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"Then there would have to be foreign bloodstains on his person"

"Foreignnot his Why? Oh, because we know he had blood on hiet all of it So if there's none of their blood on his hands or his clothing, and if we do find traces of their blood in the bathrooht about it "If there had been a single false note at the crihtest reason to suspect this was anything other than what it looked to be, e er look at the physical evidence But for God's sake, man, he called us up and told us what he'd done We sent a car out and found hiot a confession and the killer dead by his own hand, it tends to put a damper on further inquiry"

"I understand that," I said

"And I haven't seen anything here today to change my mind You saw the padlock on the front door We put that on after, on account of we had to force the door e got here He had it locked with the chain on, the way you'll do when you're settled in for the night"

"The killer could have gone out another door"

"The back door was locked the same way, bolted from inside"

"He could have used aand closed it after him It wouldn't have been that hard to do Sturdevant would already have been dead when the killer made the phone call Do you auto 'em, but we don't tape 'em Is that how they do it in New York?"

"There's a tape made of calls to 911"

"Then it's a shame he didn't do this in New York," he said, "so there'd be a record, same as your medical examiner could tell us what everybody had for breakfast But I'm afraid we're a little backward here"

"I didn't say that"

He thought a uess you didn't"

"They don't record calls into the individual precincts in New York, or at least they didn't when I was on the job And they only started taping the 911 calls when it turned out that the operators were inco to play City Mouse, Country Mouse with you, Lieutenant I don't think we'd have looked any harder at this case than you people did As a est difference between the way you've handled it and the way they'd have done it in New York is that you've been very decent and cooperative with me If a cop or ex-cop froet a lot of doors shut in his face"

He didn't say anything just then Back in the living rooht not be a bad idea to tape inco calls Shouldn't be all that costly to set up, either What would it do for us in this instance? You're thinking voiceprint, but for that you'd need a recording of Sturdevant's voice for co e"

"I don't think so Those machines aren't all that popular around here Of course there ht be some record of his voice so I don't know if soh I don't see why not"

"If you had the call taped," I said, "you could find out one thing easily enough You could find out if it was Motley"

"Well, you could at that," he said "I never even thought of that, but when you've got an actual suspect it makes a difference, doesn't it? If you had a call taped and the voiceprint ed, wouldn't you?"

"Not until we get a new governor"

"Oh, that's right Yourthe death-penalty bills, doesn't he? But in a , you'd have your killer cold" He shook his head "Speaking of voiceprints, you can probably guess we didn't do any dusting for fingerprints"

"Why should you? It looked open-and-shut"

"We do a lot of things routinely when there's not much point to the Motley didn't leave any fingerprints"

"Still, it would be nice to know I could get a crew in here now, but there've been so h here by this time I don't think we'd havethe case, and I have to say you haven't given me cause to do that" He hooked his thumbs in his belt and looked at me "You honestly think he did it?"

"Yes"

"Can you point to any kind of corroborating evidence? A clipping in the et you thinking, but it doesn't do a lot to change how the case looks froht about that one while we left the house Havlicek drew the door shut and snapped the padlock It was cooler now, and the birch trees cast long shadows across the lawn I asked when the killings had taken place Wednesday night, he said

"So it's been a week"

"Will be in a ive you the time to the "

"I just wondered about the date," I said "There was no indication on the clipping I suppose the story would have run in Thursday night's paper"