Then the next case was called.
A hand tapped Matt’s shoulder. He looked around and saw a middle-aged man he instantly decided was a lawyer. The lawyer was pointing to the cracked-open double doors of the courtroom. Matt saw the enormous sergeant beckoning to him.
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sp; He and Olivia made their way through the standees in the rear of the courtroom and out the door.
“You’re the cop from Philadelphia?” the enormous sergeant asked in a thick southern accent.
Matt saw that he had a highly polished name badge reading “Sgt. D. Kenny” pinned to his crisply pressed shirt.
This is the guy I talked to when I called from outside Olivia’s apartment.
“Cops from Philadelphia,” Matt said. “This is Detective Lassiter, and my name is Payne. I’m a sergeant.”
The sergeant stopped Matt from producing his identification with a wave of his huge hand.
“The chief says that Sergeant Paul doesn’t know anything about the peeper; that court will probably last until about ten-thirty, maybe later; and that you can wait for him if you want but that he’d much rather talk to you in the morning. About eight.”
“Can I ask you two questions, Sergeant?”
“You can ask.”
“Is your peeper going to make bail and walk out of here tonight?”
“No.”
Matt took his laptop out of his case. The enormous sergeant watched silently and without expression as Matt turned it on.
“I’d really be grateful, Sergeant, if you could tell me if this knife looks familiar to you.”
Matt turned the laptop’s screen so the sergeant could see it. It was one of the digital images Matt had taken from the camera the doer had left in Cheryl Williamson’s apartment. It showed a visibly terrified young woman lying on a bed, tied to the headboard with plastic binders. Her breasts were exposed. Lying between them was a large knife, its tip almost touching the soft skin under her chin. There were several thumbnail-sized drops of a thick, milky white fluid on the highly polished blade.
The enormous sergeant looked at the image, then at Matt, and then back at the computer screen. Then he handed the laptop back to Matt.
“Wait,” he said.
In two minutes, he was back with the chief.
Matt wordlessly raised the almost closed laptop screen and extended it to the chief.
“Where’d you get this?” the chief asked.
“Our doer forgot his camera when he left the scene,” Matt said. “Possibly because by then he knew he’d killed Miss Williamson and was a little frightened.”
“Sonofabitch!” the chief said, instantly adding, “Excuse me, ma’am.”
Olivia made a gesture indicating she understood.
The chief, taking care that Olivia could not see the screen, returned the laptop to Matt.
“You’re the sergeant who talked to me and Sergeant Kenny this morning, right?”
“Yes, sir. I’m Sergeant Payne, and this is Detective Lassiter.”
“Let me tell you how it is, Sergeant. Sometime tonight, in there, a man is going to appear before the judge to have both the suspension of his DUI sentence and the suspension of the revocation of his driver’s license challenged by me. I personally got him again for DUI two nights ago, and one of my not-too-smart officers let him go on his own recognizance after he’d had time to sober up. He’s a lawyer, and he’s got a damned good lawyer, and nothing would make either of them happier than for them to show up only to hear that I’m not there. I think they’re sitting in a car someplace waiting for some other lawyer to call, telling them I’ve gone. You follow me?”
“Yes, sir. Another continuance. And you don’t want that to happen.”