The Front by Patricia Cornwell Page B

you drop by with little brown paper bags, it’s a clue.”
    â€œA sort of official case, and another case that isn’t official at all. So I’m really just asking for a favor.”
    â€œWho, you?”
    â€œCan’t tell you the details.”
    â€œDon’t want to know. Ruins my objectivity and reinforces my basic belief that everybody’s guilty.”
    â€œOkay. One Fresca can I fished out of the trash the other day. One Raggedy Ann note and envelope, don’t laugh. Prints on the envelope. Could be from my damn landlord, whose prints you have in the database for exclusionary reasons, since he’s touched stuff in the past. I didn’t mess with the note, and the sender isn’t really in doubt, but I’d like these items checked, including DNA under the envelope’s flap and on the Fresca can, if you can beg, borrow, and steal from your DNA pals. We’ve also got a candle and a bottle of wine, a very nice pinot, may have my prints on it. Maybe the lady in the wineshop, whose prints will also be in the database for exclusionary reasons, since she’s also a cop. I’ve got photographs of shoe impressions, and the nine-mil cartridge I used for a scale. Didn’t have a ruler handy, sorry.”
    â€œAnd what is it you want me to do with these shoe impressions?”
    â€œHang on to them for now, in case we recover something to compare them with.” Such as his pair of stolen Prada shoes, should they ever surface.
    â€œFinally,” he says, “there’s the packaging from a disposable camera.”
    â€œWe’ve gotten in a number of them of late from different departments, all Middlesex County.”
    â€œI know, and the cops think you can’t be bothered.”
    â€œI really can’t be bothered,” she says. “Their crime scene guys haven’t found anything on them, and send them in anyway, in hopes we have a magic wand, I guess. Maybe they watch too much TV.”
    â€œYou talking about the FRONT’s crime scene guys?”
    â€œProbably,” she says.
    â€œWell, that would be one guy, who’s a woman, and she doesn’t believe in magic wands,” Win says. “And since my disposable camera package is the same kind as the ones you’ve already gotten, how about we make them a priority, a do-it-now sort of thing. And I have an idea.”
    â€œWhenever you come in here with your trick-or-treat bags, it’s a do-it-now sort of thing, and you always have ideas.”
    â€œWhat would you expect a copper thief to have all over his person, including his hands?” Win asks.
    â€œDirt. Since he’s probably touching dirty old oxidized gutters, roofing materials, all kinds of crap at construction sites . . .”
    â€œForget dirt. I’m talking about what might not be visible,” Win says. “I’m talking microscopic.”
    â€œYou want to examine these damn camera boxes under a microscope?”
    â€œNo,” he says. “Luminol. I want you to check as if you’re looking for blood.”
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    He’s ordering an iced coffee at Starbucks when he feels somebody behind him. Glances around. Cal Tradd.
    At least he has the decency not to strike up a conversation in a public place. Win pays, grabs napkins, a straw, heads outside and waits by his car, waits for an overdue confrontation. In a few minutes, Cal appears, sipping one of those coffee drinks that looks like an ice-cream sundae. Piled high with whipped cream, chocolate, a cherry on top.
    â€œYou following me?” Win asks. “Because I’m feeling followed.”
    â€œI’m that obvious, huh?” Licking whipped cream, wearing nice sunglasses. Maui Jim’s, about three hundred bucks. “Actually, I was heading to the police department. Probably just like you are. Otherwise, I don’t think you’d be jarring your already jangled nerves with several shots of espresso at