“As far as we know at this point,” Jason Washington picked up, as he pulled a notepad from his jacket, “the absolute last contact that any family or friends had with her was last night when she left dinner.” He paused and looked at his notes. “That was at Zama Sushi near Rittenhouse Square about ten-fifteen. She was with her cousin, twenty-year-old Emma Scholefield, who is a junior studying dance at University of the Arts.”

“And did this cousin have anything to offer?” Carlucci said.

Washington shook his head. “Not much more than Mrs. McCain had already told us she’d told her. The cousin stated that Margaret appeared absolutely normal, upbeat, her usual self. They talked mostly about her sailing trip in the British Virgin Islands and their plans for the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. When they left the restaurant, the cousin said that, as she started walking up the block toward her apartment, she saw Margaret get in her Toyota SUV and drive off toward Walnut Street. Margaret had told her she was looking forward to a good night’s sleep so she could hit the gym first thing in the morning.”

“Which never happened.”

“Right. Gym records show she hasn’t been there in three days.”

“Okay. Then what?”

“Mrs. McCain said that, at exactly ten thirty-one, she called Margaret’s personal cell phone, got no answer, and left her daughter a voice-mail message. At that time, according to telephone records, Margaret’s work cell phone had been connected for four minutes to the cell phone number that we believe to be the Gonzalez girl’s. It is a pay-as-you-go phone, and we do not know who purchased it.”

“Gonzalez is the dead girl?”

“Yes, sir.”

Carlucci considered all that, then said, “And the McCain woman’s fire alarm automatically called in at what time?”

“Precisely at ten forty-two. That was eight minutes after the call between the work cell phone and the go-phone ended. At ten fifty-one, nine minutes after the firehouse got the call, there was one last call from what we believe was the Gonzalez go-phone to Margaret’s work cell. There have been no other calls on Margaret’s personal cell phone—as noted, it’s off for whatever reason—and none dialed on the work cell phone. The Crime Scene Unit guys found the latter, broken, in a puddle in the alley. It looked as if it had been hit hard, maybe dropped.”

“And that go-phone?”

“Phone company records list at least two dozen different numbers the Gonzalez go-phone dialed or texted since last night, including Margaret’s work cell phone three times in a row today just after twelve noon. We traced its signal to West Philly, to the Westpark high-rise at Forty-fifth and Market. That’s of course a Housing Authority property, one in fair shape and full. So, no way for us to pinpoint in which apartment the phone could be. Then Anthony Harris had a great idea. He drove over there and began calling the phone over and over. Some miscreant with attitude finally answered, and when Harris told said miscreant that he had the money he owed him and was waiting with it outside the gate, the miscreant hung up. Then the phone went dead, the signal turned off.”

Carlucci grunted. “Damn. But that was worth the attempt. Has to be pretty good odds that someone owes that punk money. And, even if not, he would have taken the cash off Harris’s hands—even sending some surrogate to get it, in case he smelled it was a setup. Not grabbing the easy money must mean he’s really running scared, and that doesn’t suggest anything good.”

“We’ve got an unmarked sitting on the Westpark high-rise, in case the phone goes live again and he hits the street,” Lowenstein said. “We also have one keeping an eye on her business, Mary’s House, and one at the residence.”

“On the chance that the doer will return to the scene?” Carlucci asked, but it was more of a statement.

“It’s a long shot but we’ve all seen it happen before.”

Mayor Carlucci looked at Jason Washington.

“What else did they find at the scene?” Carlucci said.

“To begin with, the front door was wide open when the firefighters arrived,” Washington said. “The door showed evidence of forced entry—it’d been kicked in. But whoever did it, if they left any other fingerprints, footprints, whatever, we’ll never know. The fire department did their job quite thoroughly—drowning the blaze and trampling the crime scene. They got the fire out, and who the hell knows how much evidence. Neighbors we questioned immediately began calling it a home invasion, and repeating that to the media. We did not go out of our way to disabuse anyone of that.”

“But?” Carlucci interrupted.

“But here’s the problem: Who tries to cover a home invasion with Molotov cocktails? There was one broken on the kitchen’s marble counter, the other intact in the middle of the floor. Most robberies are in-and-out jobs. They don’t bother destroying the scene.” Washington pulled a folded sheet of paper from his coat and went on: “The medical examiner wrote that the Gonzalez girl did not die in the fire. The autopsy this morning found that her lungs had no fire smoke damage—and that there were two mushroomed .22s inside her cranium.” He mimed a pistol with his thumb and index finger and pointed behind his right earlobe. “Entrance wounds here. Putting a .22 behind the ear is not exactly the hallmark of a home invasion, either.”

Glances were exchanged as they nodded agreement. They knew that a .22 caliber round, due to its low mass and velocity, was not powerful enough to penetrate the bone of a skull. But it could enter through soft tissue at the ear—then bounce around, effectively scrambling the brain and causing death more or less instantly.

“It’s more the mark of a professional hit,” Denny Coughlin said.

Carlucci grunted and nodded.

“Questions then become,” Washington went on, “Why the girl? Or were they targeting Margaret and the girl got in the way? And of course if they were targeting Margaret, why did she just disappear?”

“Who is this girl?” Carlucci said. “Gonzalez, did you say?”

“That’s right,” Washington said. “Krystal Angel Gonzalez, age nineteen. She had an EBT card in the pocket of her blue jeans.”

He paused, and Carlucci then nodded, affirming that he knew it was an Electronic Benefits Transfer card, which looked and worked like a plastic debit card.

“Food stamps,” Carlucci said.

Tags: W.E.B. Griffin Badge of Honor Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net