The officer dropped the report on Lisa’s desk. “No luck, Bogar. They ran the print against the drug crowd and the whole databank, but they came up dry. Want to ship it to Washington?”
Lisa shook her head. “No, not yet. I’ll do some more spadework first.” She glanced at the file. Jared Crowley, dead of a knife wound to the heart. Evans, bum, throat cut. Only Crowley’s prints on the weapon. One foreign print on the fire escape. The ladder had been so rough and rust-scaled it hadn’t taken good prints. They’d found one on a railing and damn lucky to get that. She had an 8×10 blow-up in front of her and she stared at it, as if it could reveal its identity. Or at least its character, she thought. It would almost be enough to know the kind of person she was dealing with. Assuming it wasn’t a totally unrelated fingerprint, she reminded herself.
“What sort of person kills and walks away, then informs the police?” she asked the wall.
“I dunno,” Officer Caddo said. “Maybe a guilty conscience? A nut case?”
“Huh! I doubt it. Either the killing was planned or it was impulsive, maybe accidental. If it was deliberate, that implies the killer had criminal intent. Why call the cops later? If it was spontaneous or accidental, why not come forward later? I’m afraid there’s only one likely answer.”
“What’s that, Bogar?” Lieutenant Arnold had been listening.
“The money, sir. The half-a-million dollars. Whoever killed Crowley has it. That’s 500,000 reasons for not coming forward.”
“And he called 911 because?”
“Because he’s not a criminal. He’s someone who stumbled into a drug deal and wanted us to know.”
“Talk around the office is you’re looking for Super Civilian. Now you’re evidently looking for Rich Super Civilian.”
Detective Bogar shrugged. “I know they make fun of it, but can you suggest a more likely possibility?”
The Lieutenant leaned back against the doorjamb. “Bogar, I’ve seen enough things in the last twenty years that nothing surprises me any more. But you seem to have come up against a dead end. You can’t investigate every wealthy civilian in New York. And we have other cases to work on. I want you to help Dowling on that bookstore killing. Let this one gather dust for now.”
Lisa sighed. “Okay, boss. I guess this one just has me more curious than usual. I’ll put it aside for now.” Silently, she wondered if she could really put it aside. She stared once more at the fingerprint, although by now it was almost engraved on her memory. She closed the file and dropped it into the folder with the rest of the paperwork. “Where’s Dowling now?”
“In Ballistics. I told him you’d be working with him.”
You mean you warned him, Lisa thought. Told him to keep his pecker in his pants and his hands to himself. She smiled. Somehow, having Alan in the wings gave her more confidence in her ability to deal with the sexism that permeated the Department. She might as well get this over with. The sooner the day ended, the sooner she would be back with Alan. She shivered at the thought.