Final Justice Part 26

He and the other uniform led the way through the a.s.sembled journalists, one on each side of Detective La.s.siter and Mr. Williamson.

Sergeant Payne brought up the rear, which gave him a chance to decide that Detective La.s.siter 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 ident.i.ty 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. 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 bas.e.m.e.nt. 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. 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.

NINE.

[ONE].

Matt pushed the End b.u.t.ton on his cellular. "Washington's on his way here," he announced. "And so are Coughlin, Lowenstein, and Quaire."

"What's that all about?" D'Amata asked.

Matt shrugged. "He wants the three of us here."

"Was he in the office?" D'Amata asked.

"He didn't say."

"Then we have to go on the premise that he-they-may be two minutes away," D'Amata said. " 'Jesus is coming, look busy.' How can we best do that?"

"I don't know about you two, but I'm going back to doing the scene," Slayberg said, and walked out of the kitchen.

"Emperors and people like that like to be welcomed when they go someplace," D'Amata said. "Matt, why don't you and I go outside and wait?"

They left the apartment by the rear door. There was a uniform standing at the foot of the stairway, and other uniforms were standing just inside the POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape. On the other side of the tape there were not only more spectators than Matt expected-Cheryl Williamson's body had been taken away; the show was over-but more than a dozen representatives of the print, radio, and television press.

He didn't see Mickey O'Hara, and wondered where he was. Mickey was usually the first press guy at the scene of a murder.

The answer to that came when-ignoring questions several of the journalists called out-they walked around the end of the building to the front. There, behind the yellow-and -black POLICE LINE tape were even more spectators and representatives of the press, and Mickey O'Hara was among them. To make sure they didn't cross the tape, two uniforms stood directly in front of the press, one male, one female, both looking as if they had left the Academy as long as two weeks ago.