“Oh, no,” Betty said. “We just sent over lists of that. But that stuff is handled by the technicians, and they’ve got their heads on straight. And the Medical Examiner’s Office, of course, and they’ve got their heads on even straighter.”
“I’m not gay,” Martha said. “I’m married with two children. Grown up now. But Betty is my friend.”
Gregor cleared his throat. “Here’s what I want to do,” he said. “I want to get those boxes back here because this is where they belong, and they aren’t doing anybody any good over at Rob Benedetti’s office. In the meantime, I want to sit down with the two of you and make an outline of this case from the very beginning, starting with, what’s her name—”
“Sarajean Petrazik,” Martha said.
“Yes, that’s right,” Gregor said. “Starting there, and going right to last night. I want the names of the victims in order, where they were found, if anybody was picked up for questioning, what physical evidence exists that pertains to that particular crime. I want to write it all down, and I want to look at it. Can you help me do that?”
“Of course we can,” Martha said.
“My guess is that we’d better,” Betty said, “or Mr. Jackman will start yelling again.”
2
I was, Gregor thought later, the Mount Everest of organizational projects. At the end of the first hour it was barely done, and they had sucked in three more clerks and a uniformed officer to help. At the end of three hours, it was beginning to look as if it would finally come into shape, and they were up to three uniformed officers and enough clerks to stock a typing pool. Then the boxes came back from across town, and Gregor had to scatter people around the evidence office and down the hall just to start looking into them.
From his point of view, though, things were better within half an hour of their starting because by then he had some idea of what was going on in the case as a whole. His head, though, didn’t call it a case. It only called it “the mess.” He kept reminding himself that he didn’t know what they had here yet. He did, however, have a list of the women who had been identified as victims of the Plate Glass Killer, where they had been found, and who, if anybody, had been picked up for questioning in their deaths. It wasn’t much of a list. Even the very basics of this case witnessed to the disorganization wTith which it had been handled. Still, it was a start, and Gregor stopped wandering the hall supervising the sorting every once in a while to look at it.
Sarajean Petrazik
alley behind Independence Hall
bookkeeper Green Point Affordable Rentals East
Marlee Craine
alley behind Food King, Meacham
secretary Philadelphia Cares
Conchita Estevez
alley behind house SH
Henry Tyder
maid live-in Tyder/Beaufort/Woodville household
Rondelle Johnson
alley Curzon Street
Bennie Durban
on public assistance
Faith Anne Fugate
alley Devereaux Street
Tyrell Moss
deputy comptroller Green Point Property Management
Elizabeth Bray
alley Marchand Staples
bookkeeper Morgan Atlee Merchant Bank
Elyse Martineau
alley Coles Center
Dennis Ledeski
secretary and receptionist Dennis Ledeski CPA
Catherine Mishten
Dumpster alley Garland’s
account manager Marshfield Houghton Appliance Center
Mylena Kasentoff
alley Landerman Road
bookkeeper/finance director Lautervan Metal Works
Debbie Morelli
alley Saint Joseph’s Loudon
Alexander Mark
bookkeeper/secretary Saint Joseph’s Parish
Arlene Treshka
alley Brentwood block Anderson
Henry Tyder
bookkeeper Green Point Short-term Rental
Gregor looked it over a few times. Here was where it would be useful to know how to use the computer. He wanted an interactive chart that he could add things to and take them out of. For the moment, the ordinary written one would do. He could match it up to what official, stable records there were, the ones that had not been allowed to fall into the hands of Gayle and Leehan. He sat down at the one free space he’d left in the area and began to match the women, the suspects, and the places with the reports of the first officers at the scene, and then with the reports of the Medical Examiner’s Office.
This was, Gregor thought, after he had managed to put together enough of what he needed to call Rob Benedetti, the kind of work that was supposed to have been done on the ground by the detectives assigned to a case before they ever started running around jailing people. At the very least, any homicide detective who wanted to ask for a warrant and serve it should have known what Gregor knew now; but not only was it obvious that Marty and Cord didn’t know it, Gregor was sure nobody else did either. And that included the district attorney, the commissioner of police, and the general public, since one of the problems that seemed to be going on here was the fact that the press—starved for information and not averse to just making it up—had taken the ball and run with it. Instead of insisting on getting the information right, the police, and not just Marty and Cord, had let the press wind the whole thing up and turn it into a Christmas party.