"Final justice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Griffin W. E. B.)

"35A."

"35A," Police Radio responded.

"35A, notify Northwest Detectives, and Homicide. We have an apparent homicide. White female, no obvious cause of death, but there are signs of a possible rape. Hold myself and 14 car out at the scene."

Jack Williamson looked up at Sergeant Haley.

"She is dead, right?"

"I'm afraid so."

They both could hear the growing scream of Officer Stone's patrol car approaching.

[ONE] In the radio room-"room" doesn't do justice to the large area in which Police Radio is housed-in the Roundhouse, the radio operator who had taken Sergeant Haley's call then pressed a button on his console that automatically dialed the number of the desk man at the Northwest Detectives Division.

Detective units operate on what is known as "The Wheel." It's actually a roster of the names of the detectives on duty at the moment, and it's designed to equitably distribute the workload. In most detective divisions, there is a detective assigned to "man the desk." The "desk man" answers the telephone. When a job comes in, the desk man assigns it to the detective "next up" on the wheel.

When the phone rang in the Northwest Detectives Division, it was answered by Detective O. A. Lassiter, who was not the desk man but was filling in for Detective Len Ford, who was in the men's room "taking a personal," as a bathroom break is referred to on Police Radio. It also happened that Detective Lassiter was next up on the wheel.

Detective Lassiter was twenty-five years old, with 115 pounds distributed attractively around her five-foot-seven-inch frame. She had dark black hair, green eyes, long attractive legs, and had what her fellow detectives agreed- privately, very privately-were a magnificent ass and bosom.

"This is Police Radio, operator number 178," the Police Radio operator began, then went into the details of the call he'd received from Sergeant Haley.

Detective Lassiter wrote them down on a lined tablet and finally said, "Okay, we got it," then raised her voice to call out to Lieutenant Fred C. Vincent, "Hey, Lieutenant, we got one."

"What kind of job is it, Lassiter?" Vincent asked.

"Homicide, possible rape, white female, twenty-three years old. Her brother found her inside her apartment, tied to the bed. He's still at the scene."

"You better take somebody with you," Vincent said. "I'll get over there as soon as I can."

"Yes, sir," Detective Lassiter said, and then, raising her voice, called out, "Charley, you loose enough to go with me?"

"What's the job?" Detective Charley Touma, a plump forty-four-year-old, asked.

"That's not an answer, Charley, that's another question," Lieutenant Vincent answered for Detective Lassiter.

"I am at your disposal, Detective Lassiter," Touma said. "What's the job?"

"Homicide, possible rape, young white female," Detective Lassiter said, as she opened the drawer of her desk, took from it her Glock 9-mm semiautomatic pistol, and slipped it into its holster.

Lieutenant Vincent was pleased that Detective Touma would be working with Detective Lassiter. Touma was a good man, a gentle man. The job was probably going to be messy, and although he knew he wasn't supposed to let feelings like this intrude in any way in official business, the truth was that Lieutenant Vincent looked upon Detective Lassiter as, if not a daughter, then as a little sister.

Immediately after talking to the desk man at Northwest Detectives, the Police Radio operator pushed the button that automatically dialed the number of the man on the desk in the Homicide Unit, which was, physically, almost directly under him in the Roundhouse.

Detective Joe D'Amata, a slightly built, natty, olive-skinned forty-year-old, who was next up on the Homicide wheel, answered the phone: "Homicide, D'Amata."

"This is Radio," the operator said, and then proceeded to repeat almost verbatim what he'd reported to Detective Lassiter at Northwest Detectives. And Detective D'Amata, as Detective Lassiter had done, carefully wrote everything down, then said, "Got it, thanks."

He looked around for Lieutenant Jason Washington and saw that he was in his office talking with-almost certainly telling him the way things worked-Sergeant Matt Payne.

The only problem Joe D'Amata had with Payne as a sergeant in Homicide was that it made him reconsider the decision he'd made years before, when he'd been in Homicide a year, and there was a sergeant's exam coming up, and he had decided not to take it.

It was pretty clear by then that he'd cut the mustard and wouldn't be asked to "consider a transfer." He realized that he would much rather be a Homicide detective than a sergeant, or a lieutenant, or even a captain, somewhere else. For one thing, with all the overtime, he was taking home as much-or more-dough as an inspector. But the money wasn't all of it. He liked Homicide.

Homicide was special, and it paid well. Who needs to be a sergeant?

So he hadn't taken the exam, and hadn't thought about getting promoted since. And he knew that many-perhaps most-of the Homicide detectives had made the same decision at some time in their careers.

