Part 20 (1/2)
”No,” she said, ”should it?”
”No reason it should.”
”Who is he?”
”A guinea gangster,” Matt said.
”A what?”
”An Italian-American with alleged ties to organized crime,” Matt said dryly.
”Why are you asking me about him?”
”Well, he was up there too,” Matt said. ”On the roof of the garage. Somebody blew the top of his head off with a shotgun.”
”My G.o.d!”
”No great loss to society,” Matt said. ”He wasn't even a good gangster. Just a cheap thug with ambition. A small-time drug dealer, from what I hear.”
”I think that's about enough of a visit, Matt,” Dr. Dotson said. ”Penny needs rest. And her parents are on their way.”
Matt touched her arm.
”I'll bring you a piece of the wedding cake,” he said. ”Try to behave yourself.”
”I don't have any choice, do I?” she said.
In the corridor outside, Dr. Dotson laid a hand on Matt's arm.
”I can't imagine why you told her about that gangster,” he said.
”I thought she'd be interested,” Matt said.
”Thank you very much, Dr. Dotson,” Jason Was.h.i.+ngton said. ”I very much appreciate your cooperation.”
”She's lying,” Matt said when Was.h.i.+ngton got in the pa.s.senger seat beside him.
”She is? About what?”
”About knowing DeZego.”
”Really? What makes you think so?”
”Jesus, didn't you see her eyes when I called him a 'guinea gangster'?”
”You're a regular little Sherlock Holmes, aren't you?” Was.h.i.+ngton asked.
Matt looked at him, the hurt showing in his eyes.
”If I did that wrong in there, I'm sorry,” he said. ”If you didn't think I could handle it, you should have told me what to ask and how to ask it. I did the best I could.”
”As a matter of fact, hotshot,” Was.h.i.+ngton said, ”I couldn't have done it any better myself. I would have phrased the questions a little differently, probably, because I don't know the lady as well as you do, but that wasn't at all bad. One of the most difficult calls to make in an interview like that, with a subject like that, is when to let them know you know they're lying. That wasn't the time.”
”I didn't think so, either,” Matt said, and then smiled, almost shyly, at Was.h.i.+ngton.
”Let's go to the parking garage,” Was.h.i.+ngton said.
As they drove around City Hall, Matt said, ”I'd like to know for sure if she's taking dope. Do you suppose they took blood when she got to the hospital? That could be tested?''
”I'm sure they did,” Was.h.i.+ngton said. ”But as a matter of law, not to mention ethics, the hospital could not make the results of that test known to the police. It would be considered, in essence, an illegal search or seizure, as well as a violation of the patient's privacy. Her rights against compulsory incrimination would also be involved.”
”Oh,” Matt said.
”Your friend is a habitual user of cocaine,” Was.h.i.+ngton went on, ”using it in quant.i.ties that make it probable that she is on the edges of addiction to it.”
Matt looked at him in surprise.
”One of the most important a.s.sets a detective can have, Officer Payne,” Was.h.i.+ngton replied dryly, ”is the acquaintance of a number of people who feel in his debt. Apropos of nothing whatever, I once spoke to a judge prior to his sentencing of a young man for vehicular theft. I told the judge that I thought probation would probably suffice to keep the malefactor on the straight and narrow, and that I was acquainted with his mother, a decent, divorced woman who worked as a registered nurse at Hahneman Hospital.”
”Nice,” Matt said.
”I suppose you know the difference between ignorance and stupidity?”
”I think so.” Matt chuckled.
”A good detective never forgets he's ignorant. He knows very, very little about what's going on. So that means a good detective is always looking for something, or someone, that can reduce the totality of his ignorance.”
”Okay,” Matt said with another chuckle. ”So where does that leave us, now that we know she's using cocaine and knew DeZego?”
”I don't have a clue-witticism intended-why either of them got shot,” Was.h.i.+ngton said. ”There's a lot of homicide involved with narcotics, but what it usually boils down to is simple armed robbery. Somebody wants either the drugs or the money and uses a gun to take them. The Detweiler girl had nearly seven hundred dollars in her purse; Tony the Zee had a quant.i.ty of c.o.ke-say five hundred dollars worth, at least. Since they still had the money and the drugs, I think we can reasonably presume that robbery wasn't the basic cause of the shooting.”
They were at the Penn Services Parking Garage. When Matt started to pull onto the entrance ramp, Was.h.i.+ngton told him to park on the street. Just in time Matt stopped himself from protesting that there was no parking on 15th Street.
Was.h.i.+ngton did not enter the building. He walked to the alley at one end, then circled the building as far as he could, until he encountered a chain-link fence. He stood looking at the fence and up at the building for a moment, then he retraced his steps to the front and walked onto the entrance ramp. Then he walked up the ramp to the first floor.
Three quarters of the way down the parking area, Matt saw a uniformed cop, and a moment later yellow CRIME SCENE-DO NOT CROSS tape surrounding a Dodge sedan.
”What's that?” he asked, curiosity overwhelming his solemn, silent vow to keep his eyes open and his mouth shut.
”It was a hit on the NCIC when they ran the plates,” Was.h.i.+ngton said. ”Reported stolen in Drexel Hill.”
The National Crime Information Center was an FBI-run computer system. Detectives (at one time there had been sixteen Homicide detectives in the Penn Services garage) had fed the computer the license numbers of every car in the garage at the time of the shooting. NCIC had returned every bit of information it had on any of them. The Dodge had been entered into the computer as stolen.
”Good morning,” Was.h.i.+ngton said to the uniformed cop. ”The lab get to this yet?”