The Traffickers (Badge of Honor 9)

He moved his hands over the control console.

“Let me show you the various live video feeds,” he said.

He threw a bank of switches. The darkened flat-screen TVs all blinked to life.

When the main screen of nine flat panels lit up with a single huge image, Payne could not help but let out a laugh. He thought he was going to wet his pants.

Rapier looked up from the console-and his face lost all color.

“Dammit!” Corporal Kerry Rapier said. “I’m, uh, I’m really sorry about that, Sergeant Payne. Particularly it happening in front of a Texas Ranger.”

“What is that?” Byrth said.

Rapier looked somewhat nervously at Payne.

Payne grinned. He turned to Byrth and said, “Looks to me like an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Right, Kerry?”

“Yeah,” Rapier said, clearly embarrassed. He gestured to a notebook computer on the console. “I’ve got the series saved on my personal laptop’s hard drive. It’s wired to the console here. When you called just now, I was on my afternoon break and watching…”

“No harm done, Kerry,” Payne said, still grinning. “I’m actually a fan, too. Especially of Sweet Dee.”

The sitcom revolved around a boneheaded crew of schemers trying to run an Irish bar called Paddy’s Pub-the worst bar in South Philly, if not all of Philly. Corporal Kerry Rapier glowed at Payne’s mention of the name of the white-hot but dim-witted blond main character.

Payne described her to Byrth.

“Ah,” Byrth said. “She’d be what a buddy of mine would call ‘a radio station.’”

“A what?”

“One anyone can pick up, especially at night,” Byrth said with a grin. “You know, naturally horizontal.”

Payne and Rapier chuckled.

Rapier punched a button on the console and the main bank of TVs with the show on it went dark.

Payne then said: “How about punching up whatever you have on the girl they pulled out of the Schuylkill.”

“So, you heard about that?” Rapier said. “They’ve put that case on a need-to-know basis.”

“I know,” Payne said. “And we’re on that need-to-know list.”

Rapier considered that a moment, then nodded. There was no need to call and have it confirmed. Everyone knew Sergeant Payne was Homicide-and with friends in high places. Even if he wasn’t on the list, Rapier figured he’d probably have quietly honored Payne’s request anyway.

Rapier then manipulated switches on the console, and the aerial image of the river with the Marine Unit’s Boston Whaler came up. The shot was frozen.

In the lower right-hand corner of the screen, a block of text popped up:

Schuylkill River at Grays Ferry Avenue Bridge 1158 hours, 24 Sept “As you can see by the time stamp,” Rapier said, “this is from earlier, during the recovery of the body.”

He threw another switch, and the image went into motion. The silver twenty-four-foot-long Boston Whaler, its light bar flashing red and blue, slowly moved backward. A shoal in the river became visible. The vessel then turned. The camera captured images of the officers onboard the boat pulling in a very full and very large black trash bag.

“Jesus!” Payne said.

“Yeah,” Rapier said. “Disgusting, huh? Toss away a human being like so much trash.”

“Is there anything else, any other details, on this case besides what’s on the text block?” Byrth said.

“Very little,” Rapier replied. “There are some shots of the medical examiner coming on the scene, but nothing of note. Javier told me…” He paused and looked at Payne.