Mortal Wounds

by Max Allan Collins

  The two CSIs watched as Jenny dipped the letter into a series of chemical baths, then set it to one side to dry. She did the same thing with the original note to Fortunato.

  “While we’re waiting,” Jenny said, “let’s compare the handwriting, using the two photocopies we made earlier.”

  Catherine sat on one side of the handwriting expert, and Nick on the other, as Jenny read slowly aloud the letter to Fortunato:

  “My loving Mal,

  Im so happy that were finally going to getaway just the 2 of us.

  It will be great to be together forever. You are everything Ive always dreamed of. See you tonight.

  Love you for ever

  Joy”

  The new letter from Joy Petty read:

  “Dear Marge,

  Thanks for the great birthday card. I don’t know why you keep sending me money, you know I make plenty. But you’re sweet to do it. I hope you’ve been thinking about our invitation to come over and stay with us for a few weeks. The guy I been living with, Doug, could even drive over and pick you up so you don’t have to take the bus. It would be great fun.

  Please come.

  Love, Joy”

  “She’s older now,” Nick said, “her handwriting may have changed.”

  “Not this much,” Jenny said. “Just not possible. Over the years our handwriting changes, granted. To varying degrees. But somebody’s signature? That’s something that people do not drastically change.”

  Jenny displayed the two letters side by side on the table. “Look at the capital ‘J’ in ‘Joy.’ ”

  They moved closer.

  “This new one, the Joy Petty letter, the ‘J’ is extremely cursive. She started at the line and made this huge fuckin’ loop that goes over the top line, then the smaller bottom loop that’s equally full of itself. See how it goes down, almost all the way to the next line? This is somebody who craves attention—wants to stand out in the crowd.”

  Catherine gestured to the older document. “Tell us about the person behind this other signature.”

  Jenny pointed. “This is a scrawl. Almost looks like a kid did it. Very straight, more like printing than script. No way this is the same person. I don’t give a shit how many years you put between ’em.”

  She went on to point out the capital “M” in “Marge,” which was round and smooth, “Demonstrating the same pressure all the way through.” The “M” in “Mal,” however, was pointed, extra pressure at the joints of the lines.

  Jenny shook her head. “Definitely two different writers.”

  Catherine smiled at Nick; Nick smiled at Catherine.

  “The documents should be dry now,” Jenny said, heading back over to the original documents. “Let’s have a look.” The expert positioned herself on one side of the table, Nick on the other. Catherine studied the photocopies a few more seconds, then followed, joining Nick on his side of the table.

  “You dipped this in Ninhydrin?” Nick asked pointing at the note.

  Shaking her head, Jenny said, “Nope—that’s the old mojo.” Catherine said, “I remember reading in the Fortunato file that the lab tried that, back in ’85, when they first found the note…but came up empty.”

  “Yes,” Jenny said. “Though it was good in its day, even then Ninhydrin wasn’t always successful. It worked well on amino acids, left on paper by people who touched it. But this new stuff, physical developer, it’s the shit—works on salts left behind.”

  Nick was nodding, remembering something from a forensics journal article he’d read a while back. “This is the stuff the British came up with, right?”

  “Right,” Jenny said.

  “Oh yeah,” Catherine said, “finds way more prints than Ninhydrin.”

  “We’ve got something,” Jenny said. “Look here.”

  The expert held up the original note: a black print, the side of the author’s palm presumably, and several fingerprints in various places, dotted the page.

  Jenny grinned. “Looks like the writer tried to wipe the paper clean of prints. These shit-for-brains never seem to grasp fingerprints are ninety-nine-and-a-half percent water. They’re in the document, not on it.”

  Fewer fingerprints showed up on the new letter, but there were some to play with.

  “Your fingerprint tech’ll tell you these two prints don’t match,” Jenny predicted. “The letters were written by different people, and the fingerprints will prove it, as well as the handwriting differences. Additionally, the writing style—the amount of schooling indicated—also suggests two authors; but that’s a more subjective call.”

