“Are you going to interrogate me at police headquarters?” Savannah asked the inspector.
“That probably won’t be necessary, not right away,” Lee said, equivocating. “We’ll need to examine the crime scene first, so I’m going to ask you to sit tight here in the bar area for a little while.”
“Okay. Oh, but wait.” Savannah held up her gloved hands. “Can I take these off?”
Lee shot me another glare, so I rushed to explain that while waiting for the police to arrive, Derek had come up with the brilliant idea to glove her hands to protect any evidence she might’ve picked up along with Baxter’s blood.
Inspector Lee couldn’t argue with Derek’s logic, but she wasn’t happy with one part of my explanation. Turning to Savannah, she said, “You touched Mr. Cromwell’s body?”
“No, I just touched that bloody knife,” Savannah said. “It was sticking out of his stomach and I thought it would help if I got it out of him, but it didn’t help. He died anyway.”
“Aw, jeez.” Lee looked at me and shook her head. “I’m having déjà vu all over again.”
“Tell me about it,” I muttered, and my stomach took another dip. As I’d realized earlier, Savannah’s scenario with Baxter was alarmingly similar to my own experience the night of Abraham’s murder. I’d managed to get plenty of his blood on my hands, too.
Inspector Lee turned to one of the CSI guys standing nearby. “Claypool, you got your kit with you?”
He gripped his heavy briefcase. “Never leave home without it.”
“We’ll need a couple of swabs and some evidence bags over here.”
Claypool rushed over and set his silver case on an empty barstool. After carefully removing Savannah’s gloves, he stuck them in separate bags and labeled the bags with a black marker. Then he pulled out a long cotton swab and a small vial of liquid. He rubbed the cotton tip over Savannah’s bloody right palm, then added a few drops on the swab and watched it turn a different color. He dropped the swab into a straw-sized plastic container and snapped it shut, then repeated the procedure with her blood-smeared left hand.
“Better take her shoes and jacket while you’re at it,” Lee added. So Savannah slipped out of her chef’s coat and her shoes and handed everything over to CSI Claypool, who packed it all into large evidence bags.
“That was fascinating. Thank you,” Savannah said. “May I wash my hands now?”
“Yeah, hold on.” Lee glanced around and spied the one female officer standing near the hostess podium, going over the surface with her flashlight beam. “Hey, Fleischman, can you accompany Ms. Wainwright here to the ladies’ room?”
“You bet,” Fleischman said, and jogged across the room to meet Savannah.
Jaglom approached with Derek. “Jan, the commander here tells me there were half a dozen other chefs here tonight, all old friends of the victim. They’re all staying at Campton Place over in Union Square and Cromwell provided rental cars or limo service for all of them. I’m thinking we ought to have one of the uniforms round them up and get them over here for preliminary questioning.”
Lee grimaced. “Tonight?”
“We have to,” he said. With a shrug, he added, “If one of them is our guy, we could lose trace evidence if we wait till morning.”
“Good thing I’ve got DVR,” she muttered, then soldiered up. “Okay, let’s do it. You want to bring ’em here or meet ’em down at HQ?”
“Might as well do it here,” Jaglom said, glancing around the room. “Saves time and they can each walk us through it one by one.”
Lee considered, then nodded. “Sounds like fun.”
“Be right back.” Jaglom motioned to the nearest uniformed officer and met him halfway. They talked for a minute, then the inspector wrote something on his notepad, tore the page out, and handed it to the cop, who nodded as he read it.
“We’re going to be here all night,” I muttered, and decided to kick my shoes off.
Derek said nothing, just nodded and put his arm around my shoulder.
Jaglom turned back to his partner. “I’ve asked Commander Stone to check out the kitchen with us. He was first on the scene and I want him to verify that nothing’s been disturbed.”
“Good plan,” Lee said. “Let’s get this done.”
Derek and Jaglom led the way, followed by Inspector Lee and the two CSI guys.
I glanced around. My sister was still in the ladies’ room with her police escort. One cop was on the phone and the other was still searching the front part of the restaurant. I decided to stick with Derek and the detectives and followed a safe distance behind them.
We turned down the hall and saw the fourth uniformed officer standing guard at the kitchen door.
“Marston.” Jaglom nodded to the cop as he snapped on a pair of thin rubber gloves.
“Evening, Inspector,” Officer Marston said.
Lee slipped her hands into gloves also, and then noticed me following her. “You’re not going in there.”
“I won’t touch anything.”