Part 6 (1/2)

It's after hours at the police department's favorite saloon, the Drunken Aeronaut, and jubilation, centering on Detective Wilkins, is in full swing. The PD is celebrating a successful conviction in the detective's biggest case yet, a hard case, the worst crime that Califa has seen in a hundred years. For three months, until Detective Wilkins snared him, the Califa Squeeze had the city in an uproar. He was crafty, and busy, with a modus operandi quite chilling: he crept up on his victims - in the bath, in an alley, at breakfast, weeding the garden - and squeezed the life out of them. Then he stole their jewelry and vanished. The city is not unfamiliar with the petty thief, but normally its murderers confine themselves to those who are asking to be murdered: other criminals, dollymops, street orphans, to name but a few unfortunates.

The Califa Squeeze was a different breed of homicide, shameless and daring. He chose his victims from the ranks of the utterly blameless: a city gardener, a lawyer, a lamplighter, a nanny. Innocent folks who kept to the law and expected, therefore, to die old and happy in their beds. By itself each murder was shocking, but when it became apparent that the heinous crimes had been committed by the same maniac, the city had erupted into a frenzy of fear and shrill indignation: the Califa Squeeze must be stopped!

Well, the great Detective Wilkins stopped the Califa Squeeze. Using his wiles, and his extensive underworld contacts, with a hefty dose of charm, and then some deadly browbeating, Detective Wilkins tracked the Califa Squeeze and caught him, red-handed, with the boodle. The terror of the city turned out to be a small mumbling shambling old man known as Nutter Norm, who had been living in a crate not far from the Islais Creek Slaughterhouse. The boodle, no longer quite so s.h.i.+ny after spending so much time in close proximity to offal, was discovered in a sack in the crate. When arrested, Norm protested that he had found the loot, but gentle (and not gentle) pressure from the Great Detective finally persuaded the old man to confess tearfully that he was indeed the dreaded Squeeze, though he couldn't explain exactly why he had done such great crimes for such little reward.

The trial lasted barely an hour. The jury, primed by Detective Wilkins's silky-smooth testimony, delivered a verdict after only twenty minutes of deliberation: guilty on all charges. Nutter Norm will hang. The jury went home, pleased that they had done their duty. The police adjourned to the Drunken Aeronaut to celebrate their hero, who would no doubt soon be called to Saeta House to be congratulated there by the Warlady Sylvanna Abenfarax herself. Until then, they are drinking champagne, eating oysters, and boisterously toasting the man of the hour.

Remember how I said not everyone in the department loves Detective Wilkins? Well, here we come to the one who does not: Constable Aurelia Etreyo, not splendid at all, but small and round and scowly. She sits in a dark corner, chewing furiously on a cheese waffle and furiously watching the other police officers pet Detective Wilkins. If Detective Wilkins is the department pride, Constable Etreyo is the department crank. She came to the PD the youngest graduate from the police academy ever, full of fever and fire to do good, catch criminals, make the city a safer, better place. Instead, she patrols the Northern Sandbank, the coldest, foggiest, most forlorn part of the city, where nothing at all happens, because there is almost nothing there. The Sandbank encompa.s.ses a series of tall hills, too tall to build upon, intermixed with sand dunes too sandy to build upon. Only two structures stand in the Northern Sandbank: the Califa Asylum for the Forlorn and the Nostalgically Insane and a windblown octagon-shaped house, now abandoned. The Northern Sandbank is the worst beat in the city.

Constable Etreyo's been on the job a year, and she's bitter. Constable Etreyo is an acolyte of the great forensic investigator Armand Bertillo, whose book A Manifesto of Modern Detection created the template for modern police work. A modern police officer, says Professor Bertillo, uses facts, not fists, to solve crimes. A modern police officer understands that crime can be measured, that criminals leave behind clues, which, when properly interpreted, make the resolution of the case obvious. Fingerprints, bloodstains, murder weapons, murder scenes, all these help the police answer the only question that truly matters in police work: who did it. The Bertillo System categorizes crimes and criminals into types that can be tracked, antic.i.p.ated, and caught. It is a thoroughly modern way of solving crime, as aloof from the dark old days as day is from night.

Unfortunately for Constable Etreyo, Califa is not a modern police force. Sure, the chief of police frowns upon interrogation via thumping, and they've done away with the old dirty, overcrowded prison in favor of the clean, silent penitentiary system, but otherwise the police force remains old-fas.h.i.+oned. Crimes are solved with a carrot or a stick, and order is kept through intimidation and fear - all practices that Detective Wilkins has made perfect, and the reason he sits at the apex of the list of people that Etreyo hates. Etreyo's attempts to persuade her fellow officers to employ the Bertillo System have gained her only ridicule. Her attempt to get the chief of police to endorse the Bertillo System failed miserably. Banished to the worst beat in the city, Constable Etreyo has grown snappish and mean.

