Authors: The Echo Man
'Not
sure. The place has probably been broken into many times, but there was no new
splintering on the jamb.'
'What
about vehicles parked near the scene?'
Jessica
noticed for the first time that, besides her modest earrings, Dana Westbrook
had four empty piercings in her right ear. 'We're running plates in a two-block
radius, along with the vehicles parked in the school parking lot,
cross-referencing the owners with wants and warrants. Nothing so far.'
Westbrook
nodded, made a note of it.
'And
we could also take a look at some of the footage our budding
Oscar
winner took. I saw Albrecht getting some shots of the crowd across the street.'
'Good
idea,' Westbrook said.
Sometimes
a criminal, especially one guilty of murder, returned to the scene. Police were
always aware that a crowd at a crime scene, or one gathered at a funeral, might
contain the person they sought.
'And
speaking of Albrecht, how much access does this kid get?' Jessica asked.
'Within
reason,' Westbrook replied. 'He doesn't get inside the ME's office, of course.
Or a hospital.'
'And
why are we doing this, again?'
'He's
the deputy commissioner's wife's cousin's son. Or something like that. He's
plugged in, let's just put it that way. The deputy commissioner is a Penn State
grad, you know.'
'Is
Albrecht allowed to film a crime scene?'
'Well,
word is, the brass is going to see a rough cut of this film and has final approval
over it all. If anything compromises an ongoing investigation or is blatantly
disrespectful to a victim or a victim's family it won't see the light of day.
You can count on that.'
'So,
we have the right to chuck him off a scene?'
'Absolutely,'
Westbrook said. 'Just make sure Kevin doesn't do it when you're going seventy
on 1-95.'
Jessica
smiled. It hadn't taken long for Sergeant Dana Westbrook to get up to speed.
'I'll make a note.'
Westbrook
stood. 'Keep me in the loop.'
'You
got it, boss.'
Until
they got an ID on the victim there wasn't too much they could do. The faster
you got an ID, the faster you could get information such as where the victim
lived, worked, went to school, played, and the faster you could begin to collect
witness statements. Once identification was made, a person was also run through
the various databases, specifically the National Crime Information Center and
its local version, the Philadelphia Crime Information Center.
The
victim was fingerprinted as soon as the body got to the morgue, but all you
could do before identification was canvass the area around the crime scene,
process any forensic material, and hope for the best. If they couldn't ID the
victim, the best hope was that by the next day someone would have heard the
news about the body and would start making calls about their husband, brother,
son.
After
finishing her initial report, Jessica would head back to the scene. People
working early shifts would be getting home soon and just might have something
to tell her.
She
made a note to ask Kevin to reach out to a friend of his, a detective who
worked out of South Detectives. The more eyes and ears on a homicide,
especially at this stage, the better. Divisional detectives knew their turf and
their criminals better than anyone.
Before
she could do that she sensed someone nearby. She turned. Dennis Stansfield
stood behind her. He was like a virus that she couldn't seem to shake.
'Can I
help you with something, detective?' Jessica asked.
Stansfield
pointed to the notepad on the desk. 'I didn't mean to look over your shoulder.'
'And
yet?'
'Well,
lately I've heard some things about him.'
'Him?'
'Yeah.
Detective Byrne.'
Jessica
closed the folder on her desk, closed her notebook. She spun her chair around,
stood up. She was not going to talk to this guy while she was sitting down.
'Like what sort of things?'
Stansfield
glanced around the duty room, looked back, lowered his voice. 'Well, like maybe
his heart's not in it anymore.'
'Really?'
'Yeah,
and like maybe he's looking for the door. Like maybe he's not quite the cop he
used to be.'
Jessica
nodded. 'Interesting.'
'I'm
just saying, you know? This is what I've heard. And from more than one person.'
'Well,
Dennis,'
Jessica said. 'Maybe you're right.'
Stansfield
looked surprised. 'I am?'
'Yeah.
Can I tell him you said this? I'm sure he'd like to hear it, seeing as it's
going around.'
'Well,
I'd really prefer you didn't,' Stansfield said. 'See, I was just saying that—'
'Then
again, why don't you tell him yourself?'
'What
do you mean?'
'He's
right behind you.'
Stansfield
spun around to find Kevin Byrne, who loomed over him by about five inches,
standing there. It looked for a moment as though Stansfield was going to extend
his hand in greeting. It looked for a moment as though Byrne was going to throw
Stansfield out a window. Both men then thought better of it.
'Detective,'
was all that Stansfield managed.
Byrne
stared at him until Stansfield got really interested in the time of day. He
glanced at his watch, then back at Jessica.
'I'm
going to follow up on the owner of the building,' Stansfield said. 'I'm mobile if
you need me.'
'Yeah,'
Jessica said when Stansfield was out of earshot. 'That'll happen.' She turned
to Byrne. 'Done with the grand jury already?'
Byrne
shook his head. 'Postponed. They're hearing the Fontana case today.'