Another trouble with taking the exam and making sergeant was that he'd have to leave Homicide, the personnel theory there being it was bad policy to have somebody who last week was one of the boys this week be their supervisor. Even if he went to a regular detective district-South, for example-as a sergeant, he wouldn't be doing any investigations himself, just supervising detectives who were investigating retail thefts, stolen autos, and the occasional more exciting aggravated assaults, or bank robberies. And, if you turned up a good suspect on a bank job, the FBI would immediately take over. If he were sent to a uniform district, a very distinct possibility in today's "career-development-minded" department, then he would be devoting his investigatory skills to "Disturbance, House" calls.

There were exceptions, of course. There were exceptions to everything. Jason Washington had taken the lieutenant's exam with the understanding that if he made it, he would stay in Homicide. And the word was out that with a couple of belts in him, after he'd heard Payne was coming to Homicide, Tony Harris had gone to Washington and asked if he couldn't do the same thing, and Washington said he would work on it.

There was something else, too. The reason Payne was the new sergeant was the nutty "First Five Get Their Choice of Assignment" decision Commissioner Mariani had come up with.

That could have come out worse. Payne was a youngster, but he was a good cop. He'd been doing in critters from the time he'd come on the job. Denny Coughlin had gotten him assigned as Peter Wohl's administrative assistant to keep him out of trouble until he realized that rich kids from the Main Line really shouldn't be cops just because their father and uncle got blown away as cops.

He had been working for Wohl hardly any time at all when he'd popped the Northwest serial rapist and taken him permanently off the streets without putting the Commonwealth to the expense of a trial.

Maybe it was in his blood. Who the hell knew? But the point was Payne was a good cop. What if the Number One guy had been somebody else? Some dickhead out of Community Relations, some other candyass good at taking exams but who, on the street, couldn't find his butt with both hands and who would piss his pants if he had to stare down some critter? What then?

Joe D'Amata pushed himself out of his chair and walked to Lieutenant Washington's door. He waited until he had Washington's attention.

"We got one, Jason," he said. "White female, twenty-three, probably involved with a rape."

"Dare I hope the culprit is in custody?" Washington asked.

D'Amata shook his head.

"No. Thirty-fifth District uniform is holding the scene," he said.

"Sergeant Payne will accompany you to the scene," Washington said, smiling broadly, "checking to make sure everything you know has to be done is done. You will explain each step in the procedure to him, so that he will be assured you know what you're doing."

In other words, show the rookie the ropes.

"Anytime you're ready, Sergeant," Joe said.

"Let me know what happens, Sergeant," Washington said.

"Yes, sir."

Matt got up and followed D'Amata into the outer room.

"What I usually do first, Sergeant," D'Amata said, "is secure my replacement on the wheel."

Matt nodded.

D'Amata raised his voice.

"Kramer, put theHustler down and take the phone."

Detective Alonzo Kramer, who appeared to be reading a large ledger at his desk, waved his hand to indicate he understood he was now up on the wheel.

Matt Payne wondered if he really had a copy ofHustler magazine hidden behind the green ledger. And decided he didn't want to know.

"What I will do now, Sergeant," Joe D'Amata said, punching numbers on a telephone, "is inform the very clever technicians assigned to the Mobile Crime Lab that their services are going to be required."

Other detectives-who, Matt did not need to be told, were the squad who would work the case-began to gather around D'Amata's desk.

D'Amata put the telephone handset in its cradle.

"With your permission, Sergeant, I will designate Detectives Reeves and Grose to remain behind. Reeves, who went to night school and now reads almost at the sixth-grade level, will research the victim, see what he can find out about her in the files-does she have a rap sheet, outstanding warrants, et cetera, et cetera. Grose, who can't read at all, will seek out a judge to get us a search warrant for the premises."

Detectives Grose and Reeves, having picked up on what was happening, were smiling.

"I'm sure you're aware, Sergeant," D'Amata went on, "that our beloved Lieutenant Washington is picky-picky about getting a search warrant before we even start rooting in garbage cans in search of evidence, and photographing the deceased."

"He has made that point, Detective," Matt said.

"Something to do, I believe, with slimeball lawyers getting critters off because the evidence was gained unlawfully. "

"So I was led to believe," Matt said.

"And I think, with your permission, Sergeant, that I will designate Detective Slayberg-that's the fat one in the cheap suit…"

"Screw you, Joe," Detective Slayberg said, but he was smiling.

