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  CHAPTER 2

  Forty years earlier, I attended the Mary Channing Wister Elementary School on the southwest corner of Eighth and Poplar Street in North Philly, the same spot where I now worked. Thirteen million dollars in renovations to the 1923 art deco building in the dilapidated neighborhood began a rehab project that improved the looks of the neighborhood, but nary a whisper of calm. Lush landscaping and a newly paved parking lot replaced the jungle gym, and the hopscotch and Four Squares outlines. The entryway was more elaborate than the heavy, double wooden doors of my school days, which kids burst through every morning—the entire student body at the same time. Now three tiers of cement stairs led up to a glass entrance that opened automatically when you neared. Inside the building, which housed the Forensic Science Center, there was no evidence a school ever existed.

  Instead, the scent of gunpowder and hot metal wafted from the basement, where the Firearms Identification Unit, aka the lab, lived. The space was configured in a maze of cubicles whose occupants labored over bullets and firearms atop crowded desks.

  We were firearms specialists. Our primary job was to examine, read, and organize evidence, mostly guns and bullets, so we could testify in court. It required examining all ballistic evidence, fired cartridge cases, and fired bullets to determine the caliber. Gun manufacturers use different rifling techniques that impact the class characteristics of a bullet—i.e., the number, width and depth of the lands and grooves, and the pitch and twist of the gun barrel.

  In English, rifling is the process of cutting spiral grooves inside a gun barrel that gives the bullet a spinning motion. The metal between the grooves is called a “land.” No two gun barrels have the exact same markings. Through careful microscopic examination, we can determine which bullets come from which firearms. The process begins with examining the scene and gathering evidence.

  Parker, who sat in the cubicle adjacent to mine, stood and peered over the partition. His rosy face had a pimply nose and narrow eyes so close together he looked cross-eyed. “Hope it was good for you, because you look like shit,” he said.

  He was ignorant, not worth the effort. “Well, hello to you, too,” I answered. I dropped my purse and notebook on the desktop, sending a spray of bullet fragments onto the floor and me scrambling on my knees to recover them. “Damn.”

  Parker laughed. The thought of loading the Smith & Wesson. 38 Special on my desk and blowing his head clean off lingered longer than it should have.

  Then Laughton arrived. He ogled, “Really?” at my failed effort to get up. He coddled a .22 in one hand and a .38 in the other, raised his arms, shrugged his shoulders, then took his seat. Our work cubicles connected with open access to each other, allowing collaborative conversation.

  “You’re in court today,” Laughton said.

  A gurgled grunt escaped me as I struggled to get off my knees. I swear God weighted my shoulders to keep me there in remembrance of all the time that had passed since I’d knelt for the right purpose. “Yeah. What’re you doing?”

  “Basics,” he said, turning away.

  “I think Marcy Taylor was murdered,” I said.

  He lifted his right hand, still holding the .22. “Me too.”

  I could only guess how he had gotten hold of the evidence from the scene so fast. It was part of the Laughton mystique. Usually it took a few days, and protocol would have us wait until all the evidence was in before we began examinations. The man had influence inside, outside, upside, and downside the department, and everywhere and anywhere else we went. I walked with grace next to his Sidney Poitier–looking-self, all six-foot-four of him.

  Having Laughton as a partner made surviving seventeen years in the weapons unit possible. He had embraced me when I first arrived at the unit. He took me to gun, ammunitions, and partner school, the latter of his own creation. The lust was immediate, the love gradual, and the law ever-present, which was why we quickly set aside our affair, but not nearly quickly enough. Love slammed me like a WWE wrestler does his opponent. But either we broke off the love affair or we each got new partners, Laughton insisted. I hated to admit he was right. Ahhh, but the man could make me scream! God only knows what the outcome would have been had the department gotten a whiff.

  “You need to learn everything about guns,” he had said. “These guys want you to fail. That’s not happening.”

