Suspect, p.17
Suspect, page 17
“I had it on. You can see that,” Blanco answers.
“What I see,” says Rik, “is that the ring doesn’t fit you.”
Marc objects to Rik saying what he sees.
“We can all see,” says the Reverend.
Rik circles back to our table, thinking about what he wants to ask next.
“All right, this photo you’ve brought to court. You deleted everything but this image from your cell phone?”
“No. I printed out that photo and showed it to the Chief. Then I deleted all the images from my phone and kept that one printed photograph under lock and key.”
“And this”—Rik holds up the folder—“this is the photo that you showed the Chief?”
“That’s what I showed her.”
“So if we do ink testing on it, we’ll find that the toner was manufactured last year? Since you say all this happened in November?”
Blanco pauses. Ink testing is used now and then in the kinds of white-collar cases Pops handled in federal court, where documents are central, but I’ll bet Blanco knows next to nothing about it, including how often toner formulas are changed. Rik may not either, but in his aggressive mood, he’s a convincing fake.
“Well, actually,” says Blanco, with the same phony bashful smile, “when I decided to show the photo to Mr. Hess last week, I took pictures of it beforehand and printed out several copies. I can show you on my phone.” Blanco reaches into his jacket pocket and removes his cell phone.
“We’ll get to your phone,” says Rik. “But where is the original photo that you showed the Chief?”
“I don’t know,” says Blanco. “I brought it with the copies to show Mr. Hess.”
“Mr. Hess,” says Rik, “can you give us the original?”
Marc has already straightened up, clearly caught unaware by Blanco. Now he opens his own file folder and peers into it. Finally, he says, “I wasn’t aware that there was a difference between the prints that I received. I’ll have to look more closely when I get back to the office.”
“Can I ask the commission to order Mr. Hess to forthwith produce the original photograph that Mr. Blanco has testified about, so that we may perform ink tests on it?”
Marc looks back at Rik. “You don’t need to order me to do anything. I understand my obligations.”
“Now you do,” says Rik.
“Okay, gentlemen,” says the Reverend. “Enough squabbling. Please get the original to Mr. Dudek tomorrow morning, Mr. Hess.”
“You know,” says Blanco. “Maybe I kept the original. I’ll have to look, too.”
“Same order please as to Lieutenant Blanco,” says Rik.
“If I can find it,” he answers. “I printed a lot of copies of the photo before I got it right. And then, you know, I couldn’t just leave something like that laying around. So I shredded the rest. And maybe I shredded the original, too, by accident. I mean, I’m not saying that’s what happened, but it’s possible. You know, theoretically.”
“So you decided to produce this evidence because it was the only way to support your credibility and keep your career from being roadblocked—and then you threw out the original?”
“I didn’t say that happened. Just that it’s possible. I’ll try to find it.”
Frito now seems like a weak imitation of the person who originally took the stand. His hands are flying around as he explains himself, and he won’t stop licking his lips.
“And if he can’t, I’ll be asking to strike Mr. Blanco’s testimony,” says Rik.
The Reverend just waves a hand. He doesn’t need the theatrics in advance.
“Now, you had your cell phone in your hand a minute ago, Lieutenant,” Rik says. “Would you mind unlocking it?”
Blanco is quick to do that. “The photograph is right here.”
“That’s the photo of the photo, right?”
“I guess, yes.”
“Would you mind navigating to the About panel in your settings? What model is that phone?”
“A model VI.” He pronounces it as people do, using the letter names, rather than the roman numerals: ‘Vee Eye.’
“Pretty old, right?”
“Sure. We have three kids, and you know about a police officer’s salary, Mr. Dudek. I can’t be buying a new cell phone every year like some people.”
He must have noticed Rik with his model XVA. Rik always wants the new new thing. As soon as the next version comes out, he dashes to the store to get it. After that, for days I can look into his office and see him staring at the device, baffled about how to operate all the dazzling new features.
