'You probably won't, Mr Kosinski,' Skinner answered, bluntly. 'Like I said earlier, this guy's been covering his tracks pretty careful y. So all you can do is to concentrate on the basics, and hope he's made a mistake.
You have to look out for the use of a stolen credit card, but that is not going to happen. No, I would send the forensic team back out to the cabin, and keep them at the house until they've been over every inch of it. Look for matches between the two locations; fingerprints, fibres from clothing…'
'Cigar butts?' murmured Barbara Weston sarcastically.
'Yes!' Skinner snapped at her. 'You never dismiss anything, until you've disproved it, or you're in neglect of your duty as an investigator.'
He looked at the Erie County detective chief. 'Right, Mr Brady?'
'Absolutely, sir,' the man concurred.
'That being the case…' he continued. 'Leo lovecr ars, but there were none in the cabin, so it's a real possibility that our man took them.
He's a cool bastard this one, so maybe, just maybe, he smoked one while he was going through the house. If he did, then, just maybe, he left the stub. Criminals have been caught through simpler mistakes than that.
There's a guy doing life in Britain who probably wouldn't have been convicted if he'd paid cash for his petrol on a few specific days, years before he was arrested.'
He turned to Schultz, who looked back at him, intently. 'Lieutenant, you should send your people back to that cabin and you tell them to look for cigar butts. Tell them to look in the garbage if they have to. If they find any, tel them to take saliva samples from every one, and do DNA comparisons against Leo Grace. If one doesn't match, that could be your killer.'
'It would be, surely, sir?' Kosinski said.
'Not necessarily, son. Leo was generous with his Monte Cristos; first Christmas after Sarah and I were married he sent me a box. He could have had friends for supper any time before he was kil ed and handed them round. I know that as part of your investigation you'l be trying to trace everyone who was in the cabin that last time they were there, to eliminate their fingerprints. If you find any, and if you find any butts, you should take spit samples as wel as prints.
'However, as I said, that's a long shot. Back to the basics; if you find any matching traces at both locations, other than of Leo and Susannah, you're on a winner. But even if you don't, you should feed every wild 92 nnAu anui print you have into your mainframe and see what you get. Fibre matches are more difficult, but you have to do them too. I'd suggest too that you make sure your teams take comparison samples from every garment, every towel, in the cabin and the house.
'You think this is overkil, Superintendent?' he asked, with a glance at Eddie Brady, the Erie County detective chief. 'Wel it ain't. It's what you have to do when you're dealing with a man like this. You have to look closely at the scene, then closer and closer and closer, until you find that one tiny mistake, the one that's going to catch him. You also have to look in the right way. I had an inquiry in Scotland a while back that might have been written off as a suicide, had a young police constable not looked at the scene and spotted something that to her eye was wrong.'
He grinned at Kosinski, Schultz and Small. 'Sorry, lads,' he chuckled.
'You're in for some boring times, but that's what you signed up for.'
He leaned back in his chair. 'That's what I'd do, Joe.'
The Deputy Director nodded. 'That's what'l happen. Now,' he went on, briskly, 'let's look at the other crimes we're targeting. First, the murder of Sander Garrett: Special Agent Brand, you wil go to Nevada, where you will interface with the City of North Las Vegas Police Department. I have already spoken to Chief of Police Hall, although I have not briefed him in detail on what this is all about. His is a small department, with fewer than two hundred officers, so he may well be glad to see you.
'Zak, I want you to examine the scope and structure of the investigation as it has been carried out so far, looking initially at the forensic reports on Mr Garrett's house. Chief Hall didn't say so, but I have a feeling that you won't find a hell of a lot. If you feel that it's necessary, and the crime scene is still reasonably intact, you have my authority to fly in a team of our people to go over the place with the same thoroughness that is being applied to the Grace residences. When you're satisfied that you have all you're gonna get, touch base with Troy to run comparisons on unidentified prints and fibre samples.
'Also, I want you to find out everything you can about Sander Garrett.
Give me a complete report on his career after his Washington years. He was stil a consultant to his law firm in Vegas, so you should interview the partners there and find out what he was into. Speak to any family members you can find and to any friends he had local y. Put together an up-to-date profile of the man and find out, if you can, just what he did in Washington. Make your own judgement about the local resources; if you have to, cal me and I'l detach people from the LA Bureau to work with you.
'Yes, sir,' Brand exclaimed. 'I'l leave as soon as this conference is over.'
'You do that,' Doherty agreed. 'That leaves us with the first-degree murder of Bartholomew Wilkins, formerly of Chicago, Illinois, now of Asshole, or rather, Helena, Montana.'
'Excuse me, sir.' Troy Kosinski raised a hand, his unlined, earnest face looking almost like that of a schoolboy. 'What about the political angle?'
'Leave that alone for now. It may be significant, it may not; let's just see what the co-ordinated investigation of the three locations has to throw up. Speaking of which…' Doherty's lean face creased in a mischievous grin.
'Like I said, I've been out of the field for years, andthis whole business intrigues me. So I thought I'd cover that end myself. The Helena Police Department has only seven detectives, so the Montana Department of Justice Criminal Bureau has been advising on the investigation; I'm meeting their chief tomorrow.'
He glanced at Skinner. 'Bob, it'll be a couple of days before the scene-of-crime teams are finished at the Grace residence. When does Sarah plan to arrive?'
'We're looking at next Monday. She wants to get the kids used to the idea of the nanny living in before she leaves them.'
'In that case, you'l have nothing to do but sit on your hands.. . unless you'd care to accompany me to the Queen City of the Rockies, as she likes to call herself.'
24
The address which McGuire's DSS friend had volunteered proved to be a tenement flat in a cul-de-sac off Newhaven Road, not far from its junction with Bonnington Road. The detective drove past the narrow entrance door, parked as close to it as he could, and walked back. He glanced at his watch; it was ten minutes to six; even if George Rosewell was a betting man, the last race was long past the post.
There had been no cal from Mrs Dewberry, but his instincts had told him not to expect one. His unwanted father-in-law was stil an absentee from a job which he would find was no longer there if he ever thought to return to it.
He came to the dirty green door that closed off the tenement stairway.
It was one of the few left in the city in which an entry-phone system had not been installed. It was stiff, but he shoved it firmly, wrenching it back on its dry hinges, hearing the squeal of wood on the concrete floor. A smell of urine and cabbage rol ed out to greet him, reminding him of visits to prisons he had made in his younger days in the force.
'Nice, Daddy, nice,' he murmured.
Rosewell's address was F2, second floor; he trudged up the stone staircase, noting that each step was worn in the centre with over a hundred years of use.
There were three doors on each landing; left, right and centre. The one for which he was looking faced him as he reached the top of the stair. It was grey; the gloss of its paint was long gone, and it was scuffed and scratched; the name was there, though, on a cheap white plastic plate below the letterbox. A narrow opaque glass panel was set at eye level; no light shone through it.
He pressed the bell button, but heard no sound from inside. He did it once more, for luck; stil silence.
