I noticed the revolving red bubble light on the sedan’s dashboard and sagged with relief. Sergeant Emmanuel Franco climbed out of his unmarked car, swaggered over to the men in the SUV, and flashed his gold shield. I was never so happy to see a red, white, and blue do-rag in all my life.
“Now I ask you, gentlemen: Is that any way to treat Santa’s Little Helper?” His dark eyes speared the four. “You should be ashamed of yourselves. I ought to throw the book at you. Or maybe give your so-called designated driver a Breathalyzer.”
The wolves turned suddenly sheepish.
“We didn’t mean anything, officer.”
“You’re misunderstanding.”
“We all just thought she might want a lift.”
“Yeah, that’s all—”
“Listen, Jersey Boys,” Franco replied. “Put it back in your pants and go home—unless you’d rather spend the night in a holding cell instead of Lincoln Tunnel traffic.”
While Franco stood and watched, the SUV backed up, laboriously maneuvered around his unmarked car, and sped away. Then the police sergeant turned to face me, gave my outfit a long, slow, frustratingly expressionless once-over, folded his arms, and said, “So, Coffee Lady, you want a ride or what?”
“Yes!”
Freezing, I ducked into the passenger side of his sedan. He got behind the wheel, shut the door, and glanced at me. Without a word, he turned up the heat.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Listen, Sergeant, inside the library, there was a man after me—”
Franco put a palm in the air. “Give me a second.” He grabbed his police radio handset. “Dispatch, I have a possible DWI currently traveling north on Sixth Avenue. Issue a BOLO for a late-model black Ford Explorer, four occupants, with the following New Jersey license plate...”
Franco finished his radio call and turned to me. “You were saying?”
“Where’s Hong? I called Detective Hong.”
“I know you did. He played me your phone message—several times.” Franco smirked. “When I heard the part about you dressing as Santa’s Little Helper, I said to Hong, ‘Charlie, this is one call I’ve gotta respond to.’ ”
“Dressing like this was the only way I could get inside the Ticket to the North Pole party—”
“I know, Coffee Lady. So...” Giving me another once-over, he arched an eyebrow. “You want to go to my place?”
“No.”
“I’m kidding. Where to?”
“Take me to the East Village. I’ll fill you in as we go...”
To Franco’s credit, he let me get out the whole story—from finding Karl Kovic’s corpse, to hearing an elf confess to possible accessory to murder, to braining one of Dickie Celebratorio’s Known Associates with a bag of gourmet chocolate-dipped candy canes. Dudley Do-Rag actually listened to the whole thing without once cracking wise. A Christmas miracle in itself.
When we reached Mike Quinn’s apartment building, I still hadn’t finished the tale, so he pulled to the curb and kept the engine running to keep the car warm.
“. . . and that’s when you found me,” I concluded.
“I see,” Franco said. “And that’s it?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
He smiled. Not a smirk this time, but a real smile. “You’ve got a lot of guts, Coffee Lady, I’ll say that for you.”
“I’m just trying to find out who really killed my friend.”
“I know. And I have some good news. We recovered the murder weapon.”
I sat up straighter. “The gun that shot Alf?”
Franco nodded. “It was found in a Goodwill bin. Someone tossed it in there—by our calculation, the same night as the murder. We ran the serial numbers. The weapon was bought in North Carolina by a man who died two years ago.” At my look, Franco added, “That’s an MO for a weapon bought and sold illegally up here on the street.”
“Fingerprints?”
Franco shook his head. “Wiped clean.”
I slumped in the car seat. “I guess you’re happy about that.”
“Why?”
“Because after all I’ve turned up, you can still pin this on some random street criminal, that’s why.”
“Except I don’t believe that anymore.”
“You don’t?”
Franco turned to fully face me. “No street mugger would throw away something as valuable as a handgun. He might resell it in the ’hood or stash it in his crib until the heat from his crime cooled off, but toss something like that in a Goodwill bin? That’s as good as throwing away hundreds of dollars—the kind of a thing an amateur would do, thinking he or she was making a premeditated murder look like a random street crime.”
I sat up straighter. “You’re on my side now?”
Franco nodded. “I interviewed Shelly Glockner.”
“I know. She’s a piece of work, isn’t she?”
Franco laughed. “I’d peg her as coldhearted enough to do the deed or hire someone to do it, but then... it seems to me there are others who had a motive. You’ve stirred up a pretty gnarly nest of suspects.”
Franco was right about that. Dickie was after me. But I knew he couldn’t have shot Karl—because Dickie had a solid alibi at the time Karl was killed (that VIP cocktail party he threw before the big Public Library event). I doubted Dickie pulled the trigger on Alf, either. Given what Franco had just told me about the murder weapon, I even doubted Alf’s killer was a professional Known Associate of Dickie’s. A professional assassin wouldn’t have made the mistake of getting rid of the gun in a manner the police would find suspicious. No, according to Shane Holliway, Dickie was just the go-between, someone who was helping some famous person, whom Karl was almost certainly blackmailing (according to Ben Tower). Which meant there was someone else out there, someone who wasn’t a pro, who was willing to pull the trigger—twice—for whatever it was Karl had stashed in his apartment.
“I think the person who killed Alf was the same one who killed Karl,” I said. “Do you agree?”
“Based on your investigation—yeah, I’d say it’s the same person. Keep in mind, though, whoever it was didn’t use the same gun.”
“If only there were some way to get fingerprints after they were wiped!”
“Actually, there is.”
“What?”
“Ever hear of John Bond?”
“Don’t you mean James?”
Franco shook his head. “John Bond is a scientific support manager at Northamptonshire Police and an honorary research fellow at the University of Leicester.”
“Leicester, England?”
“That’s right. He’s been working with American law enforcement to solve cold cases.”
“How exactly?”
“Bond’s developed a new procedure for detecting fingerprints. He coats a fine conducting powder, something like what you’d see in a photocopier, onto a metal surface and applies an electric charge. Then guess what? If the fingerprint has been wiped off or even washed off, it leaves a slight corrosion on the metal—which attracts the powder when the charge is applied and shows us a residual fingerprint.”
“Are you telling me this Bond guy can find a fingerprint that’s been wiped off? That he can find out who handled Alf’s weapon?”
Franco nodded. “The technique works on everything from bullet casings to machine guns. Even better if our killer likes junk food.”
“Excuse me? Are you joking?”
He smiled but assured me, “It’s no joke. Processed and pre-packaged foods put more salt into human sweat. Salty sweat helps the microscopic corrosion process.”
I frowned at that, remembering Omar’s favorite lunch of Jamaican ackee and saltfish—his son’s messy SUV, all those empty bags of chips and snacks that Dwayne had swept into his father’s driveway...
“Anyway, even if heat vaporizes normal clues, Bond can read the fingerprints of who handled the metal. I hear they’re going to try applying the technique to roadside bomb fragments in Afghanistan.”