Protector - Laurel Dewey [147]
She thought back to the night before and that enigmatic desk on the Antiques Roadshow. Recalling her visit to the Lawrence house, she was almost positive that the desk was standing slightly away from the stairway wall. Jane clenched her cigarette between her lips and carried her coffee cup into her bedroom, taking care to walk quietly so as not to wake up Emily. She slipped the Lawrence case file from her leather satchel, set her coffee on the side table next to her pistol and sat down on the edge of the bed. Finding the photos, she pulled them out of the folder. She breezed past the grisly close-ups of David and Patricia Lawrence’s butchered bodies until she glimpsed a photo that included the desk. The first photo of the desk was taken from an angle that made it difficult to decipher its placement. The second photo that featured the desk was better but still not adequate. After shuffling through several more photos, she came upon one that precisely showed the entry area and the desk. Clearly, it was standing several inches from the stairway wall.
Jane flicked on the table lamp and held the color glossy photo underneath it so she could really examine the unusual piece of furniture. She canvassed the area inch by inch, noting what looked like a hairline scratch on the photo at the rear section of the desk. However, looking closer, Jane realized it was in the photo. She rummaged in her leather satchel until she found her trusty deluxe Swiss army knife. Pulling out the coin-sized magnifying glass from the side of the knife, she leaned closer to the light and investigated the mysterious scratch. From the angle of the photo, it looked like the edge of a piece of paper that had been stuffed in one of those secret compartments or a shadowy trick of light that bounced off the overhead hallway light fixture.
She pulled the photo away from the light when something caught her eye. In the same photo, in the far corner, was a glimmering square object. The powerful flash on the camera had attracted this silvery box, illuminating it like a bright star. Jane held the photo under the light and steadied her magnifying glass over the object. It looked like a silver cigarette case. She checked the date on the coding strip. May 24—the day after the murders. While she could not be sure, it looked exactly like the engraved silver cigarette case that the homeless lunatic had in his possession when Chris questioned him at Denver Headquarters. That interview occurred five days after this photo was taken. But that was impossible. Jane looked at the object more closely. It had to be a duplicate of the cigarette case that the homeless man had with him. Perhaps a sort of his and hers wedding gift. Yet, the more Jane mulled over that possibility, the less likely it seemed. Who gives his and hers silver cigarette cases these days as wedding gifts?
Jane considered the options. If that was indeed the same cigarette case that the homeless guy found, it had to have been stolen after the crime scene photos were taken. The only problem was that the house was locked and taped off to anyone except for police personnel. The only missing objects that could have possibly been photographed and then removed were pieces of evidence, such as blood covered carpeting swatches, destroyed furniture and, of course, that five ounce mound of cocaine. All of these would have been taken into evidence and recorded on the Property Report Form.
The Property Report Form! Jane realized that form could offer valuable insight into the whereabouts of the cigarette case. Jane quickly searched for the Property Report Form in her files. But after hunting through them, there was no form. It was automatic procedure to hold the original Property Report Form in Evidence and then have a copy sent back upstairs to put in the case file. To Jane, the missing Property Report Form was a glaring error. Then she wondered if it wasn’t an error at all. Maybe Weyler had purposely