"What do you want to bet that when we run the ballistics on those plus-p rounds, the.38 will be linked to some other murder?" Harris said.
Payne nodded as they watched Rapier move the cursor to the basement floor, to the marker with a black "03" at the foot of the dirty mattress lying on wooden pallets. Next to it was a single spent brass casing.
Rapier put the cursor over the marker, and a box popped up with a digital photo close-up of the brass round. He clicked on the box's question mark button:
Spent casing,.45 GAP.
Notes: Possible bullet that killed Kendrik LeShawn MAYS 2008-18-
063914-POP-N-DROP. SNU 201-56-9280.
Then he went to the opposite end of the bed, to the basement wall that had the blood splatter.
He clicked on the evidence maker, and up popped a box showing a close-up photograph of a Crime Scene Unit tech's hands in tan-colored synthetic polymer gloves holding a heavy-duty needle-nose pliers device that had just extracted a mushroomed copper-covered lead bullet from a wooden stud.
The question mark button brought up: Copper-Jacketed Hollow-Point,.45 caliber. Notes: Possible/Probable bullet that killed Kendrik LeShawn MAYS 2008- 18-063914-POP-N-DROP. SNU 201-56-9280.
"Okay," Payne said, "so we know it's our mystery shooter."
"Next," Rapier then said, working the control panel. Mays's case file was replaced with LeRoi Cheatham's on the main bank of monitors.
They read the Notes section and chuckled at Detective Harry Mudd's thoroughness. He'd written: "Michael FLOYD, age 12, nephew of deceased, when asked about possible involvement of a driver of a FedEx white minivan, responded with, 'What be a FedEx, motherfucker?'"
"I forget who it was," Harris said, "but someone once questioned Mudd about leaving something out of a report once, and he's never not put everything he knew into one. I heard that once, when a guy got shot in the pisser of a bar, he included all those 'for a good time, call Suzy' phone numbers he copied off the walls."
"Only some pompous ass like Howard Walker would question a pro like him," Payne said, then he immediately realized Rapier probably had heard him speak ill about his boss. When he glanced his way, Rapier was nodding. "That, and I like Mudd's sense of humor."
Rapier then went to the Crime Scene Unit's imagery of the Cheatham scene in Northern Liberties, and then went through the same motions with the spent.45-caliber casings there.
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
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."