Final justice - W.E.B. Griffin [175]
They found seats in the next-to-the-last row and tried to look inconspicuous.
There were a number of police officers in the courtroom, most of them on the bench side of the barrier. Two of them stood out. One was a short, trim man in a neat, white shirt uniform. On each of his collar points was a colonel's eagle. In the Philadelphia police department, that was the uniform insignia of a chief inspector. Inspector Peter Wohl, on those rare occasions when he wore a uniform, wore a silver leaf, the same insignia as that of a lieutenant colonel.
When the man wearing the colonel's eagles looked at them with unabashed curiosity, Matt decided he had to be Chief Yancey, and had the unkind thought that the Homicide Unit of the Philadelphia police department probably outnumbered the Daphne police department, and that Captain Quaire only got to wear the insignia of a captain.
The second police officer who stood out looked, Matt thought, as if he could be Jason Washington's younger brother. He was an enormous, very black sergeant. He was quietly talking on a cellular phone, which almost disappeared in his massive hand.
It didn't take either Matt or Olivia long to figure out what was going on. This was Municipal Court, primarily occupied with misdemeanor level violations of the law, primarily traffic offenses.
And it was a smooth-running operation. The clerk called a case number. The accused, sometimes accompanied by his counsel, or his mother and/or father, approached the bench. One of the uniforms then detached himself from the knot of fellow police officers and stood facing the bench. The clerk read the charges, and the judge asked how the defendant pled. If the defendant pled "guilty," sentence was immediately dispensed. If the defendant pled "not guilty," the arresting officer testified, the defendant (or his counsel, but not, Matt noted with a smile, his mother and/or father) was permitted to cross-examine the uniform, and when that was done, the judge immediately decided guilt or innocence and handed out the sentence.
Then the next case was called.
A hand tapped Matt's shoulder. He looked around and saw a middle-aged man he instantly decided was a lawyer. The lawyer was pointing to the cracked-open double doors of the courtroom. Matt saw the enormous sergeant beckoning to him.
He and Olivia made their way through the standees in the rear of the courtroom and out the door.
"You're the cop from Philadelphia?" the enormous sergeant asked in a thick southern accent.
Matt saw that he had a highly polished name badge reading "Sgt. D. Kenny" pinned to his crisply pressed shirt.
This is the guy I talked to when I called from outside Olivia's apartment.
"Cops from Philadelphia," Matt said. "This is Detective Lassiter, and my name is Payne. I'm a sergeant."
The sergeant stopped Matt from producing his identification with a wave of his huge hand.
"The chief says that Sergeant Paul doesn't know anything about the peeper; that court will probably last until about ten-thirty, maybe later; and that you can wait for him if you want but that he'd much rather talk to you in the morning. About eight."
"Can I ask you two questions, Sergeant?"
"You can ask."
"Is your peeper going to make bail and walk out of here tonight?"
"No."
Matt took his laptop out of his case. The enormous sergeant watched silently and without expression as Matt turned it on.
"I'd really be grateful, Sergeant, if you could tell me if this knife looks familiar to you."
Matt turned the laptop's screen so the sergeant could see it. It was one of the digital images Matt had taken from the camera the doer had left in Cheryl Williamson's apartment. It showed a visibly terrified young woman lying on a bed, tied to the headboard with plastic binders. Her breasts were exposed. Lying between them was a large knife, its tip almost touching the soft skin under her chin. There were several thumbnail-sized drops of a thick, milky white