"… as the recorder. He's very good at describing premises. "

"So I usually get stuck with that, Sergeant," Slayberg said.

"Many years ago," Matt said mock seriously, "when I was a young police officer, I made the mistake of letting my sergeant know I could type with all the fingers on both hands."

The others chuckled.

"Boy," Slayberg said, "with all possible respect, Sergeant, that was a dumb fucking thing to do."

"So I learned," Matt said.

There were more chuckles.

"So now, these little details out of the way, and with your permission, Sergeant, I think we should proceed to the scene."

"Absolutely."

"With just about everybody working the Roy Rogers job, Matt, we're a little short of wheels. You mind if Slayberg and I ride out there with you? Or did Quaire beat you out of that new car you brought with you?"

"Not yet," Matt said. "But then, I haven't been here very long."

I wonder why Quaire didn't grab the car?

He watched as all the detectives who would be going to the scene went to filing cabinets, unlocked them, and then took from them their personal equipment, which included their weapons, surgical rubber gloves, and leather- or vinyl-covered folders holding legal tablets.

He followed D'Amata out of Homicide, at the last moment picking up his briefcase, with his laptop inside, from atop a filing cabinet near the door.

[TWO] When Matt got out of the unmarked Ford, he saw that yellow-and-black tape reading POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS had been strung along both sides of the path into the apartment complex to prohibit access to one of the buildings.

Two uniformed white shirts, a captain and a lieutenant, were standing talking to two detectives, one of them a woman, on the concrete path in front of what was obviously the crime scene.

"Captain Alex Smith, the district commander," Joe D'Amata said. "Good guy. I don't make the lieutenant."

"Lew Sawyer," Slayberg furnished. "He's a prick. The broad is from Special Victims, and she's a real bitch."

"What the fuck is she doing here?" Slayberg asked. "Special Victims Unit doesn't have anything to do with homicide investigations, even when the victim has been raped."

"Smile nicely at her, Matt," D'Amata said.

Captain Smith saw the three of them coming and smiled.

"Hello, Joe," he said, putting out his hand.

"Good morning, sir. I know you know Harry, but… Sergeant Payne?"

"Yeah, sure, how are you, Harry?" He shook Slayberg's hand. "I know who you are, Sergeant, but I don't think we've ever actually met."

"I don't think so, sir," Matt said, reaching for Smith's outstretched hand.

"This is Lieutenant Sawyer," Smith said. "And Detectives Domenico and Ellis, of Special Victims."

"I think I used to see you around the Arsenal, didn't I?" Detective Domenico asked.

There was something about her smile Matt didn't like, and he remembered what Slayberg had said.

"I used to be out there with Special Operations," Matt said.

Everybody nodded at each other, but no hands were shaken.

"What have we got, Captain?" Joe asked.

"A dead girl, the doer is probably a sicko, and maybe a problem."

"What kind of a problem?"

"There was a 'Disturbance, House' call here last night. Two cars responded. The lady next door said her mirror fell off the wall. She said the trouble came from the Williamson apartment, and wanted them to check it out. There was no response when the officers rang the bell, no lights, no sounds, and no signs of a break-in. So they couldn't take the door."

"Uh-oh," D'Amata said. "I think I know what's coming."

Captain Smith nodded.

"So they left," he said. "And then the brother let himself in this morning, found his sister, and the lady next door told him what had happened last night. Actually, early this morning. And the brother is pretty upset with the police department for not taking the door the first time we were here."

"Ouch," D'Amata said.

Slayberg's cellular buzzed.

He said his name, listened, then said, "Thanks. We just got here. Wait." He turned to Matt.

"Sergeant, the search warrant is on the way. Grose will bring it. Reeves said there's nothing but a couple of driving violations on either the victim or her brother, and wants to know what you want him to do."

"Tell Grose to tell Reeves to come out with him and the warrant," Matt said, forgetting that he had promised himself to keep his eyes open and his mouth shut.

He stole a quick glance at D'Amata, and saw nothing on his face to suggest he thought Matt had ordered the wrong thing. And he remembered what Quaire had said about his being expected to act like a sergeant.

"Why don't we go have a quick look?" Matt said to D'Amata and Slayberg. "The search warrant's on the way."

He started to walk toward the stairs, and became aware that everybody started to follow him.

I'm not about to tell the district captain he can't have a look at the scene, but that doesn't apply to the lieutenant and certainly not to the smiling lady from Special Victims.

"It's your job, Sergeant, but I would like a look."

