Trial By Fury

"Okay, you guys," the other said. "Here go the lights."

With that, he turned out all the lights in the room. We were plunged into darkness. The only illumination was the finger of light from the printfinder as it played over the glowing powder and the periodic flashes from a 35-mm camera as the other investigator snapped pictures.

I felt like a kid who had stumbled into a midnight session with a Ouija board. There was nothing to do but stand there with my hands in my pockets and wait as the investigator ran the lens in the end of a length of fiber optic cable over everything that wasn't readily movable and bagged up everything that was.

He picked up prints from everywhere-the table, the refrigerator, the bathroom counter and mirror, the couch and chair in the living room, all the while recording the prints on film for later examination. Not only did the laser pick up prints, it also located other bits of trace evidence-hairs and fiber fragments that would have been tough to find with the naked eye.

Finally, tired of doing nothing, the rest of the team went outside. The other homicide detectives gathered a series of paint scraping samples from the handrail on the stairs. I showed them which garbage can had held the painting debris I had discovered earlier in the evening when I had been looking for something to use to clean my hands.

Fascinated by the workings of the laser, I went back inside and followed the deputy around like a puppy. I was so intrigued with the process that I failed to notice when one of the crime lab boys came to the door and motioned Watty aside. Moments later, Watty switched on the lights.

"Hey, why'd you do that?" the laser operator griped.

"Can you take that thing outside?" Watty demanded. He looked more anxious, more upset, than I had ever seen him. His whole demeanor vibrated with unmistakable urgency.

"Now?"

Watty nodded.

"I guess we can finish up in here later," the tech grumbled. "But I'll have to get the van to fire up the generator. I thought we were going to be inside. Nobody told me we'd be working outside. I need a place to plug all this shit in."

"What's up?" I asked Watty as soon as they called the deputy back upstairs to carry the equipment down to the alley. "What did they find?"

"Come see for yourself," Watty said grimly.

I followed him outside and down the steps. The King County van had been moved farther down the alley and was parked next to the garbage can. The deputy was busy hauling out power cables to hook the laser up outside.

As we started away from them without acknowledging their presence, the members of the press put up a hell of a fuss.

"Ignore them," Watty ordered. I was only too happy to oblige.

We walked down the alley and gathered around the garbage can like a group of male witches around a mysterious cauldron. Standing to one side, I watched as the laser operator lowered his cable into the can. The brilliant light illuminated only a tiny area at a time. Someone had removed the top layer of paint-sodden rags. I moved even closer to see what had been unearthed, what the light was focusing on.

It was a bottle, a tiny medicine bottle, the kind liquid narcotics are stored in before someone sucks them into a syringe.

I turned to Watty then. "Morphine?" I asked.

He nodded, saying nothing.

"Oh, shit!" I muttered. Sick with dread, I turned to walk away.

Just beyond the police barricade, a camera-man caught me walking back down the alley. As I passed him, I was aware of the red light from his videocam shining full on my face. It was then I realized I had never called Ames to let him know what was going on, and here I was, live, on the eleven o'clock news.

I wanted to grab the camera out of the man's hands and shove it down his throat. I didn't.

Excessive common sense is one of the few side benefits of advancing middle age.

Unfortunately, it's also a symptom of despair.

CHAPTER 26

We went back into Candace Wy

I lost all track of time. Long after one in the morning somebody thought to reach down behind the couch cushions. There, stuck in the crack between the springs and the back of the couch, we discovered a small, dark, leather wallet. I recognized it at once.

"That's Peters'," I said.

Sure enough. Inside we found both his badge and his departmental ID. I felt like somebody had kicked me in the stomach.

Right up until then, I suppose I'd kept hoping I was wrong. Hoping that, despite the mounting evidence, Peters would show up and chew my butt for pushing panic buttons when he was just out knocking off a piece of ass. Finding his badge corked it for me. Cops don't get separated from their badges without a fight. Or without a reason.

When we finally left Candace Wy

With every moment vital, it was frustrating to realize that the process, which would take several hours of manual labor, could have been done in a matter of seconds with a computerized fingerprint identification unit. The last request for one had been turned down cold by the state legislature.

When I finished my report, I stamped around the fifth floor, railing at anybody who would listen about goddamned stupid legislators who were pe

In the meantime, another team downstairs had tackled the paint samples. It turns out that paint samples take a hell of a lot less time to compare than fingerprints. My friend, Janice Morraine, called me at my desk about three-thirty in the morning to let me know that the samples taken from Candace Wy

That one little chip of information told me who. It didn't tell me why or how. And it didn't give me a clue as to where she was right then.

I left the office about four. I had caught my second wind. Instead of driving home to my apartment, I headed for Kirkland. I needed to talk to Ames and tell him what we had found, to say nothing of what we hadn't. I also needed his calm assessment of the situation.

Much to my surprise, even at that late hour the lights were blazing in Peters' living room. I peered in the window of the door and caught a glimpse of Ames ' head peeking over the back of a chair. His face was pointed at a snowy, otherwise blank television screen on the other side of the room.

A series of light taps on the window brought Ames scrambling to his feet. "Who is it?" He opened the door, then stood back, rubbing his eyes. "Oh, it's you," he mumbled. "Did you find anything?"

Ames led me into the kitchen, where we scrounged around for sandwich makings while I told him what I knew. He nodded as I talked.

"I watched the news at eleven," he commented somberly. "The reporters didn't have any idea what was going on, but I could tell it wasn't good."

"Did Heather and Tracie see it?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Mrs. Edwards finally talked them into bed about ten."