So, snappish and mean, she sits in a corner listening to the jolly police officers bombard the Great Detective with praise and free beer. You probably wonder why she pains herself so. If the sight of Detective Wilkins makes her so sick, why not go where he is not? Well, first, she'll be fiked if she'll quit. And she'll be fiked if she'll be driven from her dinner. Also, she can't afford to quit. She's the second of ten children, and all her paycheck goes to the support of the other nine siblings, her parents, an elderly aunt, and a blind gazehound. She can't afford to eat elsewhere; the Drunken Aeronaut gives a police discount.

So Constable Etreyo sits and stews, cheese waffle growing soggy and heavy in her stomach. Detective Wilkins is recounting for the fourth time how he leaned on Nutter Norm: ”. . . said to him, 'Dear man, I want to help you, I really do, but I cannot,' and here I paused and offered him a cigarillo; he took it, poor soul. I said, 'I want to be your friend, but you will not let me,' and he began to cry, and I knew he'd crack, the Califa Squeeze - I'd squeezed him -”

”Not!” Constable Etreyo's shouted interruption is so loud that the other officers are startled. Detective Wilkins is astounded by the interruption. He turns his gaze toward Etreyo's dark corner, sees her there, smiles, and says genially, ”Ah, Constable Etreyo, welcome. How is your waffle? A bit sandy, maybe?”

The other officers giggle, and one of them slaps Detective Wilkins on the shoulder in a friendly sort of way. This friendly slap c.o.c.keyes the detective's straw boater and earns the slapper a most unfriendly look in return.

”Better to have sand in my teeth than sand in my eyes,” Etreyo says. She hadn't meant to speak. The word had just exploded out of her, but now that she's said one word, it's easy to say a whole lot more.

”I cry your pardon, what do you mean?” Detective Wilkins asks.

”I mean, you've got the wrong man.”

”But, dear Constable Etreyo, Nutter Norm confessed.”

”He was scared and hungry and you promised him a bacon supper.”

”Who would confess to murder - four murders - for a bacon supper?” Subdetective Wynn asks scornfully. He's one of Detective Wilkins's chief cronies.

Constable Etreyo can think of several occasions in her life where she would have happily confessed to murder for one slice of bacon, much less an entire bacon supper. But none of these fat plods looks like he's ever missed a meal, so they have no idea what a driving force hunger can be.

”I never get the wrong man,” Detective Wilkins says.

”You've got the wrong man now.”

”The jury said not.”

”The jury did not know all the facts.”

Detective Wilkins says, ”What do you know of the facts, you who have spent the last weeks traipsing about sand dunes, looking after the safety of cows and crazies, whereas I have examined every crime scene, interviewed every witness, recovered the stolen goods -”

”Fingerprints,” Constable Etreyo says. ”Fingerprints.”

Her words are met with an indulgent sigh (Detective Wilkins), eye rolls, and head wagging (the other officers.) Here goes Etreyo, they are all thinking, with her science.

”Fingerprints are unique,” Etreyo continues. ”No two prints are the same.”

”So you say,” Detective Wilkins says, ”but can you prove it? There are millions of people in the world. Have you looked at the fingerprints of all of those people? What is there to say that my fingerprints are not the same as, say, a hide tanner in Ticonderoga, or a fisherman in Kenai?”

More laughter. The very idea!

She's heard this argument before, and so had Professor Bertillo; of course, they haven't looked at the fingerprints of everyone in the world. But Professor Bertillo had examined the fingerprints of more than ten thousand people and found not a match among them, and that is a big enough sample to support his theory that fingerprints are unique. Not that snapperheads like Detective Wilkins or his cronies will ever be convinced.

”In this case it doesn't matter whether or not Norm's fingerprints are unique,” Etreyo says. ”What matters is that they were not at any of the crime scenes. There were plenty of fingerprints, but none of them was Norm's. Which means he cannot be the Califa Squeeze.”

Detective Wilkins now stares at her, smile vanished. He says softly, smoke from his cigarillo fluttering as he speaks, ”Someone has been detecting behind my back.”

This is true. Detective Wilkins had not ordered any of the crime scenes to be dusted for fingerprints; Etreyo had visited them after Detective Wilkins's exit and had done the dusting herself. She says, ”You cannot execute an innocent man! And it's a matter of public safety. The Squeeze has to be stopped.”

