A Murder of Justice

THIRTY-THREE

Back in the office, Frank measured the Folger’s into the coffeemaker. Jose had loaded the CD player, and Ella Fitzgerald launched into “Someone to Watch over Me.” Leon Janowitz tilted back against the wall in the straight wooden chair, a bottle of Poland Spring in one hand, a dart in the other, surveying the Ipswich Fives board on the wall.

“Okay,” Janowitz said, “Skeeter had a recording studio on wheels. Why?”

“You know, Leon.” Jose eyed the dart in his hand warily. “Some guy in Watergate once said this’s a great town when you’re the one askin’ the questions.”

“Better question, Leon,” Frank said. “Let’s go back to the Bayless Place shell casings. If Pencil killed Gentry, why’d he do it?”

Janowitz threw. Three pair of eyes watched the dart thock! into the board. A double eighteen. Janowitz grinned triumphantly.

“You’re losing your touch, Leon,” Jose said. “You missed the wall.”

“This a test?” Janowitz asked. “Okay, try this. If Pencil killed Gentry, it was because he and Skeeter found out that Gentry had gotten the goods on them.”

“Or he was getting close,” Jose added.

“Second question, Leon,” Frank said. “How might Skeeter and Pencil have learned that?”

Janowitz picked up a second dart, studied the tip, lofted it experimentally, then looked at Frank. “Suppose they tumbled to Gentry’s source?”

“And if they did,” Frank came back, “what do you think they’d do about the source?”

Janowitz threw the dart, whipping it hard. A double twenty.

Jose got up from behind his desk and turned to the whiteboard behind him. From a beer mug he selected a red felt-tip marker. “A little profiling exercise,” he announced.

He drew a round bullet on the board. “Okay,” he asked Janowitz, “the ideal source… first attribute?”

Janowitz didn’t hesitate. “Proximity. He’s gotta be close to Skeeter and Pencil.”

Jose jotted “Prox” by the first bullet. “Why ‘he’?” he said.

“These guys don’t buy PC. It’s a boys-only club.”

A second bullet, and “Male” next to that.

“Age?”

“Within several years of Skeeter and Pencil.”

Jose entered “Mid-30s” against a third bullet.

“Fourth bullet’s this,” Janowitz said. “A longtime buddy. Somebody they’d trust. Been through the mill with them.”

Jose capped the marker and ran his eyes down the board. Then he asked, “And how’d they tumble to the source?”

“Probably caught him in the act. Maybe meeting with Gentry, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“So they’d milk him for what he had.” Frank picked up the lead. “Then what?”

“They’d pop him,” Janowitz replied. “Look, guys,” he said, “you tiptoed me through the tulips like a rookie. Where’s this finger exercise heading?”

“Glad you asked, Leon,” Frank said.

From a cabinet, Jose produced Eleanor’s printout and handed the thick sheaf to Janowitz. “Given that profile, you might want to start here.”

Janowitz got a put-upon expression as he took the printout. “So we find the needle in this haystack… then what? I mean, shit, we aren’t going to be bringing Skeeter and Pencil into court.”

“If we have to close the Gentry case administratively, we want it solid. Nobody’s going to buy the fluff they did first time around.”

“And then there’s the matter of Skeeter, Pencil, and Pencil’s woman,” Jose said. “Somebody might just be around who did them.”

“And maybe a Colombian connection?” Janowitz ventured. “Skeeter and Pencil made one bad deal too many? Or the cartels found a better outlet somewhere else?”

Frank gave Janowitz a sunny smile. “Like Hoser said, Leon, this is a great town for questions. Now we need to work out a few answers.”

Janowitz hoisted the printout. “Take this back to my cubicle?”

“Yeah. By the way, how’s your audit turning out?”

“Slow. Library of Congress archives just found the subcommittee’s bank records and Gentry’s personal files. I probably got a stack thicker than this”-he waggled the printout-“waiting for me. I’ll run a quick scan tonight.”

“Don’t get wrapped up in too much night work,” Jose said. “Department’s cutting down overtime.”

Janowitz grinned. “Mrs. Janowitz and I got some night work planned, and I won’t put in for overtime.”

Janowitz left.

Jose shook his head wonderingly at the closed door. “Kid sees the world through his dick,” he said.

“Probably better than some other ways of looking at it,” Frank said, beginning his end-of-the-day desk-clearing routine.