  Looking at him now, I tried to see past his nonchalant exterior to an emotional spark; he had just gazed upon his dead wife. Ex-wife. The thought of Laughton being married blew my mind. I wanted to ask him about it but knew this was neither the time nor the place.

  I grabbed hold of the desk edge for leverage, trying again to rise.

  “Get off your knees so we can catch some bad guys.” He flashed a smile and winked. “Actually, you need to go home and get ready for your testimony. Jesse Boone and his crew will be in that courtroom ready to demolish you.”

  I managed a “Mm” and felt my face flush. Just the mention of his name, Jesse Boone, knocked me off-kilter and sent a wave through my body that unnerved me. Boone was the suspected serial killer I was testifying against. I knew Laughton was testing my stamina.

  “No worries. I got this,” I assured him, shaking off my nervousness and seizing determination.

  My brain stayed on Laughton as I made a right turn out of the parking lot, down Eighth to Brown Street, and stopped at the Wawa for a soda. When I left the Wawa, I turned left, then right, onto I-676 toward Route 1.

  Laughton had never mentioned his marriage. His other claim to fame, besides knowing about guns, was his bachelor status. I tell you, women chased the man down, and every day a different one. He also volunteered much of his time at the Philadelphia Boys and Girls Club; you would think it a contradiction to his character, but if you knew him, it fit.

  I mistakenly thought Laughton and I shared everything. It never occurred to me I might be the “other woman.” I made a mental note to find out when he was married to Marcy Taylor. In seventeen years of being partners, he had never invited me to his house. He always came to mine. I never thought about it, mostly because of Travis, who was little more than a year old when Laughton and I became partners. Since I was away from him too much for work, any free time I had, I wanted to spend at home.

  I lived in a middle-class neighborhood in North Philly on a block lined with urban twin town houses built in the 1950s. Twin town houses means two town houses were connected and set on each lot on the street. They had three levels: the basement with a half bathroom was accessed from a driveway and garage at the back of the house; the first floor held the kitchen, dining, and living room: and the third floor had three bedrooms and a full bathroom. When I first moved in my unit, the place had holes in the walls, the kitchen counter was falling down and the cabinets were trashed, the basement was unfinished, and I could go on. It was a fixer-upper, but all I could afford. Laughton’s hobby, I guess you could call it, was being a handyman.

  He spent time every day at my house fixing whatever needed fixing, until he and Travis melded like father and son. Hearing Travis’s silly laugh while the two tussled on the floor only heightened my attraction and bonded us even more. It was difficult resisting the physical aspect. Nobody since Laughton had twisted my pubic hairs. Until Calvin.

  I had my idiosyncrasies when it came to relationships. I managed to muck ’em up every which way possible. A shrink might have said I was determined to be the first to bow out, the first to avoid heartbreak—what my mother termed “stupid logic.” Now the thought of growing old alone churned up a ripple in my aorta and made me quiver. Timing was everything.

  The loud ring and vibration against my hip brought my attention back to the road. Scary thought that for a few minutes I had driven blindly, off somewhere else, unaware of where or how I was driving. I checked the screen on the phone before tapping the button on my earpiece, because I was not ready to talk to Nareece again so soon. In times past, talking to Nareece every day calmed my brain, changed the rhythm to a
slower beat, allowed us both to exhale and kept me sane. A day never passed without us having a heart-to-heart conversation after dispensing with the mumbo jumbo about the latest twin escapade or John’s myriad projects, which all started with intense vigor and ended before completion. There were no heart-to-heart conversations of late.

  My brain relaxed when I saw Dulcey’s name on the phone screen. Dulcey is my other sister, as in my best friend.

  “Hey, girlfriend,” I said.

  “Where you been?” she asked. “Seems like you got yourself all tied up in that new man of yours. Nothing wrong with that, I’m just sayin’.” Dulcey cackled like she always did when she tickled herself. We have been best friends for near twenty years, since my parents died.

