“You want me to keep this information?”
“Yes. That’s your copy.”
I picked up a framed picture from her desk and studied it absently. It was of a couple in swimsuits. The man was holding a little girl who had Margaret’s eyes. They were on the deck of a boat, both of them good-looking and very tan. The woman looked especially familiar.
“You and your parents?” I asked.
“Those were the days,” Margaret said, and smiled. “I didn’t have to have a day job.”
“Great-looking family.” I put the photograph back and tried to position it exactly as it had been. Margaret had already moved on to a thick stack of papers on her blotter.
“We’ll talk in a couple of weeks, okay?” she said without looking up.
Diane stopped me on the way out. She was leaving work to meet Neil and Charlie at my office to watch something on the big screen and wanted to know when I’d join them. My office had been a gatheringplace for us all, especially during baseball season—me, Rauser, Diane, Neil, Charlie. I thought about the television my designers had installed lowering itself by remote control from the rafters on a silent silver pulley system like a seventy-two-inch flat-panel love slave.
“I can’t,” I told her. I wanted to find Rauser. I wanted to go back to the War Room. New reports from follow-up interviews on Wishbone scenes would be in, and the tip lines had started ringing. It was day two on the search for David, two days since the threatening letter had promised to murder him, and Rauser and his detectives had become so desperate they were searching Motor Vehicles and telephone records for anyone named David and attempting to contact them, a biblical name in the southern Bible belt and a metro area of nearly five million.
Three days, Lieutenant
. Tick-tock. We had twenty-four hours left if the letter was true. There wasn’t much room for optimism.
“I’m seeing someone,” Diane told me. “It’s serious.”
“Hey, that’s great,” I said, but what I was thinking was that it was always serious with Diane, who fell hard and fast and was too clingy and too willing too quickly and generally got her heart trampled for her trouble. I checked my watch. “I’ll call you in a couple days. I promise. I want to hear all about it.”
12
I t was nearly two in the morning. Rauser had his lights flashing but no siren, no need to wake the natives. We took Peachtree into Buckhead and cut over to Piedmont Road, silent on our way to the scene of another murder—a male victim, facedown, visible bite marks, stab wounds. The Crown Vic’s windows were lowered, warm air blowing our hair, the squawking police scanner making for strange background music. Rauser’s severe profile in the flashing blue light looked like something out of
Dick Tracy
. Nothing seemed real. A crime scene when it’s new is an invaluable tool. Seeing it just the way the killer left it, smelling it, feeling it, listening to its story. Crime scene photographs don’t always slap you in the face with first impressions and subliminal connections like a fresh scene. And they never give you a sense of angle and distance and space. But there’s never much time. Once discovered, the landscape of a scene begins to change forever. Lights are switched on, evidence is bagged, the air begins to circulate, the body is disturbed. Trace evidence is collected, some drifts away.
I glanced at the speedometer. Rauser was doing seventy-five down Peachtree and barely slowing at the lights, but it wasn’t fast enough to suit me. I just wanted to get there. Like Rauser, I was thinking only of the prospect of new evidence, the seconds ticking away on a perfectly preserved scene. I wasn’t contemplating the loss of life or the shame and sin and horror in that. That part comes later. One learns to compartmentalizeemotionally for the sake of efficiency. Unfortunately, that particular talent doesn’t translate well in personal lives. The divorce rate is high for
“Yes. That’s your copy.”
I picked up a framed picture from her desk and studied it absently. It was of a couple in swimsuits. The man was holding a little girl who had Margaret’s eyes. They were on the deck of a boat, both of them good-looking and very tan. The woman looked especially familiar.
“You and your parents?” I asked.
“Those were the days,” Margaret said, and smiled. “I didn’t have to have a day job.”
“Great-looking family.” I put the photograph back and tried to position it exactly as it had been. Margaret had already moved on to a thick stack of papers on her blotter.
“We’ll talk in a couple of weeks, okay?” she said without looking up.
Diane stopped me on the way out. She was leaving work to meet Neil and Charlie at my office to watch something on the big screen and wanted to know when I’d join them. My office had been a gatheringplace for us all, especially during baseball season—me, Rauser, Diane, Neil, Charlie. I thought about the television my designers had installed lowering itself by remote control from the rafters on a silent silver pulley system like a seventy-two-inch flat-panel love slave.
“I can’t,” I told her. I wanted to find Rauser. I wanted to go back to the War Room. New reports from follow-up interviews on Wishbone scenes would be in, and the tip lines had started ringing. It was day two on the search for David, two days since the threatening letter had promised to murder him, and Rauser and his detectives had become so desperate they were searching Motor Vehicles and telephone records for anyone named David and attempting to contact them, a biblical name in the southern Bible belt and a metro area of nearly five million.
Three days, Lieutenant
. Tick-tock. We had twenty-four hours left if the letter was true. There wasn’t much room for optimism.
“I’m seeing someone,” Diane told me. “It’s serious.”
“Hey, that’s great,” I said, but what I was thinking was that it was always serious with Diane, who fell hard and fast and was too clingy and too willing too quickly and generally got her heart trampled for her trouble. I checked my watch. “I’ll call you in a couple days. I promise. I want to hear all about it.”
12
I t was nearly two in the morning. Rauser had his lights flashing but no siren, no need to wake the natives. We took Peachtree into Buckhead and cut over to Piedmont Road, silent on our way to the scene of another murder—a male victim, facedown, visible bite marks, stab wounds. The Crown Vic’s windows were lowered, warm air blowing our hair, the squawking police scanner making for strange background music. Rauser’s severe profile in the flashing blue light looked like something out of
Dick Tracy
. Nothing seemed real. A crime scene when it’s new is an invaluable tool. Seeing it just the way the killer left it, smelling it, feeling it, listening to its story. Crime scene photographs don’t always slap you in the face with first impressions and subliminal connections like a fresh scene. And they never give you a sense of angle and distance and space. But there’s never much time. Once discovered, the landscape of a scene begins to change forever. Lights are switched on, evidence is bagged, the air begins to circulate, the body is disturbed. Trace evidence is collected, some drifts away.
I glanced at the speedometer. Rauser was doing seventy-five down Peachtree and barely slowing at the lights, but it wasn’t fast enough to suit me. I just wanted to get there. Like Rauser, I was thinking only of the prospect of new evidence, the seconds ticking away on a perfectly preserved scene. I wasn’t contemplating the loss of life or the shame and sin and horror in that. That part comes later. One learns to compartmentalizeemotionally for the sake of efficiency. Unfortunately, that particular talent doesn’t translate well in personal lives. The divorce rate is high for
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