“Judy, listen,” Detective Wilkins said, his voice gentler, “I have a daughter of my own, younger than you, and that’s why I told you to get off this case. Not because I’m dirty. I’m just telling you what I’d tell her. No job is worth your life.”
Judy almost found a smile. “What do you mean? You’re a cop. You get shot at for a living.”
Detective Wilkins had no immediate reply.
Chapter 35
It was all Judy could do to act natural in front of The Two Tonys, Mr. DiNunzio, and Penny, lying in a furry but sleeping pile. Judy didn’t tell the old men what she’d found at her apartment for fear of worrying them. She had to keep moving forward and concentrate on the task at hand. She skimmed the books on the expert’s shelves to get her thoughts back in order. Low-Speed Automobile Accidents, Basic Collision Investigation and Scene Documentation, The Traffic Accident Investigation Manual, Engineering Analysis of Vehicular Accidents. Judy’s mind kept wandering back to the self-portrait. She folded her arms, aware that she was practically hugging herself, and looked elsewhere. Anywhere but in her own mind.
The room was windowless but immense, appearing bigger because of its walls of white-painted cinderblock. It was actually a converted garage in West Philly; gleaming red tool chests sat against the far wall, and the near one was lined with textbooks, accident-reconstruction newsletters, and chrome tools mounted on brown pegboards in carefully calibrated size order. The back end of the room contained a built-in work counter with three black microscopes, a fax, a printer, a Compaq computer with a twenty-one-inch monitor, and file cabinets, also in white. Fluorescent panels overhead illuminated the room so it was brighter than most operating rooms.
Judy, Feet, Tony-From-Down-The-Block, and Mr. DiNunzio watched as Dr. William Wold circled the charred wreck of the Lucias’ red truck in silence. The Two Tonys and Mr. DiNunzio had taken it upon themselves to steal the junked truck from the scrapyard, having cut a hole the size of a whale in the Cyclone fence. They were quite proud of themselves, but Judy was considering sending them to bed without their cigars.
She felt terrible that they had done it and somehow worse that she had deniability for it. But once Tony-From-Down-The-Block had told her what they’d done, she’d asked him to bring it here on the flatbed. Judy didn’t know if she could still be a good guy and benefit from a bad act. She was less and less certain she wanted to be a good guy at all. She used to think she was hard-wired to be ethical, but her wires had gotten crossed and were sparking, especially after the self-portrait with the nasty incision.
She gazed at the Lucias’ wreck, which rested on its blackened chassis in the middle of an unwrinkled white tarp. The tarp had been placed atop a spotless white linoleum floor, in order to catch any debris the truck “shed,” as Dr. Wold had explained. Dr. Wold was turning out to be big on explanation, a prerequisite for an expert witness. He had testified on “accident reconstruction” and “automotive forensics” in 135 cases, which proved that, in America, there was an expert on everything. For a price.
Dr. Wold made a note on his metal clipboard with a silver Cross pen and cleared his throat. “You are quite right, Ms. Carrier,” he said finally. “This is, or was, a Volkswagen Rabbit pickup. These trucks were manufactured here in Pennsylvania from 1979 through 1983, and were later produced in Yugoslavia. They came with a diesel or a gasoline engine, and about eighty of them were produced in the United States in 1979, then the figure jumped to 25,000 in 1980, and 33,000 in 1981. This model is definitely a 1981.”
“How do you know all that?” Judy asked, her voice echoing off the hard surfaces in the large, open space.
“I looked it up after you called.” Dr. Wold pushed his heavy, steel-framed glasses up his small nose. An apparently humorless engineer—which could well be redundant—he wore a fresh white short-sleeved shirt and pressed navy pants. “It’s not as important to keep information in your head as much as to know how to retrieve it. I know how to retrieve it.”
“I bet,” Judy said, just to make him feel that she was participating in the conversation, which was proving completely unnecessary. Dr. Wold didn’t care if she participated or not, which The Tonys and Mr. DiNunzio must have instantly perceived, because they remained uncharacteristically quiet.
Dr. Wold walked around the front of the truck, which was bashed in and eyeless. Its hood had buckled almost in two. “You see that the headlights are gone. This model had the square, four-by-six-inch sealed halogen beams. It also had turn signals to the immediate outer corners of the truck, resembling the 1983 to 1984 Rabbit. Of course the accident has demolished most of the truck’s front end; it clearly absorbed most of the impact.” Dr. Wold looked up. “I understand it fell off the overpass onto the highway below.”
“I think so, but I don’t have the police file on it. There must be one.”
“Of course there is. I’ll obtain it from the AID, the Accident Investigation Division. It’s public record. I’ve already begun to gather articles about the accident, and I will visit the scene. I should be able to reconstruct the way the accident occurred and make you a computer-animated video of it, should you need it for the jury. They are usually quite effective.” Dr. Wold made another note. “Of course, as we discussed, I’ll also examine the wreck from stem to stern. I provide that as part of my service. Many accident reconstructionists don’t.”
Judy nodded, and Dr. Wold consulted his notes.
“From my specs, the vehicle was 4.46 meters in length, 1.64 meters in width, and 1.43 meters in height. I can tell you, just eyeballing the wreck, that it’s no longer than 3.2 meters at this point, and much of the distortion is at the front, although there is some damage here.”
Judy nodded again, but Dr. Wold didn’t notice.
“You have asked me to determine if there was evidence of tampering of any sort to the truck, and that I can do. I generally run a complete battery of tests, mostly in products liability cases and wrongful death matters, but I suppose I can do it in a murder case as well.”
“I’m sure.”
“Of course, you made mention I should determine if the engine had been tampered with, but that would be difficult.” Dr. Wold laughed shortly, a loud ha!
Judy reddened. It had turned out the truck had been junked without its engine. She hadn’t realized it. It was a sore point. “Of course not. No engine. I guess it was sold for parts.”
“Or scrap. Either way, cars are rarely junked with engines. They’re too valuable.”
“I knew that,” Judy said. She could hear Feet laugh softly beside her. “You can check if there was a bomb used, can’t you?”
Dr. Wold cocked a furry eyebrow. “Of course, but that’s not likely, given that the wreck is basically intact.”
Judy sighed. This wasn’t her day. “Can you can test anything, and everything, just to see if there is evidence of any kind of tampering? Maybe the brakes would be messed up. They’re still there, right?”
Dr. Wold frowned. “In part.”
“Okay, so check that. Check everything. I need to understand everything about how the accident happened. Why do two people drive off an overpass in the middle of the night? We have only the truck to go on.”
“As you wish.” Dr. Wold nodded. “I should tell you that I will render an expert opinion based on the facts as I see them, not as you wish them to be. I’m not one of those experts who tells you what you paid to hear, do you understand?”
“Understood.” Judy hated experts like Dr. Wold. She liked experts who told you what you paid to hear.
“Excellent. Then you won’t mind if I tell you that, from my preliminary examination of the wreck, and the information I have retrieved, I find the explanation for this accident fairly obvious, and simple. In fact, it is one of the most common types of traffic accidents, given the conditions.”