The 9th Judgment - James Patterson [75]
“I don’t think she ever mentioned you. Hey, you can’t—”
Chi, McNeil, Samuels, and Lemke poured into the house right behind us with the determination of cops raiding a speakeasy during Prohibition. I had a flash of panic. Despite what I’d told Parisi—that Dowling would never ditch a souvenir of the last film Jeremy Cushing ever made—now I wasn’t so sure.
“Wait,” Dowling said. “What are you looking for?”
“You’ll know it when we see it,” I said.
I took the winding staircase up toward the master bedroom as the rest of my squad fanned out through the house. I heard the phone ring, then Dowling shouted, his voice throbbing with indignation.
“Well, Peyser, this is what lawyers are for. Come back from Napa right now.”
I entered the movie star’s room. Fifteen minutes later, there wasn’t a drawer or a shelf that hadn’t felt my hand.
I was pulling the mattress off the bed when I sensed more than heard another person in the room. I looked up to see a dark-skinned woman in a black housekeeper’s dress.
I remembered her. The day after Casey Dowling was killed, the day Conklin and I came here to interview Marcus, this woman had served us bottled water.
“You’re Vangy, right?”
“I’m an illegal alien.”
“I understand. I… that’s not my department. What do you want to tell me?”
Vangy asked me to follow her to the laundry room in the basement. When we got there, she turned on a light over the washer and dryer. She put her hands on either side of the dryer and pulled it away from the wall.
She pointed to the exhaust hose, a four-inch-wide flexible tube that vented hot air from the dryer to the outside.
“That’s where he hid it,” she told me. “I heard it rattle. I think what you’re looking for is in there.”
Chapter 107
WE WERE IN Interview Room Number Two, the larger of our interrogation spaces, the one with the better electronics. I’d checked the camera and made sure the tape was rolling before bringing Dowling in and offering him the chair facing the glass.
I wanted a full confession—for me, for Conklin, for Yuki, and for Red Dog Parisi. I wanted swift and certain justice for Casey Dowling. And I wanted to close the case for Jacobi.
Dowling had buttoned his shirt and put on a jacket, and he looked completely in control. I had to admire his cool, since his gun was in a clear plastic evidence bag on the table.
Conklin, too, looked completely at ease. I thought he was doing his best not to grin. He’d earned the right, but I wasn’t doing high fives just yet. Dowling loved himself so much, he’d probably convinced himself that no one could touch him.
“My lawyer is on the way,” Dowling said.
There was a knock on the door. I opened it for Carl Loomis, a ballistics tech at the crime lab. I pointed to the bagged gun, and he picked it up, turned to Dowling, and said, “I really enjoy your work, Mr. Dowling.”
“Loomis, the ballistics test is top priority,” I said.
“You’ll have the results in an hour, Sergeant,” he said as he took the evidence bag out of the room.
I turned to Dowling, who was showing me how nonchalant he was by leaning back in his chair, rocking on its hind legs.
“Mr. Dowling, I want to make sure you understand your situation. When the lab fires your gun, the test bullet is going to match the slugs removed from your wife’s body.”
“So you say.”
Conklin said, “Believe this guy? Let’s just book him on suspicion of murder. We’ve got him. He’s done.”
“Tell us what happened,” I said to Dowling. “If you save us the time and cost of a trial, the DA will take your cooperation into consideration—”
“Oh. Cross your heart?”
“Just so you know, the DA goes home at five. That’s in fifteen minutes. Your window to make a deal is closing fast.”
Dowling snorted derisively, and Conklin laughed.
He went out of the room and came back with three containers of coffee, making a big show of adding milk and sugar to his cup, all the while humming the theme song from Night Watch. It was a catchy little ditty that had made the charts even when Dowling and Cushing’s shoot-’em-up movie had bombed.