"That wouldn't be the truth!"
Decker paused. "You wanted to be posed like that?"
"No, but..." Her eyes watered. "I love him "
"Terry, you're too smart for that."
"You didn't let me finish."
Decker stopped himself. "Sorry. Go on."
"I love Chris, Sergeant. But I've got a fierce sense of justice. If I truly . .. believed that he killed Cheryl, I might still love him, but I'd want to see him punished."
She looked pained.
"If you put me before a grand jury, I will tell the truth. But it won't be your interpretation of the truth... which is a legitimate interpretation but..." 205
Decker waited. When she didn't continue, he filled in the blanks. "Terry, if Chris really loved you, he wouldn't have compromised you like that."
"He didn't compromise me. Those sketches were just between the two of us. They were very personal!"
"If they were so personal, why did I find them doing a simple, routine search around his apartment?"
She paused. "They were just lying around?"
"I had no trouble finding them," Decker said breezily.
"But that doesn't make sense. That he'd leave them out in the open. They're incriminating if nothing else." She glared at him. "I thought you were honest. Now I see you're lying. All you care about is getting Chris indicted."
"Hell, yeah, I want to get him indicted!" Decker said, forcefully. "You said you don't like dangerous boys. Terry, Chris is a real bad egg. Do you know who his father is?"
"Joseph Donatti."
Well, so much for the element of shock.
Terry went on, "So what if Joseph Donatti is Chris's adopted father? So what if Chris is from mob? It doesn't make him mob. You know what Chris is?"
"A saint?" Decker said.
"Very funny!" she said defiantly. "He's a pawn, Sergeant! A trapped and manipulated pawn used by vicious men. And now you're manipulating me to testify against him. Look elsewhere. I won't bring him down."
"I'd try elsewhere except Cheryl Diggs is dead."
"He didn't kill her!"
"Terry, while Chris was proclaiming his love for you, he was sexually involved with Cheryl Diggs. The guy is not a poor little frog prince. He's a toad!"
She spoke each word with precise enunciation. "He ... didn't... kill... Cheryl... Diggs ... period."
Decker sat back in his chair. Confrontation wasn't working. The more he attacked Whitman, the more the girl dug in her heels. Because above all, there were emotions between the two of them.
He thought for a moment.
The girl had told him she had a fierce sense of justice. For her, fear and anger weren't powerful motivators. Perhaps he should be stressing kindness ... fairness. He softened his expression, folded his hands, and looked her in the eye. "Would you like to know where I actually found the sketches?"
Terry didn't answer.
"In Chris's hall closet was this tiny locked slot that blended in nicely with the paneling in the wall. Way up high..." Decker stretched his arms to emphasize the point. "At the very tip-top of his closet. I almost missed it." He smiled. "But I didn't because I'm a real pro. Chris just about fainted when I found them."
Terry looked up.
"Man, I almost felt sorry for him," Decker said. "I think he would have accepted cigarette burns on his butt rather than give out your name. But I backed him against the wall. I told him if he didn't give it to me, I'd pass the pictures around your school until I found someone who recognized you."
Her face froze with fear. "You didn't..."
Decker shook his head. "No, it obviously didn't come to that." He gave her a sad smile. "Yes, he gave me your name. But he was miserable about it. He told me to tell you he was sorry."
Tears formed in her eyes.
Decker said, "You know what, Terry? I truly felt bad for him. I feel bad for you, too. But my real sympathies are with someone else. Do you know who I really feel bad for?"
Terry was silent.
"Cheryl Diggs. She died so ignominiously. Young girl tied up like a beast to be slaughtered. That's no way to die."
Wet tracks ran down her cheeks.
Decker said, "Cheryl never got a chance to tell me her side of the story. Corpses can't talk. So I have to talk for them. You understand what I'm saying, Terry?"
She wiped her cheeks and nodded.
"I took one look at that young face... staring at me with dead eyes..." Decker paused. "I swore I would talk for her... avenge her. Because someone viciously killed her, without regard for her feelings, for her life. And I'm sorry to tell you, I do believe it was Christopher Whitman. What do you think, Terry?"
In a whisper, she said, "Does it matter?"
"It matters to me. It'll matter to Chris. And it'll matter a great deal to a grand jury. Most important, it'll matter to you. It will determine how you can live with yourself after this whole mess is over."
She looked up with dry eyes. "Chris didn't do it."
Decker kept his frustration in check. He studied her face. No longer defiant. Very sincere. Calmly, he asked, "And why do you think that, Terry?"
Decker waited a beat. "Do you think Chris is capable of murder, Terry?"
Slowly, she nodded her head yes.
"So why don't you think he killed Cheryl?"
