I caught the first glimmer of a chance to take control of this case. “What about the fetus?”
She shrugged. “There again, we did a blood grouping on it. It wasn’t Davis’s, but that didn’t help him much. I had to admit in court that it’s unfortunately not rare to find a young unmarried pregnant girl in our society. I might have added that it’s also not unheard of to find a third person’s semen involved in a two-person rape case-she may have had relations with someone prior to being raped by someone else.”
“Are you suggesting that?”
“Not exactly, although there might have been several people involved-a depositor and a killer and even the father. Another possibility is that the semen was carried to the site and placed by hand, explaining why it wasn’t found in the vagina but only the mouth and pubic hair.”
She smiled, presumably at the crease in my forehe k in”ad, which had to be there by now. “There’s something else, too. While I was doing my investigation prior to the trial, I spoke with the hospital staff that treated Davis’s head wound. They described it as a serious trauma, one likely to have rendered most men unconscious. Of course, he may have a hard head.
“But the lamp brings me back to the ‘too-nice-and-neat’ problem I mentioned earlier. Harris was found tied down with one hand free. From her torn nails and Davis’s cheek, the assumption was that she got that hand loose, hit him with the lamp, scratched him-or vice versa-and then was strangled. Now I can theoretically swallow one or the other-the scratching or the lamp-but not both. Had she gotten away with one, her assailant surely wouldn’t have let her do the other. It’s almost as if somebody planted one piece of incriminating evidence too many. Makes you wonder, huh?”
“Makes me wonder why you’re not doing what I do for a living.”
“Well, I am, aren’t I?” She laughed. “Actually, the truth is I see every homicide in this state, year after year. That only comes to about twenty or so on the average-about what New York racks up in a day-but it still makes me the resident expert. I’ve seen a lot more than you have-in that area at least.”
“Okay. All this leaves one final question-a pretty big one. Do you still have the samples?”
She let out a conspiratorial laugh. “You’re a lucky man. I always keep my own slides, but usually the samples get dumped after two years. This time I held on to them, including the fetus.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know-intuition.”
“You’re right-lucky me.” I stood up. “This has been a big help, really. By the way, since you can’t do those tests you told me about, who can?”
She quickly scribbled a name on a sheet of paper and handed it to me. “Bob Kees, University of West Haven-that’s just outside New Haven. All this is his specialty. Whenever I get stumped, I call on him. So does everyone else, I might add, so any work out of there will take time-but it’ll be worth it.”
“How does he handle his fees?”
She looked at me quizzically. “Why?”
“My captain’s the only one who knows I’m on this. If vouchers start appearing with Harris’s name all over them, I’ll be up the proverbial creek.”
“Politics?”
“You got it.”
“Don’t worry about it. In situations like this, Bob usually waives his fee, and I’ll make sure he does this time.”
“How about getting the stuff to him?”
“No problem there either. It all fits into a small picnic cooler, and I can get the state police to act as couriers if time is a problem. They’ll go from door to door, within the state at least, and you can take it from there. I can code it so no one knows what’s inside. Your only problem should be letting me know w kingd yhen to start things rolling. In the meantime, I’ll gather it all together in one spot so as not to slow things up when the time comes.”
She got up and shook my hand. “Happy hunting.”
“I have to admit, when we met I never dreamed it would end this way.”
“You’re a hard man to say no to.”
This time, the tape on the door was intact. Still, I checked the rooms and closets-and phones-to see if I could sense anyone having come by. At the end of my search I gave an obligatory glance down into the street. The Plymouth was back, just visible by the street lamp’s blurred light.
“You son of a bitch,” I muttered, and headed for the door.
It was still snowing, though just barely at last, and the ground was covered by a good ten to twelve inches. I stepped onto the unshoveled sidewalk and walked rapidly north, away from High Street and the Plymouth. I heard the muffled sound of a car door slamming-whoever this clown was, discretion wasn’t his strength. At the first left, a narrow, cluttered back street that twisted steeply up to join Chestnut Hill, I climbed as quickly as I could, fighting to keep my footing. At the point where the street curves left, I stopped and ducked behind a parked van.
I waited a full minute and a half, hearing all the while my follower’s labored progress up the slippery hill. Obviously he didn’t have the proper footwear because several times he resorted to pulling himself along on parked cars, garbage bins, and the occasional spindly sapling. I began to wonder why he was even bothering; had I been anything short of an elephant riding a wheelchair, I would have been long gone. But he was nothing if not persistent; by the time he finally reached the van, he was breathing hard and quietly swearing nonstop.
I stood very still, resting against the back of the van, facing the street, where my pursuer had gone for firmer footing. As he came abreast of the rear bumper, I swung my leg out with full force and caught him across both shins. His feet flew out from under him and he landed face first in the street with a dull thump.
I stepped on the nape of his neck and pushed my gun barrel into his ear. “Put your hands behind your back.” Both snowy hands appeared. I snapped my handcuffs onto them. “Roll over.”
He did as he was told. I looked at him in the dim light; his face was covered with soft powdery snow which he was trying to blink from his eyes. His nose was bleeding. “What’s your name?”
“Robert Smith.”
“Nice try.”
“Really-I’m a private investigator. I have a license inside my coat. Top left.”
I opened the coat, found a wallet with the license, along with a revolver clipped to his belt. Robert Smith came from Burlington. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“I was hired to follow you.” He was sniffing the blood up his nose and trying not to choke.
“I don’t want to play question-and-answer here. Tell me what I want to know.” widt="0em"›
“Can I get up? It’s cold.”
“Of course it’s cold-it’s January. Talk to me.”
“I was hired to follow you at night. Once you get to your office every morning, I’m supposed to let you go. I’m told by phone when and where to pick you up each night.”
“How?”
“This guy rented an answering service-he leaves messages for me, I leave messages for him.”
“How do you get paid?”
“By mail-cash.”
“This guy has no name, of course.”
“Mr. Jones.”
“Cute-Smith and Jones. How did he contact you first?”
“He called my office in Burlington.”
“What did he sound like?”
“Average. No accent. Not a high voice or a low one-nothing unusual.”
“Did you bug my place?”
“No.”
I rapped him on the forehead with my knuckles. He let out a cry of surprise and pain. “I didn’t, goddamn it. I didn’t even know it was bugged. I just followed you and gave my reports-that’s all.”