To The Power Of Three

PART FIVE. There Won’t Be Trumpets
Wednesday
26

Infante liked to say he could smell crazy on a woman-the better to run right toward it. But even Infante seemed skittish around the gorgeous redhead who had shown up at headquarters this morning offering her full cooperation in the Hartigan case. Yet thirty minutes into the conversation, she had managed not to answer a single direct question. This horse has led herself to water, Lenhardt thought in exasperation, but she still doesn’t want to drink.

The woman was Michael Delacorte-estranged wife, registered owner of a murder weapon, Perri Kahn’s former employer. So far she had explained how she came to marry Stewart Delacorte (much too quickly), and the travails of their two-year-old son (rare genetic disorder), which had helped her focus, after much searching (yoga, Buddhism, ceramics) for meaning in her life. The epiphany that she needed to leave her husband arrived, coincidentally, the same week as the news of the SEC investigation into his business affairs.

“I realize now that I was put here to care for my son, that my purpose in life was right there in front of me,” she said, smacking the table so forcefully that her tennis bracelet slid up and down her skinny forearm each time her palm landed. Lenhardt had never understood the origin of that name, tennis bracelet, but he knew that his wife would like one. “Oh, you have no idea how wonderful it is to realize that one’s life has true meaning.”

Mrs. Delacorte smacked her hands a few more times, and Infante twitched, just a little, as each blow landed. She had a cat’s face, a dancer’s body, and, by all appearances, a plastic surgeon’s breasts, high and molded. Lenhardt prided himself on being able to tell. His wife had explained it to him one day, how the artificial ones always pointed straight ahead.

“About Perri Kahn,” he began, and it was far from the first time that he had tried to introduce the girl’s name into the conversation. But Mrs. Delacorte was not interested in approaching anything that might be called a point.

“Yes, exactly. Exactly.”

“Exactly?” Infante seemed to be echoing a word here and there, just to keep himself alert.

“You see, before I really understood my situation, before I accepted the fact that this was part of a higher plan, what my real calling was, Perri used to baby-sit for me every Thursday. I was in denial. I felt I just couldn’t survive if I didn’t have a day, once a week, where I knew I was going to get out of the house. I mean, I had a nanny, of course, but the nanny had Thursdays off, and I just needed a day that was all for me.”

Lenhardt tried to digest this concept, a woman with full-time help who needed part-time help so she wouldn’t feel trapped. Well, rich people had different expectations, he told himself, although he would bet anything that Mrs. Delacorte hadn’t been rich before she met her husband.

“In May I finally saw that I had to leave. I was very aboveboard about it. I told Stewart that I wanted out, that I wouldn’t seek anything more than was fair, under the law. Although, of course, support would have to be calculated differently with a special-needs child. I’m going to need help as long as he-” Her breath caught. “As long as he lives.”

Lenhardt’s heart softened toward the woman, silly and ditzy and spoiled as she was. She had a child with a fatal condition. She had earned her craziness.

“About the gun?” he asked, reasoning it was a kindness to distract her from what had to be a painful subject. “Did you know it was missing?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to explain to you-I left earlier than I planned because I noticed it was missing, and I assumed Stewart had taken it. I was terrified. I thought he was going to kill me as I slept. That’s why I had to get out so quickly.”

“But you never asked him directly if he had taken the gun?”

“No. I just plotted my escape.” She gave a strange little laugh, like one that an actress in an old-fashioned radio play might have used. “I mean, I had been thinking about leaving for a while, but when my gun disappeared, I knew I had to get out sooner rather than later. I found a new place for the baby and me, then hired a moving crew that could get me packed and out in twelve hours.” She laughed in the same fashion. “I guess there were some advantages to the hours he worked after all.”

“Back to the gun-you noticed it missing in May, but you never asked your husband about it.”

“No.”

“Did you mention it to anyone?”

“No.”

“And was Perri Kahn still working for you when the gun disappeared?”

