Free Richard Montanari by The Echo Man Page A

towered over no
one. But she was in great physical shape, still adhered to the Marine
circuit-workout four days a week, and could outrun and outperform women on the
force half her age, as well as many of the men.
        Being
a woman in what was still and would probably always be a boys' club, her
military training came in handy.
        As in
all police departments, indeed any paramilitary organization, there was a chain
of command. From the commissioner to deputy commissioner, from chief inspector
to staff inspector to captain, all the way to lieutenant and sergeant, then
detective, officer, and recruit, it was a highly regimented institution. And
shit, as they say in the military, doesn't flow uphill.
        From
day one, Dana Westbrook took a lot of shit.
        When
a call came in during day work - the eight a.m. to four p.m. shift - the desk
detective took the information and brought it to the supervisor on duty. It was
then the supervisor's job to initiate and coordinate the first crucial hours of
the investigation. A lot of this involved telling men - some of whom had been
in homicide for more than twenty years, all of whom had their own way of doing
things, certainly their own pace and rhythms - where to go, who to talk to,
when to come back. It involved judging their fieldwork, sometimes calling them
on the carpet.
        For
male homicide detectives, who felt as if they were the Chosen, having someone
tell them what to do was not an easy pill to swallow. To be told by a woman?
This made the medicine bitter indeed.
        Westbrook
sat next to Jessica, opened a new file, clicked her pen. Jessica gave her the
basic details, starting with the anonymous 911 call. Westbrook made her notes.
        'Any
sign of forced entry to the building?' Westbrook asked.
        'Not
sure. The place has probably been broken into many times, but there was no new
splintering on the jamb.'
        'What
about vehicles parked near the scene?'
        Jessica
noticed for the first time that, besides her modest earrings, Dana Westbrook
had four empty piercings in her right ear. 'We're running plates in a two-block
radius, along with the vehicles parked in the school parking lot,
cross-referencing the owners with wants and warrants. Nothing so far.'
        Westbrook
nodded, made a note of it.
        'And
we could also take a look at some of the footage our budding
        Oscar
winner took. I saw Albrecht getting some shots of the crowd across the street.'
        'Good
idea,' Westbrook said.
        Sometimes
a criminal, especially one guilty of murder, returned to the scene. Police were
always aware that a crowd at a crime scene, or one gathered at a funeral, might
contain the person they sought.
        'And
speaking of Albrecht, how much access does this kid get?' Jessica asked.
        'Within
reason,' Westbrook replied. 'He doesn't get inside the ME's office, of course.
Or a hospital.'
        'And
why are we doing this, again?'
        'He's
the deputy commissioner's wife's cousin's son. Or something like that. He's
plugged in, let's just put it that way. The deputy commissioner is a Penn State
grad, you know.'
        'Is
Albrecht allowed to film a crime scene?'
        'Well,
word is, the brass is going to see a rough cut of this film and has final approval
over it all. If anything compromises an ongoing investigation or is blatantly
disrespectful to a victim or a victim's family it won't see the light of day.
You can count on that.'
        'So,
we have the right to chuck him off a scene?'
        'Absolutely,'
Westbrook said. 'Just make sure Kevin doesn't do it when you're going seventy
on 1-95.'
        Jessica
smiled. It hadn't taken long for Sergeant Dana Westbrook to get up to speed.
'I'll make a note.'
        Westbrook
stood. 'Keep me in the loop.'
        'You
got it, boss.'
        Until
they got an ID on the victim there wasn't too much they could do. The faster
you got an ID, the faster