end.'
He frowned. My sailing metaphor didn't seem to cut it for him.
'When you came in six months ago and asked to partner up with him, I was getting set to throw him outta here. I figured you guys were partners once before so maybe you knew how to straighten him out. This is an elite unit. We're supposed to be the best of the best, but this guy's spent the last two months flying up his own asshole.'
'It's just things in his life are piling up.'
'You're on the Fingertip murders 'cause the chief and the head of DSG both wanted it. I don't know if I would'a made that assignment because a homicide team has to work as a team, and as far as I'm concerned, you're working alone. This is the biggest red ball we've had around here in ten years. If you muff it, we all go back to traffic.'
'Captain, I'll talk to him. I'll get him straightened out.'
'Yesterday, I heard a rumor that the sixth floor is thinking about setting up a Fingertip task force. When that happens, this case turns into a cheese fart. Every cop working it will be dreaming of book and movie deals. They'll all start hoarding information. Worse still, a bunch of blow-dries from media relations will get assigned down here to arrange news conferences and press interviews and we'll be up to our asshole in assholes, not to mention the platoon of narrow-shouldered FBI agents who're bound to show up. The head of DSG needs to be told not to form a fucking task force, 'cause they never work.'
In my presence, Calloway always referred to Alexa as the head of DSG.
His eyes strayed to the TV hanging on a bracket in the corner of his office. It was tuned to Channel Four with the volume muted. On the screen, Alexa was standing next to Tony Filosiani behind a podium displaying the LAPD seal. They were holding a news conference to officially notify the press about the discovery of the fourth Fingertip victim. The media room looked packed. Every news station in town was there plus one or two people from each of the networks. This could only be viewed as a bad development. Intense network coverage would amp up the pressure on all of us because no division commander wanted to get his balls busted coast-to-coast by Brian Williams or Wolf Blitzer. Cal glanced at his watch, grabbed the remote off his desk and turned up the volume. Tony was in midsentence speaking with his trademark Brooklynese accent.
'. . the facts are known, but as of this moment, we're listing this as the fourth Fingertip Killing. I'll take two more questions.' Tony shifted his weight. He was bowling-ball round, short, pink, and bald. HumptyDumpty in pinstripes.
'Chief Filosiani, it's only been eight days since the last body was found. Is this killer shortening his time frame, and what does that indicate?' It was the field reporter from Channel Five.
'It would be foolish of me to seize on that one fact, Stan, and say that because the time frame is shortened from two weeks to eight days, this murderer is degenerating or becoming more unstable. I don't want to jump to any conclusions.'
'Lieutenant Scully, isn't it about time you set up a Fingertip task force?' Carmen Rodriguez asked Alexa.
Both Cal and I groaned.
'We are not contemplating an organizational change in the investigation at this time,' Alexa said. 'We'll take that into consideration if, and when, circumstances become substantially altered.'
'Thank you,' Tony said, anxious to end it.
They both turned and walked off the stage. Alexa was almost two inches taller than the chief even wearing the flats she kept in her office for news conferences so she wouldn't tower over him.
'We're fucked,' Cal said. He turned off the set angrily. 'Once they start asking about a task force, it's only a matter of time. You got anything promising from this new kill to head that off?'
I looked out into the room full of detectives, then hesitated. I was reluctant to give him my suspicions and he picked up on it.
'I ain't gonna go blabbin' it to anybody. I'm your boss, asshole. You got somethin', put the shit down.'
'I think there's a chance that this last kill might not be the work of our original unsub.'
'When am I gonna catch a break here?'
'Cotta things seem off, Cap. For one, the vic had a contact lens in his right eye. How many homeless guys you ever met who wear contacts? I'm trying to trace it back. We'll see where that takes us. But I'm betting he's not homeless.'
Cal furrowed his brow. 'Maybe the vic used to have dough, became a wino but still wears his contacts.'
'Maybe,' I said. 'But when Rico opened the stomach, his last meal, consumed less than an hour before he died, included eggplant, parsley, and caviar. So unless he was dumpster diving behind a gourmet restaurant, this is not what we generally refer to as homeless guy food. Also, he doesn't look like a wino on the inside. His liver and kidneys were pink and healthy.'
'Maybe this one time our unsub killed outside of his normal victim profile,' Cal countered. 'Bundy killed a few girls who weren't college kids. Son of Sam didn't just do long-haired girls with their hair parted in the middle. All of the Green River hits weren't runaways or prostitutes.'
'We also recovered the bullet,' I went on. 'That fact in itself is unusual, but there's something else. It turns out to be a five point four-five millimeter, which is a caliber mostly used in a PSM automatic.'
'A what?'
'It's a small-caliber gun issued to KGB, officers behind the Iron Curtain in the eighties.'
'But it could also be the same murder weapon used on the other three 'cause this is the first bullet we've recovered.' Cal's voice was getting shrill. He was frustrated with me.
'Except Rico says this guy might have been beat to death before he was shot. There's blunt force trauma and bruising on the right side of the ribs and a busted spleen. The coroner listed the other three victims as death by gunshot, so the methodology surrounding the death looks different.'
'So maybe it just means the unsub is degenerating,' Cal argued. 'Beating his victims first, becoming more violent.'
But his tone seemed desperate now. After seven weeks of nothing, he certainly didn't want the first body found that had any worthwhile clues to be classified as a copycat. Neither did I, but that's where the evidence seemed to be pointing.
'Any one of these things alone, I could live with. But all together, they make me think-'
'It's another shooter.' Cal finished my sentence. Then after a long pause, he added, 'But Zack said the vic had the figure-eight symbol on his chest. The oval thing. So how could it be a copycat? Nobody but a few people in the department and a few in the ME's office know about that.'
'Maybe the symbol leaked somehow,' I said.
Suddenly the murder book Zack had left unattended seemed a few pounds heavier in my hands. How careless had he really been with it? I wondered.
'Maybes and hunches don't cut it, Shane.' Cal interrupted my thoughts. 'You need to give me a theory that holds your suppositions together.'
'You telling me not to work this case the way I see it?'
One of Cal's strengths was he let his detectives run their own investigations. 'Okay, it's your case. If that's your take, separate J. D. Number Four out from the Fingertip case and work it separately so it won't contaminate the other murders. But keep this strictly between us. Tell nobody because you could be wrong.'
'Yes sir,' I said, wondering if nobody included Zack and Alexa. I turned to go.
'Scully, from now on, you keep the murder book.' 'Yes sir.'
I knew from the look on his face he wasn't finished, so I stood in the door and waited for the rest of it.
'And Shane. . get your partner straight today. Don't force me to come in here tomorrow and make him piss in a bottle. If I think he's drunk on duty again, I'll sink him. One more misstep and I'm sending him to a Board of Rights.'
'I'll straighten him out.'
I walked out and started asking around on the floor for anybody who'd seen my missing partner. In the lobby, I finally ran into two auto-theft dicks heading into the elevator on their way back from lunch.
'He was over at Morrie's,' one of them said.
Morrie's was a favorite hangout two blocks away on Spring Street. A dark, cozy, Irish pub restaurant with warm green walls and red leather booths. There were always a lot of cops there. Morrie's was well liked because
