The Victim (Badge of Honor 3)

She looked at him and smiled.

Jesus Christ, he thought, she's stoned.

He saw that her pupils were dilated.

Has she been getting that shit in here? In a hospital?

She's on cloud nine. I think the technical term is "euphoric. " She didn't even react when I called DeZego a guinea gangster, or when I told her he's married and has two kids. The first should have enraged her, and the second should have… caused a much greater reaction than it did. She didn't deny it when I said DeZego was supplying her with cocaine, and she didn't seem at all upset whe

n I told her I know her father knows about the cocaine and will inevitably learn about her and DeZego.

Ergo sum, Sherlock Holmes, she doesn't give a damn about things that are important, and is therefore, almost by definition, stoned.

It could be, come to think of it, that she is stoned on something legitimate, something they gave her for the pain. Or possibly that Dr. Dotson gave her a maintenance dose, having decided that this is not the time or place to detoxify her, either because of her condition or because he 'd rather do that someplace where a lot of questions would not be asked.

So where are you now, hotshot? What do you do now?

"Penny, are you absolutely sure that the man in those photographs is the one who shot you?"

"I told you I was," she said.

"And you are prepared to testify in court about that?"

"Yes, of course," she said.

"Well, what happens now, Penny," Matt explained-I don't know what the hell happens now-"isthat I will ask you to make a statement on the back of one of the photographs."

"What?"

"Quote, 'Having been sworn, I declare that the individual pictured in this photograph is the individual who, on the roof of the Penn Services Parking Garage, shot Mr. Anthony J. DeZego and me with a shotgun,' unquote. And then you sign it and I sign it. And then soon, Detective Washington will come back here and take a full statement."

" 'Killed,' " Penelope Detweiler said. "Not just 'shot,' 'killed.'

"

"Right."

"You write it down and I'll sign it," Penny said agreeably.

"It has to be in your handwriting," Matt said. He rolled the bedside tray in place over Penny, selected one of the photographs, and showed it to her. "This him?"

"Yes, that's the man."

He spotted a Gideon Bible on the lower shelf of her bedside table and held it out to her. She put her hand on it.

"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?"

"I do," Penny said solemnly.

He handed her a ballpoint pen.

"Write," he said.

"Say that again," Penny said.

He dictated essentially what he had said before, and she wrote it on the back of the photograph.

"Sign it," he ordered. She did, and looked at him, he thought, like a little girl who expected her teacher to give her a Gold Star to Take Home to Mommy.