Four Walls Read online

  As soon as Sheldon came to him saying that they needed to reconstruct Malik Washburne's murder with the new information that showed he died from his throat closing up, Danny immediately ran to the computer like a kid on Christmas morning. Sheldon, of course, let him, knowing that Danny would piss and moan if he ran the program without him.

  Danny could be a magnificent pain in the ass. He viewed it as one of his finest qualities.

  Sheldon didn't, which was why he let Danny run the program.

  "Okay," Danny said, cracking his knuckles as he sat down at the ergonomic keyboard that Mac insisted on them using. He hated the stupid things, but every time he complained, Mac would e-mail him multiple studies on repetitive stress injuries until Danny shut up. Mac could also be a magnificent pain in the ass when he put his mind to it, only he was more subtle about it.

  Danny didn't do subtle. It wasted too much energy.

  First he called up the autopsy records for Malik Washburne and entered it into the CAD program. Immediately, an image of a generic male human figure of Washburne's height, weight, and build appeared on all three monitors in front of him. Then he created a second, identical image.

  Sheldon had his full report from the crime scene, and he read out the dimensions of the weight bench, the barbell, and the doughnut weights that were on it. The crime-scene photos placed everything, including the doughnut weights that were on the barbell and the one on the ground.

  "Hang on," Danny said. "Why would the weight be on the ground?"

  "That's where we found it," Sheldon said.

  "Yeah, but why would Washburne have an uneven number of weights?"

  "Dunno, but let's start with it there and see where it goes."

  "Yeah." He placed everything where it belonged, putting one of the Washburne figures on the weight bench in the standard position and the other one where the body lay, based on Sheldon's photos.

  Next they had to enter more precise information. Danny created another generic male figure. "Where'd you find the thread on Washburne's body from the guy's pants?"

  Sheldon reached over and grabbed the mouse.

  "Hey! Who's doing this?" Danny protested.

  "I could take half an hour to explain it, or I could just point the damn mouse," Sheldon said with a good-natured grin.

  Sighing dramatically, Danny leaned back and said, "Fine, fine, steal my thunder."

  Shaking his head, Sheldon said, "You are such a geek."

  "Yeah, bite me, Doc."

  Once Sheldon clicked on the spot where they found the thread, Danny gently pushed him out of the way and started entering in the trajectory he needed the second figure to take in order to leave the thread.

  "Now for the real important question-how hard does he have to hit in order to knock Washburne onto the floor?"

  "Average foot speed for someone walking is three miles an hour," Sheldon said. "Well, actually, it's between two-point-eight and three-point-two miles an hour, but we should start with that."

  "You know that off the top of your head, but I'm the geek?"

  "Absolutely," Sheldon deadpanned.

  Danny chuckled. "That's probably too slow, but you're right, it's a good start." He entered three miles per hour and had the second body walk in such a way that his left hip (where the seam was) would hit Washburne in the right spot in the shoulder.

  The figure moved across the screen, and Washburne barely budged.

  Sheldon rubbed his chin. "If he was reacting to Barker getting stabbed, he probably wasn't walking at a leisurely pace."

  "Didn't I say that?" Danny asked with a cheeky grin. "Let's make it eight."

  "I was thinking ten," Sheldon said.

  "Well, you're the expert on foot speed," Danny said dryly, "but that weight yard wasn't that big, and it was filled to capacity. Even if he was motorin', he wasn't gonna be able to go much more than eight."

  Tilting his head to the side, Sheldon said, "Yeah, okay, let's go with eight."

  "Glad you approve."

  "Hey, this is my half of the case. You got the dunker, remember?"

  "Oh yeah, exciting stuff. The guy confessed, and I got prints on the murder weapon that matched the guy who confessed. Wasn't exactly breakin' my brain, y'know? Flack may like the dunkers, but me? I like a challenge."

  "That why you chased Lindsay to Montana?" Sheldon was grinning as he said that. "What's happening with you two anyhow?"

