn’t even know she existed. She knocked again, harder.
    Hamilton looked up, confused. “Hey, honey,” he said, after registering it was Madison knocking. He didn’t seem to notice her black eye. Inwardly, Madison sighed.
    â€œHey, Dad. How’s the new case going?”
    â€œIt’s coming along.”
    â€œDid you find out if Mrs. Shelby was my second-grade teacher?”
    Hamilton sighed and rubbed his eyes. “She probably is, honey. She taught at your old school.”
    Madison was silent, crestfallen. Poor Mrs. Shelby. “I’ve never known someone who was murdered before.”
    â€œWe aren’t sure if she was murdered,” Hamilton reminded her.
    â€œSo they haven’t found the body?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œIn Max Stone’s The Spy Vanishes , the missing CIA agent was hit on the head and got amnesia. Maybe Mrs. Shelby is wandering around and doesn’t know who she is.”
    â€œI guess that’s possible.”
    â€œHas the crime lab tested the blood on the knife yet? Maybe it’s not Mrs. Shelby’s.”
    â€œMaybe, but the crime lab says that the blood on the knife is Ruth Shelby’s blood type.”
    Madison frowned. Then she cheered up. “Don’t a lot of people have the same blood type? Aren’t there, like, only five, and most people have the main one?”
    â€œActually, there are four blood types,” Hamilton said. “O, A, B, and AB, and they can be positive or negative. Mrs. Shelby is a B negative, which is the second rarest kind, and so is the blood on the knife. A little less than two percent of the population has that blood type.”
    â€œTwo percent? That doesn’t sound like that many.”
    â€œWell, yes and no. There are around three hundred million people in the US, so two percent of three hundred million is six million people.”
    â€œWow, so it could be almost anyone’s blood on that knife.”
    Hamilton laughed. “I wish you were on all my juries.”
    â€œMaybe someone with her same blood type came in and kidnapped her!”
    Hamilton rolled his eyes, but kindly. “In a few weeks, when we get the result of the DNA test, we’ll know if the blood is definitely Mrs. Shelby’s.”
    â€œDNA tests take that long?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAnd they really work?”
    â€œThey do. Only one percent of our DNA is different, person to person.”
    â€œSo my DNA is ninety-nine percent the same as the president’s or a movie star’s?”
    â€œYup, but one percent is different enough,” Hamilton said. “The police take a sample of the blood found at a crime scene and a sample of the blood of the victim. If that one percent matches, they have proof that the blood is the victim’s blood, in this