“I don’t know when the gun disappeared. I only know I noticed that it was gone in mid-May, when I started packing and I couldn’t find it.”

Great, now she was suddenly Ms. Precise. Lenhardt pictured her in front of a grand jury, dithering for two hours and then taking pains to make clear how hard it was to know exactly when the gun had gone missing.

“You said you realized the gun was gone and started packing to leave. Then you said you were packing to leave, and it was only then that you realized it was gone.”

“Same difference.”

Actually, the two things weren’t the same at all, but Lenhardt decided to drop the subject, for now.

“How long did Perri Kahn work for you?”

“She started last fall and continued through mid-May, when I moved out. But until then she came every week. She was reliable for a high-school girl.”

This was a promising detail. Juries did not necessarily reject coincidence. In fact, they were quite happy to draw inferences from mere opportunity. Perri Kahn had worked in a home where a gun went missing, and that gun was later used in the commission of a crime where Perri Kahn was present, so it was logical to assume that Perri Kahn had taken the gun and used it. But a good defense attorney could make a person doubt that logic.

“You see, Mrs. Delacorte-”

“Michael, please! I hate that name. I can’t wait to be rid of it. I hate anything that reminds me of him. Except for Malcolm, of course. But Malcolm doesn’t remind me of his father.”

“Michael, sure.” Lenhardt wondered again at the parents who gave a newborn girl that name. It was okay, since she had turned out gorgeous. But what if she had been broad-shouldered and hulking? Then the name would have been a death sentence. “What you’ve told us is a help. But it’s better if we can prove that Perri at least was aware of your gun. Did you ever mention it to her? Show it to her?”

“No, no, no, no.”

Infante had slid down in his chair, his posture so bad that his chin was almost on the table. Lenhardt realized that his own shoulders were hunched and rounded, and it was only 10:00 A.M. Mrs. Delacorte-Michael-was exhausting, a reminder of the old adage that no matter how beautiful a woman was, someone, somewhere, was tired of her.

“So you can’t help us link Perri to your gun?”

“Oh, no. That I can definitely do.” She pulled a slender silver rectangle from her purse. “About ten days ago, I found this.”

“It’s a camera,” Infante said. Lenhardt had thought it was a cigarette case.

“I know that. But look at the photos.”

Infante, the more technologically inclined of the two of them, took the camera and began scrolling through the display. “Baby in high chair. Baby at zoo. Baby at zoo.”

“Oh, I forgot there were some photographs of Malcolm there.”

Lenhardt looked over Infante’s shoulder. The boy was huge, plump and pink-cheeked and smiling. If Lenhardt didn’t know otherwise, he would have assumed he was freakishly healthy, not a child whose very DNA was wired against him.

“Baby, baby-whoa!”

It was a photograph of a thin, dark-haired girl, wearing an emerald green bra and panties while holding a gun, by all appearances the same.22 recovered at the scene.

“Perri,” Mrs. Delacorte said. “In my underwear.”

“Who took these photos?”

“Now, that,” she said, “is the ten-million-dollar question.”

Lenhardt almost literally braced himself on the table between them. He hadn’t liked Delacorte, but he hadn’t picked up a pervert vibe from the guy. Okay, the girl was eighteen, technically legal, not pedophile stuff, but it still disgusted him. Maybe Jessica would be better off getting a mall job when she was old enough to work. Even if the father of the house wasn’t some sicko, Lenhardt wasn’t sure he wanted Jessica free to roam another household. Look what this one girl had found-lingerie, a digital camera, a gun. And that’s just what they knew so far. There could have been more. Unlocked liquor cabinets, drugs, legal or not. How could he control for that? Lenhardt’s wife didn’t know it, but before he allowed Jessica to go on sleepovers, he ran the parents through all the state and national criminal checks.

“So enlighten us,” Lenhardt said. “Because we don’t have ten million dollars, and we don’t have all the time in the world.”