  Catherine looked at Nick. “So, now what are you thinking?”

  “We already knew that Fortunato didn’t run off with the stripper.”

  “Right.”

  “We also believe that she’s still alive and well and living in L.A. as Joy Petty.”

  Nodding, Catherine said, “Yes, and we should know more about that when we get back and talk to Grissom.”

  Nick got up, pacing slowly. “So we have a forged note from Joy to our victim, right around the time of his murder…but why? Why was such a note written?”

  “Whoever hired the killing planted it, obviously,” Catherine said. “And it worked—Fortunato’s disappearance was dismissed as just another guy with a seven-year itch that got scratched by running off with a younger woman.”

  Nick stopped pacing, spread his hands. “So—mob guys hire the killing, and plant the note…or have it planted.”

  Catherine shook her head. “Doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Why not?”

  “Okay, look at it from the mob end of the telescope. You don’t want anybody to know you killed this guy—you don’t even want it officially known the welsher is dead. You instruct your hired assassin to hide the body where it won’t be found for years, if at all, then you write this letter to make it appear Fortunato left town with his girlfriend.”

  “Yeah, right,” Nick said. “That all hangs together.”

  Catherine smiled. “Does it? If you do all that, why do you allow your assassin to sign the body? Give it the old trademark double tap?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if the body is found, you know damn well it’s going to look like a mob hit to the cops. What did it look like to us?”

  “But the Deuce, he’s a mob hitter…”

  “No, Nicky,” Catherine said. “He’s a freelancer. His best customers are organized crime types; but they’re not necessarily his only customers.”

  Nick was seeing it now, shaking his head, disappointed in himself. “Grissom always says, ‘assume nothing,’ and what did we do? Assumed it was the mob.”

  “If it wasn’t,” Catherine said, “it was a perfect set-up for anybody who wanted Fortunato dead, for personal reasons or business or any motive. Already owing bookies out east, Fortunato was a sure bet to have a contract put out on him, if the mobbed-up casino owners knew he was embezzling from the casino. Instant blame.”

  “If somebody else hired the Deuce—who was it?”

  “Ever notice every time we answer one question on this case,” Catherine said, “we end up asking ourselves another, brand-new one?” She turned to the document examiner. “Jenny, how much writing would you need to find a match on these two letters?”

  Jenny’s answer was automatic. “When you get a suspect, don’t take a handwriting sample—that’s for shit. Get me a sample they’ve already written, grocery list, anything.”

  “And if we can’t?”

  “Then, what the hell—get a new sample.” The petite woman shrugged. “There are some things you can’t disguise.”

  “How big a sample?” Catherine asked.

  “Couple of sentences, at least. More is better.”

  “Usually is,” Nick said.

  “Thanks, Jenny,” Catherine said. “You’re the best.”

  “Not hardly,” she said. “My father was.”

  Catherine nodded. “We’ll be back when we’ve got
something.”

  Jenny returned to some waiting work. “I’ll be here till five, and you can page me after that—long as you don’t need me tonight.”

  “What happened to your fabled ‘twenty-four-hour service’?” Catherine kidded her.

  “Don’t break my balls,” Jenny said. “I got choir practice.”

  Catherine guided the wide-eyed Nick out of the office, and, as they drove back down the Strip, Nicky behind the wheel, Catherine punched a speed-dial number on her cell phone. It only rang once.

  “O’Riley,” came the gruff voice.

  “Is Marge Kostichek still with you?”

  “Yep.”

  “No change in her story?”

  “Nope.”

  “You gonna cut her loose?”

  “Yep.”

  “She’s in the room with you right now, isn’t she?”

  “Yep.”

  “…Okay, we’re going to get you a court order for nontestimonial identification.”

  “Say what?”

  “A writing sample and fingerprints.”

  “Oh! All right.”

  Catherine heard Marge Kostichek’s voice in the background. “Aren’t you the gabby one?”

  Catherine said, “I’ll call Grissom—you should have the paper you need in less than an hour.”

  “I like the sound of this.” He disconnected.