“Okay, Lieutenant, lock your phone again, then please show us how you did that one-handed maneuver to take that picture.” Rik repeats Frito’s complicated description—swiping left to open the camera and then keeping a finger on the shutter button—asking Blanco to confirm his prior testimony, which he does.
“All right, Lieutenant, with the commissioner’s permission, please stand up, put your phone in your back pocket and then take it out and with the device down at your side, open up the camera function.”
Blanco looks toward Marc, clearly hoping for an objection, but Marc is looking at Blanco like a stranger.
“Reverend,” says Rik, “would you direct the witness?”
The Reverend tells Blanco to do as Rik asked. Frito gets to his feet. He actually looks shorter, and there’s perspiration on his forehead. Blanco lowers the phone to his side, meaning it’s hidden by the witness stand. You can see Blanco’s arm moving, then there’s a distinct thunk. He’s dropped the phone and has to stoop down to pick it up. He tries again to open the camera, with his eye cheating down there this time.
“Please hold up the phone, Lieutenant, and show it to the members of the commission. Do you agree that the camera function didn’t open?”
The three commissioners are leaning over the bench. Rik extends a hand to Blanco.
“Let me see if I can help you, Lieutenant,” Rik says and takes Frito’s phone. “I’m a little bit of a gadget freak, as you might have noticed, and I believe your problem is that those features you claimed you used—swiping from the home screen to open the camera, and what’s sometimes called the machine-gun or burst function, meaning repeated snaps by holding down the shutter button—those features were added after the V.I.”
After another wordless moment, Blanco laughs and tosses a hand in the air.
“I forgot. I traded in my phone a few months ago.”
“You originally had what, a model V.I.I.I?”
“I don’t remember.”
“But you traded in a more advanced phone for a less advanced phone, is that what you’re saying?”
“This one was refurbished. I got a straight-up trade for no money. The bells and whistles don’t really matter to me.” He puts on his shy smile once again.
The Rev is sitting straight back in his seat. He gives Mrs. Langenhalter a sidewise look.
“And the data was transferred from your old phone to your new phone?” Rik asks.
“Right.”
“Okay.” Rik looks up to the bench. “I’d like permission to keep Lieutenant Blanco’s cell phone in order to have an expert perform a forensic examination.”
“No!” Still on his feet, Blanco tries to grab the phone back, and Rik half pirouettes to avoid that. Frito then turns to the commissioners, kind of whining. “I can’t lose my phone for what, days, weeks? Let me at least get a cheap burner tomorrow.”
Langenhalter whispers to the Reverend, and their heads virtually meet while each of them covers the microphones as they talk.
The Rev says, “Mr. Dudek, give the lieutenant back his phone. Lieutenant, you’ll deliver it to Mr. Hess by the close of business tomorrow, and Mr. Hess, you’ll get it immediately to Mr. Dudek. And I’m sure you understand this, Lieutenant, but we expect the phone to be in the exact same state tomorrow as it is right now. And I suspect the experts Mr. Dudek is going to employ will be able to detect any changes.”
“Well,” says Blanco, “I don’t know how fast I can get another phone.”
The Reverend, who has a better nose for bullshit than I’d expect from a minister, gives Frito a narrow look.
“You set the timetable yourself, Lieutenant. If there’s any reason you can’t comply with the commission’s order, we expect to hear from Mr. Hess on an emergency basis.”
Rik and Marc and Blanco are all on their feet now.
“Is this a good point to adjourn Mr. Blanco’s cross, Mr. Dudek? We can resume once you’ve got the results back of the various tests you want to perform?”
“Sounds good,” says Rik.
Blanco gets off the stand, clearly agitated. He sails straight to Marc, Frito speaking loud enough for us to hear him protesting about surrendering the phone. Marc, for his part, doesn’t seem to want to face Blanco. He’s three-quarters turned away from him, probably because he’d want to slap the guy if he had to look him in the eye. What has to be burning Marc is the way he scoffed when Rik called him gullible.
