Stone handed Woodman a copy of the letter.
Woodman read it through twice, and his expression revealed nothing. “What do you make of this?” he asked at last.
“I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. A friend of mine at the 19th Precinct is getting it looked at by the lab, but I wanted to compare the handwriting to something of Sasha’s.”
“That’s no problem,” Woodman said, rising and going to a file cabinet. “Sasha didn’t type. She told me once that she refused to learn, so that she wouldn’t get shunted aside into ‘woman’s’ work.” He flipped through a folder, extracted a letter, and handed it to Stone. “She did all her correspondence by hand.”
Stone laid the two letters side by side on the desk, and both men bent over them. Woodman produced a magnifying glass, and they examined them closely.
“They’re a lot alike, I’d say, but the one sent to you looks a little cramped,” Woodman said.
“The lines are not as straight, either,” Stone added.
“This is over my head,” Woodman said, picking up the phone. “Sophie, please find the name of that handwriting man we used on the mineral rights case last year, then see if you can get him over here right away.” He hung up. “When did you get this, Stone? It’s not dated.”
“Friday. It was posted the day before at Penn Station.”
“It must be some kind of crank who read your name in the papers as being associated with the case.”
“That seems more than just possible. Still, there’s the handwriting.”
“I suppose someone who knew Sasha might have had a letter of hers and used that to make a forgery.”
“But why?”
“Maybe someone who isn’t satisfied with the outcome of the case. A lot of people aren’t; I’m one of them. Maybe someone’s just trying to get you interested again.”
“The letter certainly had that effect,” Stone said.
The phone rang, and Woodman picked it up. “Good,” he said, then hung up. “Man’s name is Weaver. His office is only a couple of blocks away; he’s coming over.” Woodman looked uncomfortable for a moment. “Stone, I get the impression that you are at least considering the possibility that Sasha might still be alive. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Stone replied. “I think it’s just possible.” He explained the circumstances of Sasha’s fall and his terminal velocity theory.
“Jesus Christ,” Woodman said.
Weaver was a tall, thin man in his sixties. He looked at both letters carefully. Woodman had folded the letters so that the signatures did not show. “This is a Xerox copy, I presume,” he said, holding up Stone’s letter.
“Yes, I don’t have the original at the moment.”
“I’d like to see it, but it probably wouldn’t make much difference in my opinion.”
“What is your opinion, Mr. Weaver?” Woodman asked.
“I’d say there’s about an eighty percent chance that the same person wrote both letters.”
“Why can’t you be sure?” Stone asked.
“Well, the similarity in the shaping of the letters is pro-found, but there’s anomaly that could mean it’s a forgery. You see, here, the spacing in the more recent letter is closer; it has a cramped quality. Its lines aren’t as straight, either.”
“We noticed that,” Woodman said. “Could there be some other reason than forgery for the difference between the two letters?”
“Well, yes. The recent letter doesn’t have quite the vitality of style that the earlier one exhibits. That’s a common trait of forgeries, but it often turns up, too, when the writer is ill or injured or is convalescing.” Weaver held his right elbow close to his side and demonstrated. “A person who is weakened or in pain would characteristically hold his arm in like this, restricting the movement of his hand. This would especially be true in the event of injury – say, a broken arm or ribs. That could quite easily account for the cramped nature of the second letter.”
Stone and Woodman exchanged a look. Woodman raised his eyebrows.
Weaver continued. “In my experience, this characteristic of what you might call the ‘wounded writer’ would be more evident in the writing of a woman, but both these letters were, of course, written by a man.”
“By a man?” Stone asked, incredulously.