Steve Martini - Prime Witness

Dusalt hangs up.

“I have to go,” I tell her. “It’s a major break in the case. They need a warrant.”

“What else?” she says, shrugging her shoulders.

She’s already moving, grabbing her coat and purse.

With my wife I have learned over the years that it is not so much her words as her actions that convey true emotions. There is little hostility detected in her tone, more an expression of resignation. But Nikki is going about the routine of departure in stiff, measured movements, the sign of a deep, brooding fury.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “These things happen.”

“Sure,” she says. She gathers up Sarah and heads for the door. “You’d better hurry. It wouldn’t do to be late,” she tells me.

“Daddy’s not coming?” My daughter is looking at her mother with big oval eyes.

“Daddy has other, more important things,” says Nikki.

Sarah’s little saucers are now aimed at me.

I smile a little pained expression. I bend down to give her a hug to tell her that I am sorry.

Before I can, Nikki ushers her toward the car in the garage like some shepherded lamb. They are late, and in a hurry. My wife’s words are the last thing I hear as the door slams closed behind them.

“Daddy has work to do tonight,” she says.

Another debit in the parental account of a father’s love.

“ Iwant the van left where it is,” I say, “under surveillance for now, until I can work up a warrant. Nobody’s to touch it further without my approval. Understood?”

Claude has Denny Henderson taking notes as the three of us move at a quickstep across the commons and up the stairs of the county administration building. The lights out front have come on, though it is not yet completely dark.

“And I will need a good stenographer, somebody who can take dictation and who knows how to do a warrant.” I look at Henderson. “Do we have anybody?” He looks at Claude, who nods his assurance.

“Sheila Aikens,” he says, “the older gal in your office. Feretti used her, said she was pretty good.”

“Find her. Get her here now. I want the van watched around the clock. And get the owner registration.”

“We’ve already got it,” says Claude, “the vehicle registration.”

We push our way through the main door to the office.

Dusalt pulls a little notebook from his pocket. “It’s a 1973 GMC. Guy’s name is Andre Iganovich,” he says. He rattles off an address on the west side of town. “We’ve had the apartment under surveillance for a couple of hours. DMV is sending us a photo from his driver’s license for identification. Should we pick him up if he shows?”

“No. First we line up the legal ducks,” I say, “a search warrant for the van. Then assuming what we’ve seen inside is golden, we get another warrant for the apartment. If he hasn’t flown the coop, we can detain him during the search. We’ll take him down after we get an arrest warrant, based on the evidence,” I say.

“What if he shows up at the van?” says Claude.

This is more perplexing. We can’t let him drive off with the van and its contents. “Detain him,” I say. “Hold him for questioning. But no arrest.” I am adamant. I will not have some judge on review limiting our evidence, throwing out our case because we acted rashly.

Claude looks at Henderson. “Pass the word,” he says. And like a shadow on a cloudy day, Henderson disappears into one of the empty offices to use a phone.

From down the hall I see a head, spindles of long dark hair backlit by office light, and a pair of eyes peering around the jamb of one of the office doors. As I had guessed, it is Lenore Goya. Just as quickly as it appeared, the head vanishes back into its solitary sanctum.

Claude and I are now huddled in Feretti’s old office.

He has not seen this side of me before. Up to now I have been passive, waiting in the wings to help only if called upon. But with Ingel and Acosta now kneeling on my throat, I am becoming, in the jargon of our time, more proactive.

I had noticed as we entered that Claude had assembled an entourage in the outer office, another cop in a uniform I don’t recognize and a second man, heavyset, a gut like Babe Ruth, in a blue pin-striped work shirt. These are the percipient witnesses, the people who found the van and its grisly contents.

“We will need Sellig,” I say. “Have Henderson call DOJ and get her out here.” I am taking no chances with one of the county crime techs. If the case against the Putah Creek killer starts here, I am determined that it will stand on a solid footing, evidence hard as concrete, nothing some slick defense attorney can suppress in a pretrial motion months from now.

“Now tell me what happened,” I say.

Claude’s looking at his notebook again.

“Our guy,” he says, “Iganovich appears to be a Russian immigrant, in the country four or five years now. We ran a rap sheet on him, came up clean, only thing we found is a license from the state, last October. Licensed security guard,” he says. “No firearm permit.”

Claude’s shaking his head. “Can you beat it?” he says. “Guy’s probably not even in the country legally and he’s working security.”

“We can worry about his immigration status later. How did you find this thing, the van?” I ask. I start looking for potential problems, the lawyer’s mind at work.

“It’s all real clean,” says Claude.

“Humor me.”

“Officer Dandrich, outside, is with the university police,” he says.

It’s the uniform I didn’t recognize.

“Two days ago he sees this van parked in one of the university lots. It’s two A.M., the lot’s reserved for day use only, the place is empty. He thinks maybe whoever owns it is working late. So he doesn’t think anything about it. He looks at the rear tire, it’s been chalked by the meter maid. Yesterday he comes back on shift and the van’s still there. There’s a ticket on the windshield. He looks at the tires again, the vehicle hasn’t been moved. Traffic code for the university gives the guy twenty-four hours, then it’s towed. So he calls the tow truck company, a vendor downtown.”

According to Claude this is a commercial garage under contract to the university.

I am following this unfolding drama, my feet propped on the leaf of the desk which I have pulled out for this purpose.

“That’s where this guy Harold comes in,” he says. “Mr. Goodwrench?” He’s referring to grease and pinstripes, outside in the hail.

“Mr. Harold,” he says, “is real careful. He’s been sued before by the angry tow toads, so he makes it standard operating procedure whenever he takes a car from the university to inventory the personal property inside. He insists on doing this in front of one of the campus cops.”

“Trusting guy,” I say.

“Anyway,” he says, “Harold and the campus cop”-he looks at his notes-“Dandrich, they give the van a closer look. One of ’em discovers that the window, on the passenger side over the rear door, has been smashed in.”

“The cop didn’t see this the day before?” I ask.

Claude shakes his head, shrugs his shoulders. “I asked him. He says it was parked next to one of those cement columns in the garage. You couldn’t see it unless you went around the column.”

“So we don’t know when the window was broken?”

“No.”

“Anyway, Dandrich and Harold, when they see this thing, the glass gone, they’re real curious. They reach inside, unlock it and pop the doors.”

“The van was still locked?”

He nods. “What do you think they found?” Claude’s looking at me, a little pregnant pause.

I shake my head, like search me.