Done for a Dime Read Online Free PDF Page A

mastermind producer of the local rap scene was himself a major player in the crack trade who was currently sitting in jail, awaiting trial for placing a bomb outside the south county courthouse, hoping to destroy evidence in a third-strike prosecution that would put him away for life. The FBI had just helped out in the arrest of a group of failed rappers who called themselves Pitch Black Night, tied not only to drugs but six murders in the area. The granddaddy of them all, though, was a rapper named Master DePaul. He was the man who kicked off the turf war between Baymont and Dumpers that reached its peak body count in 1994. The city’s reputation still hadn’t recovered. Given all that and more, the general feeling on the force remained: if you were local, Black, and musical, you merited a watchful eye.
    “Care to comment?” Murchison asked, standing back to take in the whole wall.
    Stluka gnawed his lower lip, thinking. “Squeaky type, looks like. The son I mean.”
    “Yeah, but I was thinking more generally. These look like working people, church people.”
    “Spare me, Murch. Pictures lie.” Stluka turned away, took in the rest of the room. “Every fuckwad in the world’s got a snapshot somewhere makes him look harmless. And that’ll be the one the family fawns off on the media when it’s crying time.”
    There was a piano in the room, piled high with sheet music. Stluka drifted toward it as Murchison pulled back the curtain at the window. Unless this Lazarenko girl had been waiting, she most likely went to look only once she heard shots. Like Marcellyne Pathon. And saw nothing. The glass was filthy. Given the clouds, the rain, the sparse streetlights on the block, it would have been dark in the yard, nothing but an amber porch light strewn with cobwebs.
    “Well now, looky here,” Stluka said behind him.
    He was standing beside the piano, holding a purse in one hand, an ID in the other. Shaking the purse, he caught sight of something inside. “Get that.”
    Murchison glanced in, spotted the wallet, took it out.
    “There a driver’s license inside?”
    Murchison checked. “Yeah.” He read the name. “This doesn’t match what Holmes told us outside.”
    “Nadya Lazarenko.” Stluka showed Murchison the loose ID he’d found first. “She’s all of nineteen.”
    Murchison checked the other ID. “This one says she’s Stephanie Waugh, twenty-one.”
    “Ta-da.”
    Murchison checked the photos. The faces were similar, not identical. Probably a friend’s license. He dropped the wallet back into the purse. “She’d need phony ID to get into a club where her boyfriend’s playing.”
    “The Zoom Room.” Stluka grinned. “It’s still deception, Murch.”
    “So’s just about everything else at that age. She’s our only shot at an eyewitness so far. I’m not going to bag that up and log it till I know it means something. Let the defense blow its own smoke.”
    Stluka sighed. “Fair enough. For now.” He dropped the other ID in and set the purse back down beside the piano. “Join me for a stroll?”
    He turned and headed down the hallway. Murchison followed, watching as Stluka checked in every opening he passed—linen closet, laundry hamper, bathroom shelves—sniffing at things like a disgruntled critic lost in the bowels of some minor museum. He lifted pictures, checking behind for wall safes. Kicked the baseboards, listening for hidey-holes.
    They came to two bedrooms at the end of the hall, and Murchison supposed the son had been using the smaller one. There was one bed, a twin, covered with an old Hudson blanket. The desktop was neat. Stluka pulled open a desk drawer, peeked inside, then shut it again.
    “Can we agree this room looks undisturbed?”
    Murchison inspected the closet. The clothes hung straight, shirts stacked tidily on the shelf above, shoes lined up like little soldiers on the floor below. Not many. Not enough. Inside a plastic bag he found a turtleneck and denim overalls,