these EMTs, they encountered what they believe was Underground clear up on Cherry and Third.”
A few strands of hair broke loose from behind her ear and cascaded into her eyes. She brushed them aside. “Twenty-two city blocks were buried when they filled in the flats a hundred years ago. Retaining walls were built surrounding the old ground level, and then the streets backfilled to elevate them some twenty feet higher. It took over a decade to complete. The Underground tour accounts for only three city blocks. Plenty of other sections of the Underground still exist, most sealed off and awaiting us like time capsules. For the most part, they’re on private property, they’re dangerous, and though we’re constantly trying to gain access in order to inventory and photograph, fears of lawsuits and insurance coverage discourage cooperation. From the early 1920s on, city utilities were run along the old underground sidewalks, the perimeter area between these retaining walls and the brick walls of the old buildings down there. When I read about the sinkhole, I’d hoped the city engineers would allow us access.
But the needs of archaeology took a backseat to getting traffic running again and the complication of much of this being private property. On the other hand, if you could get me-this department-access, you’d be doing the history books a favor. I’d be happy to tell you what you’re looking at.”
“I was hoping this might work out the other way around.”
“I’m afraid not. The city flat-out turned down my request.
But a police lieutenant? Can’t you gain access, even to private property, if you want?”
She’d clearly granted him the interview because she saw Boldt as her ticket into the Underground.
“It doesn’t work like that.” He said this, but his mind ground through the possibilities. Dixon’s confused autopsy might provide enough unknowns to win Boldt the necessary paperwork.
Babcock teased him into wanting this with her explanation.
“As the city streets were filled in, to lift them above the flood levels, people moved block to block by climbing ladders, crossing the new streets still under construction, and then back down a ladder to another block. It went on this way for years.
Eventually, the retail stores moved up to the new street level, but the old storefronts still existed.
“They’re still down there,” she continued. “What used to be Main Street is now underground. I imagine that’s what your EMTs found themselves in: stores and shops and sidewalks that haven’t been touched for over a hundred years. You’re the one with the ruby slippers, Lieutenant.”
Giving in to her urging, he said, “I’ll need the name of the owners.”
“I can get that for you. No problem.”
“It’s to be treated as a crime scene first, an archaeology dig second, if at all.”
“I can live with that.” She extended her hand for him to shake. “I’ll leave the decision to you.”
Boldt accepted her handshake, though somewhat reluctantly.
He had the feeling he’d walked into a trap.
Babcock had the callused hands of a farmer or field-worker.
She said, “Okay, you’ve got yourself a deal.”
The Hearing
Matthews considered the evidentiary hearing-a probable cause, or preliminary hearing-a formality. She’d attended only two such hearings in her decade of service, and then solely because she’d been called as a witness. When LaMoia informed her that he’d included “some of her paperwork” in his report to the prosecuting attorney’s office, and that because of this she was advised to attend the hearing, she lost her temper, admonishing him for submitting a report that was little more than “notes on a napkin.”
She arrived at courtroom 3D like a plane coming in too fast for a landing, tires smoking and wing lights flashing.
“What the hell were you thinking?” she said to LaMoia, where they sat three rows behind the prosecutor’s table.
LaMoia held his finger to his lips, requesting she lower her voice. The hearing was not yet in session, but the prosecutor, a stump-faced woman named Mahoney, sat within earshot.
He said, “We do what we do.” His only explanation.
“I scribbled out a memo to you, John. That was not a psych evaluation.”
“It is now.”
“No, it isn’t. That’s just the point.”
“We both want Neal for this, Matthews. I included the memo because it supports his frame of mind at the time of his statement, which was when he lied about the window of time. It’s that false statement that Mahoney’s hanging our case on for the time being. Let’s not forget that. The blood on the sweatshirt came back Mary-Ann Walker’s, yes. But hell if Mahoney is going to put Ferrell Walker up on the stand to tell us all where he got that sweatshirt-”
“From behind a Dumpster in the back alley,” she said.
“Within a few yards of the same vehicle we know ran her over.
That works, John.”
“But it brings Walker onto the stand for possible questioning.
It opens up the threat on Neal’s life at Dixie’s and a personal thing between them. That’ll not only invalidate the sweatshirt but confuse the judge and leave room for reasonable doubt. We gotta trust Mahoney on this. She knows what she’s doing. She wanted the psych report.”
“It wasn’t a psych report. You think the PD won’t know that?”
“It’s a hearing, not a trial. There’s all sorts of leeway here, Matthews. Calm down.”
“You or Mahoney should have asked me for a psych report.”
“With all the time we had,” LaMoia said sarcastically, annoyed with her now. “Mahoney’s going on vacation next week, and I wanted her to handle it. Besides, defense agreed to the scheduling, and that means they had as little time to prepare as we did. ‘When the shoe fits …’ I’m not saying it’s perfect, but you play the hand that’s dealt you.”
“Do not start quoting country music cliches, or I’m out of here.” She sat back and stared at the ceiling, wondering how LaMoia could take the wind out of her so effortlessly. When he got a few too many beers in him or, on rare occasion, submitted to the pressures of the job and lost his cool, he had a tendency to start spouting sidesplitting one-liners like, “I’ve got tears in my ears from lying on my back and crying over you”-a personal favorite of hers. She heard a little Kenny Rogers heading her way and ducked to avoid it.
“So I’m here,” she said, “to support a psych evaluation that isn’t a psych evaluation.”
“But the point is, you’re here,” LaMoia said, realizing the worst was over. “See? There’s a bright side to everything.”
The hearing ran like a scaled-down trial; it was Mahoney’s job to make a case against Neal, and she went about the task in workmanlike fashion, offering Neal’s vehicle as the murder weapon-hairs, blood, and tissue had been collected from the undercarriage of the Corolla. A small amount of this organic evidence had been subjected to DNA testing and had been matched to Mary-Ann Walker. There was more to come, the lab tech announced from the witness stand. Mahoney hurried her presentation, apparently knowing that the court, too, regarded such hearings as pro forma and did not want to belabor her points, thereby annoying an overtaxed judge prior to the actual trial.
Matthews’s evaluation was regarded as icing on the evidentiary cake-a way to incorporate possible motives for the crime and to subtly bias the judge against the defendant at the earliest possible moment.
The public defender, a slightly overweight second-generation Indonesian man in his late twenties named Norman Seppamosa, with thick glasses and a pug nose, seemed outgunned and overwhelmed until he surprised everyone in the courtroom by requesting to cross-examine Matthews, a request immediately granted. He stood from his chair at the defendant’s table-an act of grandstanding normally not seen in such a hearing, as there was no jury to impress, and ran through a litany of questions that established Matthews’s credentials.
Daphne Matthews saw Ferrell Walker directly behind Mahoney, occupying a seat in the last row. He nodded hello to her.
