Дэвид Балдаччи - Absolute Power

“And not the deceased’s either. If I remember correctly, hers wasn’t anywhere near that spot.” Frank added, “I think you got one more test to run, Laura.”

She hooked a kit off the wall. “I was just getting ready to go do it, thought I’d better buzz you first.”

“Smart girl.”

The drive out took thirty minutes. Frank rolled down his window and let the wind course over his face. It also helped dispel the cigarette smoke. Simon was constantly giving him a hard time about that.

The bedroom had remained sealed under Frank’s orders.

Frank watched from the corner of Walter Sullivan’s bedroom as Simon carefully mixed the bottles of chemicals and then poured the result into a plastic sprayer. Frank then helped her stuff towels under the door and tape brown packing paper to the windows. They closed the heavy drapes, cutting out virtually all traces of natural light.

Frank surveyed the room once again. He looked at the mirror, the bed, the window, the closets and then his eyes rested on the nightstand and at the gaping hole behind where the plaster had been removed. Then his eyes moved back to the picture. He picked it up. He was reminded again that Christine Sullivan had been a very beautiful woman, as far removed as one could get from the destroyed hulk he had viewed. In the photograph she was sitting in the chair beside the bed. The nightstand was clearly visible to her left. The corner of the bed made its way into the right side of the picture. Ironically so, considering all the use she had probably made of that particular vehicle. The springs were probably due for their sixty-thousand-mile checkup. After that, they probably wouldn’t have much to do. He remembered the look on Walter Sullivan’s face. Not much left there.

He put the photo down and continued to observe Simon’s fluid movements. He glanced back at the photo, something bothering him, but whatever it was popped out of his head as quickly as it had sprung into it.

“What’s that stuff called again, Laura?”

“Luminol. It’s sold under a variety of names, but it’s the same reagent stuff. I’m ready.”

She positioned the bottle over the section of carpet where the fibers had been cut from.

“Good thing you don’t have to pay for this carpet.” The detective smiled at her.

Simon turned to look at him. “Wouldn’t matter to me. I’d just declare bankruptcy. They could garnishee my wages from here until eternity. It’s the poor person’s great equalizer.”

Frank hit the light, plunging the room into pitch-black darkness. Swishes of air were heard as Simon squeezed the trigger on the spray bottle. Almost immediately, like a mass of lightning bugs, a very small portion of the carpet started to glow a pale blue and then disappeared. Frank turned on the overhead light and looked at Simon.

“So we got somebody else’s blood. Helluva pickup, Laura. Any way you can scrape up enough to analyze, get a blood type? DNA typing?”

Simon looked dubious. “We’ll pull the carpet to see if any leaked through, but I doubt it. Not much soaks into a treated carpet. And any residue has been mixed with a lot of stuff. So don’t count on it.”

Frank thought out loud. “Okay, one perp wounded. Not a lot of blood, but some.” He looked for confirmation from Simon on that point and received an affirmative nod of the head. “Wounded, but with what? She had nothing in her hand when we found her.”

Simon read his mind. “And as sudden as her death was, we’re probably talking cadaveric spasm. To get it out of her hand they would’ve almost had to break her fingers.”

Frank finished the thought. “And there was no sign of that on the autopsy.”

“Unless the impact of the slugs caused her hand to fly open.”

“How often does that happen?”

“Once is enough for this case.”

“Okay, let’s assume she had a weapon, and now that weapon is missing. What kind of weapon might it have been?”

Simon considered this as she repacked her kit.

“You probably could rule out a gun; she should’ve been able to get a round off, and there were no powder burns on her hands. They couldn’t have scraped those off without leaving a trail.”

“Good. Plus there’s no evidence she ever had a gun registered to her. And we’ve already confirmed that there are no guns in the house.”

“So no gun. Maybe a knife then. Can’t tell what kind of wound it made, but maybe a slash, probably superficial. The number of fibers that were snipped out was small, so we’re not talking life-threatening.”

“So she stabbed one of the perps, maybe in the arm or leg. Then they backed up and shot her? Or she stabbed as she was dying?” Frank corrected himself. “No. She died instantly. She stabs one of them in another room, runs in here and then gets shot. Standing over her, the wounded perp drips some blood.”

“Except the vault’s in here. The more likely scenario is that she surprised them in the act.”

“Right, except remember the shots came from the doorway into the room. And fired down. Who surprised who? That’s what keeps bugging the ever-loving shit out of me.”

“So why take the knife, if that’s what it was?”

“Cause it IDs somebody, somehow.”

“Prints?” Simon’s nostrils quivered as she thought of the physical evidence lurking out there.

Frank nodded. “That’s how I read it.”

“Was the last Mrs. Sullivan in the habit of keeping a knife with her?”

Frank responded by slapping his hand to his forehead so hard it made Simon wince. She watched as he rushed over to the nightstand and picked up the photo. He shook his head and handed it to her.

“There’s your goddamned knife.”

Simon looked at the photo. In it, resting on the nightstand was a long, leather-handled letter opener.

“The leather also explains the oily residue on the palms.”

Frank paused at the front door on the way out. He looked at the security control panel, which had been restored to its operating condition. Then he broke into a smile as an elusive thought finally trickled to the surface.

“Laura, you got the fluorescent lamp in the trunk?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You mind getting it?”

Puzzled, Simon did so. She returned to the foyer and plugged it in.

“Shine it right on the number keys.”

What was revealed under the fluorescent light made Frank smile again.

“Goddamn that’s good.”

“What does it mean?” Simon looked at him, her brow furrowed.

“It means two things. First, we definitely got us somebody on the inside and, second, our perps are real creative.”

Frank sat in the small interrogation room and decided against another cigarette and opted instead for a cherry Tums. He looked at the cinder block walls, cheap metal table and beat-up chairs and decided this was a very depressing place to be interrogated in. Which was good. Depressed people were vulnerable people, and vulnerable people, given the appropriate prodding, tended to want to talk. And Frank wanted to listen. He would listen all day.

The case was still extremely muddled, but certain elements were becoming clearer.

Buddy Budizinski still lived in Arlington and now worked at a car wash in Falls Church. He had admitted being in the Sullivan house, had read about the murder, but beyond that knew nothing. Frank tended to believe him. The man was not particularly bright, had no previous police record and had spent his adult life performing menial tasks for a living, no doubt compelled by his having finished only the fifth grade. His apartment was modest to the point of near poverty. Budizinski was a dead end.

Rogers, on the other hand, had produced a treasure trove. The Social Security number he had given on his employment application was real enough, only it belonged to a female State Department employee who had been assigned to Thailand for the last two years. He must have known the carpet cleaning company wouldn’t have checked. What did they care? The address on the application was a motel in Beltsville, Maryland. No one by that name had registered at the motel in the last year and no one fitting Rogers’s description had been seen there. The state of Kansas had no record of him. On top of that he had never cashed any of the payroll checks given to him by Metro. That in itself spoke volumes.