Flynn smiled. “We’re on the same wavelength. I love it when people make it easy for me. You’re right. He wasn’t really that actively involved in the case per se. I was working bunco — handling mostly forgery and fraud cases back then, so I wasn’t privy to everything that was going on in Homicide. But you know how things are — word gets around about cases that might be connected and so on. This was Whitey Dane we were about to nail, after all.”
“And lots of cases were connected to Dane.”
“Exactly. Dane had his fingers in a lot of pies, and we were interested in him in my section, too. So this case had us all hopping. Way I remember it is, we were all a little pissed off because Lefebvre was taking time off, hanging out with this kid. He was with Seth Randolph all the time. You’ve probably read the notes by now, so you know the role he played in saving the kid and all that. So here’s the department bright boy, baby-sitting when we need him in here.”
Flynn paused, mentioned the need to look good for the cameras, and took the time to point to the blueprint. Frank obliged him by appearing to focus on it, but his mind was racing.
“Funny,” Flynn said, “what questions occur to you when it’s too late. I started asking myself stuff I should have asked ten years ago. What I started wondering was, when the hell did the guy get a chance to get corrupted by Dane? In the hospital cafeteria? He’d only seen the stuff twice. Just after six that evening, and again, a couple of hours later. But then I notice something that really makes me crazy. Look at the signatures.”
Frank started to study them, but Flynn already had the tip of his pen pointing at the two examples. “Let an old man who used to work the forgery detail show you. The first time the name is written smaller than the second.”
“Not much, though,” Frank said.
“Not much to your untrained eye. Let’s call these two by the date they were made — call them the ‘June twenty-second signatures.’ The earlier one, the smaller one, we’ll call ‘Twenty-two A,’ and the other, ‘Twenty-two B.’” He flipped over the remaining stack of papers, gave them to Frank, and said, “This is a collection of Phil’s signatures, ones I took from different parts of the log, on different days. Now compare them to the ones you’re looking at there.”
Although the signatures were not identical, Frank knew that it was natural for slight variations to occur in a person’s signature. But even without closely examining them he could see that most of the examples Flynn showed him were generally formed in the same way, with characteristics that made them look more like the 22B than the 22A signature. The 22A was, indeed, slightly smaller than the others.
“That’s a sign of forgery, you know,” Flynn said. “I could show you half a dozen others in those examples — hesitations, the way the capital L in Lefebvre is formed, and so on.”
“So if someone forged his signature—”
“Someone else took the evidence.”
Frank was quiet.
Flynn said, “You’ve already come to that conclusion, though.”
“Yes. I think people in the department saw what they wanted to see, what they expected to see. So they didn’t look too closely. But this forgery of his signature might be the strongest proof of his innocence yet. Have you shown this to Joe Koza up in Questioned Documents?”
“No. He’s young and I don’t think he’s had a thing to do with any of this, but…”
Frank nodded. “I’m with you. Wait until we know more before word spreads.”
“Exactly.”
“I need to see that evidence box.”
“Just don’t forget about the pharaohs’ curse.”
“Believe me, I haven’t. But I still want to see this famous watch.”
“Not much to it. Maybe you can see something there that the last couple of fellows have missed. I hope your luck is better than Lefebvre’s or Bredloe’s. And I think I may just know the trick to help you avoid harm.”
“That rosary?” Frank asked, smiling.
“I don’t doubt it — but that’s not mine, believe it or not. One of our clerks is so spooked by what’s in that freezer, she won’t go in there unless she’s got that in her pocket. No, we’re going to change another little ritual for you.” He glanced at his watch and said, “We should be okay now. Let’s put the papers away — no one is going to believe we were
He gave all the photocopies to Frank, who folded them and tucked them inside his suit coat’s inner pocket as Flynn put the blueprint away.
“Let’s walk out,” Flynn said. “I’ll explain along the way.”
When they reached the beeper forest, Flynn said, “Someone checks that box out of here and bad things happen to him, right?”
“Yes, although I’m not quite as superstitious about it as you are.”
“It’s not superstition.”
“It might not be the watch. I think Lefebvre’s enemy was gunning for him before he saw the evidence.”
“Okay, but play along with me here. Just in case it’s seeing this watch that makes someone crazy, I’m not going to let you check that box out of here.”
“But I thought you said—”
“I’ll let you look at it, and now that everyone but my security officer has gone home for the day, we aren’t likely to be interrupted while you’re doing that. I think I’ll test a new, manual backup system this evening. And it just might take me a while to get my paperwork into the computer. That’s the only way I can figure it — someone has
