“He couldn’t have done it.” I was trying to keep my voice from shaking. “Boltz would never do such a thing. He’s not a murderer, for God’s sake.”
Silence.
Then Marino slowly looked over at me and flicked an ash. “Interesting. I didn’t mention no names. But since you did, maybe we ought to pursue the subject, go a little deeper.”
I was quiet again. It was catching up to me and I could feel my throat swelling. I refused to cry. Dammit! I wasn’t going to let Marino see me cry!
“Listen, Doc,” he said, and his voice was considerably calmer, “I’m not trying to jerk you around, all right? I mean, what you do in private’s none of my damn business, all right? You’re both consenting adults, unattached. But I know about it. I’ve seen his car at your place . . .”
“My house?” I asked, bewildered. “What—”
“Hey. I’m all over this goddam city. You live in the city, right? I know your state car. I know your damn address, and I know his white Audi. I know when I seen it at your house on several occasions over the past few months he wasn’t there taking a deposition . . .”
“That’s right. Maybe he wasn’t. And it’s none of your business, either.”
“Well, it is.” He flicked the cigarette butt out the window and lit another one. “It is my business now because of what he done to Miss Turnbull. That makes me wonder what else he’s been doing.”
“Henna’s case is virtually the same as the other ones,” I coldly told him. “There’s no doubt in my mind she was murdered by the same man.”
“What about her swabs?”
“Betty will work on them first thing in the morning. I don’t know . . .”
“Well, I’ll save you the trouble, Doc. Boltz is a nonsecreter. I think you know that, too, have known it for months.”
“There are thousands of men in the city who are nonsecreters. You could be one, for all I know.”
“Yeah,” he said shortly. “Maybe I could be, for all you know. But fact is, you don’t know. Fact is, you do know about Boltz. When you posted his wife last year, you PERKed her and found sperm, her husband’s sperm. It’s right there on the damn lab report that the guy she had sex with right before she took herself out is a nonsecreter. Hell, even I remember that. I was at the scene, remember?”
I didn’t respond.
“I wasn’t going to rule out nothing when I first walked into that bedroom and found her sitting up in her pretty little nightie, a big hole in her chest. Me, I always think murder first. Suicide’s last on my list because if you don’t think murder first, it’s a little late after the fact. The only friggin’ mistake I made back then was not taking a suspect’s kit from Boltz. Suicide seemed so obvious after you did the post I marked the case exceptionally cleared. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Back then I had a good reason to get his blood, to make sure the sperm inside her was his. He said it was, said they had sex early that morning. I let it go. I didn’t get squat from him. Now I can’t even ask. I don’t got probable cause.”
“You have to get more than blood,” I said idiotically. “If he’s A negative, B negative in the Lewis blood group system, you can’t tell if he’s a nonsecreter—you have to get saliva . . .”
“Yo. I know how to take a suspect kit, all right? It don’t matter. We know what he is, right?”
I said nothing.
“We know the guy whacking these women is a nonsecreter. And we know Boltz would know the details of the crimes, know ’em so well he could take out Henna and make it look like the other ones.”
“Well, get your kit and we’ll get his DNA,” I said angrily. “Just go ahead. That will tell you definitely.”
“Hey. Maybe I will. Maybe I’ll run him under the damn laser, too, and see if he sparkles.”
The glittery residue on the mislabeled PERK flashed in my mind. Did the residue really come from my hands? Did Bill routinely wash his hands with Borawash soap?
“You found the sparkles on Henna’s body?” Marino was asking.
“On her pajamas. The bedcovers, too.”
Neither of us spoke for a while.
Then I said, “It’s the same man. I know what my findings are. It’s the same man.”
“Yeah. Maybe it is. But that don’t make me feel any better.”
“You’re sure what Abby said is true?”
“I buzzed by his office late this afternoon.”
“You went to see him, to see Boltz?” I stammered.
“Oh, yeah.”