“Or the petty cash drawer?”
“No.”
“So your fingerprints should not be on them?”
Amy raised her chin. “Just a minute here. If this is some sort of trick, I don’t like it. I used to work in this office. I worked at that desk. I was in charge of petty cash. I’ve handled the petty cash box many times and opened and closed that drawer. It’s entirely possible my fingerprints could be there.”
“But that would be over a month ago?”
“Exactly.”
“You’re saying your fingerprints might be on that cash box or that drawer from over a month ago?”
“Yes, they might. I don’t know if fingerprints last that long, but if they do, it would be possible.”
“But it’s
“No.”
“Because you didn’t touch the petty cash box or the petty cash drawer?”
“No.”
“You left them just the way you found them?”
“That’s right.”
“You didn’t point them out to us when we arrived.”
“What’s that?”
“The petty cash box and the petty cash drawer-you didn’t point them out.”
“No. Of course not.”
“Why not?”
“They weren’t important. The important thing was a man was dead.”
“And the petty cash drawer was only important because it was the thing that led you to discover that man was dead?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“But it was still important-in itself, I mean-because it indicated the office had been robbed.”
“Well, sure.”
“But you didn’t point it out to us.”
Amy took a breath. “I don’t see what you’re making such a fuss about. I certainly told you about it as soon as I started making my statement. It’s not like it was something I was trying to hide.”
“No, of course not,” the cop said. “I didn’t mean to imply that at all. I’m merely going over what happened. We arrived here, you met us at the door. Told us a man was dead. Took us in Mr. Fletcher’s office and showed us the body. Following that, I took you in here for questioning. Which is the first time you mentioned about the missing money and the petty cash drawer.”
“Yes, of course,” Amy said. “What’s the point?”
“The point is, I only have your word for that. The fact you discovered the drawer open, the cash box open and the money gone. And the fact you left them exactly as they were and didn’t touch a thing.”
“Well, it happens to be the truth,” Amy said.
“That may well be,” the cop said. “The fact is, you still haven’t pointed them out to us. That’s what I mean when I say I only have your word for it. So, just to keep the record straight, would you mind pointing out what it is you’re referring to in your statement as the petty cash box and the petty cash drawer?”
“I’d be glad to,” Amy said.
“Fine.”
The cop got up, opened the door.
Amy got up, started out.
The cop stopped her. “I should tell you that, just as we have your assurance that you left everything exactly as you found it and didn’t touch the drawer, I want you to know that you have
Amy frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“No reason,” the cop said. “I just want to be absolutely fair. Now please,” he said, “if you’d point them out to me, I think we can wrap this up.”
“Certainly,” Amy said. She heaved a sigh of relief. Wrap this up-hot damn. She couldn’t believe how well she’d gotten through this. She stepped by the cop and walked into the room. “This is my desk here,” she said. “This is the petty cash drawer.”
Amy walked around behind the desk to point out the drawer and stopped dead.
All the desk drawers were shut.
17
Mark Taylor hung up the phone. “You’re not going to like this.”
“Oh?” Steve said.
“Yeah. The cop assigned to the case is Sergeant Stams.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Couldn’t be worse, could it? On the one hand, the guy’s not that swift. On the other, he’d like nothing better than to nail you.”
“I know. With him it’s personal. Jesus Christ, this is all I need in this situation.”
“In one way it could be good.”
“How’s that?”
“Tracy’s fingerprint. He’s the one cop who might be too dumb to find it.”
“Fine,” Steve said impatiently. “What else did you get?”
“That’s it. That’s all I know.”
“You must have something.”
“Give me a break,” Taylor said. “This is hot off the wire. If I didn’t have a pipeline into headquarters, I wouldn’t have this. The only word so far is Sergeant Stams was sent out to investigate a reported homicide at a jewelers on West 47th Street.”
“No word on who phoned it in?”
“None so far. You gotta understand. My man’s getting this information as it becomes available. He can’t show that much interest.”
“Well, could he show
“Take it easy, Steve,” Tracy said. “This is my fault. There’s no need to take it out on Mark.”
“I’m not taking it out on Mark. I just want to know what the hell’s going on.”
“Don’t we all,” Taylor said. “Well, all we know now is your client’s gotten back to the jewelry store, phoned it in, and Sergeant Stams has responded. By rights he’s there now. Your client’s already told her story. And her instructions were to call as soon as the cops got cute, right?”
“Right.”
“She hasn’t called yet, so things must be fine.”
“Yeah,” Steve said. He turned to Tracy. “You sure you hooked it up right?”
Tracy gave him a look. “Steve, I do this all the time. Call-forwarding’s on. If she calls the office, it will ring up here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“Why don’t you run downstairs and check.”
“Check what?”
“The answering machine.”
Tracy looked at him. Shook her head. “Men,” she said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
