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  “No, Your Honor,” Boone’s attorney drawled as though bored with the specifics.

  The district attorney walked across the floor and picked up the gun that killed Ms. Hodges. The gun had a plastic tie through the barrel and was locked in an open position. “Officer Mabley, can you tell me about this firearm, which was found at the scene of the defendant’s place of residence?”

  I took the gun from the DA and read the numbers from the property receipt. “Yes, this pistol was placed on property receipt #92714529338 and submitted to the Forensic Science Center through the normal procedures.”

  “What can you tell us about this firearm?”

  “This is a semiautomatic pistol, manufactured by Sturm Ruger and Co. model P-ninety-five. It is nine-millimeter Luger in caliber, with six lands and grooves with a right-hand twist. The finish is stainless steel, three-and-seven-eighths-inch barrel, with rubber grips.” I stopped and flipped the gun around so the serial number on the butt was visible. “Serial number 315-73198. The firearm was presented with gunshot residue in the barrel and found to be in operable condition. Also submitted were fourteen Remington cartridges, nine-millimeter Luger in caliber. However, this firearm has a magazine capacity of sixteen and one in the chamber.”

  “Was there any other evidence submitted that was found to be related to this firearm?”

  The DA handed me an evidence envelope. I opened it and read numbers from the receipt that was inside along with the evidence.

  “Submitted on Property Receipt #943673284309, received from the Medical Examiner’s officer were two fired bullets.”

  “What, if anything, can you tell us about the relationship between this firearm and the fired bullets?”

  “The bullets that were submitted were found to be nine-millimeter Luger in caliber with six lands and grooves and a right-hand twist.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell us?”

  “Yes, the firearm was test fired into the water tank and those bullets were compared against the bullets submitted from the ME’s office.”

  “What can you tell us about that comparison?”

  “When these two specimens were compared against one another, it was determined that they were both fired from the same firearm.”

  “So, Officer Mabley, you are saying that the bullets that were taken from the victim were fired from the same firearm that was taken from the defendant’s residence?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “During the manufacturing process, tools are used to put in the lands and grooves. Incidental to this process, microscopic markings are left in the barrel, which gives each barrel its own identifiable markings that are unique to that gun and that gun alone.”

  “You mean to say to the exclusion of all other nine-millimeter pistols out there, these marks are unique to this gun and this gun only.”

  “Yes. The bullet that killed Ms. Hodges was fired from the gun in evidence.”

  “Officer, where was this gun you’re speaking about found?”

  “It was found at the defendant’s home, in the master bedroom, on the nightstand.”

  “Please tell the jury what led up to the gun being confiscated from the defendant’s residence. What happened the night you found Ms. Hodges’s body and the gun?”

  “I received a call from who I thought was Officer Parker saying there had been a shooting at the defendant’s address.”

  “What time did you get that call?”

  “It was one twenty a.m.”

  “Go on.”

  “When I arrived at the address, the suspect came to the door covered in blood and pointing a gun at me. I had my gun pointed at him and told him to drop his weapon. Instead he rushed me, causing my gun to discharge. He hit me in the head with his gun, and I passed out. When I regained consciousness, I was on the bed with my hands tied to the bedposts. He was not in the room so I started trying to loosen the ties. When he came back, he climbed on the bed and unzipped his pants and said he intended to mess me up like the victim. I freed a hand and punched him. Luckily, I caught him off guard. He fell off the bed, hit his head on the nightstand, and knocked himself out. I finished freeing my hands, handcuffed him to some wall pipes, and called for backup.”

  “Did he rape you?”

  “No.” The answer echoed in my ears.

  “Tell the jury when and where you found Ms. Hodges.”

  “I looked around the house while I waited for backup. There was blood on the floor near the basement door off the kitchen. When I went into the basement, I found Candace Hodges’s body on the floor.”

