“I have no idea, but we’ll have to keep a tight rein on that little tidbit. It could be a signature, and we really don’t want it getting out.”
“This place is leaking like a sieve, Taylor. You keep that deep, okay? Nobody hears about it outside of your detectives.” He leaned back in his chair. “So how do you want to run this? You’ve got a few open cases on your plate right now, but this should take priority.”
“Yeah, we have several that are on the burner, and two very active. I can offload them on Fitz, let him run them, and if this pops, we can pull him back in. He can manage things out of here for me, if anything happens. Plus, I think it would be good to bring Marcus Wade in to back me up on this. He needs the experience.”
“Works for me. Which cases do you want to give Fitz?”
“The Lischey Avenue murder from last week. The one the paper picked up and ran with? Little Man Graft murdered Lashon Hall, Terrence Norton saw the whole thing, but he’s not talking. That one.”
Price groaned and Taylor grinned. Anytime the news got involved in their cases, something was bound to go wrong.
“Mayfield didn’t do us any favors, did she?”
“No.
“Little Man and Terrence Norton are getting to be frequent flyers with Metro.” He shook his head, frowning. “Think you can nail them for this one? I’m getting tired of their antics.”
Taylor barked a laugh. “It’s not me, Price. I made a solid case two months ago on an assault charge against Terrence, and the jury acquitted him in forty-five minutes. Blame it on his peers, not me. Anyway, I haven’t been able to shake anyone loose on Lischey Avenue. There is a fourteen-year-old kid who witnessed the murder, but his mom has him in hiding and won’t let him make a statement. I begged and pleaded, but she said no way. I don’t blame her; these guys are absolutely ruthless. He’ll get himself killed if he talks.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“I want Fitz to work his magic on Terrence. See if he can scare anything out of him. Lashon was supposedly his best friend, so maybe Fitz can appeal to the kid’s conscience. If not, we don’t have enough to charge Little Man with this murder, but he is on probation. If Terrence will give it up, we can get him on a weapons charge at the very least. And then charge Terrence as an accessory. Like I said, it’s a mess.”
“Let Fitz go to town. He’ll nail one of them on something, and the rest will topple like dominoes.”
“That’s what I’m hoping. I was gonna pull him in on this anyway.” She got quiet for a minute. “There is one that I wanted to handle myself, but I can turn it over if you want. Suicide last week, seventeen-year-old boy. There’s something way hinky about this one. Rescue gets the call that a kid committed suicide. They respond and find the boy shot in the bathroom, but he’d been dead for a few hours. The father made the 911 call. When the officers arrived, he told them he and the boy were sitting side by side on the bed in the father’s bedroom, having an argument. He claims the boy reached over him to the bedside table, pulled the father’s .44 out of the drawer, stood up, walked three feet to the bathroom door, put the gun to his right temple and pulled the trigger. Sort of an I’ll show you gesture.
“When I got on scene, the father had hidden the gun in a basket across the hall from his room. His kid’s lying there in a mess of blood and brains, and he asked me if he could step out for a bite to eat. I almost shot him myself. I think the father shot the kid, set the whole scene up.”
“Anything to back up your theory?”
“Instinct. Plus the wound didn’t have any contact burns, but it was such a mess that we’re waiting for the autopsy to come back to get the trajectory. The father has a record of domestic assault, the mother disappeared three months ago. I can’t shake the feeling that he’s lying to us. I’d like to find the mother. May be more than one murder there.”
“Are you comfortable handing it over to Fitz?”
“Yeah, he can handle it fine. I just want the bastard nailed.” She stood, swiping her hands down her thighs to smooth out the invisible wrinkles in her jeans. “I’ll pull the files and brief Fitz. He’s already familiar with both of these cases.” She started for the door, but Price held up a hand.
“Hey, sit back down for a minute. Julia Page called from the DA’s office. The Special Investigative Grand Jury has scheduled your testimony on the remaining charges of the Martin case. You’re on call to appear sometime Wednesday or Thursday, depending on how things are progressing. Julia is pleased with the state of things so far. She wanted me to let you know.”