and the offender in lockup by evening, well before the news dumped it on the dinner plates.
A crime scene, alone, in silence. Lou Boldt felt alert and alive.
As an investigator, Boldt experienced no prescient sense from the perspective of the offender. He could not transport himself into this role as some investigators suggested was possible. He saw the crime scene from the role of the victim—often viscerally, but exclusively from this side of the crime.
Boldt headed upstairs in the footsteps of Cathy Kawamoto, a woman about to disturb a thief. He assumed the thief was a planner—not some junkie kicking in doors and stealing a purse or string of pearls. And here comes Cathy Kawamoto up the stairs, chasing noises. He stopped briefly to study the landing because the freshie had told him the victim had recovered consciousness on the stairs. This was supported by the drying bloodstain he saw there, the result of a bloodied nose.
If the offender had shoved her downstairs and yet fled the premises, he had jumped right over her. This thought coincided with Boldt’s observation of a long, black rubber smudge on the wall that seemed to fit with a person in a hurry jumping over a body on the landing. He made a note to have the SID techs sample the rubber smudge, and to analyze it. “No stone unturned,” he mumbled to himself, well aware that the press and the public would attempt to connect this to Sanchez— and perhaps even Carmichael—and that on top of the Flu, public concern would figure politically in both investigations, demanding immediate arrests.
He found the offender’s apparent target in the bedroom: A corner hutch that faced the victim’s bed. A television, VCR and one of those all-in-one music centers with CD player, double tape system and stereo receiver. The offender had not had time to steal the electronics—Kawamoto had headed upstairs at an inopportune time. But the man had moved the hutch from the corner in an effort to free wires. Boldt peered behind. The television had been unplugged, its wire neatly coiled and fastened. What kind of person took the time to neatly coil wires before heisting a television?
More than the coil of wire, it was sight of the white plastic loop secured around the coil that intrigued Boldt. A sophisticated version of a garbage bag tie. Had any such ties been inventoried at Sanchez’s, he wondered. Another contradiction? The other wires were snarled in a tangle and covered with dust. Who was this guy? What kind of burglar showed such confidence? Daphne would have a heyday evaluating such a personality.
Then a second thought occurred to him: If the thief had possessed plastic ties at the Sanchez break-in, why not use them to bind her wrists, instead of shoelaces?
Why shoelaces and not the plastic ties ?
He took notes, albeit unnecessarily—he wasn’t about to forget any of this. Perhaps the Burglary unit had files on record that mentioned white plastic ties being used. He had in hand the physical evidence he’d hoped for.
Now, he had to connect it to a suspect.
“I need help, Phil. I need the names of who did this to Liz, and I also need your Burglary files for the past month. I thought you might be able to speed things up for me on both counts,” Boldt said. “Unless you’re ‘too busy,’“ he added. He needed to connect the white plastic ties to earlier burglaries, to establish a pattern crime, to widen the scope of evidence and increase the number of leads to follow. Captain Phil Shoswitz seemed the means to that end.
“Are you suggesting I’m intentionally slowing things down around here?” Shoswitz questioned defensively. In point of fact, some of the lower brass had effected a slowdown, and Shoswitz was probably part of it. The man paced his cluttered office. A baseball fanatic, the captain of Crimes Against Property (which included Burglary) had bookshelves overflowing with intramural trophies and major league souvenirs. A bat autographed by
A crime scene, alone, in silence. Lou Boldt felt alert and alive.
As an investigator, Boldt experienced no prescient sense from the perspective of the offender. He could not transport himself into this role as some investigators suggested was possible. He saw the crime scene from the role of the victim—often viscerally, but exclusively from this side of the crime.
Boldt headed upstairs in the footsteps of Cathy Kawamoto, a woman about to disturb a thief. He assumed the thief was a planner—not some junkie kicking in doors and stealing a purse or string of pearls. And here comes Cathy Kawamoto up the stairs, chasing noises. He stopped briefly to study the landing because the freshie had told him the victim had recovered consciousness on the stairs. This was supported by the drying bloodstain he saw there, the result of a bloodied nose.
If the offender had shoved her downstairs and yet fled the premises, he had jumped right over her. This thought coincided with Boldt’s observation of a long, black rubber smudge on the wall that seemed to fit with a person in a hurry jumping over a body on the landing. He made a note to have the SID techs sample the rubber smudge, and to analyze it. “No stone unturned,” he mumbled to himself, well aware that the press and the public would attempt to connect this to Sanchez— and perhaps even Carmichael—and that on top of the Flu, public concern would figure politically in both investigations, demanding immediate arrests.
He found the offender’s apparent target in the bedroom: A corner hutch that faced the victim’s bed. A television, VCR and one of those all-in-one music centers with CD player, double tape system and stereo receiver. The offender had not had time to steal the electronics—Kawamoto had headed upstairs at an inopportune time. But the man had moved the hutch from the corner in an effort to free wires. Boldt peered behind. The television had been unplugged, its wire neatly coiled and fastened. What kind of person took the time to neatly coil wires before heisting a television?
More than the coil of wire, it was sight of the white plastic loop secured around the coil that intrigued Boldt. A sophisticated version of a garbage bag tie. Had any such ties been inventoried at Sanchez’s, he wondered. Another contradiction? The other wires were snarled in a tangle and covered with dust. Who was this guy? What kind of burglar showed such confidence? Daphne would have a heyday evaluating such a personality.
Then a second thought occurred to him: If the thief had possessed plastic ties at the Sanchez break-in, why not use them to bind her wrists, instead of shoelaces?
Why shoelaces and not the plastic ties ?
He took notes, albeit unnecessarily—he wasn’t about to forget any of this. Perhaps the Burglary unit had files on record that mentioned white plastic ties being used. He had in hand the physical evidence he’d hoped for.
Now, he had to connect it to a suspect.
“I need help, Phil. I need the names of who did this to Liz, and I also need your Burglary files for the past month. I thought you might be able to speed things up for me on both counts,” Boldt said. “Unless you’re ‘too busy,’“ he added. He needed to connect the white plastic ties to earlier burglaries, to establish a pattern crime, to widen the scope of evidence and increase the number of leads to follow. Captain Phil Shoswitz seemed the means to that end.
“Are you suggesting I’m intentionally slowing things down around here?” Shoswitz questioned defensively. In point of fact, some of the lower brass had effected a slowdown, and Shoswitz was probably part of it. The man paced his cluttered office. A baseball fanatic, the captain of Crimes Against Property (which included Burglary) had bookshelves overflowing with intramural trophies and major league souvenirs. A bat autographed by
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