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A single bullet found on the floor of an operating room at St. Michael's Hospital appears to be the best piece of evidence Toronto police have in their massive investigation of the Boxing Day shootings.

It was in that downtown O.R. where 15-year-old Jane Creba was first rushed for emergency surgery and then formally pronounced dead -- it is called simply being "pronounced" in hospital lexicon -- on Monday evening.

Ms. Creba, who had just crossed Yonge Street from the relative safety of the east side where she was shopping with her 18-year-old sister, Alison, wandered innocently into the middle of a gun battle that erupted on the west side and which police suspect was between rival gangs.

The young woman was struck once in the upper torso, the bullet exiting her body and either coming to rest in her clothes or on the stretcher onto which she was placed at the scene by paramedics.

The bullet has been seized by police, The Globe and Mail has learned, and is now being subjected to a battery of tests -- for DNA, trace evidence and, most importantly, for the unique striations made on projectiles as they leave the muzzle of a gun -- by firearms examiners at the Ontario Centre of Forensic Sciences.

Yesterday, the beautiful girl described by her shattered parents as their "bright light" was being mourned by bleary-eyed teenagers at Riverdale Collegiate Institute, where, though just in Grade 10, Ms. Creba had quickly made a mark as an all-round athlete, top scholar and beloved classmate.

Though officially still closed for the Christmas break, the school opened its doors so Ms. Creba's fellow students, teammates and friends could gather to remember her and be comforted by grief counsellors. From their parents' minivans, stricken young people emerged, many holding flowers and picture memorials.

Firearms experts at the provincial lab are also examining a 9 mm Ruger handgun found on two young men -- one a youth of 17 who can't be identified, the other 20-year-old Andre Thompson -- who were arrested shortly after the shootings at the Castle Frank subway station, and who police believe took part in the gun battle.

Mr. Thompson faces six firearms offences, but none accuse him of killing Ms. Creba or wounding the other six people who were injured, including an off-duty police officer who was twice grazed by flying bullets.

It is the results of forensic tests upon the gun, the bullet and numerous cartridge cases -- cases that hold both gunpowder and bullets and are thrown clear of a gun when it is fired -- found at the crime scene which may best tell the tale of the deadly battle.

Indeed, it is a measure of the speed with which the chaotic scene unfolded that police even found cartridge cases, firearms expert Finn Nielsen told The Globe yesterday in a telephone interview.

Very often now, he said, gunmen have both time and wit enough to stop to collect their spent cases before fleeing a crime scene.

Now a private consultant, Mr. Nielsen was the head firearms examiner at the Centre of Forensic Sciences until he retired in 2001.

Though he dislikes the term, he agreed that the marks left by firearms are so unique they are akin to fingerprints. Invisible to the naked eye, when under the microscope fired bullets contain various "lands and grooves" -- these are what make the bullet spin through the air, much as a football does -- that can be matched to the weapon which fired them.

Cartridge cases -- even unfired ones, which sometimes pop out when a gun is being fired rapidly -- bear similar unique marks, small parallel lines on the base of the case, making them "of good evidentiary value," Mr. Nielsen said.

Other sources told The Globe that the case is shaping up as a forensic one -- the first step to identify the shooter or shooters (police have said more than one gun was fired); the second tying the shooter or each shooter to a particular weapon; the third tying the bullet which killed Ms. Creba to a particular gun and thus to one person.

Ironically, given that the street was packed with shoppers, identification may prove to be the thorniest issue.

Sources say that despite what would seem to be an enormous number of eyewitnesses, the vast majority of bystanders would have been diving for cover or fleeing. Of the remainder, experience has shown their accounts and memories may vary tremendously. "If five different people see the same thing," one source said, "you usually end up with five different variations and descriptions." Detectives are also poring over video surveillance from local stores and the subway system.

Police are also focusing on the possibility of gang involvement, either as a random encounter between rivals or as part of a vendetta.

"Preliminary indications at this point are that this appears to have similarities to gang activity," Detective-Sergeant Doug Quan, who heads the force's guns and gangs task force, said yesterday.

"On its face, it appears to be gang-related."

In all, police can identify 73 gangs operating citywide, but of chief concern, Det.-Sgt. Quan said, are about 25, with Rexdale, the Jane-Finch corridor and Scarborough considered particular hot spots.

Police will be leaning on their network of informants to provide them with leads, said Mike Davis, a former homicide investigator who retired from the Toronto force last year -- in particular, detectives will be relying on the intelligence unit, responsible for gathering and analyzing data from informants, many of whom are paid.

Inspector David McLeod, who heads the force's organized crime enforcement unit and directs a team of mainly black officers working in violence-plagued neighbourhoods, said his squad has also been called in to assist homicide detectives, but declined to discuss their specific role.

In the end, however, it is the feather-light bullet -- most commonly, they weigh about 125 grains, or little more than a quarter of an ounce -- that took Ms. Creba's life which may also best speak on her behalf in death.