Stockton across the street and up a few yards from the mouth of the driveway, and another at its mouth. It wasn't that broken glass rose anywhere to the significance of evidence-it was as common as the dew on many city streets-but Thieu believed in collecting all the data that came his way in the hopes that some of it would acquire relevance. He asked the CSI team to gather any shards that might be large enough to hold a fingerprint.
He also had a reasonably defined size twelve-and-a-half shoe print from a leather- or smooth-soled shoe. The dumpster had been dripping a stinky, gooey miasma and somebody had stepped in it and then onto relatively drier pavement. Thieu knew that the footprint might not belong to the shooter. The scene by the loading dock at the end of the long driveway was a known rendezvous for some of the city's homeless, so there was a strong likelihood that the footprint belonged to one of the bums.
On the other hand, Thieu was a stickler for precision and they'd done some preliminary blood spatter analysis, complete with photos-a difficult task in the middle of the night. The footprint location was at least consistent with where the shooter must have been standing, which was at the front, or Stockton Street corner, of the dumpster. This was hardly conclusive evidence, but it was something. He was going to take it. He asked the CSI team to gather some of the liquid and bag it as evidence.
He was aided in his work by the fact that the victim was in uniform. Even if he was only an assistant patrol special, Creed was in some ways one of them. Every man and woman on the CSI would take all the time Thieu wanted if it would help him apprehend a cop killer.
Although they found no casing, they also got lucky with one of the two. 38 caliber bullets that had passed through the victim's body, leaving fairly clean small holes in the front and, even with two wounds, something less than a gaping maw of open flesh in the back. This had led Thieu to conclude first that the slugs were probably not hollow points and second that therefore they'd be able to find one or even both of the bullets. Not only was he proved right, but they discovered one of the bullet holes in a makeshift bumper someone had mounted against one of the buildings where the loading trucks would otherwise scrape. So the nearly perfect slug had passed through some rubber tire material that coated the bumper and lodged in the thick wooden beam beneath it.
Again, a slug by itself meant nothing. The odds of them finding the gun and matching it both to a person and to that particular bullet, and thus having it be any use in actually solving the crime, were all but infinitesimal. But Thieu was glad he had the piece of lead bagged and heading for the evidence locker. You just never knew.
Impressions, too, played a role, although in even a more nebulous manner than the other potential evidence. But impressions, unlike the other stuff, were ephemeral. Thieu was conscientiously typing his up so he wouldn't forget them, when Gerson came in at 8:30 sharp. Thieu had been technically off for two and a half hours, but he didn't care.
He wasn't going to put in for overtime. He didn't need the money and he knew that eventually the bean counters who controlled promotion would discover that he solved cases and cost less. Besides, there was nothing he'd rather be doing. Nothing.
His colleagues had been drifting in for fifteen minutes and the homicide detail was filling with sound and the smell of coffee. Sarah Evans had discovered a female country singer with the same name as her, and she had her radio going low. Thieu tried to work through it all, concentrating mightily.
But it was not to be, at least not right then. Gerson made his way through the room and surprisingly-the two men tolerated each other at best-stopped in front of Thieu's desk, waiting until he looked up. 'Got a minute, Paul? I'd appreciate it. In my office. Thanks.' He turned and headed back.
This was a first, but Thieu took it for what it was, a simple summons, undoubtedly some bureaucratic folderol. Sighing, he pushed back in his chair and stood up. He couldn't help but compare the current lieutenant with his old boss Glitsky, who might have come over to his desk in the same way Gerson just had, but would have seen he was working intently-just possibly on a homicide he was expected to solve. Abe would have either had the sensitivity to let him alone until he was finished, or he would have wanted to know all about what he was working on, what if anything he'd discovered. They'd trade ideas and theories of the case.
But that wasn't Barry Gerson, who when Thieu got to his office was turned away from the door, studying columns of numbers on his computer screen. He knocked on the wall. 'Sir?'