  Gasps erupted from the audience into a continuous murmur. Again the judge slammed the gavel, this time threatening to clear the room if the audience did not remain quiet.

  “Go on.”

  “I checked her breathing . . .” I stumbled on my words for a moment. Images of Candace Hodges’s broken body flashed through my brain, before I forced myself back, readjusted, and continued. “She was cut up pretty badly. Her face was black and blue. She was naked. Her breasts were severed, and cuts went from her navel to her vaginal area.” I swallowed, trying to moisten my throat and mouth. “She’d also been shot in the head. Defensive wounds on her wrists and hands indicated she fought back hard.”

  “Officer Mabley, do you usually go out to shootings without your partner?”

  “No.”

  “Where was your partner the night in question?”

  “My partner, Officer Laughton, was in Washington, D.C., on assignment.”

  “Do you know who it was that called you to the defendant’s address?”

  “No. Like I said, I thought it was Officer Parker.”

  “Was it?”

  “No.”

  “Could it have been the defendant?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you have any history with the defendant, Ms. Mabley?”

  “No.” The answer flew from my lips. Maybe too fast. I had worked undercover in the Black Mafia when I first started on the force. Now I wondered why I had not met Jesse Boone then.

  Jesse Boone shifted in his seat, his eyes, bits of black onyx, drilled down on me.

  “Thank you, Officer. I turn the witness over to the defense.”

  Boone’s attorney swaggered up to the witness box and stopped in front of me. My hands sweated. I wiped them on my skirt. I noticed Laughton sitting behind and to the left of the attorney table where Boone sat. A slight nod, and the upturn of the left side of his mouth, allowed me a resurgence of confidence. I readjusted.

  “Officer Mabley, isn’t it true there are no universally accepted ‘quality assurance’ standards for firearms examination? That there are no objective criteria to govern what points of similarity or difference may be disregarded when evaluating whether a bullet or cartridge case came from a particular weapon? That my client is being held to your subjective judgment in making a match between the bullets that killed the victim and the gun found in my client’s home?”

  “Objection, Your Honor—” the DA asserted. A loud murmur from the audience challenged the judge’s gavel.

  Now my hands shook, though no one could see them. The witness box provided a veil of protection. I hated that Jesse Boone had me shaking as though I were a victim instead of testifying in the case. Everyone’s eyes bore a hole in my temple—especially the students from Chestnut Hill University and their parents. They all wanted Boone, who had raped, mutilated, and shot a student, Candace Hodges, to be put away forever or better yet, dead by lethal injection.

  He had come by his lethal persona legitimately. His father was Richard “The Pistol” Boone, a primary player in the Philadelphia Black Mafia, an organization that emerged in the 1960s and ruled over the city’s underworld through the 1990s and into the early 2000s. Black Mafia members were vicious, both in their methods of controlling people and in their illegal activities of drug trafficking, loan sharking, numbers rackets, and extortion. I knew this from experience.
I spent my first few years in the department undercover in their organization.

  Boone spent fifteen years in prison for murdering his father. He beat and strangled him to death, stabbed him thirty-five times all over his body after he was dead, and shot him ten times, five in the head and five in his privates. Definitely a crime of passion and hate.

  Since his release from prison in 2008, Boone had been the primary suspect in four murder cases. Candace Hodges, murdered six months ago to the day, January 29, 2013, made five. His last known victim, before Candace Hodges, was a thirty-year-old mother of three. She was found stuffed in a locker in an abandoned building in the Broad and Dauphin Street neighborhood, known as one of the twenty-five most dangerous neighborhoods in America. Her breasts were severed, her arms and legs were cut off, and she had gunshot wounds to her forehead, chest, and genital area.

  Boone had escaped prosecution in the four previous cases because of weak evidence or evidence that mysteriously disappeared, and witnesses who refused to appear in court fearing for their safety.

  “I have no more questions at this time for this witness,” Boone’s attorney said.

