The Ninth Step Read Free Page A

his head. “I don’t believe so. Not a regular.”
    They returned their attention to the screen. Less than a minute later, the door opened and a big Caucasian walked in. The victim, alive. He ignored the clerk at the register, then ambled down the aisle toward the camera. He stopped to pick something off a shelf and stared down, reading the label.
    The first customer returned into view, facing away from the camera. He walked a few feet down the aisle, looking at the shelf on his right, then looked ahead and stopped. The vic didn’t look up. Maybe five seconds elapsed, Guy One just standing there, carrying his plastic shopping basket with his left hand, staring at the vic. Suddenly, he reached into the basket and lifted something out: it looked like the can of beans. He rushed forward. The vic just had time to look up, startled. Still holding the basket in his left hand, Guy One raised his right arm, then brought the can arcing viciously down against the victim’s head. Once, twice. With the second blow, a small spray of blood flew out. The vic staggered back against a shelf. One more blow and he went down.
    His killer stood there for a couple more seconds, staring, and then he stepped over the vic and rushed toward the door. As he came to the front counter, he dropped his shopping basket on the floor, and then he pushed through the door and disappeared out into a rectangle of bright sun. Once he was outside, he ran right: you could see him flicking past the posters in the window.
    Jack rewound the tape; in reverse, the spray of blood looked like it was getting sucked back into the victim’s head. He played the scene again. “You see that?” he said to his partner. “The vic didn’t say a word before he got hit.” He was thinking about what the owner had told them about the man disrespecting Pakistanis, but there was no evidence of that on the tape. “And I don’t think the perp said anything either, or else the vic would’ve looked up.”
    Powker shook his head. “Weird. They didn’t have time for any kind of argument, at least not inside the store. And if they’d been arguing outside, they wouldn’t have just strolled in and gone shopping.”
    “So the perp walks around from the other aisle, and bing , he runs into this Robert Brasciak. The question is, did he know him? If not, maybe we’re looking at an EDP.” Emotionally Disturbed Person. Jack scratched his cheek again. “If he did know him, he must’ve had a hell of a beef.”
    THEY HAD TO WAIT for the Crime Scene Unit to show up, take fingerprints, and check for other evidence. Jack found himself thinking about yesterday’s visitor again. “I’m gonna step outside for a little fresh air,” he told Powker. He stopped by the front door to pour himself a cup of watery coffee, then paid for it at the cash register, along with some money for his partner’s snack. He glanced down: the perp’s shopping basket was still there on the floor. A liter bottle of Coke. Three oranges. A stick of butter. A couple of eggplants. Some ice cream. Hopefully the items would have picked up some good fingerprints.
    Outside, the sidewalk had been blocked off with a reel of yellow crime scene tape. A couple of radio cars were parked at the curb, and their uniforms leaned against the hoods and shot the bull, awaiting instruction from the detectives. Their walkie-talkies squawked intermittently; the brakes on a city bus squealed as it pulled in toward the curb a few yards away.
    Jack took a deep breath of the spring air and looked back at the store. Several tiers of cheap floral bouquets graced the front of the little bodega. A sign ran above: BEER, SODA, CANDY, COFFEE, LOTTO, CIGARETTES. Reflexively, the detective sought out the pattern. When you thought about it, he mused, the place was a regular pit stop for minor vices, for people seeking some reliable little hit of pleasure during their daily grind. And who could blame them?
    He glanced down at his watch. The Crime