As the room clears with the usual hubbub, I sidle close to Rik.
“Boss, you really got up off the canvas. You did great. Everything after their little bench conference? You crushed it.”
Rik smiles. “Yeah,” he says. “Sometimes you get on that roll. And you say to yourself, ‘How come I can’t be this smart all the time?’ As soon as he took that ring out of his pocket, I could see it was an act, there was something phony.” But Rik doesn’t take long patting his own back. “All right,” he says, “let’s do the hard part.”
I give him a look. I don’t understand.
“Lucy,” he says.
19. Rik Is Right
Rik is right. The photograph is bad. The Chief and Rik and I are back around the conference table in Rik’s office, where we each have had a long look before Rik closes the folder again. There’s not much of Blanco in the picture. He’s seen from the back, from the level of his shoulders. His right arm, supposedly holding the phone, is not visible. His left hand, as he said in court before he got cut off, is groping her tit, and his head is buried in her crotch, deep enough that her thighs are covering his ears.
As for the Chief, the view is nowhere as limited. She’s seated in a big black leather executive chair. Whatever she wore to work—pants or skirt—has been discarded, and her full thighs are squished unflatteringly because they’re thrown over Blanco’s shoulders. And she is smiling in a way I’ve never seen from her before, which is, frankly, nasty and pretty repulsive. She’s loving all of this, including, it seems, the ugliest part, which is that her service weapon—a .32 Beretta that she carries in a shoulder holster—is in her left hand inches from Blanco’s temple. That to me is the shocking part of the photograph: not the sex, which always looks pretty strange when it’s somebody you know, but what it reveals in the Chief, a kind of twisted piece of her.
“There’s no mirror in my office,” she says finally. “There never has been. You can call Stanley if you want,” she says, referring to the former Chief.
“And what does that mean?” Rik asks. “You used somebody else’s office?” Rik has lost his usual good nature. You’d expect the same from any trial lawyer who got bushwhacked with something this critical that his client never mentioned. “Let’s cut the crap, Lucy. Is that you?”
“You’re the one who said this is Photoshopped.”
“I said it because that’s my job. To cast doubt. But you tell us. Is that picture real or not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Lucy, is that you? Does that look like you?”
“In a galaxy far far away and long long ago.”
“How long?”
“Twenty pounds,” she says. “And my hair hasn’t been quite that short in years. Every woman in the station will testify my hair was longer last November.”
“But that’s you in the Highland Isle police station with some guy, right?”
“It’s not Blanco. That’s one thing I can tell you for sure.”
“Granted, Blanco’s a liar. He wasn’t at your house, and you’ve never had an apartment in HI. The ring doesn’t fit him. He’s not going to find the original print of the photo either. So in the long run, we don’t have to worry about the US Attorney believing him. That’s the good news.
“But Lucy, whoever cooked this up, Steven DeLoria or the Ritz or whoever else, to them Blanco’s just a Trojan horse. They knew that whether Blanco is telling the truth is almost beside the point for their purposes. Once this image goes public, it’ll be a sensation. Which the commission won’t be able to ignore. Whatever break P&F was going to cut you because there aren’t written rules against fraternization, or because DeGrassi and Cornish are lying oafs—they can’t do that with this. This didn’t happen in the privacy of your house after hours, Lucy, with some fuck buddy you’ve been bopping since you were both pups. You’re on the job here, in a chair and an office the citizens pay for.”
“I’m not the first cop to have sex in the station. I’m not even the first Chief.”
“But you’d fire the ass of any cop you caught doing this.”
“Maybe.”
“It’s an election year, Lucy. The mayor will have to do something.”
She studies Rik. “Are you telling me to resign?”
Rik thinks about that for a while.
“I’m telling you we need to defend this,” he finally answers. “And to do that, we have to have the facts. If this isn’t Blanco, then who is it?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t remember, Rik.”
“How can you not remember? Because it happened so often?”
The Chief, who’s kept it together pretty well so far, doesn’t care for the sarcasm.
“Who are you,” she answers, “my mother?” You can’t be a police officer for decades without being sharp and tough, but the Chief has that woman thing of trying not to let people see it. Revealed, it’s like a knife coming out of a sheath. “I don’t know who it is, and I don’t remember if anything like this actually happened. I can’t tell you one way or the other if this is even real. Okay?”
Rik glances at me to see if I believe her, which I don’t. We’re all quiet, which gives me a chance to kind of think out loud.
“Okay,” I say. “But let’s just stay on the road you’ve been on, Boss. Our position is that this is a Photoshop, you know, the picture is manufactured, like you said in court. I guarantee you that with Blanco admitting that this is a photocopy of a printed picture, every expert will say that there’s no way to be sure whether the original digital image was altered.”
The Chief watches me and then gives a weighty nod. But Rik isn’t satisfied.
“A Photoshop from what? You have to start with a real photograph, don’t you?”
I look to the Chief and ask, “Could somebody have hacked your phone and found a picture like this that they pasted into an office setting?”
Rik holds up a hand to keep her from answering.
“Then you’d need to produce that photo,” he says. He’s warning her off before she lies. “Different question. Is there a guy out there who’s got a photo like this that he took? At your house? Or somewhere else?”
She gets a little whimsical smile and gestures at the folder.
“Apparently.”
“That still looks like a Highland Isle tunic to me,” Rik says about Blanco’s shirt, which is in that Sick Teal shade the HI department wears so they’re not confused with the Kindle County Force, with all its frequent problems.
“Changing the color of something is easy digitally,” I say.
“But Lucy is obviously in uniform.”
“Or was,” says the Chief with a sad little smile. Even to me, the person who invented inappropriate, Lucy’s nervous humor feels childish and annoying.
“You can’t just stick her face on another image, can you?” Rik asks. “I mean, it would look like a cartoon.”
“We need to find an expert who can explain how those programs work,” I say.
The Chief groans, thinking about the expense.
“And if we say, ‘Photoshop,’” Rik tells the two of us, “then Mr. Not-Blanco better not show up and say this took place at the station.”
“Not happening,” says Lucy.
“Because?”
“Because it’s a fucking Photoshop,” she says. “This isn’t real.” Now that I’ve said the experts won’t disprove that, she’s suddenly a lot more certain.
Rik says it’s time to go home. We’re all tired. We gather our stuff and walk out into the night. The summer humidity, thick as cotton, has arrived, so that outside you never feel like your skin is completely dry. Even so, I’ve always enjoyed that sensation, because it takes me back to when I was a kid, and the heavy air meant I was free—not in school, not messing up, not getting scolded.
It’s past 11:00 and the city is starting to fall silent, with the usual isolated urban sounds jumping out. A jacked-up vehicle with a big baffler on the muffler guns down the avenue, and someone’s shouts follow. There are lights of a truck going into the Tech Park across the street, delivering something to Northern Direct or another business.
Given the hour and the surroundings, Rik walks the Chief to her car. That’s kind of dear, since Rik, the escort, is the only one of the three of us without a gun. The Chief recovered hers from the lockers in City Hall after the hearing, and my two-shot is a few feet away in the trunk of the CTS. But I know he wants to give Lucy a hug, just to show he’s with her, no matter what. He does that and says something to her that I can’t hear. Maybe he’s apologizing for losing it a little.
Then he returns my way and rolls his eyes and mouths, “Clients,” as he strolls to his Acura, parked a couple spaces over.
I’m about a minute out of the parking lot when Tonya calls. I imagine she wants an update on the hearing, but she already knows all about it.
“I hate to tell you,” she says, “but that picture is all over the Internet.”
20. Koob Comes Back
Koob usually appears at my door every other night. The second time he knocked, I found him on the threshold with a brown paper bag. He handed it over as I stepped aside to let him in. It was a bottle of bourbon, nice stuff.
