“We have reason to suspect,” Weisbach said, “that these tapes are recordings made by Officer Kellog of telephone calls to his home. If that’s the case, they may contain information bearing on our investigation.”
“They may have contained anything,” Callis said. “Past tense. They’re burned up.”
“The Forensics Lab thinks maybe they can salvage something,” Weisbach said.
“What we would like from you, to preserve the evidence in both cases,” Wohl said, “is permission to have Forensics work on them. Photographing each step of the process as they’re worked on.”
“Destroyed is what you mean,” Callis said. “If I was going to be in court with the Leslie case, I’d want to show the jury the tapes as they were in the fire, the actual tapes, not what’s left after Forensics takes them apart.”
Wohl didn’t reply, and Callis let his imagination run:
“A good defense attorney could generate a lot of fog with somebody having fooled around with those tapes,” he said, and shifted into a credible mimicry of Bernadette Callahan, Attorney-at-Law, formerly Sister John Anthony:
“‘What were you looking for on these tapes? Oh, you don’t know? Or you won’t tell me? But you can tell me, under oath, can’t you, that you found absolutely nothing on these mysterious tapes that you examined with such care that connected Mr. Leslie in any way with what you’re accusing him of.’
“And then,” Callis went on, “in final arguments, she could make the jury so damned curious about these damned tapes that they would forget everything else they heard.”
“They gave him the Nun to defend him?” Weisbach asked, smiling.
“She probably volunteered,” Callis replied. “She has great compassion for people who kill other people.”
“Tony,” Wohl said. “I need those tapes.”
That’s the first time he called me by my first name. Interesting.
“I know that…”
“If I have to, I’ll get a court order,” Wohl said.
I’ll be damned. He means that. Who the hell does he think he is, threatening the District Attorney with a court order?
The answer to that is that he knows who he is. He’s wrapped in the authority of the Honorable Jerry Carlucci.
“Come on, Peter, we’re friends, we’re just talking. All I’m asking you to do is make sure the chain of evidence remains intact.”
“Detective Payne,” Wohl said. “You are ordered to take the tapes from the case of Officer Kellog from the Evidence Room to the Forensics Laboratory for examination. You will not let the tapes out of your sight. You will see that each step of the examination process is photographed. You will then return the tapes to the Evidence Room. You will then personally deliver to Mr. Callis (a) the photographs you will have taken and (b) the results, no matter what they are, of the forensics examination.”
“Yes, sir,” Matt said.
Wohl looked at Callis.
“OK?”
“Fine.”
“Thank you, Tony.”
“Anytime, Peter. You know that.”
TWENTY-THREE
The Forensics Laboratory of the Philadelphia Police Department is in the basement of the Roundhouse. It is crowded with a large array of equipment—some
high-tech, and some locally manufactured—with which highly skilled technicians, some sworn police officers, some civilian employees, ply their very specialized profession.
When Detective Wally Milham walked in at half past eight, he found Detective Matt Payne, who had been in the room in compliance with his orders not to leave the cassette tapes out of his sight, for nine hours, sprawled on a table placed against the wall. He had made sort of a backrest from several very large plastic bags holding blood-soaked sheets, pillows, and blankets. It was evidence, one of the uniform technicians had told Matt, from a job where a wife had expressed her umbrage at finding her husband in her bed with the lady next door by striking both multiple times with their son’s Boy Scout ax.Amazingly, the technician had reported, neither had been killed.
Matt was pleased to see Milham. He was bored out of his mind. The forensic process had at first been fascinating. One of the technicians, using a Dremel motor tool, had, with all the finesse of a surgeon, carefully sawed through the heat-distorted tape cassettes so that the tape inside could be removed.