Deadly Decisions_ A Novel Part 31

"The Houston PD has a jacket on Christopher Howard."

If I could have laid hands on Harry at that moment I would have committed a felony.

"He's been arrested?"

"Four months ago. Possession."

No wonder his father had hauled him up to the north woods.

"I know what advice is worth on the open market," Claudel went on. "But be careful."

"Be careful of what?"

He looked at me a long moment, no doubt deciding whether to confide.

"The paramedic actually picked out two words."

The phone rang but I ignored it.

"Brennan's kid."

I felt someone light a match in my chest. Could they know about Katy? Kit? I looked away, not wanting Claudel to see my fear.

"Meaning?"

Claudel shrugged.

"Was it a threat? A warning?"

"The paramedic says he doesn't listen to patients while he's working on them."

I studied the wall.

"So what are you suggesting?"

"I don't want to alarm you, but Constable Quickwater and I think-"

"Oh, yeah. Quickwater. He's a lot of laughs." I cut him off, my sarcasm triggered by anger and fear.

"He's a good investigator."

"He's an a.s.shole. Every time I talk to him he acts like he's deaf."

"He is."

"What?"

"Quickwater is deaf."

I searched for a response, but couldn't come up with a single word.

"Actually, he's deafened. There's a difference."

"Deafened how?"

"He took a cast-iron pipe in the back of the head while breaking up an alley fight. Then they shot him with a stun gun until the batteries died."

"When?"

"About two years ago."

"That destroyed his hearing?"

"So far."

"Will it come back?"

"He hopes so."

"How does he function?"

"Extremely well."

"I mean, how does he communicate?"

"Quickwater is one of the quickest studies I've ever met. I'm told that he learned to lip-read in no time, and he's crackerjack. For distance communication he uses e-mail, fax, and TTY."

"TTY?"

"It's an acronym for teletypewriter. Essentially, it's a keyboard and acoustic coupler built into one device. At home he has a special modem in his PC that communicates at the same band Baudot code as a regular TTY. He's got his fax and TTY on the same phone line and uses a switching device that recognizes an incoming fax tone. It sends faxes to the fax machine and all other calls to the TTY. We've got the same setup and software at headquarters, so calling back and forth is no problem."

"What about when he's out?"

"He has a portable TTY. Battery-operated."

"How does he talk to someone without a TTY, or to you if you're not at headquarters?"

"There's a relay service that acts as intermediary. The service takes the call, then types what the hearing person says. For someone who's also mute, they read aloud what the deaf person types. Quickwater speaks fine, so he doesn't need to type his words."

My mind was struggling to take this in. I pictured Quickwater at the Vipers' clubhouse, then in the conference room at Quantico.

"But part of his a.s.signment in Quantico was to report back on what he'd learned. How can he take notes and lip-read at the same time? And how does he know what's being said when the lights are dimmed, or when he can't see the speaker?"

"Quickwater explains this a lot better than I. He uses something called CARTT, Computer a.s.sisted Real Time Translation. A reporter transcribes what's being said into a stenotype machine, then a computerized translation is performed and the words are displayed on a video monitor in real time. It's the same system used for closed-captioning of live television. The FBI has someone down there that can do it, but a hookup can be made from anywhere, with the reporter in one location and Quickwater in another."

"By phone and PC?"

"Exactly."

"But what about his other duties?"

I didn't voice what I was really thinking. Reporting on a conference or meeting is one thing, but how does a deaf officer cover himself when someone goes for the jugular?

"Constable Quickwater is a skilled and dedicated officer. He was injured in the line of duty and no one can say if the hearing loss is permanent or not. Obviously he can't do everything he used to do, but for now, the force is working with it."

I was about to circle back to Dorsey when Claudel stood and placed a paper on my desk. I braced myself for more bad news.

"This is the DNA report on the blood found on Dorsey's jacket," he said.

I didn't have to look. The expression on his face told me what the form would say.

28.

WHEN C CLAUDEL LEFT I I JUST SAT THERE, MY THOUGHTS SLIP JUST SAT THERE, MY THOUGHTS SLIP streaming in and out of the conversation just concluded. streaming in and out of the conversation just concluded.

DNA doesn't lie. The victim's blood was all over the jacket, meaning Dorsey had killed Cherokee just as Claudel suspected. Or had he? Dorsey had said the jacket was not his.

The man knew nothing about Savannah Osprey. He'd been scamming me to save himself, and I had fallen for it.

And my visit to the jail had gotten Dorsey killed. Or had it? Was he killed because he was the killer or because he was not the killer? Either way, he was dead because someone feared what he would tell me.

I felt burning behind my eyelids.

Don't cry. Don't you dare cry. I swallowed hard.

And there was Quickwater. He hadn't been glaring, he'd been reading my lips. Who had treated whom badly? But how was I to know?

And Kit. Were the surveillance shots truly chance encounters as I'd said, or was Kit involved with the Bandidos? Did that explain the Preacher? Was the real reason he'd come here something other than anger with his father? Or fondness for his dim-witted aunt?

And the eyeball. Did Did Kit find it on the windshield? Kit find it on the windshield?

Claudel had gotten his report. Dammit, where was mine?

I slammed my palms on the blotter and shot to my feet. Weaving through clerical staff carrying papers and folders and technicians pushing specimen carts, I strode down the hall, took the stairs to the thirteenth floor, and went straight to the DNA section. I spotted my target bending over a test tube at the far end of the lab, and closed in.

"Bonjour, Tempe. Comment ca va?" Robert Gagne greeted me. Robert Gagne greeted me.

"a va."

"Your hair is different." His own was dark and curly, though graying at the temples. He kept it short and carefully combed.

"Yes."

"Are you going to let it grow?"

"It's difficult to stop it," I replied.

"It looks good, of course," he mumbled, laying down a gla.s.s pipette. "So, I guess that jacket will nail this Dorsey character. Claudel actually smiled when I gave him the news. Well, almost. He twitched."

"I'm wondering if you've had time to do the comparison I requested."

"Unnumbered, right?"

I nodded.

"Eyeball?"

I nodded again.

"To be compared with sequencing from LML 37729."

"Yes." His memory for case numbers always impressed me.

"Hold on."

Gagne walked over to a honeycomb of folders, riffled through those in a middle cell, and pulled one out. I waited as he scanned the contents.

"The comparison is done, but the report isn't written."

"And?"

"It's a match."

"Without question?"

"Mais, oui." His eyebrows shot up. "The eye and the tissue sample come from the same person." His eyebrows shot up. "The eye and the tissue sample come from the same person."

Or persons, I thought, if they happen to be twins. I thanked him and hurried back to my office.

My suspicion had been right. The eyeball belonged to one of the Vaillancourts. A member of the Vipers had probably found it at the scene and kept it for some macabre reason. But who had placed it on my car?

I heard the phone before I reached my door, and bolted the last few steps. Marcel Morin was calling from downstairs.

"We missed you at the morning meeting."

"Sorry."

He went straight to the point. In the background I could hear voices and the sound of a Stryker saw.

"A ship arrived at the port two weeks ago and several cargo containers were off-loaded for repair."

"The big ones that go onto eighteen-wheelers?"