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By then, it was after five.
I phoned the lab and spoke to the director, Eugene Hallows.
“Got anything for me, Gene?”
“Plenty.”
He told me that Marty’s car was still being processed, that I had new tires on my Explorer, and that he would have my car delivered to the Hall in the morning. As for the shell casings I’d found next to it, there were no prints on them or on the damaged lead retrieved from the old tires.
“And the napkin note?”
“Nothing to compare it with,” he said.
“Gotcha. Thanks, Gene.”
Well, wedidhave something to compare it with.
Alvarez, Rich, and I were back in our pod and it was very quiet. Rich was filling out paperwork three feet to my left. Alvarez was writing up the airport arrest and I was answering email. And I was having a fantasy that confetti was going to drop from the ceiling or the chief of police was going to come downstairs, shake our hands, and give us field bonuses.
Barring that, I still had a feeling that we weren’t done until the shooter who’d blown out my tires was no longer driving around with a loaded .38 looking for me.
“Rich?”
“Yup.”
“You still have that matchbook cover? The one with the writing on the back?”
“Christ. I meant to turn it in to the evidence room.” He opened his desk drawer, took out the glassine envelope with the matchbook reading“Bet I get you”—and the reply—“All bets are off, Marty.”
I had a copy of the paper-napkin threat, printed in pencil in block letters. Of course the letters were larger on the napkin than on the matchbook cover, but I saw a distinct similarity in the lower loops of the letters and the shape of thea’s in the second line.
Rich said, “We’re going to need an expert to compare them.”
“I may have a connection,” I said.
CHAPTER 37
CONKLIN, ALVAREZ, AND I were at our desks, the pod crowded with extra chairs, when Alvarez said, “While we were out…”
What now?
“I found something in the Joanna Lake files we got from Leo Spinogatti.”
“I’m ready for it,” I said.
Alvarez smiled and said, “The last time Cavanaugh was in lockup pending arraignment, his gun was in the property room. When he didn’t claim it, it was archived. I checked. We still have Goose’s old gun.”
Alvarez said, “For laughs, I sent it out to the lab. Asked Gene to have it taken apart. To look at every part of that gun, swab everything. Spare nothing. I told him that we had the gun’s owner in custody.”
“CSU found something?”
She nodded, wearing a huge grin. And then she told me. “They found something. Has to be processed but the results should be in in a day or two.”
“Good police work, Sonia. Mind if I give you a hug?”
She didn’t mind. She did blush, though. Which made me smile. I downloaded the audio files with the recordings from the hospital, and emailed them downstairs to be transcribed. Before I left for the day in my loaner car, I called Joe.
“I’m on my way home. I should be inside the living room in seventeen and a half minutes.”