'Did Drummond
tell you when you're back on?'
'Maybe
next week.'
'Sucks.'
The longer it went on, the more likely that people were going to catch amnesia.
Byrne
pointed across the room, at the departing Stansfield. 'When did he go on day
work?'
'Today,'
Jessica said. 'The boss put him with me this morning. I caught a case.'
Jessica
filled Byrne in on what they had found. They did not have crime-scene
photographs yet, but Jessica had taken a few still pictures on her cellphone.
She made it a practice never to print off any crime- scene photographs that she
took with her own camera, even though there were no rules against it. It just
made it a little too likely that personal photographs would get mixed in with
official photographs, and things like that were what defense attorneys lived
for. PhotoShop had changed everything.
Byrne
stared at the images for a full minute, scrolling through them one by one.
'No
ID yet?' he asked.
'Not
yet,' Jessica said. 'Body's still on scene.'
Byrne
handed back the phone. 'Any witnesses?'
'Nothing.
I'm heading back there in a few minutes.'
Byrne
looked across the room. David Albrecht sat at one of the desks, playing back
footage on his camera's viewfinder.
'Who's
the kid with the camera?'
Jessica
explained David Albrecht's presence.
'Great,'
Byrne said. 'Just what we need.'
Byrne
checked the body chart, taking in the general details of the wounds to the
victim, the placement of the body. 'Want some company?'
'I'll
drive,' Jessica said.
'Let
me get my stuff out of my car.'
In
the rear parking lot they stopped at Byrne's car. It was a Kia Sedona minivan.
Jessica had never seen it before.
'When
did you get this?'
'It's
a loaner from my cousin Patrick. Colleen is going to be moving soon and we're
trying to keep the costs down. I'm bringing some of her stuff to a storage
locker this week.'
'Do
you like it?'
'Oh
yeah,' Byrne said. 'Kias are true babe magnets. Had a few college cheerleaders
flash me the other day.'
Byrne
unlocked the passenger door, reached in, grabbed some things from the back
seat. When he closed the door and turned around, Jessica did a double take.
Kevin
Byrne had a stylish leather messenger bag over his shoulder.
'Oh
my God,' Jessica said.
'What?'
'Hang
on.' Jessica took out her cellphone, opened it, pantomimed dialing a long phone
number. A
really
long phone number. She held up a finger. 'Hi, is this
Hell?'
Byrne
shook his head.
'Yes,'
Jessica continued. 'I was calling to get the current temperature. What's that
you say? Five below? Snow squalls expected?'
'Funny
stuff,' Byrne said. 'Let me get a table so I can catch the whole act.'
Jessica
smiled, closed her phone. She leaned against the car, crossed her arms. 'I
can't believe it. Kevin Byrne carrying a purse. I am
so
blogging about
this.'
'It's
a man bag.'
'Ah.'
'And
it's a Tumi. Tumi makes good stuff.'
'There's
no question about that,' Jessica said. 'I have a Tumi purse myself.'
'This
isn't a purse, okay? It's a—'
'Man
bag,' Jessica said.
'And,
just for the record, I never want to hear the words
metro
and
sexual
in the same sentence. Okay?'
'Promise,'
Jessica said. Her fingers were secretly crossed behind her back. 'So, what made
you decide to do this?'
Byrne
leaned closer. 'It's just getting harder and harder to leave the house, you
know? You have to have your keys, your cellphone, your pager, your sunglasses,
your regular glasses, your iPod—'
'Wait.
You have an iPod?'
'Yes,
I have an iPod. What's so odd about that?'
'Well,
for one thing, you still buy vinyl records. I just figured in a few years you'd
make the giant leap to audiocassettes. Maybe even CDs one day.'
'I buy
vinyl because it's collectible. Especially the old blues.'
'Okay.'
'Remember
your uniform days when everything went on your belt? Ami what didn't go on your
belt fitted in your shirt pocket?'
'I
remember, but keep in mind there's even less room up there for female cops.'
'I'm
a detective,' Byrne said. 'I've noticed that.'
I le
took a few steps back, gestured to the cut of his new suit, which Jessica had
to admit looked pretty good on him. It was a charcoal gray two-button.
'Think
about it,' he said. 'If I put all that stuff in my pockets it would ruin the
line.'
'The
line?' Jessica put her hand on the butt of her weapon. 'Okay, who are you and
what have you done with my partner?'
Byrne
laughed.
'Well,
now that you carry a bag,' Jessica continued, 'you should keep in mind one of
the first things they taught us at the academy.'
'I
may be older than slate, but I seem to recall going to that academy myself.
Over on State Road, right?'
'That's
the one,' Jessica said. 'But what I meant by "us" was, well,
women.''
Byrne
braced himself, said nothing.
'They
taught us to never, ever, carry your weapon in a purse.'
There
was that word again. Byrne looked at the sky, back at Jessica. 'This is going
to go on for a while, isn't it?'