screen.
She bit harder.
Payne grunted as he read the text message on-screen:—BLOCKED NUMBER -
YO, MATTY . HOPE I’M INTERRUPTING SOMETHING REALLY GOOD AT THIS HOUR!
GOT ANOTHER POP-N-DROP AN HOUR AGO. TWO ACTUALLY.
COULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED TO NICER GUYS. YOU KNOW ONE. THE BLACK BUDDHA SAID TO GIVE YOU A HEADS-UP.
CLICK ON FOX29 NEWS. -TH
Matt sighed, then turned his eyes to meet Amanda’s and raised his hands up, palms out.
“I surrender,” he muttered as best he could.
She let loose his lip and slipped back between the sheets.
Her tone sounding disappointed, Amanda said, “I sure hope that’s not what I’m afraid it is. Especially at this hour. Please tell me it’s not work.”
He held the phone out for her to read its screen.
As she did, Matt thought, Someone I know?
What the hell does that mean?
“TH” was Tony Harris—age thirty-eight, slight of build and starting to bald—who was widely regarded as a really good guy and a really good Homicide detective. He had worked closely with Matt and Sergeant Jim Byrth of the Texas Rangers last month when they’d tracked down Juan Paulo Delgado.
And the Black Buddha was their boss, Lieutenant Jason Washington, head of the Homicide Unit. He was a great big bear of a man—six-foot-three and two hundred twenty-five pounds, with very dark skin. Washington, well-spoken, superbly tailored, and highly respected, did not consider the nickname unflattering. “I’m damn sure black, Matthew,” he said in his deep, sonorous voice. “And Buddha, the ‘enlightened one,’ surely is a wise man. I have no problem wearing that badge with pride.”
“So,” Amanda said softly, “I guess since you’ve been working the pop-and-drops, we’re done for the evening?”
Someone in the city was shooting fugitives. These particular ones were wanted on outstanding arrest warrants for crimes against women and children. He had not told Amanda that their crimes were sexual in nature.
After “popping” a sex offender at point-blank range, the shooter then transported the body to the nearest police district headquarters, “dropping” it off in the parking lot with a copy of the perp’s Wanted information—a computer printout downloaded from one of various Internet websites listing fugitives—stapled to some part of his clothing.
Thus, “pop-and-drop.”
Not that anyone’s complaining that the scum of society is being swept from the streets for good, Payne had thought.
But as Jason Washington said, “Murder’s murder, Matthew. And who knows what the shooter might escalate to next?”
Matt Payne hadn’t figured out how in hell the shooter had been able to get so close to any of the district HQ buildings without being caught in the act of dumping a body. So far it had happened five times in about as many weeks, and the department had been able to keep the incidents quiet—which meant away from the news media—while the brass finally found someone who was available to take the cases and try to piece together who the hell the doer or doers might be. A lucky Sergeant Payne, stuck at his desk assignment, had been chosen.
Matt turned, kissed Amanda on the forehead, and said, “Hold on, baby.”
Matt reached back over to the side table and fished around in its drawer until he came up with a remote control. He thumbed the ON button and the sixty-inch flat-screen television mounted on the wall made a humming sound and its screen began to glow.
He punched in from memory the channel of the local Fox station, and it was clear a live news report was being broadcast. In the bottom left-hand corner was confirmation: A small box alternately blinked the FOX29 logotype and the phrase “News Now, News You Can Use.” A white bar also ran diagonally over the left top corner of the image, and it flashed red text: “REPORTING LIVE at 11:21 P.M. from Old City.”
As the red and blue emergency lights from the police vehicles flashed, the news camera panned down the narrow tree-lined street. On the red brick sidewalk were curious bystanders—Payne noticed more than a few in Halloween costumes—held back by a length of yellow crime-scene tape.
Payne’s eyes went to the ticker of text scrolling across the bottom of the TV screen: BREAKING NEWS . . . TWO MEN FOUND BOUND AND SHOT DEAD . . . ONE IS A 25-YEAR-OLD WANTED ON AN OUTSTANDING BENCH WARRANT . . . ARREST WARRANT WAS FOR FAILURE TO APPEAR IN MUNICIPAL COURT ON TWO COUNTS OF INTENT TO DELIVER A CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE . . . THE OTHER DEAD MAN IS A CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYER, ABOUT AGE 50 . . . BOTH BODIES DUMPED AT