presume the latter is the case until evidence proves otherwise."
"So you'll still be going in to dance today?"
"If I don't hear from Jim or Charlie& or somebody
& between now and then, yes. I have my job. And as best we can tell, even if
Hemly guilty, there's still a is brown-haired killer and a blond killer out
there watching him right now on their own televisions."
Jess didn't hear from Jim until she was already showered, dressed, and driving
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in to Goldcastle.
"You've seen the coverage, of course," Jim said by way of preamble.
"Nobody on earth has missed the coverage. How does Hemly look for it?"
"He does a very nice innocent act," Jim said. "But then, he gets paid to know
how to act like a nice, goofy, good-hearted guy, doesn't he?"
'That's the act," Jess agreed, shifting lanes. Traffic was horrible. "How's
the evidence?"
"Found the dead girl's missing earring right outside Hemly's back door. Found
the homemade body bag in the trunk, with hair and fibers. Found bloodstains,
old and new, his trunk. Found cord of the sort the ME has been telling us
the in killers have been using to bind the victims' ankles before hanging them
upside
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blood out of them. The cord is also bloodstained, and was in Hemly's body bag.
Based on all the goodies we found outside the house, the judge was kind enough
to grant us a rather broad search warrant for the inside, over the loud
protests of Hemly's hired shitweasel."
'That's Mr. Shitweasel to you and me," Jess said, feeling good all of a
sudden.
Jim laughed. "It is indeed."
"So& what the hell happened? One of his buddies turn him in?"
"Mr. Hemly had the misfortune to have dumped the body when he was not as alone
as he thought. A young homeless man, who had found himself a place in
Piedmont Park where he could sleep unbothered by either chicken-hawks or cops,
was awakened by the sound of someone talking animatedly nearby.
Apparently Mr. Hemly talks to his victims while he is posing them for
display."
Jess stopped at a red light and readjusted her headset on her cell phone. The
mike never seemed to stay where she wanted it.
"A homeless guy was reliable enough to act on?"
"Didn't hurt that a friendly source inside WSB-TV tipped us that the station
was investigating a phone call the local police department received, stating
that Mr.
Hemly looked like he was carrying a body out his back door at around four
a.m."
Jim chuckled. "We called, the dispatcher on duty confirmed that they had
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but that it had come from a public pay phone."
'That's not good."
"In that neighborhood, everybody has big lawyers. I'm willing to consider that
our tipster didn't want to be the focus of attention. Or maybe to explain why
he was up at that hour."
"Hemly's back door is visible from the neighbors' houses?"
"It is, surprisingly. He has a big wrought-iron fence, some landscaping. But
those big houses are all on small lots, and we figure any of the inhabitants
in any of three separate houses could have had a clear view of him hauling our
dancer out his back door, and two others might have had a view from one or two
windows. It could have even been someone driving down the street. We have
people going door to door right now, but so far we haven't found anyone who
will admit to placing the call."
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"How would they even have seen anything? Stuff isn't too well lit at four
a.m."
"Hemly's place is. He has motion sensor lights.
Everybody around there has motion-sensor lights." Jim sounded happy. "Plus,
his landscaping includes a fair number of solar-powered lighting fixtures
along walkways and fountains. He might as well have dragged her out the back
door right in front of Candid
Camera."
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"His security tapes give you, anything?"
"He doesn't have a security system that includes video."
Now Jess smiled. "
Really
? Big, rich star like him, and he has no videotapes of potential stalkers or
thieves or disgruntled nutcases? That's oddly suspicious."
"It's good, Jess. It's solid. Our two tips were shaky, but they're panning out
pure gold."
Jess pulled into the parking lot of Goldcastle and sighed. "Speaking of gold.
I'm now in the parking lot at Goldcastle. It's mobbed at this hour of the day,
incidentally. I see the guys in the van across the street, so I'm guessing you
still want me here."
"Yes. Hemly may give us the other two guys. But if he and his lawyer are going
to push the innocent plea, he'll hold out as long as he can. The other two
might lie low, but we can't count on that. And you might be able to get us
some corroborative evidence on Hemly. Girls who had contact with him, how he
behaved, where he took them& you know the drill."
"I know the drill," Jess said. And stopped. "Hey. How is it nobody was
watching the park? Hank thought it was covered."
"Yeah that was a bad miss on our part. The girl we were watching never left
the house, so we never activated the park team. We're short on man-hours, but
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Silence on the other end. Then, "Who knew, huh?"
"Hank, I guess. Signing off for now, Jim. I'll get you what I can."
She checked in with the surveillance team, did a mike test, talking into her
belly button. She had the portable test transmitter hidden in her trunk. That
way she didn't have to worry about carrying it around so she could test, but [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]