"After you, sir," he said, waving Captain Smith ahead of him.

"Lieutenant, would you mind waiting until the Crime Lab people do their thing?" Matt asked.

"I just wanted a quick look, but you're right," Lieutenant Sawyer said.

"You understand," Matt said to Detective Domenico.

The ice in your eyes, Detective Domenico, Sergeant Payne thought, would freeze the balls off a brass monkey. What's your problem? You're not even supposed to be here. This isn't a rape, a child molestation, it's a homicide.

The uniform in front of Cheryl Williamson's door stepped aside when he saw Captain Smith and the others.

Once they got inside, Captain Smith touched Matt's arm.

"I know Sex Crimes," he said, using the old name for the Special Victims Unit, "doesn't have anything to do with a homicide investigation, even when a sexual assault is involved. They just happened to be in my office talking to me about an unsolved rape when this job came out."

"Yes, sir," Matt said. And then he saw in Joe D'Amata's eyes that he found this interesting. After a moment, so did Matt.

An unsolved rape and they just happened to be here at a homicide rape scene? Is there something else we're not being told? I think I'll have to send a team over to the Special Victims Unit to see what their files may have.

Without a word Joe D'Amata opened his leather-bound notepad, turned to the last page of the tablet, and scrawled a note for himself:Sex Crimes, unsolved rape in area, Lt. Sawyer, Det. Domenico, Ellis.

There was another female detective in the apartment, sitting on the couch beside a well-dressed, somewhat distraught-looking man.

She stood up when she saw them.

Sergeant Payne had an unprofessional thought:Now, that's a very interesting member of the opposite sex.

"Captain, I'd rather not have anybody in there until we get the search warrant and the Crime Lab," the very interesting member of the opposite sex said.

"The warrant's on the way," Matt said. "And we're just going to stand in the door for a quick look."

"Take a good long look," the man on the couch said, as he stood up. "If you cops did what you're supposed to do, my sister would probably still be alive."

"I'm very sorry for your loss, sir," D'Amata said.

"You're sorry? That does Cheryl a lot of fucking good."

"Who are you?" Detective Olivia Lassiter asked, almost a challenge.

"Joe D'Amata, Homicide," D'Amata said. "I've got the job. This is Harry Slayberg, and Sergeant Payne."

D'Amata and Slayberg nodded at Detective Lassiter as they walked around Matt to the bedroom door.

"Who are you?" Matt asked.

"Lassiter, Northwest Detectives," she said.

D'Amata and Slayberg stood in the doorway of Cheryl Williamson's bedroom and looked around-without entering-for about sixty seconds. Then they stepped away from the bedroom door and started looking around the living room. Captain Smith went to the bedroom door.

"Jesus," he said, softly.

Matt saw that D'Amata and Slayberg had rubber gloves on their hands, wondered why he hadn't seen them put them on, and pulled a pair of his own from his pocket.

He was about to walk to the door when the apartment door opened again and two men entered. Payne knew one of them, a balding, rumpled man in a well-worn suit, Dr. Howard Mitchell of the medical examiner's office. He had with him a photographer, a young man Matt could not remember ever having seen before.

Matt found it interesting that Dr. Mitchell had come to the scene personally. Usually technicians from the M.E.'s office worked a death scene, and the M.E. did not; he either supervised the autopsy or did it himself.

Probably, Matt decided, Mitchell's appearance had something to do with a Special Operations job he'd heard about, one that had almost been assigned to him, although in the end it had been assigned to Detectives Jesus Martinez and Charles T. McFadden.

It had begun when a highly indignant citizen, the nephew of a woman who'd fallen down her cellar stairs and broken her neck, had gone to his district and told the desk sergeant to report that he'd just gotten Aunt Myrtle's last Visa bill. Aunt Myrtle didn't drink, couldn't drive, and there was no way she could have charged $355 worth of booze at Mickey's Liquor Store in Camden, New Jersey, on the day of her death.

The report had worked its way through the bureaucracy to the Roundhouse, where it had been discussed by Deputy Commissioner Coughlin and Chief Inspector of Detectives Lowenstein.

They agreed there was something about it that made it seem more than a simple case of credit-card fraud. And since it crossed state lines, it became a federal offense, which meant it was in the province of the FBI. Although both Coughlin and Lowenstein held the FBI in the highest possible respect, they also suspected that a credit card fraud involving only $355 would not get the FBI's full attention.

"Give it to Peter Wohl," Lowenstein said. "Not this job. Get him to see if there have been other reports of other things missing from other recently deceased citizens."