  The district attorney rose as Boone’s attorney returned to his seat next to Boone. “Redirect, Your Honor,” he said. “Officer Mabley, please tell the court how the Firearms Identification Unit is validated. That is, whether the practices used are accepted in the relevant scientific community, and please explain what that means.”

  “Yes, our practices are accredited. We use the National Integrated Ballistic Identification Network’s computerized system, which assists in matching firearms-related evidence to other evidence entered into the system around the world. We also use ballistic comparison microscopes to conduct all levels of microscopic comparisons. Our practices are accredited by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors.”

  Laughton loitered outside the courtroom waiting for me. The elevator ride to the parking garage, the clicking of our shoes on the pavement, and the hollow sound of my car door opening soothed my nerves, though I sensed uneasiness between Laughton and me, something foreign to our relationship. I got in and started the engine.

  “Thanks for showing up,” I said. “I’ve testified in hundreds of cases before with no problem, but this guy, Boone, he freaks me out.”

  “What are partners for?” he shot back, automatically. Then he got heated. “No way is the son of a bitch getting off this time. He’s outta here for good if I have any say.”

  “Well, you don’t have any say. But thanks for helping me say my part.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

  “Wouldn’t be so sure about what?”

  “You have a lot more testifying to do before this thing is over. Stay focused.”

  “Laughton, I’ve been testifying for fifteen years. I can handle whatever they throw at me. I’ll say it again, I got this.”

  “Yeah, but by your own admission, you’ve never been up against a Jesse Boone.”

  He closed the door and thumped the car roof, a signal to take off. As I backed out and then straightened the wheel, I checked the rearview mirror and watched Laughton walk back to the doorway that led to the elevator. As I began to turn the corner to enter the down ramp, I looked in the rearview again and saw a man move out of the shadows and approach Laughton. Laughton looked in my direction, grabbed the guy’s arm, and pushed him against the wall. I stopped in the entrance of the down ramp, got out, and ran back the few hundred yards to them.

  “Laughton!” I yelled. He had the guy pinned up against a column and was punching him in the face full-force. I caught his arm on about the third or fourth punch, which lessened the blow, but didn’t stop it.

  “M, get outta here.” Spit flew from his mouth as he talked. His face contorted, almost frightening me.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you? You can’t beat this guy. And for what?”

  “Get the fuck outta here. You don’t know—”

  “So, tell me.” He yanked his arm from my grip and backed off.

  I recognized the man as Wade Taylor, Laughton’s dead ex-wife’s husband.

  “Are you all right?” I asked Taylor. I kept an eye toward Laughton, expecting him to charge in again. Taylor nodded and wiped the spit and blood from his mouth with the back of his shirtsleeve. I leaned in some as he stumbled forward. Taylor looked to Laughton like he needed his permission to leave. Laughton breathed like a bull and paced back and forth. Five, six steps, turn.

  A car approached and stopped behind mine, which blocked the way down the ramp. The driver leaned on his horn.

  “Go ahead,” Laughton told me.

  I stayed put.

  “I’m good now.” He waved me on. “Go.”

  I hustled to my car, looking over my shoulder every few steps to make sure Laughton kept his fists from Wade’s face. I got in and continued down the garage ramp, furious at Laughton. “Unbelievable. He just blew whatever case we might have built against Taylor if Taylor killed his wife.”

  That he might have beaten Wade to death the way he was going was unbelievable, as well. Laughton never lost control. His smooth operator demeanor confounded the brass and pissed off the rednecked Mother Hubbards who were unappreciative of minority representation in the firearms division to begin with.

  As I exited the garage, my cell phone rang. Nareece. I had blown her off since the morning and still did not want to talk. She and I rode a collision course around Travis, the end undoubtedly being a major crash. My gut told me there was more to Nareece’s sudden desire to confess all to Travis than she had shared.

  “You didn’t call back,” she whined.