  "We're friends and colleagues," was all Danny would say, not wanting to give Sheldon the satisfaction of sharing gossip, especially when the gossip was about him. After a rocky start, Danny and Lindsay Monroe's relationship had taken a turn for the better ever since he took personal time and flew out to Bozeman to lend moral support when Lindsay testified against Kadems.

  But Danny was still pissed that he was the last to know about Mac and Dr. Driscoll, so he intended to keep everyone in the dark as long as he could get away with it.

  "Okay," he said, dragging them back to the subject at hand, "eight miles an hour. Let's see what we got."

  This time the second figure collided with Washburne hard enough to knock the body off the bench. He hit his head on the edge of the barbell and fell to the ground, but not in a position that matched that of the second Washburne.

  Sheldon was shaking his head. "That doesn't work. The body's in the wrong place-and even if you figure it's been moved, or we got a variable wrong, there's also the fact that there's no blood on the barbell, and the barbell couldn't have caused that wound in the first place."

  "Yeah, but look at the placement." Danny pointed at the spot on the barbell where Washburne's head had hit in the second simulation. "Let's try putting the weight where it's supposed to be, on the end of the barbell." Using the mouse, Danny moved it from the ground to that spot.

  He ran the sim again, at the same speed. Again the second figure hit Washburne. Again Washburne hit his head on the barbell and fell in the wrong spot.

  "Move the weight," Sheldon said. "Maybe they weren't on evenly."

  Nodding, Danny shifted the weight so it would be right where Washburne's head hit. Again he ran it at eight miles per hour.

  Washburne hit this time, but in the wrong place on his head, and he didn't fall to the ground anywhere near the second Washburne.

  "I'll make him go faster. Guy just got shivved, I bet he's runnin'. 'Sides, the faster he goes, the more likely there is to be that thread transfer."

  Sheldon shrugged. "Fair enough. Worth a shot, anyhow."

  Upping it to eleven miles an hour, Danny ran it again. This time Washburne's head hit the spot between two of the weights, so he moved the weight back to its first position and ran it again.

  This time, not only did Washburne's head hit the weight in the right spot, but the weight fell off in the right spot and Washburne's body fell in the same location as the second body. It wasn't a one hundred percent matchup, but it was close enough to establish that that was likely what had happened.

  "So that's it," Sheldon said. "Washburne's throat closes up. He can't call for help, and he dies on the bench. Mulroney stabs Barker. Everyone in the yard comes running to see what's going on, and one of them bumps Washburne, transferring a fiber to his shoulder and knocking him into the weight, which causes the wound and also knocks the weight to the ground."

  Danny nodded. "Only one problem-how'd Melendez's print get on the weight?"

  "He probably used the weight. Hell, so many people touched that thing, the print hit was always going to be circumstantial just by virtue of Melendez being one of the people in the yard. He had every reason to touch it."

  "Yeah." Danny saved the latest simulation to the folder for the report on the Washburne-Barker double homicide. Another advantage of the CAD program was that it recorded all the information that had been entered, so it could be used in court. Danny wasn't sure how useful this would be, or even if the case would go to trial-with anaphylactic shock as the COD, it was more than likely there was no murderer to try-but the file still
needed to be complete.

  Stretching his back so a couple of vertebrae cracked, he got up and said, "Pleasure workin' with you, Doc. Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta see a man about a dog."

  In fact, he had a date with Lindsay, assuming she was done with whatever she and Stella were doing for the Campagna case.

  If she wasn't, he'd wait. She was worth it.

  18

  LINDSAY MONROE OPENED THE evidence envelope and plucked out the gold necklace.

  The first thing she did was lay it down gently on the white surface of the big table in the crime lab, with the tiny stain visible, and photograph it. After taking several shots of it as a whole, she attached the Sigma telephoto lens to the camera and zoomed in on the stain itself.

  She grabbed a sterile cotton swab and moistened it with distilled water, then applied it to the necklace where the stain was. The blood obligingly came off on the swab.

  She applied part of the sample on the swab to a plastic container. Then she brought the swab over to the matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrograph. The MALDI would measure the mass-to-charge ratio of the ions, which would enable Lindsay to discover the molecular nature of the sample. In this particular case, it would allow her to identify the species of the sample's source from the hemogloblin in the blood.

