Her Second Death (Bree Taggert #0.5) (2)

Reilly stamped his feet. “The vehicle is registered to James Tyson.”

“Did you run him?” Romano asked Reilly.

“Yeah.” Reilly consulted a notepad. “Twenty-seven years old. He’s got a rap sheet. Mostly old drug possession charges. No recent arrests.”

Romano glanced back at Bree. “Check the glove box.”

Tugging on gloves, Bree rounded the vehicle and opened the passenger door. The cold might delay decomposition, but the vehicle still smelled nasty. Muscles relaxed upon death, releasing the contents of the bladder and bowels. There was no dignity in dying.

Ignoring the blood-and-gore-spattered interior, she used one finger to open the glove compartment. Inside, she found the normal paraphernalia: vehicle registration, a dog-eared Ford manual, a flashlight, and a box of crayons. “Nothing interesting.”

She removed a wallet from the center console and opened it. The driver’s license of James Tyson showed through the plastic window. Bree leaned into the vehicle and tilted her head until she could see the victim’s face and compare it to the license photo. “Looks like him.”

Pulling her head out of the compact SUV, she took a deep breath of cold, exhaust-tinted air. Glancing down at the wallet, she read off an address less than a mile away from the scene. She opened the billfold. “Forty-three dollars and two credit cards.”

So, probably not a robbery.

Ducking back into the vehicle, Bree picked up the cell phone in the cupholder. “Passcode protected.”

“Leave it for the CSU geeks.” On the other side of the vehicle, Romano stared at the body. “The window is down, and it’s thirty-eight degrees.”

This was a roll ’em up kind of city block. “He was a local. I’m sure he knew plenty of people,” Bree said.

“Probably a drug deal gone sideways, or a gang hit.” Reilly knew his turf. A good percentage of Philadelphia homicides—especially shootings—were drug and/or gang related. “How long do you think he’s been dead?”

Romano shrugged, stepped back, and scanned the area. “With the window down, he’s visible from outside the vehicle. In this neighborhood, people would have been walking by. He couldn’t sit here, dead, for very long without someone noticing.”

“Doesn’t mean they would have reported it.” Reilly rocked back on his heels.

Bree sorted through crumpled receipts on the passenger-side floor. Smoothing them out, she read the date and time stamps in faded print. Two were recent. “He bought gas and a kid’s meal yesterday. He was alive at 8:06 in the morning.” She checked her watch. It was nearly eight a.m. “He’s been dead less than twenty-four hours.”

Romano looked up and nodded toward a medical examiner van approaching. “ME’s here.”

They stepped away from the vehicle and waited.

Romano gestured at Reilly. “Let’s get a few uniforms knocking on doors. See if residents will admit to seeing or hearing anything last night. Also, look for doorbell or front-porch cameras on the houses facing this direction.”

Reilly grabbed another patrol cop, and they turned toward the rowhomes across the street.

Bree eyed the houses. She had no doubt someone had heard the shot. But in this neighborhood, residents weren’t likely to call the cops. They’d go inside, lock their doors, and shut the fuck up. Gangs owned the blocks. Ratting on them proved hazardous to one’s health.

Bree turned in a circle. “I see surveillance cameras around the warehouse parking lot. I’ll go talk to management about getting copies of the videos.”

“I’ll take a statement from the witness.” Romano started toward the man with the dreadlocks.

Bree pulled off her gloves and tucked them into an evidence bag. She crossed the street and strode to the old brick building. She showed her badge at the entrance and explained what she needed. As she stepped into the warehouse, her breath fogged. The chill seeped from the concrete floor through the soles of her boots. It felt colder inside than outside.

“No problem.” A skinny security guard escorted her to a back office, where he opened the previous night’s surveillance footage. Bree pulled up a wheeled chair and watched him locate the correct camera and fast-forward through the video.

On the monitor, Bree spied the Ford cruising down the street. “Stop.”

The crime scene was in the periphery of the camera’s focus. With the darkness and distance, the film was too grainy to read the license plate, but the make and model were clear. The Ford disappeared behind a furniture truck. Bree assumed it parked, because it didn’t emerge on the other side of the truck and was in the same location it currently sat.

The guard advanced through the frames. About fifteen minutes after the Ford disappeared from view, a figure slipped from behind the truck. It crossed the sidewalk behind a pile of garbage bags and disappeared into a shadowed alley. The shooter? Where did he come from? “Can you go back?”

“Sure.” The security guard replayed the video.

The figure was visible for only a few seconds. Bree could see a hoodie-clad head above the garbage bags. Suspect number one. Unfortunately, the footage was too dark to see any detail. “Can you print that?”

With a nod, the guard clicked his mouse.

Bree studied the screen. A few minutes later, a shadow shifted on the edge of the video. “What’s that?”