Payne shook his head. "Nice."

Mickey looked furious. "If I ever find a way to put stuff like that on CrimeFreePhilly, those guys are toast, too."

John Sullivan delivered their drinks, and after they'd all had a sip, Harris continued.

"Gartner's office was a mess. But it appeared to be just a normal office mess. There was no sign of a struggle there. And no forced entry. Curiously, both the front and back main exterior doors of the building had been left unlocked, as had the interior door to Gartner's office. We found drugs on one of the desks, what looked like coke or crank in one zip-top bag, and another bag with roofies. There was even a line of powder on the desktop that hadn't been snorted."

"That's strange," Payne said. "Like someone had to leave fast. But no signs that either he or his punk client was popped there?"

Harris shrugged. "The CSU boys were still working it when I stopped by on the way here. But, for now, it appears the answer is no. And Jay-Cee's motorcycle was parked on the sidewalk." He paused, sipped his beer, then said, "Something did happen there, though-something really weird."

He looked between Matt and Mickey, whose curiosity clearly was piqued.

After a moment, they said in unison: "What?"

"Piss."

"Piss?" they repeated in unison.

Harris nodded.

"There was piss everywhere," he said. "And I mean everywhere. You'd think gallons."

"Animal urine? Like some dog got loose in there?" Payne asked. "You said the doors were unlocked. Maybe they'd been open, too."

"I don't know. Maybe. Judging by the amount, though, something bigger. I mean, who has that large of a bladder?"

Mickey glanced over at a couple at the bar in a two-part cow costume.

"Cows?" he offered. Then he looked back at Harris and said, "Or maybe the doer is a deer hunter. Once, when I was up in Bucks County, I found a place where they were selling bottles of animal piss-I think it was doe urine-that hunters poured on themselves to mask their human scent in the woods. Or maybe it was meant as an attractant to draw out horny males. Or something."

Payne looked at O'Hara, raised his eyebrows, and said, "So you're thinking that fucking Bambi is the doer?"

O'Hara and Harris laughed.

Payne then looked at Harris and said, "I'm assuming there's enough piss to run a DNA analysis?"

Harris snorted.

"Enough to float a boat. There was a pool of piss in the plastic bag alone. The dope that hadn't dissolved just floated in it!"

"Was there piss at the scene at Francis Fuller's office in Old City?"

Harris nodded. "Yeah. On Jay-Cee's pants crotch. But that was more like he'd just pissed himself. Nothing like the pools of it in the office."

"Anything else out of the ordinary?"

"Define 'out of the ordinary,' Sergeant Payne."

They all chuckled.

Harris, looking deep in thought, then said, "Not really. Gartner was wearing a T-shirt that read PEACE LOVE JUSTICE."

Payne snorted. "File that under 'Irony,' Detective, not 'Extraordinary.'"

Harris shrugged. After a minute, he added, "Well, the only other thing that comes to mind is that there wasn't any paperwork attached."

"Really?" Payne said, visibly surprised. "Now, that's out of the ordinary-outside the MO of the other pop-and-drops, that is."

"Paperwork?" O'Hara asked, looking from Matt to Tony. "Like police forms?"

Then he looked at Payne.

"Wait," O'Hara said. "Back up. Explain that 'outside the others' modus operandi oddity thing. What method of operation?"

Payne took a sip of his single-malt, then said: "The MO in the other cases is that someone's shooting fugitives in the head or chest and dumping their bodies. Further, the dead guys-and they're only guys, so far-are wanted on outstanding warrants. A couple of them jumped bail, the others violated parole, for sex crimes against women and children. Involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, rape, aggravated indecent assault. These shits get popped point-blank, then dumped at a district station, one we assume is closest to where they got nabbed."

"None dumped at the Roundhouse?"

"None. At least not yet. That'd be an interesting situation."

O'Hara nodded as he took all that in.

"Now, the difference between those dumped at the districts and these two tonight is that tonight there was no 'paperwork'-printouts of the bad guys' Wanted info downloaded from the Internet. All the others had their paperwork stapled to them."

"Stapled? Like to their clothes?"

Payne nodded. "Usually. But one bastard who'd raped a ten-year-old girl had his sheet stapled clean through his prick. Multiple times."

"Ouch!" O'Hara said, instinctively crossing his legs.

Payne then said, "You know, it's funny, because your website is one place from where more than one of the Wanted posters has been downloaded. You can tell because the line at the foot of the page shows the date the page was printed and its source URL."

"That's great to know," O'Hara said. "That means that CrimeFreePhilly is working!"

"Only," Payne said dryly, "to create more crime, it would appear. As far as I know, as much as a miserable dirty rotten shit Danny Gartner was, he had no criminal record."

O'Hara shrugged. "Chalk it up to collateral damage. You associate with swine, you're going to get muddy, too."

"Jay-Cee," Harris put in, "had charges against him of involuntary deviant sexual intercourse and rape of an unconscious or unaware person in one case that Gartner got tossed."

Payne nodded, then took a swallow of his single-malt and glanced at his watch.

"I need to get the hell out of here. I'm trying to have a life outside of work," he said, then looked at O'Hara. "Okay, Mick. That's all we know at this point. Now tell me what you know."

O'Hara raised his glass. "Not a goddamn thing, Matty. That's why you're called the confidential source close to the Roundhouse, and I'm called the reporter."

O'Hara took a sip of his drink as Payne gave him the finger.

"Sorry, pal. I really wish I had something for you. You know that eventually I will. And when I do, it's yours."

They all then stared into their glasses, quietly thinking.

After some time, O'Hara suddenly said, "So, Matty, what do you think are the chances of solving this?"

"Seriously?"

O'Hara nodded. "Seriously."

"Hell, I don't know. Right now, I'd say that the odds are about as high as the number of 'r's in 'fat fucking chance.' Zilch. Which is maybe slightly better than, say, finding all those fifty thousand fugitives."

Harris said, "Hey, you got Fort Festung. He was in the wind."

"Whoopie! One down, another forty-nine thousand nine-ninety-nine, give or take, to go. And don't forget that he took almost twenty years."

Tony Harris's cell phone then chimed once and vibrated. He pulled it from the plastic cradle on his belt and glanced at the LCD screen.

"It's Jenkins," he said as his thumb worked the BB-size polymer ball to navigate the phone's screen. He rolled and clicked to where the text messages were stored. "He's working the Wheel."

The Homicide Unit had a system called "the Wheel," basically a roster that listed the detectives on the shift. At the top of the roster was the detective currently assigned to "man the desk." When a call came in with a new murder, the "desk man" got assigned to the case. The detective listed below him on the roster-who was said to be "next up on the wheel"-then became the next "desk man."

Harris pushed again, then saw the message and exclaimed, "Holy shit!"

O'Hara looked at Payne and casually inquired, "How come you don't get 'holy shit!' texts from the Wheel guy? You're a sergeant. That outranks a lowly detective like Harris."

Tony handed Matt the phone for him to read the text message.

"Correction," Payne said. "I'm a sergeant assigned to a desk. Tony gets the fun job of working the streets."


Перейти на страницу:
Изменить размер шрифта: