The Vigilantes (Badge of Honor 10)

“Strangled and beaten,” Carlucci then wondered aloud. “What could be the significance of that?”

Payne shrugged. “Maybe the doer ran out of bullets.”

Carlucci snorted.

“Let’s hope so,” he said. “If not, then we have two or more goddamn doers to collar. So when do you get the prints that were taken last night back from IAFIS? Before noon, in time for the statement?”

IAFIS, the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, was the largest biometric database in the world. It held the fingerprints and other information collected from local, state, and federal law-enforcement agencies on more than fifty-five million people. Law-enforcement agencies could access it at any time and run a search with the fingerprints they lifted from a crime scene. It wasn’t uncommon, provided the submitted print or prints were clean, to get a response in a couple hours as to whether there was a match in the database.

Payne shook his head. “We’re still waiting for Forensics to process the prints that were lifted. You know what their motto can sometimes be . . .”

“Enlighten me,” Carlucci said dryly.

“ ‘If we wait until the last minute to do it, it’ll only take a minute.’”

There suddenly was a cold silence in the room, and Payne then realized from the furious look on Walker’s face that, given difference circumstances—say, the absence of Walker’s three immediate bosses—he would have reamed the hotshot Homicide sergeant a new one.

Nice job, Payne ol’ boy, Matt thought. Forensic Sciences belongs to Walker.

Screw it. Maybe this will get them moving faster.

Payne remembered one night at Liberties Bar when, more than a couple of stiff Irish whiskeys under both their belts, Coughlin had let slip that he was not a fan of Walker’s. Walker, w

ho spoke with a cleric’s soft, intelligent voice, cultivated a rather pious air. Coughlin felt that Walker used all the bells and whistles of Science & Technology as smoke and mirrors to disguise his incompetence.

“But Ralph said he had his reasons for asking me to give Walker the job. And, write this down, Matty, never argue with your boss. Still, I’d love to know what angle Walker is working on Ralph.”

Mayor Carlucci guffawed, breaking the tension.

“I’m going to have to remember to use that line back at City Hall. Nothing gets done there, not even in the last minute. It’s always late, if at all.”

There were the expected chuckles.

“Okay,” Carlucci said, “then I won’t ask about NCIC. If we don’t have prints to run, we don’t have a name to run.”

The National Crime Information Center—also maintained by the FBI and available to law enforcement at any time, day or night—had a database containing the critical records of criminals. Additionally, NCIC tracked missing persons and stolen property. Its data came not only from the same law-enforcement agencies that provided IAFIS, but also from authorized courts and foreign law-enforcement agencies.

“I’ll go stoke the fire under them for those prints,” Walker then offered lamely. He stood and went over to use one of the phones at the other conference table.

Bingo, Payne thought. That’ll get ’em moving faster.

Ralph Mariana then spoke up: “Jerry, what should be done about Frank Fuller?”

Payne put in: “I’ve had an unmarked sitting on Fuller’s Old City office.”

“That’s fine, Matt,” Mariana said, “but I meant what should be done about his now-infamous rewards.”

Carlucci, his face showing a mixture of anger and frustration, said, “I’ve spoken with Fuller privately about that bloodthirsty reward system of his. I’ve tried to dissuade him, suggesting that it’s encouraging criminal activity. He said he didn’t care, that he’d spend his last dime on lawyers defending that eye-for-an-eye thing—”

“The law of talion,” Payne offered.

Carlucci shot Payne a look of mild annoyance for the interruption, then went on: “—especially, he said, after what happened to his wife and child.”

“What happened to his family?” Mariana asked.

Quaire offered: “I had that case in Homicide. It never got solved, primarily because, we believe, the doers involved killed each other before we could get statements, let alone bring charges. Anyway, the wife and the girl, a ten-year-old, I believe, made a wrong turn at the Museum of Art and wound up a half-mile or so north in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time. Cut down in a crossfire of single-aught buckshot.”

“Jesus!” Mariana said, shaking his head. “That’s tragic.”