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I used to go to the rages ... the parties. I wasn't an active participant... I sat around. But I used to go to see Chris. Moon over him. It was pretty pathetic."
Decker waited.
"Chris drank like a fish! It wasn't unusual to see him polishing off an entire fifth by the end of the evening. Yet, when he left, he was always perma-pressed .... perfectly coherent and alert."
She spoke in a soft monotone.
"Christopher Whitman is the most... controlled ... compulsive ... obsessively neat person I've ever met. And that's saying something. Because I'm not exactly freewheeling and spontaneous. He makes me look like a hippie. I've seen him drunk, I've seen him stressed, I've seen him angry, I've seen him.. . aroused, I've seen him happy, I've seen him miserable. I've seen him in many different emotional states. But I've never seen him sloppy."
She met Decker's eyes.
"Cheryl's murder was ... messy. If Chris had killed her, he would have been neat about it."
Decker didn't speak. Was she serious? "Terry, even compulsives freak out "
"Not Chris." She shook her head. "Uh-uh, no way, not him! For him, sloppiness is the ultimate abomination. If Chris were a killer, he'd be a ninja."
"Terry "
"And if he didn't do it, Sergeant, it means someone else did And if you're not going to look for him, I will."
Decker didn't speak right away, feeling a rise of acid in his gut. He was angered by the kid's audacity, but also forced to admit to himself that he was worried. Whitman was probably guilty the kid had killer eyes. But Decker had never fully suppressed that nagging tug in his brain.
The African-American pubic hairs found on a routine pubic comb. The semen inside of Cheryl.
Another man.
When he spoke, he tried to appear calm. "This is not a request, Terry. This is an order. Stay out of police business. Because if you get involved, you're just going to muck things up for you and for Chris " 208
"Sergeant, if you're so sure it's Chris, why do you care if I ask a couple of questions?"
"Because people get scared when you imply things. And when they get scared, they don't act rationally." Decker made his hand into a gun, placed his index finger at her temple and drew an imaginary trigger with his thumb. "Now where are you, Terry?"
She was silent.
Decker said, "You're an honest kid. Swear to me you won't interfere."
Terry said, "Sir, can I make a deal with you?"
"No, you cannot!"
"I won't interfere ... sir ... Sergeant. .. if you promise me you'll investigate every single angle of Cheryl's death."
"Terry, that's exa
ctly what I'm doing."
"Sergeant, with all due respect... sir, I think you're trying to put Chris away, not find the murderer ... sir."
Decker ran his hand over his face. "And what happens when it's proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Chris murdered Cheryl?"
Terry blinked several times. "I'd be devastated of course. But as long as I know that... Sergeant, if you promise me you'll investigate everything, I'll butt out. Because I really do think you're an honest man. Do we have a deal?"
Decker bored into her eyes. "No, we do not have a deal. I don't make deals with anyone, let alone sixteen-year-old adolescents. You back off and stay away and let me do my job. If you do that, we'll both be satisfied, all right?"
She paused, then nodded.
Decker blew out air. He flashed on Cindy, remembering their postmidnight marathon debates. She wore him down by sheer attrition. Such was the mission of adolescents. Turning adults into Jell-O!
"I don't know why but I really trust you." She looked at him with tiger-gem eyes. "I envy your daughter. I wish you were my father."
It was said so guilelessly that Decker was tempted to reach out and hug her. But of course, he didn't. Even the sweetest of faces could have an evil agenda.
Above all, Decker was a professional. 209
Flipping through the sketch pad, Oliver let go with a long whistle. "Not bad," he said. "Not bad at all, mama. You can sit on my face anytime."
Decker entered the squad room, saw Oliver ogling the drawings, and felt his temper rise. Oliver looked up and caught Decker's expression. He closed the pad and smiled boyishly. "Just checking out the evidence."
Slowly, Decker walked over, counting to ten mentally. He held out his hand. "The pad, please?"
Averting his eyes, Oliver spoke angrily. "What the hell is it to you? You've sifted through tons of shit in your years. You mean to tell me you've never taken a peek?"
"The pad, please?"
"Or is feeling horny against your born-again religion?"
Decker was impassive. "The pad, Scott?"
Oliver paused, then handed it to him.
"You have the evidence-slip number?" Decker said.
"Yeah." Oliver sorted through his desk drawer. "Here it is. Also, here's the numbers for Whitman's other sketch pads. They've already been entered and filed in the evidence room. Davidson told me to go through this one since it's the most incriminating. Make photocopies of all the sketches that resemble the Polaroids taken at the Diggs crime scene. To me, they all resemble the postmortem snaps."
"Have you done anything?" 210
"Oh, fuck off, Mr. Holy Roller!"