  So did she; then she called Grissom, who said he’d take care of the court order and get it to O’Riley.

  “Have either of you slept?” he asked.

  “Earlier this year,” she said, with a sigh. “Haven’t eaten in recent memory, either.”

  “Well, stop and eat, at least. We’re going to get sloppy if we don’t watch ourselves…. I’ll handle things here for a while.”

  “Thanks. We’ll be back soon.”

  She hit END, leaned back in the seat; she wished Grissom hadn’t reminded her how tired she was.

  “What did he say?” Nick asked.

  “That we should eat.”

  “Good. I haven’t eaten since I got a bear claw out of the vending machine about twelve hours ago.”

  The Harley-Davidson Cafe looked like a cross between a fifties style diner, a pub, and a high-end heavy metal club. Though she’d been past it many times, Catherine had never eaten here before—she seldom stopped at tourist places like this. She made a decent living, but not enough to regularly afford eight-dollar hamburgers, and still raise a daughter.

  An American flag made out of three-inch anchor chain filled one wall, all the way up to the thirty-foot ceiling, well above the open second-floor gameroom. A conveyer running through the restaurant, the bar, the gift shop out front and up to the second floor, carried twenty antique Harleys in a constant parade.

  While waiting for Nick’s lemonade and Catherine’s iced tea, they talked the case.

  “All right,” Catherine said, “if the mob didn’t kill Fortunato, who did?”

  He thought about that. “How about the wife? Always the first place to look. And he was fooling around on her, after all.”

  “I don’t know,” Catherine said. “She seems pretty genuinely distraught, finally finding out he’s dead…but her anger for Joy sure hasn’t ebbed, over the passage of time.”

  “What about her boyfriend?”

  The waitress set their drinks in front of them, took their order, and Catherine suffered through the req-uisite flirting (“Aikake” was a “beautiful name,” according to Nick, and “Hawaiian,” according to the waitress).

  “You ready now?” Catherine asked as the waitress hip-swayed away.

  “Sorry. The boyfriend?”

  “Gerry Hoskins. Annie Fortunato claims he wasn’t even in the picture when Malachy disappeared, but no one’s checked the story.”

  “Someone should.”

  “That’s why God made the likes of Jim Brass.”

  “I was wondering. Any other ideas?”

  “How about Marge Kostichek?”

  He shrugged. “She lied about knowing Joy, yeah—but what the hell motive could she have?”

  Catherine sighed. “I don’t know. How’s that for an answer?”

  Nick talked up over Steppenwolf. “What about Joy herself? She disappeared the same day—and until we found that letter we had no idea she was alive.”

  “But the letter from fifteen years ago probably isn’t from Joy—why hire somebody killed, and then plant a forged letter that would’ve been more convincing had you written it yourself?”

  “My head is starting to hurt.”

  Catherine was thinking. “I wonder if Grissom had any luck with the California DMV.”

  “Later,” Nick said, gazing up hungrily.

  Their food had arrived—whether it was the waitress or the cheeseburger that put that look on his face, Catherine didn’t really care to know.

  In less than a day they had gone from identifying the killer back to square one as they tried to figure out who paid for the Deuce to whack Malachy Fortunato. Perhaps, Nick did have the right idea. For now, maybe she should just eat her chicken sandwich and try to forget about the sudden multitude of suspects they had.

  After lunch, Catherine dropped Nick off at HQ, so he could begin going through the evidence again. Such a reappraisal was always a necessary aspect of scientific criminal investigation, because new information and perspectives continually put the evidence in a different light. But if they were going to catch the person who hired the killer, that would likely depend upon matching the fingerprints on the documents, and Jenny Northam matching the handwriting.

  Catherine wasn’t far from Annie Fortunato’s residence when her cell phone rang.

  “Hey, it’s Nick. Grissom had Joy Petty’s driver’s license photo waiting for me here when I got back.”

  “And?”