Gerson blackened the screen and spun round in his seat, motioned to the other chairs. 'I don't want to keep you if you were going home,' he began.
'No. I was finishing up, but I've got another half hour. What can I do for you?'
Gerson wasted no time. He pointed in the general direction of his desk. 'I was reading the IR'-incident report- 'on your call last night, what you're probably working on out there right now, the patrol special…'
'Matt Creed,' Thieu said.
'That's him. I think there's a good chance he's part of another case, another homicide.' At Thieu's unasked question, he went on. 'I don't know if you've followed this Silverman case at all…'
'Sure.' Gerson didn't know it, but Thieu followed every case. 'Pawnshop on O'Farrell. Last what? Thursday night? Cuneo and Russell, right?'
'You know everything else and you don't know about Creed?'
Thieu ignored the facetious tone. 'Not everything, sir. In fact, nothing but the bare facts.' But he didn't want to get into one-upmanship with Gerson. He put on a receptive expression. 'What was Creed's involvement?'
'He was the only witness to the robbery in progress at Silverman's. He chased the three suspects for a couple of blocks but lost them. Then he came back to the pawnshop and found the body.'
'All right.' For the life of him, Thieu couldn't figure out where this might be going. He'd let Gerson get to it without prompting him, though. Relaxed in his chair, an ankle resting on its opposite knee, he waited.
Gerson cleared his throat, finally went on. 'The thing is, Cuneo and Russell interviewed Creed, and he pretty much identified the suspects.'
This surprised Thieu, but he kept his expression neutral. 'Pretty much?' he asked. He didn't know what that meant. 'Positively? By name, sir? Or from a photo spread?'
'By name. The inspectors haven't had time to get photos together. But Creed narrowed it to a trio of losers in the 'Loin. Clint Terry, Randy Wills, John Holiday.'
Thieu automatically filed the names away in the supercomputer he carried between his ears. He was stunned that ninety-six hours after a homicide, no one had shown the main witness a photo spread. Still, he waited, offering nothing but a civil expectancy.
'My point is that if these two homicides are related, maybe committed by the same hand, it might be more efficient to assign Creed to the same inspectors who are working Silverman since they've got the early jump. But I wanted to run it by you first.'
Thieu was even more stunned. When two homicides seemed to be related, inspectors on both cases worked together. But he was being pulled off. 'I've got no problem with that, sir,' he said without inflection. 'I'd be happy to brief them if you'd like, though there isn't much to talk about. But who works the case-that's your decision.'
'No hard feelings?'
'Not at all.' Then Thieu added, a brush at levity, 'It's not like my caseload is about to dry up.'
'No, I don't suppose it is.'
But though Thieu in fact didn't really mind passing off the new case, he did have a question. He would always have a question. 'So your assumption is that these suspects must have somehow found out that Creed had identified them and killed him to keep him from testifying?'
Gerson grimaced. 'All I know is he was a witness in one case and the victim in another, and the other guys have got a head start. We might get two birds with one stone, is all I'm thinking.' He spread his palms wide and stood up. 'Efficiency. The brass loves it.'
Thieu, standing himself, knew he'd been dismissed, but wanted to be sure that he and Gerson understood one another. 'If you'd like,' he repeated, 'I could stay on awhile this morning to brief them.'
But Gerson waved that off. 'Thanks, but you're into OT now as it is. If you finish your write-up, that and the IR here ought to be enough to get them started. They have specific questions, they can always ask you later.'
Cuneo wasn't sure that he liked the operating theory of the case, the very one Thieu had asked about. Cuneo had correctly identified the exact problem that had concerned Thieu. While there was an admittedly strong coincidence factor in Creed being involved in two homicides within Thirty-two in the past week, that very fact didn't compel Cuneo to believe that the cases were in fact related. It seemed to him that the only way the two had to be related was if the suspects had known that Creed had identified them.
