“You don’t think he was inside when the uniforms were here?” Coughlin asked.
“We don’t know, Denny. Maybe he was already gone when the uniforms arrived, but if Smitty says that, in addition to explaining the law, it’ll look as if he’s loyally covering for his men.”
Coughlin grunted.
“If, however,” Lowenstein said, “some very senior officer, after half an hour personally investigating the facts, went down there and said the same thing…”
“You don’t mean me?” Coughlin snorted.
“… we could almost count on Mickey doing a thoughtful piece for the Bulletin explaining when the cops can and cannot take a door,” Lowenstein finished, “and probably getting into how hard we’re working, routinely, to get this guy.”
“Routinely?” Coughlin said. “Matt, you weren’t in the mayor’s office with the commissioner and me. The mayor doesn’t want this solved in due time, he wants it solved in time for the six o’clock news.”
“Who’s the lead detective, you, Joe?” Lowenstein asked.
“Yes, sir,” D’Amata said.
“What are the chances for that?”
“Not good, sir,” D’Amata said.
Lowenstein gestured with both his hands: Give me more.
“We have no idea who he is, other than he’s a four-star psychopath,” D’Amata said. “We have only one thing that might lead us to him.”
“Which is?”
“He left his camera behind, and Matt Payne-”
“How do you know it’s his camera?” Lowenstein interrupted.
“He took pictures of the victim, sir.”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s a digital camera, sir,” Matt Payne said. “I downloaded the images from the flash memory card into my laptop.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You’re saying you have pictures the doer took of the victim?”
“Yes, sir,” Matt said, and pushed his way through everybody jammed into the kitchen, and brought the pictures up on the screen of the laptop.
“My God,” Dennis V. Coughlin said.
“How long have you had these?” Lowenstein demanded.
“Not long, sir,” Matt said. “I was calling Lieutenant Washington to tell him when he said you were all headed here.”
“And how can you locate the doer by his camera?” Lowenstein challenged.
“I’m not sure I can, sir. But I know that type camera. It comes with a program that…” He stopped, trying to think of a way to explain simply the Kodak camera replacement program.
"That what?”
“The camera has a serial number,” Matt said. “If we can get Kodak to tell us where they shipped it-”
“Who the hell are you?” Lowenstein demanded, nastily, interrupting him.
“Detective Lassiter, sir. Northwest.”