He looked at the open file in his lap. She was good; she was thinking; she was trouble.
Damn her, he thought.
CHAPTER 4
“You look tired,” Dartelli told the man, feeling both curious and nervous about this impromptu meeting. He hadn’t lost any sleep over Bragg’s “stay tuned” comment of a few days earlier, but he hadn’t forgotten about it either.
Bragg looked worse than tired, sick maybe, the kind of sick that steals color from the cheeks and reddens the eyes and paints an inescapable sadness over a person’s demeanor to the point that it’s hard to look without asking questions or offering advice. Dartelli didn’t know where to start; Bragg’s condition seemed irretrievable. Looking at him was like looking at a sad old dog. Dartelli felt sorry for him.
“I am tired,” Bragg confirmed needlessly. “And I haven’t got good news, I’m afraid.” He waved a finger at Dart, leading the detective out of his small office and across the hall to the pantry-size partial lab on the other side of the photo processor. Some computer equipment was gathered cheek by jowl in the far corner alongside some plastic milk crates stacked and used as shelving. That same finger directed Dartelli to a worn office chair. Three of the four wheels had survived its years; Dartelli tilted left and slightly back, feeling as if he might tip over any second. Bragg took the newer chair, the one immediately in front of the keyboard and oversize monitor. He placed his hands on the keyboard; his skin was shriveled and looked old-too many chemicals, Dartelli thought. Too many hours in laboratories. There were reasons they offered retirement at twenty years; Dartelli could spot those who had passed the date.
Bragg said, “We can go over hairs and fibers until the cows come home. It’s all neat and sweet. Buttoned up nice. Woman there-a hooker maybe, on account of finding both the vaginal condom and the one in his pocket-seems like overkill for a real relationship, doesn’t it? She likes to dye herself red. We confirmed that. So what? He likes redheads. What do we care?
“They were in bed together; I can prove that,” he continued. “She took a shower. She used the toilet. I’m good on both of those. Sometime later our Mr. Stapleton decides to test the effects of gravity. Nothing real new. In terms of trace evidence, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing sending up red flags. That’s what we got on the one hand.”
The computer came next, and not as any surprise to Dart, who was waiting anxiously for whatever had tightened Bragg’s throat to the point he had to squeeze out his words. He was excited about something. When he was really gassed about one of his discoveries, he went instantly hoarse.
“One big difference between the laws we both deal with. Yours are made by man and they vary all the time according to courts and juries. Mine are laws of nature, and they don’t vary an iota. I can’t make them vary, even should I want to-and sometimes I want to real bad.” He slapped the space bar dramatically, and the screen came alive with color. It took Dartelli a moment to see that he was looking from above, down the face of a building at a sidewalk. It was done in computer graphics, and though realistic, it did not look like anything Dartelli had seen: not quite a photograph, not quite a drawing.
“I know this place,” Dartelli said.
“The De Nada,” Bragg informed him. “The particular laws I’m referring to are the laws of physics. They dictate the rate at which an object will fall. You can’t screw with that, no matter what. This is a three-D modeled visualization program-computer animation but governed by the laws of physics. How fast and at what angle of trajectory an object falls determines where it lands-pretty simple. In this case, vice versa-we know where Stapleton landed. We measured it. We photographed it. We documented it every way available to us-and that’s considerable. Doc Ray’s pathology report tells us that wounds on Stapleton indicate that he struck that giant cement pot before he landed-one of those pots designed to keep trucks from driving into the lobby, although at the Granada Inn I think that might be an improvement.
Dartelli felt obliged to chuckle, though he felt a little tense for this reaction.
Bragg went on. “That pot is a fair piece of change away from the wall, which is what got me interested in the first place.” He glanced at Dartelli-he had mischief in his eyes. “Enough of my flapping,” he said. “I’ll let my fingers do the talking.”
The screen changed to a color photograph. Bragg told him, “This is from inside Stapleton’s hotel room.” He hit some more keys and the photograph faded away, replaced by an exact replica in computer three-dimensional graphics.
“Nice,” Dartelli said.
“Slick piece of software,” Bragg agreed. “But notice the restrictions. Place is a sardine can. Foot of the bed practically hits the dresser; you can’t even open the bottom drawer all the way-I tried that, remember?” he asked curiously. Dartelli didn’t remember. “Enter David Stapleton.” He touched a few keys and a three-dimensional stick figure appeared in the room, looking like an undressed mannequin. “The animation lets us interact with Stapleton’s possible trajectories in a scientifically accurate model,” he emphasized for Dart’s sake. Bragg revered science the way theologians talked of God.
He worked the keyboard again, returning Dartelli and the screen to the outside, this time from the sidewalk perspective where a crime-scene photograph showed a bloodied Stapleton folded on the sidewalk. He once again manipulated the system into performing a metamorphism between the photographic image and one that was the result of computerization. Stapleton transformed into that same white mannequin.
“We work backward.” He controlled the software so that the mannequin slowly unfolded itself, lifted off the sidewalk, connected with the rim of the enormous cement pot, and then floated up into the air, feet first, head pointed down toward earth. Dartelli recalled the black kid’s description of Stapleton diving out the window, the kid whistling as he waved his large hand in the air indicating the dive.
Bragg said, “The specific trajectory allows us to compute velocity necessary to launch Stapleton out the window in order for him to travel the distance he actually traveled. Any other velocity, and he lands in a different spot, connects with that pot differently, or misses it altogether.
“Then,” Bragg added, “we look at three different scenarios: stepping off the windowsill, running at the window and diving, or … being thrown.”
Dart’s breath caught and heat spiked up his spine. The chair wavered and nearly went over backward; he caught his balance at the last possible second.
“We ask for new chairs,” Bragg said, “but we never get them.” He worked the keyboard. “Check this out.” The screen split into two halves: on the left, a side perspective of the interior of the room; to the right, a frontal image of the hotel and a graphical chalk mark where Stapleton had hit. The computerized colors were unnatural, the image eerie.
The mannequin walked to the window, climbed to the sill and awkwardly squeezed through the small opening and disappeared. On the adjacent screen the computerized body appeared and fell through space. It landed feet first near the building’s brick wall, far from the chalk mark.
“He didn’t simply jump,” Bragg said. “So did he dive?”
The mannequin reappeared inside the hotel room. Feet on the floor, the head exited the open window and the body disappeared. In the communicating window, the body fell slowly and struck, headfirst, well away from the cement tub and the chalk mark.
“No,” Bragg answered. “He did not dive.”
Dartelli noticed that he had tuned out all else; he felt as if he were inside the computer screen.
“We have his weight programmed into it, his height. If he had an extraordinary build I might tweak things to make him appear stronger to the software. But he’s basically a normal build, and I’ll tell you something-he needs a hell of a lot more velocity,” the scientist explained. “So, let’s make him run for that window.” The software showed the mannequin attempt to run through the room for the window. The tight quarters required an awkward sidestepping. “You should have seen us trying to convince the thing to do that dance,” Bragg said. The mannequin struck the window, and fake pieces of glass went out with him. “We tried ten different times to get him out that opening with the speed necessary. He went through the glass every time. Turns out he would have had to start the dive back by the bed to make it out that opening with the necessary speed. That computes to traveling three feet, perfectly level through the air-Superman, maybe, not David Stapleton.”