James Patterson - The 9th Judgment

“She buried herself in a crowd coming through the front door. The security camera picked up the mob scene, but we couldn’t see who left the case,” Yuki said.

“Sergeant?”

“We have nothing on her identity,” I told him. “The jewelry is at the lab. So far, we haven’t found prints on anything. All we have is that Kitty returned every last piece. I think that gives her some credibility when she says she didn’t kill Casey Dowling.”

“What the hell do we have security cameras for?” Parisi groused.

Like the rest of us, Parisi had taken vast quantities of crap for his department’s low conviction record in the face of San Francisco’s rising crime rate. That would be our fault-the police, who didn’t bring the district attorney’s office enough evidence for them to build airtight cases.

“So that leaves us with what, Sergeant? The unsubstantiated statement of an anonymous self-confessed jewel thief that she’s not a murderer? You actually think Dowling did it?”

“Kitty was adamant the two times I spoke with her, and I found her convincing.”

“Never mind her. She’s nobody. She’s a ghost. What about Dowling?”

I told Parisi what we had on Caroline Henley, Dowling’s girlfriend of two years. I explained that Dowling’s net worth was in the tens of millions and that since a divorce would cost him plenty, there was a pretty good motive for killing his wife. I said that Dowling’s story had been inconsistent. That his explanation of the sounds, the shots, whether or not his wife had called out to him, had changed over time.

“What else?”

“His hair was wet when we interviewed him right after the shooting.”

“So he showered to get rid of evidence.”

“That’s what we think.”

Red Dog pushed the folder of photos across the desk in my direction. “A shower is not probable cause. Before you search the screen legend’s house and the news media gets hold of it and that gets us sued for defamation, you’d better have something stronger than the burglar says she didn’t do it and Dowling took a shower.

“It’s not probable cause for a warrant, Yuki,” Parisi said. “It’s not going to fly.”

I YANKED OUT my desk chair and crashed it hard into my trash can, then did it again for the satisfying effect of the clamor. I said to Conklin, “Red Dog won’t ask for a warrant without a damned smoking gun.”

Conklin stared up at me and said, “Funny you should say that. I was watching some old Dowling movies last night. Look at this.”

Conklin rotated his computer screen around to face me.

I sat, wheeled my chair up to the desk, and looked at Conklin’s monitor. I saw what appeared to be a movie-studio publicity still for an old spy flick.

“Night Watch,” Conklin said. “He made this decades ago with Jeremy Cushing. Terrible film, but it was what they called ‘camp.’ It became a cult favorite. Check this out.”

There was Dowling: black suit, sideburns, and a sun-lined squint. And he was holding a gun. “You’re kidding me. Is that a forty-four?”

“A Ruger Blackhawk. It’s a single-action revolver, a six-shooter,” my partner said, clicking on another picture. The famous and now-deceased Jeremy Cushing was giving the gun to Dowling as a keepsake in a handshake photo op. You could almost hear the flashbulbs popping.

Conklin hit a key, and the printer chugged out hard copies of the photos. I picked up the phone and called Yuki. “Grab Red Dog before he goes anywhere. I’m coming back down.”

We arrived at Dowling’s magnificent mansion in Nob Hill before lunch, three cars full of Homicide cops dying to make a collar. I rang the doorbell, and Dowling came to the door in jeans and an unbuttoned white dress shirt.

“Sergeant Boxer,” he said.

“Hello again. You remember Inspector Conklin. And I’d like to introduce Assistant DA Yuki Castellano.”

Yuki handed Dowling the search warrant. “I went to school with Casey, you know,” she said, stepping past Dowling into the vast gilded foyer.

“I don’t think she ever mentioned you. Hey, you can’t-”

Chi, McNeil, Samuels, and Lemke poured into the house right behind us with the determination of cops raiding a speakeasy during Prohibition. I had a flash of panic. Despite what I’d told Parisi-that Dowling would never ditch a souvenir of the last film Jeremy Cushing ever made-now I wasn’t so sure.

“Wait,” Dowling said. “What are you looking for?”

“You’ll know it when we see it,” I said.

I took the winding staircase up toward the master bedroom as the rest of my squad fanned out through the house. I heard the phone ring, then Dowling shouted, his voice throbbing with indignation.

“Well, Peyser, this is what lawyers are for. Come back from Napa right now.”

I entered the movie star’s room. Fifteen minutes later, there wasn’t a drawer or a shelf that hadn’t felt my hand.

I was pulling the mattress off the bed when I sensed more than heard another person in the room. I looked up to see a dark-skinned woman in a black housekeeper’s dress.

I remembered her. The day after Casey Dowling was killed, the day Conklin and I came here to interview Marcus, this woman had served us bottled water.

“You’re Vangy, right?”

“I’m an illegal alien.”

“I understand. I… that’s not my department. What do you want to tell me?”

Vangy asked me to follow her to the laundry room in the basement. When we got there, she turned on a light over the washer and dryer. She put her hands on either side of the dryer and pulled it away from the wall.

She pointed to the exhaust hose, a four-inch-wide flexible tube that vented hot air from the dryer to the outside.

“That’s where he hid it,” she told me. “I heard it rattle. I think what you’re looking for is in there.”

WE WERE IN Interview Room Number Two, the larger of our interrogation spaces, the one with the better electronics. I’d checked the camera and made sure the tape was rolling before bringing Dowling in and offering him the chair facing the glass.

I wanted a full confession-for me, for Conklin, for Yuki, and for Red Dog Parisi. I wanted swift and certain justice for Casey Dowling. And I wanted to close the case for Jacobi.

Dowling had buttoned his shirt and put on a jacket, and he looked completely in control. I had to admire his cool, since his gun was in a clear plastic evidence bag on the table.

Conklin, too, looked completely at ease. I thought he was doing his best not to grin. He’d earned the right, but I wasn’t doing high fives just yet. Dowling loved himself so much, he’d probably convinced himself that no one could touch him.

“My lawyer is on the way,” Dowling said.

There was a knock on the door. I opened it for Carl Loomis, a ballistics tech at the crime lab. I pointed to the bagged gun, and he picked it up, turned to Dowling, and said, “I really enjoy your work, Mr. Dowling.”

“Loomis, the ballistics test is top priority,” I said.

“You’ll have the results in an hour, Sergeant,” he said as he took the evidence bag out of the room.

I turned to Dowling, who was showing me how nonchalant he was by leaning back in his chair, rocking on its hind legs.

“Mr. Dowling, I want to make sure you understand your situation. When the lab fires your gun, the test bullet is going to match the slugs removed from your wife’s body.”

“So you say.”

Conklin said, “Believe this guy? Let’s just book him on suspicion of murder. We’ve got him. He’s done.”

“Tell us what happened,” I said to Dowling. “If you save us the time and cost of a trial, the DA will take your cooperation into consideration-”