Deadly Assets (Badge of Honor 12)

“Right. She’s twenty-six, and recently moved to NoLibs. The grandmother, apparently after seeing her go down, fainted. While paramedics transported the granddaughter to the ER at Hahnemann, an EMT treated the grandmother at the scene for a cut from flying glass. Her fainting was attributed to medication she’s taking”—he paused, then, with genuine disgust in his voice, added—“coupled no doubt with watching her granddaughter damn near dying at her feet. Happy holidays, huh . . . ?”

Washington looked at him a long moment, nodded slightly, then said: “About Lauren Childs. One of the things I wanted to tell you was I just got off the telephone with Dr. Mitchell. We were discussing another case, and he brought up her name.”

Howard Mitchell, M.D., a balding, rumpled fifty-year-old, usually found in a well-worn two-piece suit, had served nearly a decade as the Philadelphia medical examiner.

“Yeah? We’ve already got autopsy results? I hadn’t heard.”

“Unofficial and incomplete results. He has not finished the autopsy on her. But she and the Sanchez boy came in at almost the same time. Dr. Mitchell, no surprise, stated that the cause of the boy’s death was obvious. But he said he was curious about hers, and made time for a preliminary look. He went in and examined the damage and said it was clear why she bled out so quickly.”

“Hit an artery?”

“That and worse. The knife was thrust in just beneath the rib cage?

?—he poked his finger upward at the bottom edge of the pocket on his shirt—“the sharp blade nicking the left lung before piercing the apex of the heart and then cutting the aorta. Dr. Mitchell said the doer twisted the blade so violently that it went through the walls of the heart, practically slicing it in two.”

Payne grunted. “Thus explaining why she just instantly collapsed. And the great deal of blood. Jesus.”

“It happened quickly. Similar to when you get a deep cut and don’t immediately feel pain, which explains why she did not scream. He said that it had to have been a thin, long-bladed, almost surgically sharp instrument, one at least six inches in length.”

“Like one used for cleaning fish?”

Washington nodded. “A fillet knife was the example he gave.”

Payne took a sip of coffee.

After a moment he said, “And a fillet knife”—he drew his left pointer finger across his throat—“would do a damn effective job.”

“Or similar tool.”

Payne looked at him and thought, Translation of which is: a gentle reminder not to lock on one possibility.

He said, “Understood.”

“But it is an angle to work until a better one presents itself. Keep turning over the stone under the stone.”

Payne nodded, then looked out the windows.

“Certainly not at a loss for fish markets where he could work. Off the top of my head there’s Golden and John Yi’s in Reading Terminal Market, Darigo’s in the Italian Market, there’s an Asian one”—he pointed across the expressway—“right there on Spring Garden, which is in line with the direction the kidnapper was taking the little girl. And of course there’s Fishtown, but that’s more or less a misnomer these days. I’m not sure you could find a single shad for sale there, let alone a fully stocked fish market.”

“There is also the distinct possibility that the doer simply could be an avid angler.”

“Yeah, and/or just one sick sonofabitch,” Payne said, then looked at Washington and added, “I wonder how he carried a long blade like that without anyone seeing it?”

“Perhaps in a sheath of some design up his sleeve?” Washington said, then demonstrated by putting his right fist to the cuff of his left sleeve and pulling out an imaginary blade. “Or in the upper of a boot.”

Payne slowly nodded in thought.

“Possible, I suppose,” he said, “if more than a little impractical. Could’ve just held it with the blade hidden by his arm close to his body.”

“Would be more easily used that way,” Washington said, paused, then added: “Anything more—anything at all—on identifying the doer in the Childs case?”

Payne shook his head.

“Only what little we had before. That the boyfriend, Tony Gambacorta—who Nasuti just interviewed at length—never saw him, only felt the strong hit as they passed in the crowd, and decided he had to be a big guy, and that the guy called him an asshole when they hit. It all happened so fast, though, no one really knew that she’d been stabbed—as you said, she didn’t scream—only that she’d collapsed and began bleeding heavily. Everyone was looking at her. By the time they figured out that she’d probably been stabbed, the doer was gone, and any solid witnesses—if there in fact were any at all who’d seen him and/or had a clue what just happened—had dispersed.”

“And still no video from park surveillance cameras?”

“None capturing images near that exact spot. And the ones farther out aren’t giving us anything useful.”