W.E.B Griffin - The Victim

"Jesus fucking Christ, Washington," Dolan said. He looked at his watch. "Itold you, I'm due in fucking court infifty-five minutes. I gotta go over my notes."

He really wants to get rid of me. And I don't think it has a damn thing to do with him being due in court.

"The mayor's on Inspector Wohl's back, so he's on mine. I really-"

"Fuck Inspector Wohl! That's your problem."

"Hey, Pat," Lieutenant Mikkles said, "take it easy!"

"You're thinking that if Wohl hadn't come here and turned his driver loose, you could have gotten something, right?"

"Yeah, that's exactly what I think."

"Well, then you know my problem with Wohl," Washington said.

"No, I don't know your problem with Wohl," Dolan said.

"You don't think I wanted to leave Homicide to go work for him, do you?"

Dolan considered that for a moment.

"Yeah, I heard about that. You and Tony Harris, right?"

"Right. Wohl's got a lot of clout, Sergeant. He generally gets what he wants."

That last remark was for you, Lieutenant Mikkles, to feed your understandable concern that if this doesn't go well, your face will be in the breeze when the shit hits the fan.

"Maybe from you," Dolan said.

"Pat," Lieutenant Mikkles said, "give him fifteen minutes. Go through the motions. You know how it is."

Dolan looked at Mikkles, his face indicating that he thought he had been betrayed. Mikkles nodded at him.

"Fifteen minutes," he said. "You'll still have time to make court."

"Okay," Sergeant Dolan said. "Fifteen minutes. Okay?"

"We'll just go through the motions," Washington said.

"Okay. Start."

"Those pictures you took handy?"

"What the hell do you need those for? I already showed them to you."

Why doesn't he want me to look at the pictures?

"Who knows? Maybe if we look at them again, we'll see something we missed."

"Like what?"

"I don't know."

"I don't know where the hell they are."

I am on to something!

"Maybe your partner has them?" Washington asked.

"Nah, they're probably in the goddamn file. I'll look," Dolan said, and left the room.

"Washington," Lieutenant Mikkles said, "Dolan is a good man."

"Yes, sir, I know."

"But he comes equipped with a standard Irish temper. I would consider it a favor if you could forget that 'Fuck Inspector Wohl' remark."

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

"I owe you one," Lieutenant Mikkles said.

"Forget it," Washington said.

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

"Here's the fucking photographs," he said, handing them to Washington. "What do you want to know?"

Washington 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 cocktail lounge; inside the cocktail lounge (four shots, including one of the bellboy giving him the car keys); leaving the cocktail lounge; walking toward the garage; and, the last shot, entering the garage.

"This is in the right sequence? This all of them?" Washington 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," Washington 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," Washington said. "Looking at them again, does anything new come to your mind?"

"Not a fucking thing," Dolan said firmly.

"Well, we tried," Washington said.

"Is that all?"

"Unless you can think of something."

"Not a fucking thing. If I think of something, I'll give you a call."

"I'd really appreciate that," Washington 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," Washington said.

Jason Washington parked his unmarked car in the parking lot behind the Roundhouse at 7^th 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 Washington. Washington 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," Washington 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," Washington heard himself say. "Didn't Sergeant Dolan tell you that?"

"What do you mean, 'now'?"

"Like, I'll wait," Washington said.

"It don't work that way, Washington, you know that. Other people are in line ahead of you."

"No," Washington said. "I'm at the head of line."

"The fuck 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 bastard is sweating too. What the hell 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 fuck do you think you are, anyway?"

"Let's go see him together," Washington said.

"I'llgo see him," the corporal said."You read the fucking sign." He pointed to the sign: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY IN THE LAB.

"I'm surprised," Jason Washington 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 fucking mind or what, Washington?"

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.