The Ninth Step Read Online Free PDF Page A

great paranoia about the mail and about unattended parcels, tiny towns in rural areas worrying about poison in their fishing holes—but it was hard to maintain that level of anxiety for long. Over the years since the big attack, after checking out hundreds of spurious reports, New York cops had learned to take new “threats” with a grain of salt.
    Jack sat near the door. Over his shoulder came a bustle of phone conversations, file cabinet drawers slamming, scanners crackling. Business as usual out in the Homicide squad room.
    Linda Vargas, another of the detectives on the Homicide squad, popped her head in. “You just got a call from Latent Prints. They didn’t find any matches for your deli perp.”
    All of the detectives frowned. “This is ridiculous,” Richie said. “All the feds need to do is give us a couple of frames from the security video. If we put out some posters of the perp, we can probably have this whole thing rolled up in a day or two.”
    Cardulli nodded. “I made that point. But Charlson said they don’t want to broadcast word of the incident yet.”
    Jack leaned forward. “Does he already know who our killer is?”
    Cardulli shrugged. “I just told you all I heard. I’ve asked the chief of detectives if he can put a call in, see if we can get more cooperation.”
    “What are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Richie said. “Twiddle our thumbs?”
    Cardulli crossed his arms. “They’re obviously not making this easy for us, but they didn’t say to drop the case. Far as I can tell, this is still an open one for the board.” He was referring to the big erasable chart out in the squad room, which bore the names of the victims in current cases. He turned to Jack again. “What’s your take on this?”
    “I’m thinking about shopping.”
    Sergeant Tanney made a face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    Jack shrugged. “The perp was shopping for groceries in a deli at around eight A.M. Think about that. First of all, was he on his way to work?” Before the others could answer, he continued with his musings. “On your way to work, you buy a cup of coffee and maybe a bagel. You don’t do your dinner shopping.”
    Tanney threw in his usual contradictory two cents. “What if he was shopping for someone else?”
    Jack didn’t blink. “There were a bunch of items in his basket. If he was shopping for someone else, he would probably have been looking at a list.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Another thing: you shop for food in your own neighborhood.”
    “But the owner didn’t recognize him,” Richie pointed out.
    Jack nodded. “That’s true. Still —he was buying ice cream and butter, and you don’t grab those far from home.”
    Tanney scowled. “So what’s your point?”
    “First of all, maybe our guy’s unemployed. Or he works nights—and what does that make him? A transit employee? A taxi driver? Anyway, I bet he lives within a few blocks of the place.”
    Cardulli stood up. “Why don’t we start with what we know? We’ve got an I.D. for the victim. Let’s see if anybody can tell us why some Pakistani would want to bash his head in.”
    THE SOUND INSIDE R. J. Stanley’s brought back one of Jack’s earliest childhood memories, when he had been spun in an undertow just off the beach at Coney Island. This new roiling cacophony came from the ranks of giant-screen TVs lining the back wall of the appliance emporium: the roar of the crowd from fifty displays of a boxing match, mixed with the sound of wrenching metal from a superhero action flick, mixed with dopey singing from Disney’s Jungle Book .
    “Christ,” said Richie Powker. “I’m getting a headache and we’ve only been in here for thirty seconds.”
    Jack nodded. “Imagine working here.” And that’s exactly what he was doing, because this was where Robert Brasciak had spent a good number of his last living days on earth.
    Red rubber mats led down the aisles of the big