“Maybe my husband didn’t always work late. Maybe he sneaked home early on some Thursday afternoons.”

“Maybe?”

“I mean, I can’t prove anything, which is utterly, utterly unfortunate,” Mrs. Delacorte continued. “You see, with a digital camera, there’s just no way to establish what my lawyer calls ‘provenance.’ Date and time-yes. This photo was taken on May third. But can I prove who clicked the shutter? No.”

“What?” Infante said, although he knew full well what the woman meant. He was just having trouble catching up, now that she was finally on topic.

“There’s no way to prove who took the photos. It’s my camera, after all. Besides, digital photos can be altered. They were of no use to my lawyer.”

“But your husband-”

“Oh, he would just deny everything. I haven’t even bothered to show this to him. The only person who can tell us what happened is Perri, and she’s probably going to die, which is too bad.”

“Too bad that she might die or too bad that she can’t talk?”

“Why, both, of course.”

Had the husband’s surprise about the gun and his ignorance about the baby-sitter been genuine? Lenhardt thought so at the time. In fact, the guy had seemed unnerved to learn that his wife had a weapon, and now that Lenhardt had met her, he could see his point. Discovering in hindsight that you had dared to close your eyes when this lunatic had a gun at hand was no small thing.

“Does it have a timer?” Infante asked of the camera, turning it around and examining it. “Can it be set so someone can take a photo of herself?”

“I’m not big on reading instructions,” Mrs. Delacorte said airily. That must be one of the perquisites of beauty, Lenhardt thought, not reading instructions because someone else would do such things for you-read your instructions, carry your packages, waive your speeding tickets, assemble your furniture. Then again, Mrs. Delacorte probably didn’t have the kind of furniture that needed to be assembled. At least, not during her marriage to Mr. Delacorte.

“You said you found this ten days ago. The shooting happened five days ago.”

“Ten days, five days, whatever.” She didn’t get the point he was making, didn’t get it at all. “I needed to consult my lawyer, of course. He’s the one who told me it would be impossible to prove that Stewart took them, so we shouldn’t show it to Stewart’s lawyer.”

“I’m just not sure,” Lenhardt said, “why that was your primary concern. You knew about the shooting, right? And that your old baby-sitter was involved? Didn’t you think the police would want to know you had a dated, timed photograph of her with the gun that she apparently used?”

“Well…there are liability issues. Right?” She sounded like someone guessing on a multiple-choice test, throwing out a term she had heard but not quite understood. “I mean, yes, I found the photo, but I didn’t see any urgency.”

“The law requires that you report a stolen firearm ASAP. You had a photo of an eighteen-year-old girl posing with your gun, a gun you knew had been missing for several weeks. If you’d come in here last week instead of today-”

“But I couldn’t know, from a photo, what she planned to do. It was taken in my home-I recognize the maple drawers of my walk-in closet-so I don’t even know for a fact that she took the gun. I thought she was just acting, playing a part. Acting for someone else’s benefit, don’t you think? She probably meant to erase it and forgot, or didn’t realize there was one photo left on the camera.”

“We don’t sit here and make up stuff that might be true,” Lenhardt said, angry and out of patience. “We try to establish what is factual, what really happened.”

“What if my husband asked Perri to do it? I saw that on a Law & Order once.” The way this woman’s brain worked, it was like those science fiction movies Jason loved so much, where people moved in defiance of gravity. Up, down, sideways.

“Excuse me?”

“A man was having an affair with his stepdaughter, and he convinced her to shoot her own mother. Only maybe…I think there was another twist, and it turned out it was the girl’s idea. Or, no, that was the one about the private school-”

“Mrs. Delacorte, we’ve never even established that your husband knew the Kahn girl, much less the victim. He couldn’t even pick Perri’s name out of a list or describe her to us.”

“He knew Dale Hartigan.”

But Delacorte had readily admitted as much to Lenhardt.

“I know. I talked to your husband Sunday.”

