Who Killed Tiffany Jones? Read Online Free PDF Page B

place. It would take much more time and effort to even attempt narrowing the field down to a likely suspect. The inspector, a middle-aged veteran of the department named Philippe Sally, told them to keep trying.
    “Every criminal makes a mistake,” he insisted. “There is no such thing as a perfect crime.”

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    THREE
    Baltimore/New York/Atlanta—Monday, July 16
    Baltimore
    Ed wa rd “ R uff D a ddy ” S h e l t o n — dressed casually in a flowing white linen shirt opened to his navel, matching linen trousers, and Bill Blass sandals—shifted his weight anxiously as he stood near the ticket counter at Baltimore/Washington International Airport. The heavy 24-carat gold chain that hung from his neck glistened in the bright sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling window across from the counters. He was a stocky, camel-colored twenty-eight-year-old whose face was set in a cold, fierce expression. Even his smile was intense. Now he waited impatiently for Wardell Bransford, the skinny young gofer who was waiting in line to purchase his tickets to Atlanta.
    There were four people ahead of Wardell.
    “Damn, who woulda thought we’d end up in Baltimore on a damn Saturday,” Ruff Daddy said to Morris Humphreys, the tall, athletic-16470_ch01.qxd 7/12/02 4:33 PM Page 26
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    looking thirty-five-year-old who stood beside him. Mo, as he was called, was his personal bodyguard and head of personnel and corpo-rate security for RuffRoad Records. Despite the heat, he was wearing jeans and a multicolored, designer leather bomber jacket. He wore nothing under the jacket, which was left open to reveal his bulging pecs, the sculpted six pack beneath them, and an array of gold and silver chains that would have made Mister T envious.
    “We be out of here directly,” Mo said, grinning and flexing his muscular upper body.
    “I know that’s right.” Ruff Daddy laughed, then abruptly cut off his laughter. He and his posse had been on the way to Atlanta when the jet he had leased mysteriously developed engine trouble and had to make an emergency landing in Baltimore. “Yo, son, what’s the deal with the Asian bitch in sunglasses over by the courtesy phone?” Ruff Daddy mumbled to Mo. “You checking her out? She’s makin’ me nervous.
    Look like she tryin’ to signal the Hispanic cat over by the baggage check-in. I’m sayin’, what’s up with that?”
    “You buggin’ man. You gettin’ par-a-noid. They just checking each other out ’cause they both outta pocket down here with these country hicks. They ain’t got nothin’ but crackers and pure black folk up in here. Ain’t no shades in between. Corny businessmen, farmers, and housewives! That’s it. I mean, damn! Whoa-a-a! Look at the haircuts and hairdos. These people still got those old-time 1975-Florida-Evans-Good-Times-Fros.”
    Mo laughed at his own joke, then sang, “Don’t laugh, hos . . . I’m down with the Afros.”
    “Man, you ain’t no MC. Why you frontin’ like you got some skills?
    Now pay attention. You suppose to keep us from getting involved in crossfire of any kind whatsoever, dawg.”
    Mo Hump put on his dark glasses so no one could follow his eyes.
    He glanced back and forth between the slim Asian woman in dark 16470_ch01.qxd 7/12/02 4:33 PM Page 27
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    glasses and the Hispanic near the baggage check-in. Except for the icy scowl on the Asian’s face, they seemed harmless enough, and neither one appeared to be packin’.
    “I don’t think they wit each other,” he said. “Look like Chico tryin’
    to make a play to me. And she ain’t goin’ for it.”
    “Anyway, keep an eye out. How’d it be to get blind-sided in Baltimore? Ah, hell naw.”
    “Don’t worry. I feel you.”
    “No doubt.”
    Ruff Daddy was a millionaire, but more than a few people suspected that he hadn’t accumulated all of his fortune in his