Special Operations (Badge of Honor 2)

Dohner reached in his pocket and took out the cord he had cut from Mary Elizabeth Flannery’s wrists. “This is what he tied her up with.”

Hemmings saw that Bill Dohner had not untied the knot in the cord.

“Good job,” he said. “Make sure the knot doesn’t come untied. Give me a couple of minutes here to find out what we have, and then take the cord to Northwest and put it on a Property Receipt.”

Dohner nodded. He held up a clear plastic bag, and dropped the cord in it.

“I got this from one of the nurses,” he said.

A Property Receipt—Philadelphia Police Department Form 75–3—is used to maintain the “chain of evidence.” As with the biologic samples to be taken from Mary Elizabeth Flannery’s body, it would be necessary, presuming the case got to court, for the assistant district attorney to prove that the cord allegedly used to tie the victim’s hands had never left police custody from the time Dohner had cut it from her wrists; that the chain of evidence had not been broken.

Property Receipts are numbered sequentially. They are usually kept in the desk of the Operations Room Supervisor in each district. They must be signed for by the officer asking for one, and strict department policy insists that the information on the form must either be typewritten or printed in ink. Consequently, evidence is almost always held until the officer using a Property Receipt can find a typewriter.

“Anything happen at the scene?” Dohner asked.

“The Mobile Crime Lab got there when I was there,” Hemmings said. “Nobody that looks like the doer has shown up. How long did he have her there?”

“I didn’t get hardly anything out of her,” Dohner said. “Just her name, and what this guy did to her. She’s pretty shook up.”

Hemmings finished filling out the form, acknowledging receipt of one length of knotted cord used to tie up Mary Elizabeth Flannery, signed it, and handed the original to Dohner, who handed him the cord.

“You might as well go, Bill,” Hemmings said. “I’ll take it from here.”

“I hope you catch him,” Dohner said, standing up and giving his hand to Hemmings.

Then he went outside and got in his car and started the engine and called Police Radio and reported that Fourteen Twenty-Three was back in service.

Mary Elizabeth Flannery looked with frightened eyes at the stranger who had entered the curtained cubicle.

“Miss Flannery, my name is Dick Hemmings, and I’m a detective. How are you doing?”

She did not reply.

“Is there anyone you would like me to call? Your parents, maybe? A friend?”

“No!” Mary Elizabeth Flannery said, as if the idea horrified her.

“I know what you’ve been going through,” Hemmings said.

“No, you don’t!”

“But the sooner we can learn something about the man who did this to you, the better,” Hemmings went on, gently. “Would it be all right if I asked you a couple of questions?”

She eyed him suspiciously, but didn’t reply.

“I need your address, first of all,” he said.

“210 Henry Avenue,” she said. “Apartment C. They call it the Fernwood.”

“That’s one of those garden apartments, isn’t it?” Hemmings asked, as a mental image of that area of Roxborough came to his mind.

“Yes,” she said.

“How do you think this man got into your apartment?” Hemmings asked.

“How do I know?” she snapped.

“Is there a fire escape? Were there open windows?”