Part 39 (1/2)

”I didn't hear anybody say anything like that, Lieutenant.”

”I owe you one,” Lieutenant Mikkles said.

”Forget it,” Was.h.i.+ngton said.

Sergeant Dolan came back in the office with a handful of five-by-seven photographs.

”Here's the f.u.c.king photographs,” he said, handing them to Was.h.i.+ngton. ”What do you want to know?”

Was.h.i.+ngton looked through the photographs, then sorted them so they would be sequential.

They showed Anthony J. DeZego getting out of his car in front of the Hotel Warwick; handing the doorman money; walking toward the hotel c.o.c.ktail lounge; inside the c.o.c.ktail lounge (four shots, including one of the bellboy giving him the car keys); leaving the c.o.c.ktail lounge; walking toward the garage; and, the last shot, entering the garage.

”This is in the right sequence? This all of them?” Was.h.i.+ngton asked, handing the stack of photographs to Dolan.

”What do you mean, is this all of them?” Dolan snapped. ”Yeah, it's all of them.” He flipped through them quickly and said, ”Yeah, that's the order I took them in.”

Anomaly! Anomaly! Anomaly!

”Sergeant, I'd like a set of these pictures for my report,” Was.h.i.+ngton said. ”The negatives, I guess, are in the photo lab?”

”The guy that runs the lab is a pal of mine,” Dolan said. ”I'll give him a ring and have him run you off a set.”

”Thank you,” Was.h.i.+ngton said. ”Looking at them again, does anything new come to your mind?”

”Not a f.u.c.king thing,” Dolan said firmly.

”Well, we tried,” Was.h.i.+ngton said.

”Is that all?”

”Unless you can think of something.”

”Not a f.u.c.king thing. If I think of something, I'll give you a call.”

”I'd really appreciate that,” Was.h.i.+ngton said.

”And like I said, I'll call my friend in the photo lab and have him run off a set of prints for you.”

”Thank you,” Was.h.i.+ngton said.

Jason Was.h.i.+ngton parked his unmarked car in the parking lot behind the Roundhouse at 7th and Race and walked purposefully toward the building.

There are four anomalies vis-a-vis Sergeant Dolan and his photographs.

One, Dolan had told me that he and his partner had been trailing the Detweiler girl and had trailed her to the parking garage. There were no photographs of Penelope Detweiler; they were all of Anthony J. DeZego. Why?

Two, there were no photographs of Matt Payne and his girlfriend in the Porsche. If he thought Matt was dealing drugs, there should have been.

Three, there were only thirteen photographs in the stack Dolan showed me. Thirty-five millimeter film comes in twenty-four- and thirty-six-exposure rolls. Ordinarily almost every frame on a roll of film is exposed, and ordinarily every exposed frame on a roll is printed. And since it is better to have too many photographs than too few, it seemed likely that Dolan would have taken far more than thirteen photographs during the time he had been watching DeZego. Probably a roll at the hotel, and then a fresh one, starting from the moment DeZego left the hotel. Probably a thirty-six-exposure roll, so he wouldn't run out at the wrong time. That's what I would have done.

Four, he suddenly turned obliging at the end. He would call a pal in the photo lab and have his pal make a set of prints and send, them to me. Had he suddenly joined the Urban League and vowed to lean over backward in the interests of racial harmony and/or interdepartmental cooperation ? Or did he want to control what pictures the lab sent me to include in my report?

Three guys were on duty in the photo lab. One of them seemed less than overjoyed to see Detective Jason Was.h.i.+ngton. Was.h.i.+ngton consequently headed straight for him.

”Morning!” he said cheerfully.

”I just this minute got off the phone,” the lab guy, a corporal, said. ”With Dolan, I mean.”

”Good,” Was.h.i.+ngton said. ”Then you know why I'm here.”

”I'll get to it as soon as I can,” the corporal said. ”You want to come by about two, or do you want I should send them to you?”

”I want them now,” Was.h.i.+ngton heard himself say. ”Didn't Sergeant Dolan tell you that?”

”What do you mean, 'now'?”

”Like, I'll wait,” Was.h.i.+ngton said.

”It don't work that way, Was.h.i.+ngton, you know that. Other people are in line ahead of you.”

”No,” Was.h.i.+ngton said. ”I'm at the head of line.”

”The f.u.c.k you are!”

”Well, you can either take my word for that or we can call Inspector Wohl and he'll tell you I'm at the head of the line.”

”Wohl don't run the photo lab,” the corporal said.

This Irish b.a.s.t.a.r.d is sweating too. What the h.e.l.l have I found here?

”Well, you tell him that.”

”What I am going to do is find the lieutenant and ask him what to do about your coming in here like Jesus Christ Almighty. Who the f.u.c.k do you think you are, anyway?”

”Let's go see him together,” Was.h.i.+ngton said.

”I'll go see him,” the corporal said. ”You read the f.u.c.king sign.” He pointed to the sign: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY IN THE LAB.

”I'm surprised,” Jason Was.h.i.+ngton said as he ducked inside the counter, ”that an experienced, well-educated police officer such as yourself hasn't learned that there is an exception to every rule.”

”You lost your f.u.c.king mind or what, Was.h.i.+ngton?”

That's entirely possible. But the essence of my professional experience as a police officer is that there are times when you should go with a gut feeling. And this is one of those times. I have a gut feeling that if I let you out of my sight, that roll, or rolls, of film are going to turn up missing.

What the h.e.l.l are these two up to?

The corporal turned surprisingly docile when they were actually standing before the lieutenant's desk. His indignation vanished.