"I'm not being sarcastic," Decker said evenly. "If you haven't done it yet, I'll do it."
Oliver blushed. "Sorry. I'll do it."
Decker was quiet.
"No, really, I'll do it," Oliver said. "You've got more pressing business. Whitman's been asking for you for the last half hour."
"Has he contacted his lawyer yet?"
Oliver said, "First thing after he was booked. He and Moody must have conferred for an hour. Bail hearing's set at Van Nuys."
"And Whitman's still here?"
"Yeah. Moody wanted to hold him at Van Nuys jail, but the kid refused transfer until he'd talked to you. We've penned him solo, holed up in one of the padded numbers. High-profile case plus he's a mafioso's son. Davidson wanted him segregated."
"A good idea."
"You talk to the girl, Deck?"
"Yep."
"And?"
Decker said, "The pictures aren't from Whitman's imagination. She posed for them at Whitman's request."
"She admitted it?"
"Yep."
"She actually told you that he had tied her up?"
"Yep."
Oliver clapped his hands together. "Prosecution's gonna tongue your ass. You got her to admit that Whitman tied her up, now Whitman's got a history of bondage. Defense can't say that Diggs was an impulsive first-time thing because Whitman was raging drunk. We got a good case for a calculated homicide."
"Yeah, he's used binds before."
"And so much for Elaine and the polygraph." Oliver did a raspberry. "No wonder the tests aren't admissible."
"No, they're not foolproof." Decker paused. "But they are hard to beat. Whitman was good."
"Real good," Oliver said. "Did she pose willingly?"
"Yes and no. If I were the State, I could make a case that she was manipulated and psychologically coerced."
Oliver smiled. "Little Chrissie is up to his balls in quicksand. No wonder he wants to talk to you. Cut some sort of deal."
Decker said, "If he had deal in mind, his lawyer would be talking to the prosecution. He wouldn't be asking for me." 211
"Ah, c'mon," Oliver said. "You know how it works. They always try to cut deals with us first... like we got some magic power to kiss the boo-boo and make it go away. First we're their worst enemy, then we become their best friend. We've seen it a hundred times before."
Decker shrugged.
"The girl must be pissed at Whitman."
"Not really." Decker scanned the sketch pad and winced. "Mostly, she's embarrassed . .. really embarrassed."
"Nice girl?"
"Yep."
"So what's she doing posing like that?"
"Nice girls can screw up." Decker raised his brow. "He told her he loved her. He told her it was art... Jesus dying on the cross. Who the hell knows? Maybe in his own sick mind, it was the truth."
"Yeah, and I'm a horse's ass."
Decker glanced at him and said nothing.
Oliver let out a soft laugh. "I set myself up for that one." He ran his hand over his forehead. "How old is she?"
"Sixteen."
"Was he violent with her?"
"Nope." Decker closed the top of the pad and gave it back to Oliver. "Not at all. But she knew something about him was kinky. She suggested he find another tutor after he tied her up. She told him she didn't want to model anymore."
"In other words, she smelled a fart and didn't call it perfume. Give the girl a point." Oliver made an imaginary notch with his index finger in the air. "Her quivering antenna may be the reason she's alive today."
"Still, she's not out to fry him."
"Don't tell me," Oliver said. "She still loves him."
"That's probably part of it," Decker said. "But I think she honestly believes he didn't do it."
"Christ! They just don't learn! Why don't you show her the postmortems of Cheryl Diggs. See how deep her affections run."
"It's up to the prosecution now. I've done my job." Decker smoothed his mustache. "I think the best way to approach this sketch versus Polaroid thing is by points of comparison, like doing a fingerprint match before we got the computers. Methodically go through the pad and photos and mark the similarities. Look at the angles, the hand position, the wrist position, head positions, the way the feet were bound, the crossing of the ankles, and so on and so on. Anybody else call me?" 212
"No."
"Then I'll see you later." Decker started to walk away, but Oliver called him back.
Decker turned around. "What?"
Oliver said, "Deck, you've got the beautiful wife, you've got the perfect kids. Have a little patience with the less fortunate going through hard times."
Decker was quiet.
Oliver made popping noises with his lips. "You know it's gotta be bad if evidence makes me salivate."
Decker was careful with his words. "Anything at home to salvage?"
"I thought so. But Patti has different ideas." Oliver sliced air with the side of his palm. "She wants a clean break. I'm looking for a two-bedroom, but I'd take a large one-bedroom. You think Marge might have any rentals in her building?"
"You can ask her when she gets back."
"Patti wanted me out by the weekend."
"What about your girlfriend temporarily?"
"No A-effing way I'm moving in with her. I don't want to give her any ideas."
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