Payne felt his cell phone vibrate once. Staring at its screen, and seeing that he had no tower signal and that the time stamp of the new text was twenty minutes old, he blurted: “Goddamn cell service! Or I should say: goddamn lack of service!”
He glanced at Rapier. “Kerry, how come text messages are more reliable than voice? Call me skeptical, but it seems like it’s the phone company’s evil plan to screw the consumer. You either pay the outrageous price for an unlimited usage plan, or you pay through the nose for each individual text.”
Rapier swiveled in his chair and replied: “Texts use less data than voice, making them easier to get through the pipes. They actually use the tiniest part of the bandwidth that the cell tower uses to constantly link to your phone. The rest of the bandwidth is for the heavier data users, the actual talking and Internet surfing.” He paused and smiled. “But I’m betting you’re right about it being an evil plan.”
Matt grunted as he read the text from Amanda. All morning he’d figured that he was going to catch hell from her after she woke up and found on the pillow beside her only a note-and not him.
He’d written: You look like such an angel while you sleep. I couldn’t find the halo-I looked!-but there’s definitely a heavenly glow. Sorry I had to leave so early. See you soon.-M
He’d then gone back to his Rittenhouse Square apartment atop the Cancer Society Building that he rented from his father. He’d shaved and showered, and changed into nicer clothes.
He now wore a navy blazer, gray woolen cuffed trousers, a crisply starched light-blue shirt with a red striped tie, and highly polished black lace-up shoes.
But apparently I missed that bullet, he thought, rereading it: AMANDA LAW GOT YOUR NOTE. THANKS. I WAY OVERSLEPT amp; WOKE UP NOT FEELING WELL. GOING DOWN TO DRUGSTORE. THEN IT’S BACK TO BED… XOXO -A
Hmmm… back to bed?
But no fun there if she’s ill.
Guess that glow was a fever.
Hope it’s not me she’s sick of.
Could be from sheer exhaustion.
Then he thumbed the reply:
I’M REALLY SORRY, BABY. CAN I BRING YOU ANYTHING? ASPIRIN? CHICKEN SOUP? HOW ABOUT ETERNAL HAPPINESS? SEE YOU SOON…
He hit SEND. Then he put the phone back in his pants pocket.
[TWO]
A minute later, the main door to the ECC suddenly began to swing open. Payne, Harris, and Rapier could hear the soft humming sound of an electric motor on the other side. Then in the doorway appeared a black male in his late teens. He was in a wheelchair, but it was a highly maneuver-able power chair. He controlled its speed and direction with a joystick on the right armrest.
He fluidly rolled inside the ECC.
“Well, hell,” Matt Payne said, “look who’s still on the right side of the law. How are you, Andy?”
“Great, Marshal,” Andy Radcliffe said with a smile.
Radcliffe, with gentle black eyes and a round, kind face, had a full head of dark hair trimmed to his scalp. His jeans and slightly oversize cotton dress shirt were neatly pressed. His navy blazer was somewhat worn.
Payne admired the intern, not only because he was a sophomore at La Salle doing a double major in computer science and criminal justice, and planning to get on with the department. He was also genuinely impressed with Andy’s attitude after the teen had been robbed three years before in North Philly-then paralyzed when the robbers viciously stabbed him in the back.
Radcliffe looked at Rapier.
“Anything I can do to help?” he asked. He pointed at Payne’s mug. “More java, Marshal?”
And there’s that positive attitude, Payne thought. Willing to fetch coffee, anything.
“We’re reviewing some cases,” Payne said. “Never hurts to have a fresh set of eyes and ears. Make yourself comfortable. At the miserable rate we’re going, we’ll be here some time.”
Radcliffe nodded. “Yessir.”
“Okay, Kerry, let’s move on to Reggie Jones-”
“Can I first read this one on Cheatham?” Radcliffe asked. “Wait. I’ll pull it all up on the laptop. You guys go ahead.”
Payne looked at him and thought, And he’s got confidence. Just walks in as if he’s been doing it for years.
The motor of Andy’s power chair hummed as he went over to the end of the conference table, close to Rapier, and pulled out a laptop from a sleeve behind his chair. He plugged the box into the department’s communications system and started pounding its keyboard.
Payne and Harris exchanged glances, then looked back to the main monitor. The fat baby face of Reginald Jones was looking down on them.
Radcliffe looked up from his laptop and saw Rapier’s custom-made. 45 pointer on-screen.
He snorted. “That’s some sweet cursor, Kerry.”
“Watch this,” Rapier said. He typed a command on his keyboard, then put the cursor over REGINALD “REGGIE” JONES Case No.: 2010-81-039 613-Pop-n-Drop and clicked.
The overhead speakers then filled with the report of a gunshot, and a puff of smoke blew from the muzzle of the pistol pointer.
“Now, that,” Radcliffe said, shaking his head, “might be a bit too much.”
“Finally!” Payne said. “A clear voice of reason is heard on the task force.”
Harris snorted.
Radcliffe looked at him as if wondering if he was being mocked, then judging by Payne’s expression realized that wasn’t the case. He returned his attention to his laptop, fingers tapping the keyboard as he stared thoughtfully at the screen.
Rapier did something at the control panel, and when he went to the Notes section of Reggie Jones’s case file and clicked on FINGERPRINTS, the gunfire and smoke effects were gone.
He turned it off again, Payne thought. But he doesn’t look like he’s pissed or anything.
“Here’s this new guy James, Matt,” Rapier said as two boxes popped up with digitized images of fingerprints. One was headlined “Suspect Name Unknown #2010-56-9327.” The second had the new live link: MARC JAMES Case No.: 2002-41-093631.
Harris said, “The prints on the still-unknown doer are being run again. Forensics got a hit with James’s only because they reran his, too. They said they didn’t find a match the first time because his prints on record from a previous arrest didn’t have sufficient ridge detail for comparison. But the second go-round, they lit up just enough.”
Payne looked at Rapier. “Punch up James, Kerry.”
Reggie Jones’s fat baby face was now replaced with that of a shiny-skinned black male with a round face and male-pattern baldness.
Toilet seat hair, Payne remembered hearing someone describe it. Its shape was similar to those seats found on public commodes.
And the upper part of his garment looks like a hospital gown-or Roman-like robe.
“Who does this Cicero guy think he is?” Payne said. “Looks like he’s in a toga, too.”
“All kinds of crackpots in this city try to stand out from the crowd,” Andy Radcliffe said.
“There’s that voice of reason again,” Payne said.
This time Radcliffe didn’t at all feel like he was bring mocked.
Payne read off the screen: “‘Marc James aka Marcus Cicero, age twenty-eight. ’ Looks like a nice guy, if you can just overlook all those unfortunate priors for running meth and roofies. And, for good measure, he racked up a conviction on involuntary deviant sexual intercourse. Guess he wanted to test his product.”
Harris snorted. “Yeah. Really nice guy.”
“Who’s sitting on him now?”
“Charley Bell, in that old PECO van.”
Payne nodded. The Philadelphia Electric Company van was always a good choice, its paint shot but the faded PECO logotype on it easily recognizable.
“Okay,” Payne then said, “it’s no doubt way too soon to have much on this new one that’s got Hizzonor spitting mad. But punch up number twelve on the main bank, please.”
Rapier worked the keyboard and the case sheet for Jossiah Miffin appeared. It showed both his mug shot, in which he had close-cropped hair, and his Medical Examiner’s Office photo, where he had long black hair. Both showed the nasty J-shaped scar on his left cheek.