Against Detective Wilkins's own vanity, public safety has not much of a chance. He says, ”I do not like people who detect behind my back.”

”And I do not like officers who squabble in public,” a new voice says. Ylva Landaon, the chief of police, has been standing at the bar for the last ten minutes, but the officers have been so absorbed in their drama that they didn't notice. Now, realizing her presence, they begin a mad scramble of doffing hats, saluting. Fiking great, thinks Constable Etreyo. Records room, here I come.

”You seem awfully certain that Norm is not the Squeeze, Constable Etreyo,” Captain Landaon says.

”I am, Captain.”

”But you can't prove it.”

”Nutter Norm's fingerprints were not at any of the crime scenes.”

”What does that prove?” Detective Wilkins says. ”Perhaps he wore gloves! Did you think of that, Constable Etreyo?”

The other officers laugh, and Etreyo feels her cheeks flush with murderous rage. She swallows hard. ”If he had worn gloves, he would have left smeared marks. But I didn't find any such marks.”

Detective Wilkins scoffs. ”All of this is irrelevant anyway. Norm confessed.”

”Ayah, he did,” Captain Landaon says. ”Norm confessed, had a fair trial, and was found guilty. It is not the police's place to criticize the verdict. We uphold the law; we do not rule on it. Do you understand, Constable Etreyo? I will hear no more of these wild theories of yours. The case is closed.”

Detective Wilkins and his cronies roar. They don't care if they send an innocent man to the drop. They care only for their reputations. They can laugh at her all they want; she knows she is right. But being right won't save Nutter Norm. Only proof that she is right will do that.

And, other than the fingerprints, she doesn't have any.

As you might guess from Etreyo's sudden declaration to Detective Wilkins, she's been following the case since the first murder was discovered. Unofficially, she's examined the crime scenes; unofficially, she's examined the bodies; and unofficially, she's read Detective Wilkins's reports. The man may be a snapperhead, but his reports are thorough. He doesn't follow the Bertillo protocols of measuring the crime scenes, or making sketches or photograves of evidence, nor does he dust for prints, but he looks for evidence, and he interviews witnesses. Now Etreyo feels she knows the case as well as Detective Wilkins does. Better, actually, for her understanding of the case is guided by the evidence. His is guided by his own opinions. There is no room in forensics, says Professor Bertillo, for opinion.

But she's gone over and over the case file a hundred times, and all she can do is eliminate Norm. She knows the answer to who the real killer is must be there, in the file, in the clues, somewhere, but she just can't see it. And so Norm will hang. She'd visited him in jail, a broken old man, crying for his life. He'd reminded her of her grandpa. He'd died, too, because her family couldn't afford the medicine to save him.

The case of the Califa Squeeze is a strange one. Four murders and no witnesses, this despite the fact that three of them took place in the middle of the day, with potential witnesses nearby. How could a murderer gain access to his victims and yet not be seen? In the case of the nanny, his charges were in the next room coloring when the crime happened, and they didn't hear or see a thing. In the lawyer's case, the only access to the murder room was through a door that was locked from the inside. There is no evidence that anyone had climbed in through the window.

There's no obvious motive, either. The petty nature of the items stolen would seem to preclude theft as a motive, particularly since they were all recovered. The Squeeze hadn't even tried to unload them. Detective Wilkins could find no connection between the victims, and neither could Constable Etreyo, following in his footsteps. According to the Bertillo System, there is always a motive. But she has no idea what it could be.

The criminal, said Professor Bertillo, cannot hide himself completely. He leaves traces of himself behind, and his fingerprints are his signature. Etreyo had dusted all the crime scenes for prints. She'd used the prints she'd covertly collected from her colleagues to eliminate their prints, and she was then left with only a few unidentified prints. The same prints keep showing up at all the crime scenes. They don't belong to any of the detectives. Etreyo knows these prints belong to the killer. But that knowledge doesn't bring her any closer to discovering who the killer is.

Constable Etreyo wishes she could consult with Sieur Bertillo himself, but he's a thousand miles away, in Bexar, and she can't afford the price of a heliogram, anyway. Cast down, she returns to the station house to file her end-of-s.h.i.+ft report and change out of her uniform. She should just go home.

Instead, we find Etreyo back at the station, standing outside the door to the Califa City Morgue, smearing the s.p.a.ce between her nose and her lips with lavender pomade. No matter how many times she has been on the other side of that door, she cannot get used to the smell: decaying meat, quicklime, stale blood. The pomade doesn't erase the smell completely, but it certainly does cut it some. Her nose now armored, she pushes through the heavy wooden doors into the white-tile room beyond.