  After the car accident that killed them, Dulcey and her Jehovah’s Witness self came knocking and refused a closed door, a given since Dulcey was an Amazon—six feet, one and a half inches, one hundred ninety-six pounds’ worth, ex-army sharpshooter, with giant-sized hands that would make Shaq blush. I really did not want to hear her nonsense. But I was all tangled up inside then and needed to hear it, I guess. So I let her in and started bawling until my eyes were slits and my nose, the size of a golf ball. I remember telling her about my parents’ deaths and how the responsibility of raising Nareece seemed way huge and how the pressures of being a rookie on the force had my fingernails falling off, literally. Dulcey’s touch and words soothed me, though I don’t exactly remember what she said.

  From then on, she came once a week for Bible study and Lord talking. She helped me decide which activities were appropriate for a sixteen-year-old Nareece, and how to handle the resulting fallout, as I straddled the line between sister and parent.

  A few times, I went to Jehovah’s Witness meetings at Dulcey’s place, wishing, hoping, and praying for answers. Then she asked me to join, become a Jehovah’s Witness.

  “I don’t know enough about God and religion to decide what I want to do, Dulcey,” I confessed. “I don’t believe I want to be a Jehovah’s Witness, though. No disrespect. I’m just not there.”

  Dulcey stopped coming to the house, stopped calling, and would not return my phone calls. Two months passed before she showed up with a bottle of wine, some cheese and crackers, and her Bible. She said since I’d refused the faith of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, she’d had to stop associating with me because Jehovah’s Witnesses disassociate with outside folks. She lost focus over losing my friendship, given what we had shared. She said she knew God meant her to be in my life and me in hers, and that was all there was to that.

  “Don’t mean I’m giving up God. I’m still gonna do the Lord’s work, but I know He did not mean for me to hate on my friends,” Dulcey said.

  She went to hairdressing school and soon after, opened D’s Beauty Spot, a full-service hair, nail, foot, and facial salon that was now being renovated.

  I slammed on my brakes and almost rear-ended the car in front of me, which had stopped for a red light. “Shit.”

  “What’s that you’re talking?” Dulcey said.

  “Girl, I almost crashed listening to your nonsense.”

  “I know them knots in your head gotta be squeezin’ your brain ’til you’re simple ’bout now,” she said, ignoring my rant.

  I ran, or rather I tried to run, my fingers through my hair. The new growth of kinky hair barred the effort and tenderized my head. I felt cursed, unable to handle what I had inherited from my mother, which was more hair than Methuselah grew in his 969 years on God’s earth with the might to mutilate a steel-toothed comb.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I said, massaging my scalp. “These roots are definitely snapping my neck back. And oooh, girl, my head is sore as hell. A manicure and pedicure are overdue, too.”

  “How you gonna keep that fine man?” Dulcey asked. “Lookin’ like somebody’s old-ass reject! Here, you got that fried chicken–brown complexion, them crazy green eyes, and smack-your-mama body, and you walkin’ around with gorilla hair. Girl, you best bring your butt in here.”

  “Can’t today. Got court.”

  “C’mon in tomorrow and I’ll tighten you up. More to the point, I can’t have no friend of mine walking around lookin’ like a ho-come-lately.” She cackled extra hard, then told me about the shop renovations and her plan for attracting more customers of the brighter persuasion. “Won’t be another shop in Philly can run up against Ms. Dulcey.” She hesitated a moment, then spat, “Nareece called” like it was burning her tongue. “Reecey hasn’t spoken but two words to me in just about all the years since your parents passed. As I recall those two words were ‘Fuck you’ with extra emphasis on ‘you’ the day she left outta your house when you all argued about some boy she was seeing. You remember . . .”

  “Yes, I remember. What’d she want?”

  “Asked whether I thought she was wrong for wanting to talk to Baby Boy and tell him the truth and ask for his forgiveness. Muriel, she sounds like she’s in a hard way. Why all of a sudden she want to mess with things? You should have told Travis a long time ago. I understand why you didn’t but . . . Anyway, he’s old enough now, girl. That boy loves you so much it won’t matter to him a bit.”

