Sock It To Me

Both of our murder cases were now over 48 hours old....And the only lead we had was two grainy videos showing a man in a dark hoodie, jeans and Nike sneakers at both crime scenes walking away and this alone wasn't much...

We had a match on car tires at both scenes too..but still no car....And again..This was proof of nothing..Could be co-incidence...

We had nothing I could take to trial...Even If I identified the mysterious man in the dark hoodie...

Conversations with the relatives of both murdered men didn't show any connection to the other at all..Except that both were Philadelphia residents...

But sometimes...Some days...You get lucky in investigating these cases....Today was one of them..

I was sitting in my SUV in the parking lot kissing my wife, Detective Carlotta Rodriguez-Wallace...

"Ouuuuuu, mmmm papi if you don't stop, you're going to get too aroused and then you may have to go back home and change.." said Carlotta smiling..

"I feel like today is going to be a lucky day."I said.

"You are close to getting lucky if we keep up all of this kissing..."she smiled...

"Actually...I'm talking about the case." I said...as we broke our embrace...

"I hope so...I hate cases like this." she said smiling...."Sit here....calm down and I'll see you upstairs."she said as she got out and waved at me...

I watched her getting on the elevator and I smiled....

I was truly a very fortunate man..

II-

Upstairs....Carlotta's partner, Detective James "Jimmy" Barlow was introducing everybody to another Detective...

Apparently an old friend of his...

"Guys...This is an old high school friend of mine...Detective Pete Driscoll...Cherry Hill Homicide..We went to High School together...before his family moved to New Jersey..We wrote many a page in the book of life.."laughed Jimmy...

Pete Driscoll was Jimmy's age...White, with brown hair, tall and skinny...He ,like Jimmy looked a bit young to be a Homicide Detective, but there he was...

"This is my partner...Carlotta.."said Jimmy..

He looked at her and smiled..

"Mannn, she makes coming to work a joy."he said smiling salaciously at Carlotta...

And this is my other partner, Tyriq Pile..

He shook his hand...

"Pleased to meet you man." he said...

"And the rest of the guys.... my partner's wife, Detective Sirena Pile..." said Jimmy..

"Niceeeee...Husband and wife in the same unit...I like that." he said...

"My boy...Detective Tony "Hop" Hopkins.."said Jimmy..

"Pleased to meet you man." he said..

"My guy and the dean of detectives...Edwin "Duke" Baylor..."said Jimmy...

"I like that Junior...The Dean of Detectives!"said Duke laughing...

Tyriq busted out in laughter...

"Okay Dean.." he said continuing to laugh...

"Wow...Pleased to meet you...You got a fun group here..." said Detective Driscoll...

"And last but certainly not least....My lieutenant...Lt.Sissy Van Buren-Clark.."said Jimmy..

Upon seeing Sissy...Detective Driscoll said-

"My goodness...No wonder you never miss a day of work...Wow!  You've got such hotties to look at Jimmy."

Sissy just smiled..She was used to guys gushing over her...

By now I had entered the room...

"Oh this is ADA Keith Wallace..."said Jimmy..."This is my friend..He's a homicide detective from Cherry Hill." said Jimmy.

"What's up man?" I said.

"Well now that all of the introductions are out of the way,let me explain to you why I'm here....You guys had a homicide recently which involved a man being shot a number of times.. after he left a WAWA on a desolate road right? And I believe a sock was used to shut the car down....Well....I was going through the VICAP reports trying to see if there was a homicide similar to mine...About a month ago..In Cherry Hill...A  woman,Shawn Bellamy was shot to death, several times at her car and guess what?  She had just left a WAWA..It was midnight and her car shut down...She called her husband...but before he got there...Somebody stopped and shot her several times...They didn't take anything..Just shot her a number of times...When we got there, the hood was up and guess what I found? A sock!"he said and passed us a sock in a plastic bag...

"THIS MATCHES OUR CASE!" said Carlotta and Jimmy in unison...

 "This case baffled me for weeks...Cleared the husband....Talked to all of her friends and relatives and couldn't find a match until I heard about your guy...Brian Thomas...I found a link...Both of them attended
Middle School and High School here in Philadelphia and knew each other.." said Detective Driscoll.

"The two of them uh...romantically involved?" asked Tyriq..

"Well uh yeah, back in High School..But I wouldn't call it romantic...They were more like uh "Friends with Benefits..."he said...

"And you cleared the husband?" asked Duke..

"Yeah..He's not from Philly and didn't know your victim..Never heard of him...So this was before these two ever met..." said Detective Driscoll...

"So it has to be another man." said Sissy...

"That's what I'm thinking....Their high school had a reunion a few months ago....Maybe all three of these people ran into each other and something happened..."said Driscoll...

"My partner and I had a similar shooting the next day...an old man....about 70 named Phillander Bostic...That name ring a bell?" asked Sirena..

"No...That name never came up...." said Detective Driscoll..

"Face it partner...We are on our own." said Hop..

"Well we have some inroads at least....We have to find out who was at that reunion...What went down and who the mystery man is....oh and this is our forensic investigator, Dr. Hazel Baylor.."said Sissy introducing Hazel ,who had just walked in...

Detective Driscoll smiled...

 "James...I need to transfer back to Philly..I work with fat, bald headed guys my father's age...You work with a squad of hotties.." he laughed..

"Hazel ,Detective Driscoll from Cherry Hill Homicide has a murder similar to ours...He brought us a sock...

Maybe you can get DNA from his sock and the one we found at Carlotta's crime scene..and get us a real suspect."said Sissy..

"It's small..but it's something.." said Hazel..

III-

 Deputy FBI SAC Sharon Ferrell-Hopkins walked in the room just then...

"Sissy...I just heard from Quantico...They may have a facial on our mystery hoodie man by tomorrow..and we got a make on the car..." she said.

"This is our friend from the FBI ,Deputy Special Agent in charge, Sharon Hopkins..My boy Hop's wife...

Again Detective Driscoll smiled..

 "Is there no end to hot babes in this office?  And an FBI agent at that, actually helping local detectives...Jimmy my boy...This is a dream come true.." he remarked..

Sharon smiled..

Jimmy explained...

"This is a childhood friend of mine...Detective Driscoll...From Cherry Hill,New Jersey Homicide..He has a homicide just like ours..."said Jimmy...

"Detectives...We got an eye on that car....Traffic cam zeroed in on it...It's in North Philadelphia...Got the license plate and everything."said a uniformed police officer...

"Let's go." I said.

IV-

We found the car....It had been reported stolen two weeks before and as we suspected..it had been bleached down and wiped of prints...as well as DNA..it had been left in a neighborhood where the street cam wasn't working...

Brilliant...On the part of our killer...

"Another roadblock" said Carlotta.

"Yeah Top it would seem that way."said Tyriq..

"We still have that sock." said Jimmy...

"Think of how me and Hop feel...we don't have a thing.."said Sirena..

"Let's recanvass our crime scene partner...Maybe we'll get lucky and find a sock or something."joked Hop.

"This guy is going to slip up...I know he will...They always do."said Duke..

"You're right Duke...But does somebody else have to lose their life?" asked Sissy.

 "God..I sure hope not...Enough people have lost their lives as it is." said Detective Driscoll.

It was indeed a pretty sobering thought...All we had now was those socks...And hopefully a clearer photo of our mystery hoodie man ,if he was even our perp...

Amazing how such a seemingly run of the mill case had become so complicated.


(TO BE CONTINUED)