Lisa Scottoline - Running From The Law

But I needed to learn more about the knife, so I could draw some conclusions about its owner.

As it turned out I knew a knife expert, rather well.

My father, propped up slightly in his hospital bed, squinted through his bifocals at the photo. “It’s a knife.”

My expert. “I know that, Dad. What kind of knife is it?”

“All-purpose, like a buck knife.”

“But it’s not a buck knife?”

He held the photo closer. “No.”

“Told you,” Cam said, sitting on the other side of the bed, still in dirty gardening gear.

“Could it kill someone?” I asked.

“This knife? In a New York minute.”

It sent a shiver through me. “Who would own this kind of knife, Dad? What would it be used for?”

“Anything, everything.”

“Like what?”

He peered at the picture. “Hunting, fishing, working in the garden or somethin’. Even around the garage. You could cut boxes with it, maybe wire. Anything.”

My heart sank. “Really, anything?”

“General purpose.” He set the photo down on his tummy and picked up the next one by its edges. “You think it’s the killer’s knife?”

“Yes. Who would have this kind of knife around?”

“Anybody.”

“Shit.”

He wet his lips, which looked parched. “It’s a good knife to have around, what can I say? I have one just like it in the back kitchen, even old like this. I use it on the fig tree, to trim it.”

“I never saw it. You never pointed it at me.”

He smiled weakly. “Maybe it’s not the murder weapon.”

“It looks like blood to me,” I said, gathering up the photos. “What do you think? You’re the hematologist here.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He closed his eyes, suddenly fatigued. “What’d the cops say?”

Cam laughed. “We didn’t wait around, Vito. We hadda see a man about a horse.”

It had taken an hour to get the pictures developed but far less than that to summon the Radnor police to the Mateer property. I had called them from the flip phone but opted not to stay on the scene until they arrived. No need to tell them I was perpetrating a fraud in a work shirt, not to mention corrupting the morals of a major.

“What I don’t understand is why the cops didn’t find it,” Cam said. “It was right there.”

Which is what was bothering me. Cam and I had gone back and forth about it in Thrift Drug, while we waited for the pictures. The technician kept looking at us funny, he didn’t hear many conversations about murder weapons in front of the Midol.

“I mean,” Cam continued, “how come I could find it and they couldn’t?”

“ You found it?” my father asked. “With your eyesight?”

Cam looked offended. “My eyes are good. Right, Rita?”

“Right, Cam. It’s your hearing that sucks.”

“Bullshit,” my father said. My heart warmed to hear him regain his profanity. “Your eyes are lousy. Half the time you’re asking Herman whether it’s a club or a spade.”

“I did that once,” Cam corrected.

“Come on, more than once.”

“I can still see better than you, Vito.”

“That’s not saying much,” I said, and my father nudged me with his foot. His color had improved and the nudge felt strong, but I noticed his lunch had barely been touched. He felt terrible that he couldn’t go to LeVonne’s funeral. It had been set for tomorrow because the coroner had just released the body. “So why do you think the cops didn’t find it, Pop?”

He set the photo on his belly with a sigh. “Who knows? Cops. They can’t find who killed LeVonne either, even though I gave ’em a good description.”

“Still no leads?” Cam asked.

“That’s what Herman says. He calls ’em all the time, the detectives. He gives ’em hell.”

Cam chuckled, but my father didn’t. He sank deeper into the thin pillows. I worried he was becoming depressed. “You sleeping okay, Dad?”

“Fine.”

The nurses had told me he slept only off and on. “You eating okay?”

“Like a horse.”

What a load. “The nurses say you’re not.”

“The nurses think they know everything,” he said, his eyes still closed. “They love to boss you around. Except that little one with the red hair that Sal likes. Betty.”

“Are people still named Betty?” I asked.

“This one is,” Cam said. “ Madonne, she’s a tomato.”

Va-va-va-voom. “Do men still say that?

What is this, a time warp?”

My father smiled. “Sal likes her, but he’s too chickenshit to talk to her.”

“Where is Sal?” Cam asked.

“Out with Herman.” My father opened his eyes and reached for my hand. His felt rough and warm, familiar. “You all right, kid?”

“Fine.”

“You all wrapped up in your case?”

“Yep.”

“Don’t work too hard now.”

“Me? Never.”

“Miss Fresh.” He closed his eyes but hung on to my hand. “I can hear that brain of yours, workin’ away.”

I laughed, but he was right. I was arriving at one explanation why the police hadn’t found the knife during their investigation: It hadn’t been there. Did the killer plant it after the fact, and why? It was a risky, risky thing to do.

So if I couldn’t learn anything from the knife itself-because I was guessing the killer was too smart to leave his fingerprints all over it-I learned something from the fact it had just been deposited beside the begonias. This killer wasn’t afraid of risk any more than I was. He was playing a game with the police, or even with me.

And he was upping the ante.

It used to be that the billboards along I-95 North had directions to Sesame Place in Langhorne, and Big Bird pointed the way with a feathery index finger. Now the billboards advertised the casinos in Atlantic City. POKERMANIA. HIGHROLLERS. QUARTERMANIA. The Casinos took in $350 mil last month. Bigger business than Big Bird, any day.

I was still in gardening disguise, driving to the home of my favorite motorcyclist, Tim Price. He’d been ignoring my calls, but the shorter tone on his machine signaled he’d been retrieving his messages. I was hoping I could scare him with pruning shears during my interrogation, and if that failed, federal court litigation. I was organizing my threats when I got a call on the car phone.

It was Lieutenant Dunstan, from the Radnor police. “I’d like you to come in to the station, Ms. Morrone.”

I had expected he’d still be unhappy with me. The radio news was already reporting that a lawyer had found the murder weapon. “Look, Lieutenant, I’m sorry about this morning. I know I should have notified you I was going to the crime scene-”

“It’s not about that, Ms. Morrone,” he said tightly.

“What then?” I passed the billboard for Trump Castle. SLOTS OF ACTION. SLOTS OF MAGIC.

“We have some information for you.”

“About the knife?”

“No, as I told you, the testing will take some time. It’s about the shooting at your father’s store.”

My pulse quickened. “Is there a lead?”

“The Philadelphia police called here, after they couldn’t reach you. They found the man who they believe did it. He was found dead, out by the airport.”

Dead? “Who was he?”

Papers rustled on the other end of the phone. “A thug, in and out of jail.”

“How do they know he’s the one who did it?”

“He had a gun on him, a nine-millimeter Beretta, that ballistics matched to the bullet found in the young man who was killed.”

Poor LeVonne. “They can do that?”

“Sure. When a bullet lodges in soft tissue, it maintains its integrity. They match the markings, like engravings.”