Coughlin had-unnecessarily-told Peter Wohl that if somebody at funeral homes, cops at the scene, or maybe even from the M.E.'s office were taking things they shouldn't, he would rather learn this from Special Operations than from the FBI.

Charley McFadden and Hay-zus Martinez had been given the job because they had less on their plates when the job came in than Matt did. It hadn't taken McFadden and Martinez long to discover-Matt couldn't remember ever before having seen Charley so personally indignant-that a lot of stuff had disappeared over the past six months, and that it was pretty clear it had disappeared into the pockets of some of the M.E.'s technicians. They had apparently decided that since the deceased had no further need for rings, watches, other jewelry and cash, they might as well put the same to good use-their own.

Four of them had been arrested, tried, and convicted.

"Good morning, Doctor," Captain Smith said from the bedroom door.

"Hey, Smitty," Dr. Mitchell said, and then spotted Matt. "Hey, Payne. I saw your picture in the paper."

"Good morning, Doctor," Matt said. "The search warrant's en route."

Dr. Mitchell winked at D'Amata and Slayberg, then walked to the bedroom door, pulling on rubber gloves as he did so. The photographer followed him. Mitchell gestured with his hand for the photographer to stop at the door, then went inside.

The medical examiner needed no one's permission to enter the crime scene. It belonged to him until he released it to Homicide.

Matt walked to the bedroom door.

Dr. Mitchell bent over Cheryl Williamson's body, took a quick look, put his fingers on her carotid artery, looked at his watch, and announced, "I pronounce her dead as of ten fifty-five. "

He looked over his shoulder at Matt.

"Unofficially, it looks like her neck is broken, and to judge from the lividity of the body, I'd guess she's been dead eight, nine hours or so."

He signaled to the photographer that it was all right for him to enter the room, and started for the bedroom door.

Matt got his first look at the victim.

She was naked, with her legs spread apart by plastic ties tied to the footboard. Her upper body was twisted to the left. Her left hand was tied to the headboard, and Matt could see another tie hanging loose from her right wrist.

She looked at him out of sightless eyes, and his mind was instantly filled with Susan Reynolds's sightless eyes looking at him in the parking lot of the Crossroads Diner.

He felt the knot in his stomach and the cold sweat forming on his back, and stepped quickly away from the door.

Jesus, not now! Dear God, don't let me get sick to my stomach and make an ass of myself on my first Homicide job!

He bumped into something, somebody, and saw that it was Detective Olivia Lassiter, and that he had almost knocked her over.

She looked at him with what he thought was annoyance.

He started to say "Sorry," but was interrupted by Jack Williamson, bitterly asking, "You got a good look, I hope?"

He turned his back to Williamson and touched Detective Lassiter's arm.

"You get anything out of him?" and then, before she could reply, asked, "Why didn't you get him out of here?"

"I was just getting him calmed down enough to talk when you walked in," she said. "He doesn't want to leave, and I didn't want to push him."

"Come with me," Matt said.

"That sounds like an order," she said.

"Okay," Matt said. "It was a request, a suggestion, but I want you to come with me."

She met his eyes defiantly for a moment, then shrugged and turned away from the open door.

Matt walked to the couch. Jack Williamson looked up at him with cold contempt.

"Mr. Williamson, I'm Sergeant Payne. I'm the Homicide supervisor, and I need to talk to you, and we can't do that in here. In just a few minutes, there will be technicians all over the place, and we can't be in their way. I want you to come with Detective Lassiter and me to someplace where we can talk. Okay?"

"The lady next door offered anything we need," Olivia said. "What about her kitchen? She had said she would put a pot of coffee on."

"We'll just sit around and have a friendly cup of coffee, right? And maybe a Big Mac? With my sister like that in there?"

"We have to talk someplace, Mr. Williamson, and we have to get out of the way of the technicians, and sitting down over a cup of coffee seems a better idea to me than standing on the sidewalk," Matt said. "What do you say?"

Williamson shrugged, a gesture of surrender, and stood up.

"Mrs. McGrory, this is Sergeant Payne of Homicide. We have to talk, privately, to Mr. Williamson," Olivia said when Mrs. McGrory answered her knock. "Could we use your kitchen?"

"Certainly."

"Thank you very much," Matt said, as she led them in her kitchen.

"Anything I can do to help. There's a fresh pot in the Mr. Coffee. Just help yourself."

"That's very kind of you," Matt said.

"I feel just terrible about this, especially with the cops being outside while it was happening."