  “I’ve been in court all day.” I heard her husband, John, in the background reprimanding the twins for something. “The Twofer Detective Agency must be on another one of their crime-solving capers,” I said, laughing lightly, not sure how Nareece would take it.

  “They’ve taken over my third floor,” she said. “You shouldn’t be the least bit flattered that they want to be like you.” Her voice intensified. “You should be horrified and steering them in another direction. It’s always murder and mayhem and bad guys and never pink and dolls and dressing up.”

  “Crap,” I mumbled. I had missed the turn onto I-95. I drove down a block and made a U-turn to get on the highway.

  “I’m sorry if I messed up your day.”

  “I wasn’t talking to you. I missed my turn. I’m glad you called,” I lied.

  “Muriel. I went out today and did some errands. When I got home I felt something, like someone had been in the house.”

  “You’re always paranoid around this time of year. You just told me that this morning.” I waited a moment, then thought better of negating her feelings altogether. “Did you lock the door when you left?”

  “I always do,” she whispered, her voice strained. “I called John. I thought maybe he came home for lunch, but he didn’t. Then I found an envelope on the table by the telephone, you know, the table in the foyer. It’s addressed to Carmella Ann Mabley.”

  I pulled onto the breakdown lane and stopped.

  “Muriel? Are you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. Did you open it?”

  “No. I can’t. I don’t want to know . . .”

  “Open it, Reece. Whatever it is, it can’t hurt you. What’s done is done. There’s nothing else anyone can take from you.”

  “If they know about my life now, there’s plenty they can take.”

  “Then all the more reason you need to open the envelope so we know what we’re dealing with.”

  “You come. We’ll open the envelope together,” she whimpered like a little girl. “I can’t, I don’t want to open it by myself.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there. Calm down. You don’t want to upset the girls and John.” I heard her blow her nose. The splashy, wet sound grossed me out. “I’ll come this weekend,” I said. My muscles tensed, bringing on the sweats again. I rolled the windows down and took a few deep breaths. I felt
myself getting worked up with resentment. “Look. Sit tight and we’ll talk more later.”

  I clicked off and pulled into oncoming traffic, causing a flurry of beeping horns, and sped toward the Harbison Avenue exit. I pulled up to the KFC/Taco Bell drive-up window across from the Fifteenth and Second district station and asked for a cup of ice, dumped a few cubes down the front of my blouse, and rubbed one against my cheeks. The woman at the window reacted as though I had three heads and six tits. Her destiny revealed and she did not have a clue.

  I considered calling Dulcey, then brushed it away. Better to learn the contents of the envelope before getting girlfriend shook up over what might be nothing. That name, Carmella Ann Mabley, had not visited either of our lips for twenty years. Nareece often blew things out of proportion, and most of the time was incapable of rational thought. It seemed a trip to Boston was the only way to sort this out, whatever this was.

  I arrived home to find every light in the house on. I drove up to the gate and saw Travis in the kitchen window chugging down a glass of something. He waved and disappeared from view. By the time I pulled the car in and was at the door fumbling for my keys, Travis whipped the door open.

  “Hey, Moms. What’s good?” he said and was on me doling out hugs like a mama bear. All squished up, lifted up, and unable to hug back without access to my arms, I reveled in the love. He put me down and backed into the doorway.

  He bowed and gestured for me to enter—the queen, come home to her palace. The door from the driveway led down a hallway to a finished room, off of which was a stairway leading up to the kitchen. Travis slammed the door and rushed ahead of me down the hall and up the stairs. He paused at the top of the stairs. He flashed me a wide grin, pecked my cheek, and stepped aside from the doorway, allowing me entry to the kitchen. In simultaneous motion, he slid two fingers under the straps of my briefcase and purse straps and lifted them from my shoulder, then pulled a counter stool out for me.

  The kitchen space is long and narrow so the wall that separated the kitchen from the dining room was cut down to counter level and ran three-quarters of the kitchen length to the entryway. It was a Laughton project.