Murder on K Street - Margaret Truman [48]
“I don’t think that’s the sort of thing someone would forget,” Chang said.
“I can’t remember anything in all that heat. It makes you crazy.”
“Were you crazy, sir?” Chang said.
“Me?” He laughed, displaying neglected teeth. “Some people say I am, but I’m not. I’m as sane as you or anybody else.”
Chang looked down at the notes he’d made during the questioning of Lou Schultz, the handyman. “Do you do carpentry?” he asked Lemón.
“I can do carpentry. I’ve done some work like that.”
“Do you own a hammer?”
For the first time since the interrogation had started, Lemón appeared to be flustered. He’d met the detectives’ eyes while answering their questions. Now he evaded their stares.
“Do you own a hammer, Mr. Lemón?” Chang repeated.
“I had one. Tossed it away.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere.”
“When did you throw it away?”
He shrugged.
“Why did you throw it away?”
His laugh was forced. “Had no use for it. Don’t do carpenter work no more.”
“Do you think if we went with you, took a pleasant ride, that you could show us where you threw away the hammer?”
“No.”
“Was it your hammer, Mr. Lemón, or did you take it from someone, someplace, maybe a man who was working on this house?” He slid one of the photos closer to Lemón.
“No, no, I didn’t steal nothing from nobody. I swear it.”
Widletz, who now stood behind him, placed her hand on his shoulder. “Do you have a family, Gerard?” she asked softly.
“I did have, a wife and kids. They sided with the ones who stole my ideas, so I told ’em all to go to hell.”
“I really wish you’d try harder to remember where you tossed your hammer,” Widletz said.
Morris Crimley, who’d been observing the questioning through a one-way glass, stepped into the room and motioned for Chang to come out into the hall with him.
“We just got this back from the lab, Charlie.” He handed him a sheet of paper.
“It matches,” Chang said.
“Looks like it. Thought you might like to see what he has to say about it. He ask for a lawyer yet?”
“No.”
“I’m not surprised. Probably the best sleep and meals he’s had for a while.”
Chang returned to the room and showed Widletz the paper. Her eyebrows went up as she came around the table and took a chair next to her partner. “Gerard,” she said, “we have proof that you were at the house in the pictures.”
“Proof?”
“Yes. Stone dust found on the bottom of your shoes matches the dust that the workman made when he was fixing the stone wall in front of the house. And it was found inside the house near the body.”
“The body?”
“The woman who owned this house was murdered. Did she show you some kindness and offer you an iced tea or lemonade, invite you inside where it was cool?”
He wrapped his arms about himself and pressed his lips together. “I don’t want to talk anymore,” he mumbled.
“We’ll be back,” Chang said, and motioned for Widletz to follow him outside, where Crimley waited.
“What do you think?” asked their boss.
“I think we have enough to hold him,” Chang said.
“I agree,” said Widletz.
“I’ll call Matt Bergl at the U.S. attorney’s office and tell him what we have,” Crimley said. “I think he’ll go along.”
The uniformed officer who’d escorted Gerard Lemón in for questioning was told by Crimley to return him to his cell. “And cuff him this time.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Rotondi pulled up in front of Marlene Boynton’s condominium complex, parked on the opposite side of the road, and looked around, surprised that no media types seemed to be in the vicinity. They’d either decided that she wasn’t of editorial interest, or learned that she wasn’t there.
He got out of the car and walked into the cluster of attached, gray-shingled, three-story town houses. A dog barked from a window; a Hispanic man tending shrubbery that lined the walkway didn’t look up as Rotondi hobbled past and found Marlene’s unit at the rear, where a man-made creek gurgled behind another row of condos.
He pressed the button and heard the bell sound inside. A tall, narrow strip of glass ran down the side of the door. Rotondi peered through it and saw