The Answer Man (28 page)

He carried it back into the study, where the police videographer was filming every inch of the room with a digital camera. The still photographer was now chatting with a few of the officers who came to gawk at the site.

The nervousness among the officers had given way to morbid humor. Joe overheard cracks about Nelson's taste in decorating, and how a nice tapestry might have been a better match for the wall.

They were trying to be funny, but he could hear a slight edge in their voices. Lieutenant Powell had probably been right about his men getting the shit scared out of them.

Joe had just popped open the suitcase's lid, when Howe walked into the room. “Where's Eve Chandler?” Joe asked.

“Passed out downstairs. Between the Valium and you
running her all over the house, she was wiped out. Thanks for neutralizing my witness, Bailey.”

“You'll get more out of her tomorrow anyway.” Joe pulled a small black box about the size of a hardcover book from the spirit kit. Its high-impact plastic case surrounded a five-inch view screen.

Howe squinted at the instrument. “That looks like a bomb squad gadget.”

“It is. It's a McNaughton handheld sonar pulse reader that I grabbed from the bomb squad's scrap heap. It's a little out of date, but it still does the job.”

“
What
job?”

Joe attached a battery pack to the unit's top edge. “It tells me if there's anything on the other side of these walls I should know about. It throws out sonar waves that detect any mass behind scanned surfaces. It was made to find explosives, but it also works to detect flying rigs, projectors, or anything else phony spiritualists use.” He screwed a telescoping rod onto a bracket on its base and extended the rod out to its full eight-foot length. He flipped the red power switch, and the unit revved to life with a high-pitched whine.

The other cops in the room stopped talking as he slowly swept the reader across the walls and ceiling.

Ping
…
ping
…
ping
…

Joe took note of a few spots where the sonar reader detected areas of greater mass. He was hoping to find some evidence of a contraption that could have sent the sculpture flying into Nelson, but the readings indicated only support beams.

He glided the reader along the wall where Nelson was impaled. No significant variances.

Damn.

He put down the reader and pulled out a large aerosol can. He turned toward the other cops. “Are you guys finished in here?”

One of them nodded. “Knock yourself out.”

Joe sprayed the can high on each wall and over the entire ceiling.

Howe snorted. “If it's the smell you're worried about, that usually isn't a problem until the corpse has been around for a few days.”

“It's not room deodorant. It's phosphorous clearcoat.”

“What?”

Joe was used to the smart-ass comments and questions. Most cops had only the vaguest notion of what he did, and he always tried to patiently explain the tools of his trade. “It coats everything with phosphors that will show up under an ultraviolet light. If there are any thin wires or mesh up there, this will light them up.”

Joe reached back into his kit and produced a high-wattage battery-operated fingerprint lantern. He switched it on. A faint purple light emanated from its rectangular lens plate, and the phosphors that had settled on his sport jacket took on an intense white glow. He aimed the lamp toward the ceiling and slowly walked around the room. Except for a few cobwebs in the corner, nothing showed up under the light.

He turned off the lantern.

Howe's lips twisted. “Well,
that
was impressive.”

“It wasn't meant to impress you.” Joe's patience was almost at an end. “It was only supposed to narrow the field of possibilities, which it did.”

“Uh-huh. So what you're telling me is that you're no closer to figuring out how it was done.”

“You're always closer if you can eliminate some of the possibilities.”

“Now I'm
sure
you don't know what you're doing. You're actually spouting the bullshit that McCarey and Stevens teach at the academy.”

“McCarey and Stevens?” Joe smiled faintly. “They must have been before my time.”

“Screw you.”

“This isn't their bullshit. It's mine, and it's what made your boss call me at one in the morning when you couldn't even begin to figure out what was going on here.”

“I can handle this.”

“I'm sure you can, and after tonight, I'm sure you will. I'm just here to scope things out and help where I can.”

“Which doesn't appear to be much.”

“We'll see.”

Howe relaxed slightly. “Hmm. Were McCarey and Stevens really before your time?”

“Yep.”

“Damn, that's depressing.” Howe turned toward the door. “I'm gonna rouse Ms. Chandler and see if she needs a lift anyplace. I'll check back with you.”

“Fine.”

Joe pulled out a tape measure and extended it to the base of the sculpture, which was angled up at a forty-five-degree angle. Eleven feet four inches from the floor.

He measured the entire room, noting the height and width of the one door and two windows. The measurements could come in handy later, when comparing various
heavy lifting methods typically employed by magicians and psychic scam artists. He could immediately eliminate the Harrison winch due to the rig's large size and lack of portability, and others, like most pulley systems, would not work due to the high center of gravity necessary to drive the sculpture so forcefully into the wall. And he knew of no rig that could explain Nelson's elevated position.

A sharp crack sounded in the room.

Joe spun around.

It was Nelson's other shoe. It had finally slipped off his foot and fell on the floor, spattering blood against the wall.

As Joe walked out the door, no one was making cute comments about Nelson or anything else. It was obvious they just wanted to get the hell out of there.

He headed downstairs, trying to make sense of what he had just seen. Even if he could figure out how it happened, who would kill Nelson in such a bizarre manner? And why?

He stood in the foyer, jotting down a few last impressions of the crime scene, when Howe came through a doorway with Eve.

“Any ideas?” Howe asked.

Joe put his notebook away. “Not yet. I need to do some checking around.”

Howe nodded. “I'm going to take Ms. Chandler home. We'll touch base tomorrow.”

Howe said it more like an order than a simple statement. Joe let it pass.

Eve walked toward him until her face was only inches away.

“Just what
do
you believe in, Mr. Bailey?”

He stared back, unsure how to respond.