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The message, however, took on a distinctly different tone when one saw some of the dozen signs that the protesters pumped over their heads. While there were posters painted STOP KILLADELPHIA!, others read NO MORE MURDER! NO MORE PAYNE! and had, so that their message was made unequivocally clear, the enlarged image of Homicide Sergeant Matthew Payne standing over the dead robber.

Payne drained his coffee cup.

Not exactly fine poetry, he thought, disgusted, but it does get your point across.

Worthless point that it is.

I could disappear right now, and the murders would continue.

Just as they have forever.

So screw you!

He looked up and out, to north of the Roundhouse. Directly across Race Street, he could see most of Franklin Park and, a mile or so beyond it and the Vine Street Expressway, the gleaming glass five-story tower of the Lucky Stars casino on the bank of the Delaware River.

Three innocent people killed, and a fourth who may not make it.

All in just a few hours.

And all in high-profile places that everyone expects to be safe.

He looked back to Franklin Park. He could easily make out the long lines outside the white tent that was the North Pole. And nearby, just north of the fountain at the center of the park, he saw the links of green plastic turf that made up the miniature golf course. A small section of it was marked off with yellow police tape, beside which two Philly PD squad cars were parked, light bars and wig-wags flashing, on either side of a Crime Scene Unit van.

Payne was a little surprised at the vast number of people—couples holding hands, families pushing strollers, the green-costumed elves passing out candy—who remained at the park. It was a heavy crowd, one that he knew was keeping the dozen or so plainclothes officers circulating among them, busy looking to see if the suspect returned to the scene—or if anyone else looked intent on committing a crime.

Payne then decided that the crowd remained strong because the part of the miniature golf course with all the ongoing crime scene activity was not visible from the rest of the park.

Out of sight, out of mind.

And surely no one’s running around ruining everyone’s day by dwelling on what happened.

The show must go on!

But that quickly could change when news of the murders spreads . . .

Payne felt a presence behind him—an enormous one—and then heard the familiar deep mellifluous voice.

“Were this not a situation to take very seriously, Matthew, I would say that congratulations are in order.”

Payne turned as Lieutenant Jason Washington stepped beside him and glanced down at the protesters. The superbly tailored forty-three-year-old was very big—six-foot-three, two-twenty-five—and very black. He also was very well respected, considered to be one of the top homicide detectives up and down the East Coast. He took no offense to those—including Payne—who referred to him as the Black Buddha.

“A Buddha is an enlightened individual who is indeed venerated,” Washington said, “and there certainly is no denying this skin tone.”

In the chain of command, Payne, who months earlier had been promoted to the rank of sergeant and then became a supervisor in Homicide, reported to Washington, one of a handful of Homicide lieutenants who answered to the unit’s commander, Captain Henry Quaire, a stocky balding forty-four-year-old. Quaire was under Chief Inspector of Detectives Matthew Lowenstein—a barrel-chested fifty-five-year-old with a quick temper and a reputation for strictly going by the book—whose boss was First Deputy Police Commissioner Dennis Coughlin.

Personally, however, Payne had another connection with Coughlin, a closer one that went back more than twenty-seven years—to months before Payne had been born.

Denny Coughlin had been the one to break the news to Matt’s pregnant mother that Sergeant John F.X. Moffitt—her husband and Coughlin’s best friend since they were rookie cops right out of the academy—had been shot dead trying to stop a robber. Coughlin subsequently became Matty’s godfather, and Payne was known to address him, when appropriate, as “Uncle Denny.”

“Congratulations?” Payne said. “For what, Jason?”

Washington made a sweeping motion with his huge hand toward the protesters.

“It would appear that you are the poster boy—quite literally—of all that is wrong with our beloved city.”

Payne grunted. “Hell, you know that game,” he said. “Someone’s got to be the scapegoat. No sense wasting time actually trying to fix the real social issues that contribute to bad guys committing crime. Just complain about cops until another crisis makes headlines. Rinse and repeat.”

“As I just inferred, you being personally targeted is not to be taken lightly, Matthew. Denny Coughlin said that Mayor Carlucci declared that when any member of the department is targeted, the entire department is considered targeted, and he won’t stand for it.”