He started to say “Sorry,” but was interrupted by Jack Williamson, bitterly asking, “You got a good look, I hope?”
He turned his back to Williamson and touched Detective Lassiter’s arm.
“You get anything out of him?” and then, before she could reply, asked, “Why didn’t you get him out of here?”
“I was just getting him calmed down enough to talk when you walked in,” she said. “He doesn’t want to leave, and I didn’t want to push him.”
“Come with me,” Matt said.
“That sounds like an order,” she said.
“Okay,” Matt said. “It was a request, a suggestion, but I want you to come with me.”
She met his eyes defiantly for a moment, then shrugged and turned away from the open door.
Matt walked to the couch. Jack Williamson looked up at him with cold contempt.
“Mr. Williamson, I’m Sergeant Payne. I’m the Homicide supervisor, and I need to talk to you, and we can’t do that in here. In just a few minutes, there will be technicians all over the place, and we can’t be in their way. I want you to come with Detective Lassiter and me to someplace where we can talk. Okay?”
“The lady next door offered anything we need,” Olivia said. “What about her kitchen? She had said she would put a pot of coffee on.”
“We’ll just sit around and have a friendly cup of coffee, right? And maybe a Big Mac? With my sister like that in there?”
“We have to talk someplace, Mr. Williamson, and we have to get out of the way of the technicians, and sitting down over a cup of coffee seems a better idea to me than standing on the sidewalk,” Matt said. “What do you say?”
Williamson shrugged, a gesture of surrender, and stood up.
“Mrs. McGrory, this is Sergeant Payne of Homicide. We have to talk, privately, to Mr. Williamson,” Olivia said when Mrs. McGrory answered her knock. “Could we use your kitchen?”
“Certainly.”
“Thank you very much,” Matt said, as she led them in her kitchen.
“Anything I can do to help. There’s a fresh pot in the Mr. Coffee. Just help yourself.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Matt said.
“I feel just terrible about this, especially with the cops being outside while it was happening.”
“We don’t know for sure that’s what happened, Mrs. McGrory,” Matt said.
“Of course, that’s what happened. I was here, wasn’t I?”
“Thank you very much, Mrs. McGrory,” Olivia said, easing her out of the kitchen and then closing the door.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Matt suggested to Williamson. “I’ll get the coffee. How do you take yours, Mr. Williamson?”
“Black,” Williamson said.
“Black,” Olivia said.
Olivia and Williamson sat down at the kitchen table while Matt took the glass decanter and poured coffee into ceramic mugs. He walked to the table and set the mugs on it.
“Okay,” Matt said. “Let’s get a couple of things understood between us, Mr. Williamson. I don’t know what happened last night, when Mrs. McGrory called the police, and I don’t care.”
“You don’t fucking care?” Williamson asked, disgusted and incredulous.
“My job is to find the person, or persons, who killed your sister, and see that when they’re brought to trial they won’t walk out of the courtroom because some legal ‘t’ wasn’t crossed or some legal ‘i’ didn’t have a dot. I understand that you’re unhappy with what you think happened last night.”
“What happened last night was that the fucking cops didn’t do a goddamn thing to help my sister.”
“If you believe the police did something they shouldn’t have, or didn’t do something they should have, you have every right to make an official complaint-”
“Fucking-A right, I do. And I will.”
“But I think you’ll agree, Mr. Williamson, that right now the priority is to find out who did this thing, and the sooner the better. Would you agree with that?”
“Jesus, of course I ‘agree with that.’ All I’m saying is that if those fucking cops had done what they were supposed to do last night, my sister would still be alive.”
“There’s one more thing, Mr. Williamson,” Matt said. “Your language is beginning to offend me. I hope you’ll watch your mouth. I would really rather not have you transported to Homicide and placed in an interview room until you get your emotions under control.”
Williamson glared at him but didn’t say anything.
Matt opened his briefcase and took out his laptop.
“What’s that for?”
“I’m one of those guys who can’t read his own writing,” Matt said. “I take notes this way. Are you objecting to it?”
“If I did?”
“Then I’ll take out a notebook and ballpoint, and waste a lot of time trying to make sense of my notes when I finally have to type them up. All right?”
Williamson shrugged. Matt turned the laptop on and began to type.
“Is it ‘Jack,’ Mr. Williamson?”
“John J. For Joseph.”
“What’s your first name and badge number, Lassiter?”
“Olivia, 582,” she furnished.
“Okay, Mr. Williamson, let’s start with your personal data,” Matt said. “Residence?”
Twenty minutes later, Matt said, “I think that’ll be enough for the time being, Mr. Williamson.”
“Okay.”
“You know how to work a laptop?”
Williamson nodded.
Matt slid the laptop in front of him.
“Would you take a look at that, please, and see if I’ve got it right?”
Williamson read the several pages Matt had typed and then nodded his head, “okay.”
Matt turned the laptop off, closed the cover, and put it back in his briefcase.
“When I get that printed, Mr. Williamson, I’ll have a detective-most likely Detective Lassiter-bring it to you for your signature.”
“When?” Williamson asked.
“It’ll wait until tomorrow,” Matt said. “I know that you’re going to be busy today. I’ll call you tomorrow to see when it will be convenient.”
“I have to tell you this,” Williamson said. “When my mother hears about what happened last night, this morning, with the cops… God!”
“I’m not trying to talk you out of filing a formal complaint,” Matt said, “honestly, I’m not. But for what it’s worth, from what I’ve heard, the officers who responded to the ‘Disturbance, House’ call were just going by the book. If they had any indication that something-anything-was going wrong, had gone wrong, in the apartment, they would have taken action.”
Williamson looked at him but didn’t respond directly.
“What am I supposed to do if my mother wants to come here?”
“Well, right now she can’t have access to the apartment. Not today, and probably not tomorrow, either. Tell her that.”
“Jesus Christ!” Williamson said.
“I’d be happy to go with you, Mr. Williamson,” Detective Lassiter said. “If you think it would make things any easier. And I’d like to talk to her, too. That doesn’t have to be right now. Your call.”
“It couldn’t do any harm,” Williamson said. “And maybe, if you were there…”
“If you’ll give me your cellular number, Sergeant, I’ll call and let you know how things went,” Detective