"We don't know for sure that's what happened, Mrs. McGrory," Matt said.

"Of course, that's what happened. I was here, wasn't I?"

"Thank you very much, Mrs. McGrory," Olivia said, easing her out of the kitchen and then closing the door.

"Why don't you sit down?" Matt suggested to Williamson. "I'll get the coffee. How do you take yours, Mr. Williamson?"

"Black," Williamson said.

"Black," Olivia said.

Olivia and Williamson sat down at the kitchen table while Matt took the glass decanter and poured coffee into ceramic mugs. He walked to the table and set the mugs on it.

"Okay," Matt said. "Let's get a couple of things understood between us, Mr. Williamson. I don't know what happened last night, when Mrs. McGrory called the police, and I don't care."

"You don't fucking care?" Williamson asked, disgusted and incredulous.

"My job is to find the person, or persons, who killed your sister, and see that when they're brought to trial they won't walk out of the courtroom because some legal 't' wasn't crossed or some legal 'i' didn't have a dot. I understand that you're unhappy with what you think happened last night."

"What happened last night was that the fucking cops didn't do a goddamn thing to help my sister."

"If you believe the police did something they shouldn't have, or didn't do something they should have, you have every right to make an official complaint-"

"Fucking-A right, I do. And I will."

"But I think you'll agree, Mr. Williamson, that right now the priority is to find out who did this thing, and the sooner the better. Would you agree with that?"

"Jesus, of course I 'agree with that.' All I'm saying is that if those fucking cops had done what they were supposed to do last night, my sister would still be alive."

"There's one more thing, Mr. Williamson," Matt said. "Your language is beginning to offend me. I hope you'll watch your mouth. I would really rather not have you transported to Homicide and placed in an interview room until you get your emotions under control."

Williamson glared at him but didn't say anything.

Matt opened his briefcase and took out his laptop.

"What's that for?"

"I'm one of those guys who can't read his own writing," Matt said. "I take notes this way. Are you objecting to it?"

"If I did?"

"Then I'll take out a notebook and ballpoint, and waste a lot of time trying to make sense of my notes when I finally have to type them up. All right?"

Williamson shrugged. Matt turned the laptop on and began to type.

"Is it 'Jack,' Mr. Williamson?"

"John J. For Joseph."

"What's your first name and badge number, Lassiter?"

"Olivia, 582," she furnished.

"Okay, Mr. Williamson, let's start with your personal data," Matt said. "Residence?"

Twenty minutes later, Matt said, "I think that'll be enough for the time being, Mr. Williamson."

"Okay."

"You know how to work a laptop?"

Williamson nodded.

Matt slid the laptop in front of him.

"Would you take a look at that, please, and see if I've got it right?"

Williamson read the several pages Matt had typed and then nodded his head, "okay."

Matt turned the laptop off, closed the cover, and put it back in his briefcase.

"When I get that printed, Mr. Williamson, I'll have a detective-most likely Detective Lassiter-bring it to you for your signature."

"When?" Williamson asked.

"It'll wait until tomorrow," Matt said. "I know that you're going to be busy today. I'll call you tomorrow to see when it will be convenient."

"I have to tell you this," Williamson said. "When my mother hears about what happened last night, this morning, with the cops… God!"

"I'm not trying to talk you out of filing a formal complaint," Matt said, "honestly, I'm not. But for what it's worth, from what I've heard, the officers who responded to the 'Disturbance, House' call were just going by the book. If they hadany indication that something-anything-was going wrong, had gone wrong, in the apartment, they would have taken action."

Williamson looked at him but didn't respond directly.

"What am I supposed to do if my mother wants to come here?"

"Well, right now she can't have access to the apartment. Not today, and probably not tomorrow, either. Tell her that."

"Jesus Christ!" Williamson said.

"I'd be happy to go with you, Mr. Williamson," Detective Lassiter said. "If you think it would make things any easier. And I'd like to talk to her, too. That doesn't have to be right now. Your call."

"It couldn't do any harm," Williamson said. "And maybe, if you were there…"

"If you'll give me your cellular number, Sergeant, I'll call and let you know how things went," Detective Lassiter said.

Matt wrote the number on a small sheet of notepaper and handed it to her. She tore it in half and wrote two numbers on it.

"I guess you have the Northwest number, right?" she asked. Matt nodded. "My cellular and apartment," she said.

"Thank you," Matt said.

Under other circumstances, Olivia, my lovely, I would be overjoyed that you shared your telephone numbers with me.

