Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me? Read Free Page A

homeless guy took off . The sack he’d left behind sat a few feet from the victim’s head. A pair of running shoes had rolled to the pavement. The shoe size looked to be a match for the dead man’s feet.
    That’s cold . Stealing the shoes off a dead man . It appeared that the homeless guy had started to pull boxes off the victim when he’d seen the head and bolted.
    About half of the victim’s torso was uncovered. He was a black male, mid thirties. About six feet and broad-shouldered. He wore a leather jacket, unzipped, and under it a grey sweatshirt with three big black letters.
    The middle letter was a P, visible where the jacket parted. To the left of it was what looked like an M. To the right . . . It was a D. Joseph sighed quietly. Aw, hell .
    MPD. Metro Police Department. This guy’s a DC cop .
    Joseph crouched next to the victim. Carefully he probed the man’s chest through the sweatshirt. And felt something hard. On a chain. In the shape of a shield. A DC cop killed in the line of duty .
    ‘Goddammit,’ Joseph muttered, dialing his cell phone as he came to his feet. The murder of a cop was enough of a loss. That the victim had been on duty made it that much worse. That the victim was Joseph’s own age . . . It hit damn close to home.
    ‘Special Agent Lamar, VCET.’
    Supervisory Special Agent Boaz Lamar headed the Violent Crimes Enforcement Team, a joint task force staffed by Baltimore city and county cops and the FBI. Bo and Joseph went way back in the Bureau – Bo had been one of his trainers, when Joseph had been a newly sworn agent.
    Three years ago, Bo began preparing for his retirement and had asked Joseph to transfer from the domestic terrorism unit into VCET, with the plan being Joseph’s eventual promotion into Bo’s job. For reasons of his own, Joseph had declined, then and every other time Bo brought it up.
    Until nine months ago when everything changed and, again for reasons of his own, Joseph accepted Bo’s offer, surprising everyone. When grilled by his family, he’d said he needed a change. When grilled by his bosses, he’d said he wanted to stick closer to home. Neither was a lie. But the real reason he kept to himself.
    It had been a damn good reason nine months ago. Six months of paperwork and red tape later, Joseph had his transfer, but his real reason wasn’t actionable anymore.
    Because he’d waited too long and Daphne had chosen someone else.
    Sometimes life’s a bitch that way . He looked down at the body. He was pretty sure that Mr Red Socks would agree, whoever he was.
    ‘Bo, it’s Joseph. I need CSU and the ME at this location. I’ve got a definite murder and a possible abduction with two missing persons. One is Ford Elkhart, the son of the state’s attorney on the Millhouse case. The other is Kim MacGregor, his girlfriend.’ Joseph dreaded the fear he’d see in Daphne’s eyes when he told her. ‘This dead guy was a DC Metro cop. Somebody all but separated his head from his body.’
    Bo exhaled. ‘Text me his face and we’ll contact MPD to get an ID started. I’ll get a team together and out to you within fifteen.’
    Tuesday, December 3, 9.57 A.M.
    Most excellent . Mitch Roberts’s customer was waiting, just where he was supposed to be. It’s nice when people follow instructions .
    George Millhouse wasn’t waiting very patiently, though. He paced back and forth, checking his watch every five seconds. Which, had they been in a less secluded place, would have been a dead giveaway. Fortunately, I planned for this . George’s frantic pacing would be seen by no one.
    Mitch slipped into the alley, much like he’d slipped into the one down by the movie theater the night before. Except there’d better not be any surprises like there were last night . He didn’t like surprises in general, and that cop had been a nasty shock.
    Mitch grinned to himself. And then the cop had gotten a nasty shock. It all worked out very well, actually. Better than the