Free Name Withheld : A J.p. Beaumont Mystery (9780061760907) by Judith A. Jance Page A

how long Latty’s anger would carry her.
    Wolf stepped aside, clearing a path to the office door. Latty stood leaning against the desk, seeming to gather strength even as she clutched Don Wolf’s oversized jacket closed around her. Finally, she straightened and lurched toward the door. I know it was only an illusion of camera placement, but for a disconcerting second as she moved forward, she seemed to be looking directly into my eyes. The girl on the screen was a pale ghost of the one who had entered laughing minutes before. In the course of those few brutal minutes, something in Latty’s carefree spirit had been shattered, possibly forever. Her face was frozen into a hollow mask; her eyes, empty. The desolation written there almost broke my heart.
    Just inside the door she paused and moved to one side. “If you have to run the elevator, you go first. But if you touch me again, I swear to God I’ll kill you.”
    â€œI won’t,” Don Wolf agreed instantly. “Not ever. I promise.”
    He moved toward the door as well, buckling his belt as he walked. He stopped just within camera range and turned to look around the room. Maybe he was checking to see if anything was out of place. Nothing was. When he turned back to the doorway, there was the damnedest smirk on his face. The son of a bitch looked as though he was proud of himself.
    That single passing glimpse, captured for all time on Bill Whitten’s hidden camera, made me want to puke. As a homicide cop, I’m haunted by murder victims. Finding the killers and bringing them to justice becomes a holy crusade. Right then, however, with Don Wolf’s smirk still lingering in the air, I had the sense that justice had already been served. Someone had taken care of Don Wolf. In the process, his killer had saved the state of Washington a considerable amount of time, trouble, and expense.
    â€œI told you he wasn’t a nice guy,” Bill Whitten said.
    Bill Whitten was obviously a master in the art of understatement. The security system on screen switched off the light. Shadowy darkness returned to the screen, everywhere but in the caption box in the bottom left-hand corner. There the stark white letters read: DECEMBER 28, 12:04:20 A.M .
    Whitten switched off the VCR. “So do you want a copy or not?” he asked.
    Unaware that I had been holding my breath, I let it out. I may have been short on motivation for finding Wolf’s killer, but my duty was nonetheless clear. “Yes,” I said.
    From an evidence standpoint, the tape meant nothing. In order for a recording to stand up in a court of law, at least one of the people being recorded must have given permission. Otherwise, the recording constitutes an illegal wiretap, information from which is generally inadmissible. Iwas relatively sure neither Don Wolf nor Latty had any knowledge as to the camera’s existence, so neither of them could be deemed to have given consent.
    Right at that moment, however, I was looking for probable cause rather than a conviction. In showing probable cause, the rules are a little less stringent.
    â€œYou’ll most likely want to see these other two tapes as well,” Whitten added, jerking his head in the direction of the other two plastic holders Deanna Compton had placed on his desk. “I’ll have those copied at the same time.”
    â€œWhat are they? Don’t tell me he did it again,” I said.
    Bill Whitten shook his head. “I figured you’d want to see them just for the sake of completeness,” he replied. “One is from the ride down in the elevator. The other is from the cameras stationed outside the front entrance of the building. He sent her home in a Yellow Cab, by the way.”
    â€œWhat about New Year’s Eve? Was he working that night?”
    â€œHe was for a while, up until around eleven.”
    â€œDoing what?” I asked.
    â€œWho knows?” Whitten shrugged.