  While she waited for that analysis to complete, she brought the plastic container to the DNA lab.

  She saw the blond-haired head of Jane Parsons sitting at her desk. Turning around at Lindsay's entrance, she smiled raggedly and said, "Ah-beware Montanans bearing gifts."

  Lindsay smiled. "Sorry, but I've got blood."

  "Don't we all?" She shook her head. "Sorry-had a long night. I've been dating this nice young ER doctor, and he keeps odd hours."

  "When do you get to see him?" Lindsay asked. She knew that emergency-room physicians kept hours that were as long as they were odd. She'd gotten to know a couple of ER docs since coming to New York. Often during assault and rape cases, she'd have to go to the ER at Bellevue or Cabrini or St. Luke's-Roosevelt or somewhere. In particular, Lindsay had had to do a lot of rape kits, since it was generally preferred that female techs do those, and Stella wasn't always available. But the docs in the ER were constantly talking about their lack of a social life.

  "Not very often, which is why I take advantage when I can. I joked with him last night that he should become a librarian-their hours are a trifle more sane. Besides, he likes to read, it'd be good work for him. And I'm babbling, I'm sorry-what've you got for me?"

  Handing over the sample, Lindsay said, "This is for the Campagna case. It might be the vic's, but if it isn't, we need to know. First person to check it against after the vic is Jack Morgenstern-he's in the system. And then do the reference samples that are in the case file."

  "All right. Oh, and the results are back on the trace around the vic's knuckles. Hang on." Jane started digging around on her desk. "I swear, I was organized once." She finally liberated the proper folder. "I'm afraid there's no love there-the blood and epithelials you found were all hers. The only way it's a transfer is if she was killed by a family member."

  "Thanks, Jane. And I hope you and the ER doc are able to make it work."

  "I'm sure we will, somehow. Pity he can't actually become a librarian."

  Frowning, Lindsay asked, "Why not?"

  "You need a degree for that, I'm afraid. And the only master's degree my young man has is in biology."

  Lindsay had no idea you needed a master's degree to be a librarian, but that was neither here nor there. "Well, I'm sure you two will work it out."

  "Let's hope, shall we? We don't have it as easy as you and Danny do."

  Having already turned to leave, Lindsay stopped dead in her tracks. "What're you talking about?" She tried desperately to sound casual and hoped it worked.

  "Don't be coy, Lindsay. He flew to Montana for you. I've known the good Mr. Messer for some time-he wouldn't willingly cross the Hudson River without good cause, much less go somewhere like the Show-me State."

  Chuckling, Lindsay said, "That's Missouri."

  "Beg pardon?"

  "Missouri is the Show-me State. Montana is the Treasure State. Or Big Sky Country."

  "There's treasure in Montana?"

  Lindsay smiled, remembering something Danny had said: that Montana's best treasure was in New York now. It was one of the most romantic things Danny had said to her-not that the competition was fierce, as Danny wasn't good at romantic sayings. Gestures, yes, but the actual words had a hard time making it through his sarcasm filter.

  To Parsons, she only said, "There's some left, yeah. Let me know about the blood."

  "I will. And best of luck with Danny."

  Tempted to say "I don't think I need it," Lindsay just nodded and left. Things had been going really well for them, after a rocky start. Still, they were taking it very slow. Office romances were fraught with peril, and they didn't want to risk the work. They also weren't completely sure how Mac would respond to two people on the same team having a relationship, though Danny seemed to think that he didn't have a leg to stand on, considering his relationship with Peyton.

  But Peyton wasn't on the team. It wasn't the same thing.

  However, she'd worry about that later. While she was waiting for Parsons and the MALDI to finish their respective work, she returned to the necklace.

  Something had been bothering her about the necklace from the moment she walked into the Rosengauses' apartment, and looking at it now, she finally realized what it was: it was sparkling. Gold necklaces didn't stay that clean without a great deal of effort on the part of the owner.