  “It’s her, all right. Older, not so cute, but it’s her—Monica Petty or Joy Starr or Joy Petty or—”

  “A rose by any name.” Catherine’s hand tightened on the wheel of the Tahoe. “Tell O’Riley or Brass—maybe one of them can go out to L.A. and interview her.”

  “Speaking of O’Riley,” Nick said, “he got the fingerprints and writing sample from Marge Kostichek.”

  “Good—just pulling up in front of the Fortunato house,” she said. “Be back in an hour.”

  “Later,” he said, and disconnected.

  Catherine parked the car and walked up to the door, the smaller version of her field kit in one hand. A single dim light shone through the living room curtains. Catherine knocked on the door.

  After a moment, Annie Fortunato opened the door slowly. Though she was completely dressed, in a blue T-shirt and darker blue shorts, she looked a little disheveled; as usual, a glowing cigarette was affixed to thin white lips. “Hi, Miz Willows—come on in, come on in.”

  Catherine stepped inside.

  Smiling, Mrs. Fortunato asked, “What can I do for you?”

  A smell Catherine instantly recognized—Kraft macaroni and cheese—wafted through from the front room; it wasn’t long after lunch.

  “I apologize for not calling first…”

  “Hey, no problem.” She took a drag off the cigarette. “I know you’re trying to help.”

  “I’m glad you understand that. I need to get a set of fingerprints from you.”

  Her eyes wide, Mrs. Fortunato said, “Pardon?”

  “I need a set of your prints—I need them from Gerry, too.”

  “Why?” The warmth was gone from the woman’s voice now.

  “We found fingerprints on the Joy Starr note. In your husband’s effects?”

  “Why on earth…”

  Hoskins’s voice floated in from the back of the house. “What is it, Annie?”

  Mrs. Fortunato turned and, in a loud hard voice, called, “Catherine Willows is here—she needs our fingerprints!” Then she turned back to Catherine and rage tightened the haggard features. “You think one of us did it?…hell, I didn’t even know Gerry then. He didn’t ev
en live in this town.”

  The awkwardness of it lay heavy on the shoulders of the already-tired Catherine. “It’s just a formality really, to make it easier…you know, to eliminate you from the others.”

  But the more Mrs. Fortunato thought about it, the more worked up she got. “You think I killed my own husband? I thought you were my friend.”

  “Mrs. Fortunato…”

  Smoky spittle flew. “You bitch! How dare you come around here?”

  Catherine held up her hands, tried to explain. “Honestly, Mrs. Fortunato, I’m not even considering the possibility that you killed your husband,” she lied. At this point, she only knew she didn’t want to leave without those prints. “But when we catch who did this terrible thing, their lawyer is going to be looking for any way to get his client off—including implicating either you or Gerry in the murder.”

  Mrs. Fortunato stood there frozen; she had been listening, at least. Catherine, with relief, watched as the woman’s anger evaporated.

  Hoskins came in from the bedroom, still pulling on a shirt, as he tried to zip his jeans with one hand. “You all right?” he asked.

  Catherine wondered if she’d interrupted something—dessert, after the macaroni and cheese, maybe.

  “She wants to take our fingerprints, yours and mine, she says.”

  “What shit is—”

  “So that if they catch whoever killed Mal, their lawyer won’t be able to implicate us.”

  They both looked at Catherine now—suspicion in their eyes.

  Wearily, she leveled with them. “Look—it’s my job to find out who murdered Malachy. And you’re both going to be considered suspects, now that his body has finally been found.”

  “So you are just a bitch,” the woman said.

  “Listen to me—please.”

  Hoskins wrapped a protective arm around Mrs. Fortunato. “How in hell you could ever think…”

  “I’m not your friend,” Catherine snapped. “And I don’t have an opinion one way or the other. I follow the evidence—that’s my job. That’s why I was digging in your driveway last night—that wasn’t for fun. The more evidence I have, whether it convicts or exonerates, gets me closer to finding out who murdered Malachy Fortunato, and bringing that person or persons to justice. Not just the hired killer, but the person—or persons—who hired him…whether it was the mob, you, or someone else altogether.”