He didn't say anything just then. Back in the living room he said, 'I can see where it might not be a bad idea to tape incoming calls.
Shouldn't be all that costly to set up, either. What would it do for us in this instance? You're thinking voiceprint, but for that you'd need a recording of Sturdevant's voice for comparison purposes.'
'Did he have an answering machine? He might have taped a message.'
'I don't think so. Those machines aren't all that popular around here. Of course there might be some record of his voice somewhere.
Home video, that sort of thing. I don't know if something like that would work for voiceprint comparison, though I don't see why not.'
'If you had the call taped,' I said, 'you could find out one thing easily enough. You could find out if it was Motley.'
'Well, you could at that,' he said. 'I never even thought of that, but when you've got an actual suspect it makes a difference, doesn't it? If you had a call taped and the voiceprint matched your Mr. Motley, you'd pretty much have him hanged, wouldn't you?'
'Not until we get a new governor.'
'Oh, that's right. Your man keeps vetoing the death-penalty bills, doesn't he? But in a manner of speaking, you'd have your killer cold.'
He shook his head. 'Speaking of voiceprints, you can probably guess we didn't do any dusting for fingerprints.'
'Why should you? It looked open-and-shut.'
'We do a lot of things routinely when there's not much point to them. Shame we didn't do that.'
'I've a feeling Motley didn't leave any fingerprints.'
'Still, it would be nice to know. I could get a crew in here now, but there've been so many people through here by this time I don't think we'd have much luck. Besides, it'd mean reopening the case, and I have to say you haven't given me cause to do that.' He hooked his thumbs in his belt and looked at me.
'You honestly think he did it?'
'Yes.'
'Can you point to any kind of corroborating evidence? A clipping in the mail and aNew York postmark, that may be enough to get you thinking, but it doesn't do a lot to change how the case looks from here.'
I thought about that one while we left the house. Havlicek drew the door shut and snapped the padlock.
It was cooler now, and the birch trees cast long shadows across the lawn. I asked when the killings had taken place. Wednesday night, he said.
'So it's been a week.'
'Will be in a matter of hours. The call came in around midnight. I could give you the time to the minute, if it matters, because as I said we keep a log.'
'I just wondered about the date,' I said. 'There was no indication on the clipping. I suppose the story would have run in Thursday night's paper.'
'That's right, and there were follow-up stories the next day or two, but they won't tell you anything.
Nothing else came to light, so there wasn't much for them to write about. Just that people were surprised, no indication he was under that kind of stress. The usual things you get from friends and neighbors.'
'What kind of a workup did your medical examiner do?'
'The chief of pathology over at the hospital does our medical exams. I don't think he did much beyond looking at the bodies and confirming that the wounds were consistent with the way we read the case.
Why?'
'You still have the bodies on hand?'
'I don't believe they've been released yet. I don't know that we're clear on who we're supposed to release them to, far as that goes. You got something specific in mind?'
'I was wondering if he'd happened to check for semen.'
'Jesus God. You think he raped her?'
'It's possible.'
'No signs of a struggle.'
'Well, he's very strong, and she might not have tried to fight him off. You were asking about corroborative evidence. If there were semen traces, and if the lab work established the semen didn't come from Sturdevant —'
'That'd be corroboration, wouldn't it? You might even wind up matching the semen to your suspect. I'll tell you, I'm not even going to apologize for not ordering a check for pecker tracks. That's about the last thing that would have occurred to me.'
'If you've still got the bodies—'
'We can get him to run tests now. I was already thinking that. I don't guess she happened to douche in the past few days, do you?'
'I wouldn't think so.'