  I hesitated, not wanting to get into another “what I shoulda done” conversation right then. “I always planned on telling him before he left for college. I want to be the one, though. Not Nareece.”

  “Close as you two are, you all need to talk and iron out the wrinkles before you involve him. He’ll be fine with it and still love you both, you as his mother and Nareece. It wasn’t her fault. Look, I gotta go. These guys are trying to install mirrors over the washing sinks instead of where they belong.”

  Saved by the mirror installers. “Yes. And I have to get ready for court.”

  “Hold on. Court? You’re testifying today against that bastard killed that college student? The one almost killed you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You okay with it? I mean, ain’t easy going up against a demented individual the likes of Jesse Boone, up close and personal as you got to him.”

  “Whatever it takes to put him away, I’m good with.”

  “I got a feeling there’s a whole lot more we’re going to learn about Mr. Boone before his days in court are done. He’s the kind of bastard that belongs in an insane asylum, lock him in a room and throw away the key. If I believed in it, I’d say kill him. Strap him in the chair and inject his behind. But that’s God’s place, not ours, I don’t care if we do have the death penalty.”

  “Calm down, girl. They may not lock him up in an insane asylum, but you can bet he’s going away for the rest of his life one way or another. No key necessary.”

  “Amen to that. Come by tomorrow, we’ll talk more and I’ll fix you up. Love you.”

  I clicked off as I turned to the right, down to my driveway. It ran between the three-story brick houses on my street, Long-shore, and the houses one block over on Disston Street. Each home had a fenced-in driveway and garage. My kitchen window looked out on the driveway from the second level. I got out of the car and opened the gate to the driveway, then looked up, halfway expecting Travis to be at the window. He was supposed to be home that morning and I had not heard from him. I couldn’t worry about that now, though. I had court to get ready for.

  CHAPTER 3

  I diverted my gaze from Jesse Boone and looked out over the courtroom from the witness stand. And yet I felt forced to look back at Boone, like he was magnetized. Did he just wink at me? The smirk he sported sizzled when our eyes locked, sending centipedes scurrying along my arms to my shoulders. He exuded charisma with a smidgeon of evil. The blue-gray Armani suit he wore hugged his biceps, which accented his chiseled physique. His eyes were black and sparkly, his nose small and pointy, his perfect hair blown out and back—a beastly variation on handsome.

  My body twitched.

  A heat boiled up inside me and lodged just beneath my skin. Not now, I prayed. Sweat trickled down from my left armpit, almost tickling. Of
course. If I was holding a gun on a suspect who had a hostage in his grip and both our lives depended on me making the shot, bam! A damn hot flash would ravage my whole body.

  I backhand swiped at my brow and forced my attention to the district attorney.

  “Your Honor, I would like to offer Officer Muriel Mabley as an expert witness in the area of firearm identification.”

  “What qualifies this officer to be accepted as an expert witness in my court?” the judge said.

  “Officer, please give your duties, responsibilities, and qualifications.”

  Boone’s attorney sprang from his seat. “I will stipulate to the qualifications of this witness.”

  “Mr. Jameson, please take your seat. This is for my enlightenment also. I want to hear what Officer Mabley knows. She is new to my courtroom.”

  The DA nodded to me to speak.

  “My duties are to accept all firearms and firearm-related material, such as fired bullets, cartridge cases that have been turned in or collected or confiscated within the city of Philadelphia. All evidence is examined and compared against all like evidence. I am trained in the microscopic comparison, photomicrography, which is photographing through the microscope, serial number restoration, tool mark comparison, distance determination through gunshot residue, wound ballistics, and crime scene reconstruction. I am also an armorer for Berretta, Smith & Wesson, SIG Sauer, Hi Point, Ruger, Colt, and have observed the manufacturing of these firearms from the beginning as raw steel to the finished product you see and identify as a firearm.

  “I am an instructor at Widner School of Law, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, and the Philadelphia Police Academy. I also instruct all the new DAs at the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office.”

  The DA turned to the defense table and asked, “Are there any objections to this witness’s qualifications as an expert witness?”