'Sergeant, I'd like a set of these pictures for my report,' Washington said. 'The negatives, I guess, are in the photo lab?'
'The guy that runs the lab is a pal of mine,' Dolan said. 'I'll give him a ring and have him run you off a set.'
'Thank you,' Washington said. 'Looking at them again, does anything new come to your mind?'
'Not a fucking thing,' Dolan said firmly.
'Well, we tried,' Washington said.
'Is that all?'
'Unless you can think of something.'
'Not a fucking thing. If I think of something, I'll give you a call.'
'I'd really appreciate that,' Washington said.
'And like I said, I'll call my friend in the photo lab and have him run off a set of prints for you.'
'Thank you,' Washington said.
Jason Washington parked his unmarked car in the parking lot behind the Roundhouse at 7^th and Race and walked purposefully toward the building.
There are four anomalies vis-a-vis Sergeant Dolan and his photographs.
One, Dolan had told me that he and his partner had been trailing the Detweiler girl and had trailed her to the parking garage. There were no photographs of Penelope Detweiler; they were all of Anthony J. DeZego. Why?
Two, there were no photographs of Matt Payne and his girlfriend in the Porsche. If he thought Matt was dealing drugs, there should have been.
Three, there were only thirteen photographs in the stack Dolan showed me. Thirty-five millimeter film comes in twenty-four- and thirty-six-exposure rolls. Ordinarily almost every frame on a roll of film is exposed, and ordinarily every exposed frame on a roll is printed. And since it is better to have too many photographs than too few, it seemed likely that Dolan would have taken far more than thirteen photographs during the time he had been watching DeZego. Probably a roll at the hotel, and then a fresh one, starting from the moment DeZego left the hotel. Probably a thirty-six-exposure roll, so he wouldn't run out at the wrong time. That's what I would have done.
Four, he suddenly turned obliging at the end. He would call a pal in the photo lab and have his pal make a set of prints and send, them to me. Had he suddenly joined the Urban League and vowed to lean over backward in the interests of racial harmony and/or interdepartmental cooperation? Or did he want to control what pictures the lab sent me to include in my report?
Three guys were on duty in the photo lab. One of them seemed less than overjoyed to see Detective Jason Washington. Washington consequently headed straight for him.
'Morning!' he said cheerfully.
'I just this minute got off the phone,' the lab guy, a corporal, said. 'With Dolan, I mean.'
'Good,' Washington said. 'Then you know why I'm here.'
'I'll get to it as soon as I can,' the corporal said. 'You want to come by about two, or do you want I should send them to you?'
'I want them now,' Washington heard himself say. 'Didn't Sergeant Dolan tell you that?'
'What do you mean, 'now'?'
'Like, I'll wait,' Washington said.
'It don't work that way, Washington, you know that. Other people are in line ahead of you.'
'No,' Washington said. 'I'm at the head of line.'
'The fuck you are!'
'Well, you can either take my word for that or we can call Inspector Wohl and he'll tell you I'm at the head of the line.'
'Wohl don't run the photo lab,' the corporal said.
This Irish bastard is sweating too. What the hell have I found here?
'Well, you tell him that.'
'What I am going to do is find the lieutenant and ask him what to do about your coming in here like Jesus Christ Almighty. Who the fuck do you think you are, anyway?'
'Let's go see him together,' Washington said.
'I'llgo see him,' the corporal said.'You read the fucking sign.' He pointed to the sign: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY IN THE LAB.
'I'm surprised,' Jason Washington said as he ducked inside the counter, 'that an experienced, well-educated police officer such as yourself hasn't learned that there is an exception to every rule.'
'You lost your fucking mind or what, Washington?'
That's entirely possible. But the essence of my professional experience as a police officer is that there are times when you should go with a gut feeling. And this is one of those times. I have a gut feeling that if I let you out of my sight, that roll, or rolls, of film are going to turn up missing.
What the hell are these two up to?
The corporal turned surprisingly docile when they were actually standing before the lieutenant's desk. His indignation vanished.
'Sir,' he said, 'Detective Washington has an unusual request that I thought you should handle.'
'Hello, Jason,' the lieutenant said. 'Long time no see. How are things out in the country? Do you miss the big city?'
'I would hate to think the lieutenant was making fun of our happy home at Bustleton and Bowler,' Washington said. 'Where the deer and the antelope play.'
'Who, me?' the lieutenant chuckled. 'What can we do for you?'
'I'm working the DeZego job,' Washington said.
'So I heard.'
'Sergeant Dolan of Narcotics shot a roll of film. I need prints this time yesterday.'
'You got the negatives?' the lieutenant asked the corporal, who nodded. 'You got it, Jason. Anything else?'
'I want to take the negatives with me.'
After only a second's hesitation the lieutenant said, 'Sign a receipt and they're yours.'
'And I may want some blown up specially,' Washington said. 'Could I go in the darkroom with him?'
'Sure. That's it?'
Since your face reflected a certain attitude of unease when you heard that I want to go into the darkroom with you, Corporal, and that I'm taking the negatives with me, I will go into the darkroom with you and I will take the negatives with me. What the hell is it with these photographs?
'Yes, sir. Thank you very much.'
'Anytime, Jason. That's what we're here for.'
The corporal became the spirit of cooperation, to the point of offering Washington a rubber apron once they entered the darkroom.
If I were a suspicious man, Washington thought, or a cynic, I might think that he has considered the way the wind is blowing, and also that if anything is amiss, he didn't do it, or at least can't blamed for it, and has now decided that Dolan can swing in the wind all by himself.
There was only one roll of film, a thirty-six-exposure roll.
'Hold it up to the light,' the corporal said. 'Or, if you'd like, I can make you a contact sheet. Take only a minute.'
'A what?'
'A print of every negative in negative size on a piece of eightby-ten.'
'Why don't you just feed the roll through the enlarger?' Washington asked.
Jason Washington was not exactly a stranger to the mysteries of a darkroom. Years before, he had even fooled around with souping and printing his own 35-mm black-and-white film. That had ended when Martha said the