Come to think of it, Olivia, despite the circumstances, I am overjoyed that you have shared your telephone numbers with me.

Mrs. McGrory was not in her living room as they passed through, but Matt could hear her voice in the next room. Only her voice, which suggested she was on the telephone.

He decided he had already thanked her and it would be better not to disturb her when she was on the phone.

When they went downstairs and through the front door, he saw that the press was gathered behind the POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape, and that the moment they saw them- two detectives, with badges showing, escorting a so-far-unidentified white male-video cameras rose with their red RECORDING lights glowing, and still camera flashbulbs went off.

"Where's your car?" Matt asked.

"Halfway down the street," she said, and pointed.

Matt touched the arm of one of the uniforms.

"I want to get Detective Lassiter and this gentleman to her car, down the street, and I don't want the press to get in the way."

"No problem," the uniform said, raised his voice, and called, "Dick!"

Dick was a very large police officer of African-American heritage.

He and the other uniform led the way through the assembled journalists, one on each side of Detective Lassiter and Mr. Williamson.

Sergeant Payne brought up the rear, which gave him a chance to decide that Detective Lassiter had a very nice muscular structure of the lower half of the rear of her body.

As he walked back to 600 Independence, ignoring questions from the press about the identity of Mr. Williamson, he realized he didn't really have much of an idea of what he was supposed to do now.

He remembered something he had been taught at the Marine Base, Quantico, while in the platoon leaders program: reconnoiter the terrain.

He spent perhaps ten minutes walking around the outside of the big old house, even going up the rear stairs, and then into the basement. He saw nothing of particular interest.

[THREE] When Matt returned to the front of the house, two uniforms were carrying a stretcher with Cheryl Williamson's body on it down the pathway to a Thirty-fifth District wagon.

Well, I won't have to look at the sightless eyes again- not that I'm liable to forget them.

When they had moved past him, Matt went up the stairs and into the Williamson apartment.

"What happened to that very pretty detective from Northwest?" Joe D'Amata greeted him.

"She went with the brother to tell the mother."

"This is our job, Matt," D'Amata said. There was a slight tone of reproof in his voice.

"She calmed the brother down. He liked her…"

"I can't imagine why," D'Amata said.

"… and (a) I thought that would make things easier with the mother. The brother suggested his mother was going to blow her cork when she found out that there was a 'Disturbance, House' call here and the uniforms didn't take the door. And (b) somebody had to talk to the mother, and I think she can do that as well as we could, which means that we can be here."

"Your call," D'Amata said. "Two things, Matt: You want a look at the rear door?"

"I saw the outside from the stairs," Matt said, as he followed D'Amata into the kitchen and to the door. "I didn't see any signs of forced entry. Did you?"

"Those scratches might be an indication that somebody pried it open," Joe said, pointing. "Operative word 'might.' The door was latched, locked, like that, but if you leave the lever in the up position like that, it locks automatically."

"What do the crime lab guys say?"

"What I just told you. No signs at all on the front door. So we don't know if the doer broke in, or whether she let him in. Could be either way. If she knew the doer, let him in…"

Matt grunted. Most murders are committed by people known to the victim.

"You said two things," Matt said.

"This is interesting," D'Amata said, taking a plastic evidence bag from his pocket. It held a digital camera.

"It may be, of course-and probably is-hers. But it was under the bed, which is a strange place to store an expensive camera like this. Even stranger, there are no fingerprints on it. Not even a smudge."

"Why don't we see what pictures are in it?"

"It doesn't work," D'Amata said, his tone suggesting that Matt should have known he could come up with a brilliant idea like seeing what pictures were in the camera all by himself. "Which might be because it got knocked off the bedside table when the doer jerked the telephone out of the wall and threw it at the mirror."

"No prints on the phone, either?" Matt asked.

D'Amata held up his rubber-surgical-gloved hands.

"I'm getting the idea the doer is a very careful guy," he said. "Which also suggests he knows how to get through a door without making a mess, and which suggests that although they are lifting a lot of prints in here-so far, they've done both doors, the bedroom and her bathroom-I would be pleasantly surprised if they came up with something useful."

"Yeah," Matt agreed.

"So, I was just about to call you to ask if I should take the camera to the crime lab and see if there are any pictures in it."

"As opposed to having a District car run it down there, which would put a uniform in the evidence chain?"

"That, too," D'Amata said. "I was thinking that if there are pictures in there, I could get a look at them a lot quicker if I was there when the lab took them out of the camera, then wait for the lab to print them."

