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“Thought you’d never ask, Marshal,” Rapier said.

Payne ignored the curious sudden reference to his nickname, Wyatt Earp of the Main Line, but saw out of the corner of his eye that Rapier was grinning.

Then, on the monitor, over the text box, a cursor appeared—and he immediately understood.

“It is different, Kerry,” Payne said.

Harris snorted.

The digital pointer on-screen was not the usual black arrow. It was an actual image of a Colt .45 ACP Officer’s Model pistol. Rapier knew it was Payne’s favorite sidearm.

“I thought you’d like it, Marshal. Changing the cursor image was easy enough. This next part took a little work.”

All the underlined words in the case file were hyperlinks that allowed a system user to access additional information on the case.

Corporal Rapier moved the Colt pistol over the underlined SNU 2010- 56-9326. When he clicked on it, three things happened in rapid succession. First, the sound of a pistol firing emanated from the speakers. Second, a puff of smoke appeared and disappeared from the muzzle of the pistol cursor. And, third, a box popped up that was headlined “Suspect Name Unknown #2010-56-9326.” It held digitized images of fingerprints that had been lifted from Reggie Jones.

Now Harris laughed out loud. “That’s great!”

Payne looked at Rapier and said, “Have a little extra time on your hands lately, Corporal?”

Rapier looked back, appearing a little embarrassed, and shrugged. “Didn’t take that long. You don’t like it?”

“No, I think it’s great, too, Kerry.”

Payne returned his attention to the big monitor, and Rapier moved the cursor to the underlined SNU 2010-56-9327. After another click of the cursor, complete with “firing pistol” effects, a second box popped up with digitized images of fingerprints, this one headlined “Suspect Name Unknown #2010-56-9327.” As in the previous box, there was a hyperlink—REGINALD “REGGIE” JONES CASE NO.: 2010-81-039613-POP-N-DROP—referencing back to Reggie Jones’s master case file. That meant, at least for the moment, that the two sets of fingerprints were associated with only a single crime—his murder.

“Well, the good news is that both doers left really clear prints, even if they’re far from a full set,” Payne said. “IAFIS should have no trouble with them.”

“Assuming there’s a match on file,” Harris said.

Payne grunted. He knew that had been the problem with the first five pop-and-drops. When they ran the prints though IAFIS, nothing came back. It was possible—though hard to fathom, Payne thought, considering the shooter had killed five people—that the doer had never been fingerprinted.

“Well, we should know in a couple hours,” Payne said.

He turned to Rapier and said, “Let’s see what we’ve got on Gartner.” He looked at the second bank of monitors. “Looks like lucky number thirteen.”

Kerry Rapier worked his control panel, and the image from TV monitor number thirteen replaced the main screen’s image of Reggie Jones. It was somewhat similar to Jones’s—a brightly lit shot of the sidewalk outside Francis Fuller’s office building in Old City.

But this image from the medical examiner’s video recording showed two bloodied bodies, with the smaller of the two slightly grayed-out and blurred so it was instantly clear which of the dead was Gartner.

The bottom right-hand corner ID stamp was also slightly different: Richard Saunders Holdings/Lex Talionis

Third & Arch

2301 hours, 31 Oct

Payne, Harris, and Rapier read the text box that next appeared: Name: Daniel O. “Danny” GARTNER

Description: White male, age 55, 5'9", 160 lbs.

L.K.A.: 1834 Callowhill St, Phila. and 1014 Hall St, Phila.

Prior Arrests: None.

Call Received: 31 Oct, 2202 hours.

Cause of Death: GUNSHOT and/or SUFFOCATION.