Her worried look told him that she hadn’t known that. “You can’t believe a word he says. He’s the most horrible liar.”

“Be that as it may, to your knowledge, your husband doesn’t know the victim, has a cordial relationship with her father-or did, at least, before this happened-and may never have even spoken to your baby-sitter. Meanwhile this is your digital camera, your gun.”

“Your underwear,” Infante put in. “I mean-that’s what you said.”

Mrs. Delacorte nodded, as if she had been complimented. “Yes. And I’m just trying to be helpful. You are free to use this information in any way you deem necessary if it will help you in your investigation of this horrible tragedy. Give it to the state’s attorney, even release it to the press.”

Release it to the press? To what purpose? To what publication? Lenhardt finally understood why this good citizen had come forward.

“And, maybe, it would help you, too, to have this photo in circulation? I mean, it’s not admissible in your divorce, but if it were part of a homicide investigation, someone might leak it to the Beacon-Light. What can’t be proven in court can still be potent in a divorce.”

She lifted her chin, a grand-lady mannerism that didn’t really suit her. “I have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“But you hope that your husband does, even if you can’t prove it. Me, I’m now more convinced than ever that your husband doesn’t know anything about this. How do we know that you didn’t take this photo, just to cause all this trouble? Took the photo, then gave Perri Kahn the gun, as a parting gift, to do with as she pleased?”

“That’s just ridiculous. I’m not exactly inclined that way.” Toward women? Toward blackmail? Toward arming adolescents? Lenhardt waited, but Mrs. Delacorte didn’t elaborate. Instead she rose and held out her hand for the camera, but Infante shook his head, closing his fist around it. She left the room with the same rushed flutter with which she had arrived.

“Tempting,” Lenhardt said.

“Her?”

“No, erasing this photo just to get back at her. But at least we have it for now and the time stamp is a good break for us.”

“I’m sure she’s downloaded a few versions for her own files, not to mention her lawyer’s. Someone took it, by the way. The composition is too sure for it to be a set-and-run-around.”

“You sound as if you have some experience in the field.”

Infante smiled. “Digital technology has changed the world. Why do you think all these girls keep getting caught doing stupid shit on home video? It’s the false sense of security created by an image that can be instantly wiped out. They forget the flip side-that it can just as easily be uploaded to the Internet. Hell, you can send photos like this on a cell phone now.”

“So does it matter?”

“Only in a long-term relationship. Because then there are all sorts of trust issues if other people see it.”

“No, I mean, does the photo matter? Should we care who took it? If there’s a person on the other side of the camera, then there’s someone who knew she had access to a gun. All the research says a school shooter almost always tells someone before bringing a gun to school. If she vamped with the gun in front of someone, maybe she also told her photographer what she was thinking. Maybe she had an accomplice.”

“The Patel girl,” Infante said, taking the camera from him. “Only if this was some sort of conspiracy between them, how does Perri Kahn end up near death in Shock Trauma while Josie Patel is hobbling around with an injury that could sideline her scholarship?”

“Some sort of bizarre suicide pact?” But Lenhardt had never heard of two girls, much less three, planning such a thing. A girl and a boy, yes. But two girls with a handgun-very strange.

Infante held the photo out at arm’s length, then shook his head.

“What?”

“She’s got no shape at all. What a waste of underwear.”

Lenhardt considered the way men would start judging his daughter, the way they probably did already, young as she was. He thought of boys in schoolrooms, ranking girls, noticing which ones were developing and which ones weren’t-and punishing them all. He envisioned men watching his daughter walk down the street in a few years, reducing her to her parts. He thought of the creeps who got excited looking at little kids, guys who would get off at the sight of Malcolm Delacorte, the monster baby, taking a bath. The night had a thousand eyes, as the old song had it. Somewhere-at church, on an athletic field, in a shopping mall-his daughter had already been assessed by someone. Assessed and found wanting.

Or, worse yet, found desirable.

“You’re such an asshole, Infante.”