  Repeating the steps she'd taken with the dried blood, Lindsay used the cotton swab on a cleaner part of the necklace, hoping that the residue that came off would be something useful. Bringing it over to the MALDI, she saw that the mass spectrometer had just finished on the dried blood sample. Grabbing the printout from the printer attached to the MALDI, she saw that the hemoglobin came from human blood, type AB-negative.

  Now she put the new sample into the mass spectrometer and ran it. While she waited, she returned to the necklace, examining it closely but not finding anything else of use. However, she did call up the autopsy photos and compared the photos she'd taken of the lobster-claw clasp to that of the abrasion on the back of Maria Campagna's neck. It wasn't a perfect match-one of the first things she learned in the Bozeman crime lab was that there was no such animal-but it was a very close match. Certainly close enough to convince a jury that the necklace belonged to her and that she'd worn it regularly.

  When the MALDI finished, Lindsay looked at the molecular composition and found her memory jogged to a case she'd had back home a few years earlier. It was very similar to a sample from that rash of home robberies. The perp's lawyer had claimed that the jewelry recovered wasn't the same as the jewelry that was reported stolen, and one of the ways Lindsay had been able to prove the lawyer wrong was by testing the residue of silver polish and gold cleaner on the recovered jewelry against what the victim used.

  Right now, she was staring at a molecular composition that bore a very close resemblance to the ones she saw from the mass spectrometer back in Bozeman.

  She was flipping through patent applications on the computer when Stella came in, shrugging into a white lab coat. "How goes it?"

  "Not bad. All done with Cabrera?"

  Stella nodded. "Yeah, the testimony'll be a breeze. Anything on that necklace?"

  Handing the results from the MALDI to her, Lindsay said, "The blood's definitely human. Type AB-negative. Jane's running it now. Oh, and she said that the only DNA on Maria's knuckles was Maria's."

  "Damn." Stella scanned the results. "Morgenstern's O-positive."

  "There's more," Lindsay said. She knew Stella and Angell both had latched onto Morgenstern as a suspect, so she knew that this news wouldn't be well received. "I examined the necklace, and besides the blood, there's residue from another substance. I've
been checking it against patent applications, and I've got a hit." She pointed at the flat-screen monitor in front of her. Two identical molecular compositions were in two windows on the screen, but one image came from the U.S. Patent Office and the other from the New York Crime Lab. "This is a gold and silver cleaner that went on the market earlier this year."

  Stella was impressed. "Why'd you go straight to the patent applications?"

  "It looked similar to the usual gold and silver cleaners that I've seen, but it was different enough that I figured it was something new. We had a case back in Bozeman involving this stuff. I got to learn more than I thought it was possible to know about what you use to clean jewelry. Besides, apart from the bloodstain, the necklace was very clean, so cleaning products made sense."

  Nodding, Stella said, "That tracks with what Angell got out of the other employees. She reinterviewed Annie Wolfowitz, the one Maria was supposed to close with last night. She said that the necklace was clean when she saw it last and that Maria was obsessive about keeping it shiny."

  "I think that's part of why Dina stole it," Lindsay said. "Maria was constantly showing it off and reminding everyone that her boyfriend got it for her. Not that I blame her-it's eighteen karat. That isn't cheap."

  Letting out a long sigh, Stella said, "The problem is, all of this is telling us that it probably isn't Morgenstern. Whoever left this blood trace is probably our killer, and we don't know who it is."

  * * *

  Stella was growing quite frustrated with the Campagna case. Lindsay's work on the necklace had been superb, but mostly what it did was eliminate Jack Morgenstern as a suspect, which put them back at square one.

  When Mac returned from Staten Island, Stella asked to see him for a brainstorming session. She brought Lindsay and Angell along as well.

  Just as they were settling down, Parsons sent Stella a text message. Stella read it and sighed. "DNA on the blood isn't Morgenstern's or Maria's and it doesn't match any of the reference samples we got. So not only is Morgenstern clear, but so are Dina and all the other people who work there, and so's the boyfriend."