"The camera's been fingerprinted?"

"I told you, there's nothing on it. Not even a smudge."

Matt set his briefcase on the kitchen table, opened it, rummaged around, and closed it again.

"We're in luck," he said. "I've got the gizmo."

"What gizmo?"

Matt walked to the door leading from the kitchen to the living room and motioned to one of the uniforms in the living room.

"Don't let anybody come in here until I tell you, okay?"

The uniform nodded and stood in the center of the doorjamb. Matt closed the door.

"Who's in the bedroom?" he asked.

"Harry, making the sketch," D'Amata said. "A uniform's keeping people out of there, too. What are you doing?"

Matt went back to the kitchen table and took out his laptop, then a small plastic object with a connecting cord. He plugged it into the laptop, then turned it on.

"You can look at them here?" Joe asked.

"And store them in the laptop," Matt said.

D'Amata handed him the evidence bag. Matt took the flash memory cartridge from it and saw that D'Amata had initialed it. If there were evidentiary photos in the camera, a defense attorney could not raise doubts in the jurors' minds that the pictures they were being shown had actually come from this camera.

He put the memory card into the transfer device, then copied the JPG images from it to the laptop's hard disk.

"There's eight images," Matt said. "Let's see what they are."

The first picture was obviously evidentiary. It showed Cheryl tied to the bed, staring with horror at the camera.

D'Amata went to the door and called Harry Slayberg.

Matt waited until Slayberg came, then displayed the other seven pictures.

"This critter is a real psychopath," Slayberg said, softly.

"You can see, in the first one," D'Amata said, "that the phone's still on the bedside table."

"And both of her wrists-run the last couple back again, please, Matt, so I'm sure-are still tied to the headboard," Slayberg said.

Matt displayed the entire series of pictures again.

"So what might have happened was that she got one wrist free… " Slayberg said.

"And he struggled with her… " D'Amata picked up. "And that's when the camera got knocked under the bed."

"Or," Matt offered, "he went into the bathroom to take a leak, or clean himself up, and while he was in there, she got the hand loose, and tried to call 911…"

"And Dudley Do-Right came out and caught her," Slayberg picked up, "hit her-probably harder than he intended-and jerked the phone out of the wall and threw it at the mirror."

"He was probably scared or in a rage or both," D'Amata said, "and didn't think that throwing the phone at the mirror was going to make a lot of noise."

Matt picked up the camera.

"It's an expensive camera," he said. "Kodak. I gave one almost like it to my sister for her birthday. Which triggers a couple of thoughts."

"Dudley Do-Right is either well-heeled or he stole the camera," Slayberg said.

"They are serially numbered," Matt said. "And come with a program that if it won't work, or you break it, you call them and they FedEx you a new one overnight. I think we should be able to find out who bought this. With a lot of luck, it will be the doer. But even if he stole it, he might have stolen it while doing another rape. That might tell us something."

"I don't think so, Matt," D'Amata said. "Dudley's a very careful guy, and, I suspect, smart. Smart enough not to take anything that could tie him to one of his escapades."

"And the second thought is that I'd like to show these pictures to my sister."

"Did you just say what I thought I heard you say?" Slayberg asked. "The sister at Dave Pekach's party?"

D'Amata laughed.

"One and the same," he said. "She's a shrink, Harry, a very good one."

"I didn't know," Slayberg said. "That's a thought, but the book says a department shrink and/or Special Victims, not a civilian."

"Maybe that rule could be bent," D'Amata said, smiling. "I heard Dr. Payne call Commissioner Coughlin 'Uncle Denny,' and Inspector Wohl 'Honey.' "

"That was at the party," Matt said, chuckling. "And subject to change. But she's worked with us before, Harry. I don't think there would be a problem."

"What I think we should do now," D'Amata said, "is seek the wise guidance of the Black Buddha. He's a white shirt- they get paid to make decisions."

Matt caused the screen of his laptop to go blank, then took out his cell phone and held down the number that caused the phone to automatically dial the cell phone of Lieutenant Jason Washington.

"Washington."

"Payne, sir."

"I was just about to call you, Sergeant Payne."

"Yes, sir?"

"Where are you, Matthew?"

"At the scene, sir."

"Stay there, and make sure D'Amata and Slayberg stay there. Commissioner Coughlin, Chief Lowenstein, Captain Quaire, and I will be there shortly, to exhort you vis-a-vis the rapid solution of that case."

"Yes, sir."

Washington turned off his cell phone.