The Tattered Thread
Page 51
CHAPTER FORTY
Connery asked Silas for the CD-ROM he’d used to copy the name cards. Turning on the Macintosh in Katerina’s office, the detective slid the CD into the drive. Silas, unsure of who was to be promoted and who was to be demoted that day, had made three cards for Nicolette, Marlon, and Alex, and each of those had three separate titles on them. Displaying the right entry on the screen and then using the mouse to jump ahead, Connery bent down to have a look at each one.
Slye came into the room and watched what Connery was doing from over his shoulder. Resting back against the edge of a table, Slye stuck his hands inside the pockets of his trousers. “I fast forwarded through sixty hours worth of video tapes recorded between eight and eleven the night of the murders,” he said. “I saw nothing out of the ordinary, Rein.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“What are you doing?”
“Checking the data on this CD-ROM. Let’s look at Nicolette’s cards. One says ‘Nicolette A. Howard, Production Manager.’ The next one reads ‘Vice President of Research and Development,’ and the third says ‘Vice President of Manufacturing.’” Connery looked at Silas for some sort of an explanation.
“Production Manager had been Nicolette’s position in the company prior to Friday’s meeting, which is another way of saying Vice President of Manufacturing. Vice President of Research and Development was the title she’d been hoping for but didn’t know she had because of Dad’s trick. Vice President of Manufacturing was the title she thought she’d been given on Friday, but getting that would’ve meant she still had the same job she’d had before the meeting.”
“And this is supposed to be the card she was wearing at Friday’s meeting?” Connery said, lifting her name card up from the others in the box.
“She wasn’t wearing that card, Detective. I assure you.”
Examining the card closely, Connery read aloud, “‘Nicolette A. Howard, Vice President of Manufacturing.’ Shouldn’t this say…?”
“Production Manager?” Silas interjected, so Connery nodded. “You’re absolutely right.”
“That’s how you knew this wasn’t the card you’d printed off. Nicolette should’ve copied the card with her old title of Production Manager. Instead, with the demotion heavy on her mind, she reproduced her new title of Vice President of Manufacturing instead. It’s the same position only the title is different. So this card had to have been made after the meeting rather than before it.”
“That’s right. Call it a Freudian slip on her part, but instead of cutting out her old title, she cut out her new one, which represented the demoted status she couldn’t possibly have known about until after Friday’s meeting. I guess she was in a hurry to replace the card.”
“She didn’t think,” Slye said, rubbing his hands together.
“Everything she needed to make up a new name card is right here,” Silas said. “There’s glossy card stock paper in that drawer, vinyl badge holders, scissors, and extra ink cartridges.”
“We didn’t find the glossy paper she’d used to cut this from,” Connery noted of the card still in his hand. “She’d gotten rid of the rest of the sheet.”
“Of course she did.”
“Do you remember what Nicolette was wearing on Friday afternoon?”
“No, I don’t recall,” Silas said. “Why?”
“Was she wearing a blue suit?”
Silas thought for a minute. “Yes, a light blue mohair suit, I think.”
“We found some blue fibers on the pin of that badge holder in Carl’s hand.”
The boy stood up straighter. “Well, you must find that suit then. You’ll need a warrant to search her house.”
Connery nodded. “I agree with you. Don’t worry, the warrant’s already been taken care of.”
“If we can match those fibers, I’ll be home for dinner tonight,” Slye said as if that was his top priority.
“Maynard, do me a favor and track down Nicolette,” Connery said. “I’ve got some questions for her.”
“Sure thing,” Slye said, walking out the door and heading toward the library.
“When we analyzed each of the cards,” Connery told Silas, “we found your fingerprints on all of them except this one.” He held Nicolette’s card up higher before letting it drop back down into the box with the rest.
“All the evidence you have is circumstantial,” Silas said. “You don’t have anything solid.”
“If we find that suit….” Connery began.
“It’ll probably be dry cleaned by now,” Silas concluded. “Besides, mohair is a commonly used fabric.”
“But the texture and color may be unique enough for us to pinpoint it to a specific article of clothing.”
“Any shyster worth his horns can take everything you have so far and come up with all sorts of legal reasons to get her off.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I think we should use Dad’s stomach contents to get what we want.”
“And what is that, exactly?”
“A confession.”
“She’s already been led to believe that the card in your father’s stomach had her name on it,” Connery said. “If that didn’t prompt a confession from her by now, it’s not going to.”
“We can’t let her get away with murder! I want her to pay for what she did to my father.”
“She will, Silas. You’re just focussing on the wrong thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“All of your efforts have been directed toward your father’s murder, which was a vicious, premeditated act executed with great thought and very little emotion. I mean, the perpetrator had enough wit about her to drape plastic over her clothes, wear gloves, and even make a new card. Killers tend to flub things up when their consideration lies elsewhere.”
“Meaning?”
“You catch a crook by focussing on whatever they’ve done in haste, without thinking things through.”
Mulling that over for a minute, Silas asked, “You mean the way John Linton was killed?”
Connery nodded again. “That’s exactly what I mean.”