The Vigilantes (Badge of Honor 10)

“And?” Payne said.

Radcliffe shrugged. “Nguyen’s master case file from those charges says that he was undergoing treatment for gonorrhea.”

“So Nguyen gave the girl the clap,” Payne said.

“Would appear that way.”

“Nothing new. Kerry has a story about one where the rape victim got whatever disease in her throat,” Payne said. He then appeared to be in deep thought. He said: “Which puts Nguyen in line with the other pop-and-drops, leaving only Gartner with no sex-crime link. He may just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time when Jay-Cee got popped.” He paused, then added, “Lucky us.”

“You didn’t like Gartner?”

“Nobody liked that slimy sonofabitch.”

Andy Radcliffe raised his eyebrows, nodded once, then looked back to the laptop screen. “Maybe I can find a link with Gartner and some sex crime. . . .”

“Kerry, let’s take another look at the interview I had with Shauna Mays.”

Rapier worked his control panel, and the image of Matt with the malnourished and badly bruised woman in Homicide’s Interview Room II came on the monitor. In the right-hand bottom corner was a small date stamp: 01 NOV, 13:20:01.

“Run it up to about 13:30,” Payne said.

Rapier fast-forwarded to that point on the clock, hit play, and shortly thereafter the sound of Payne exhaling came through the speakers in the ceiling. Then his voice, slightly frustrated, said:

“Okay, let’s start from the beginning. Who had the gun?”

“A delivery guy. He come in with Kendrik’s paper. That paper I had that the cop took?”

“The Wanted sheet?”

“Yeah, that’s it. He come in and—No, wait. First he say he got a check for Kendrik. And when I let him in, he give me the paper. The sheet. Said there was no check.”

“This began at what time?”

She cocked her head. “Time? This morning, all I know. Ain’t no clocks in a crack house!”

In the ECC, there was a chorus of chuckles from Harris, Radcliffe, and Rapier.

As they watched Payne in the video nodding while writing in his notepad, Kerry said, “Gee, Marshal, I thought everyone knew crack houses didn’t have clocks.”

Payne gave him the finger as his voice came through the speakers:

“What did this guy look like? And was he alone, anyone else in the house?”

“Just him. Old white guy, maybe my age. Tall. Kinda skinny.”

“Okay, you can stop it, Kerry,” Payne said. He looked at Harris. “So, a delivery guy. A FedEx delivery guy? And Mudd said the blue shirt had seen a FedEx minivan rolling through right before Cheatham took a bullet.”

“But that kid, his nephew, told Mudd that he didn’t see one. Which of course, as Mudd pointed out, could’ve been a straight-out lie.”

They were quiet a long moment, each in deep thought.

Then Harris said: “You have any idea how many FedEx trucks there are in Philadelphia?”

“But it was on a Sunday, not a normal day for deliveries.”

“I’ll say it again, Matt. You have any idea how many FedEx trucks there are in Philadelphia? And just because they may not be delivering, they’re still moving around the city for logistical and other reasons, like maintenance. And, then again, for all we know, this one was stolen.”

Matt nodded. “Agreed. But it’s a rock to look under. Maybe we’ll find another under it.”