The Vigilantes (Badge of Honor 10)

“No, no. It was almost certainly the forty-five,” Rapier said.

“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

GOT YOUR NOTE. THANKS.

I WAY OVERSLEPT & WOKE UP NOT FEELING WELL.

GOING DOWN TO DRUGSTORE.

THEN IT’S BACK TO BED . . .

XOXO -A

Hmmm . . . back to bed?