thinking that breaking up a bar fight was going to be the pinnacle of his law enforcement career. No way did that kind of background prepare you for making sense of three bodies that looked like war casualties dumped in a rural swimming hole.
He looked down at the case file cover sheet on his desk, the blank lines taunting him with all he didn't know.
Bonar gave the doorjamb a cursory rap on his way in, heading straight for the chair opposite Halloran's desk. When he sat down, the cheap vinyl wheezed like a defective whoopee cushion. "I've got a thumbprint on my birth certificate," he said without preamble. "You do, too."
"I do?"
"You were born at Kingsford General, right?"
"Right."
"Then you were printed."
Halloran lifted a pen. "Should I be taking notes?"
"Most hospitals print newborns right in the delivery room. Feet, hands, thumb, something, so they don't send the wrong baby home
with the mother. So what I want to know is, how hard would it be to print a full set off every kid when they were born and put them in some kind of a database?"
"Gee, Bonar, you've got the makings of a despot."
"Do you know how many bodies go unidentified every year? How many families sit around waiting for someone to come home, and all the time they're in the ground somewhere under a John Doe marker?"
Halloran sighed. "I'll take a wild guess here. Nothing came up on the prints, right?"
"Not in AFIS, or anywhere else they let us look. And I don't mind telling you I was pretty surprised that not one of the three had an arrest record. It seems obvious that they were running in a pretty rough crowd, and not one of them did time? That almost defies logic."
Halloran started making folds in the case cover sheet. "Maybe they were just nice young men who got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"You're going to have to do some fast talking to convince me that an execution with an automatic rifle was just some kind of unfortunate turn of events." Bonar pulled a flattened Snickers bar out of his pants pocket, ripped it open, and took a huge bite. "Any luck with Missing Persons?"
"Nothing on our sheets. I've got Haggerty posting the photos on the nationwides, for all the good it will do."
Bonar dabbed a fleck of chocolate from his lip with his little finger. "These boys are pretty fresh. Maybe no one's missing them yet."
"Could be. The autopsies might give us a place to start, but that's going to take a while. Doc says the state boys at Wausau are backed up with that multiple on Highway 29."
Bonar sighed and got up to throw his Snickers wrapper in the garbage can. "You want to tell me how we're supposed to solve a triple homicide without knowing who the victims are?"
Halloran went back to folding the paper on his desk. "How many automatic rifles you figure we've got in this neck of the woods, Bonar?"
"Probably one or two more than Fort Bragg."
"And who uses them?"
Bonar thought about that for a minute. "Well, we busted Karl Wildenauer for blasting ducks with one last November."
"Besides Karl."
"Green Bay took a couple of AK-47s in that cocaine bust last week."
Halloran scribbled on a notepad. "Okay. Drug dealers."
Bonar made a face. "Kingsford County may have a few teenagers trying to grow pot in their folks' corn patch every now and again, but I doubt they've got firing squads on retainer. The real serious bad boys usually do their dealing in the cities."
"So maybe it's city business. Maybe this was a body dump, pure and simple. Wouldn't be the first time. How about if we send the morgue shots to some of the narc divisions around the state, maybe even Chicago, see if anybody recognizes them."
"That's an excellent thought."
"Thank you. Now tell me who else uses automatic rifles, just in general."
Bonar rolled his eyes to the ceiling and started rattling them off: "Military, organized crime, militia crackpots, collectors-and we have a fair number of all of those in the Dairy State."
"That's about the same list I came
He looked down at the case file cover sheet on his desk, the blank lines taunting him with all he didn't know.
Bonar gave the doorjamb a cursory rap on his way in, heading straight for the chair opposite Halloran's desk. When he sat down, the cheap vinyl wheezed like a defective whoopee cushion. "I've got a thumbprint on my birth certificate," he said without preamble. "You do, too."
"I do?"
"You were born at Kingsford General, right?"
"Right."
"Then you were printed."
Halloran lifted a pen. "Should I be taking notes?"
"Most hospitals print newborns right in the delivery room. Feet, hands, thumb, something, so they don't send the wrong baby home
with the mother. So what I want to know is, how hard would it be to print a full set off every kid when they were born and put them in some kind of a database?"
"Gee, Bonar, you've got the makings of a despot."
"Do you know how many bodies go unidentified every year? How many families sit around waiting for someone to come home, and all the time they're in the ground somewhere under a John Doe marker?"
Halloran sighed. "I'll take a wild guess here. Nothing came up on the prints, right?"
"Not in AFIS, or anywhere else they let us look. And I don't mind telling you I was pretty surprised that not one of the three had an arrest record. It seems obvious that they were running in a pretty rough crowd, and not one of them did time? That almost defies logic."
Halloran started making folds in the case cover sheet. "Maybe they were just nice young men who got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"You're going to have to do some fast talking to convince me that an execution with an automatic rifle was just some kind of unfortunate turn of events." Bonar pulled a flattened Snickers bar out of his pants pocket, ripped it open, and took a huge bite. "Any luck with Missing Persons?"
"Nothing on our sheets. I've got Haggerty posting the photos on the nationwides, for all the good it will do."
Bonar dabbed a fleck of chocolate from his lip with his little finger. "These boys are pretty fresh. Maybe no one's missing them yet."
"Could be. The autopsies might give us a place to start, but that's going to take a while. Doc says the state boys at Wausau are backed up with that multiple on Highway 29."
Bonar sighed and got up to throw his Snickers wrapper in the garbage can. "You want to tell me how we're supposed to solve a triple homicide without knowing who the victims are?"
Halloran went back to folding the paper on his desk. "How many automatic rifles you figure we've got in this neck of the woods, Bonar?"
"Probably one or two more than Fort Bragg."
"And who uses them?"
Bonar thought about that for a minute. "Well, we busted Karl Wildenauer for blasting ducks with one last November."
"Besides Karl."
"Green Bay took a couple of AK-47s in that cocaine bust last week."
Halloran scribbled on a notepad. "Okay. Drug dealers."
Bonar made a face. "Kingsford County may have a few teenagers trying to grow pot in their folks' corn patch every now and again, but I doubt they've got firing squads on retainer. The real serious bad boys usually do their dealing in the cities."
"So maybe it's city business. Maybe this was a body dump, pure and simple. Wouldn't be the first time. How about if we send the morgue shots to some of the narc divisions around the state, maybe even Chicago, see if anybody recognizes them."
"That's an excellent thought."
"Thank you. Now tell me who else uses automatic rifles, just in general."
Bonar rolled his eyes to the ceiling and started rattling them off: "Military, organized crime, militia crackpots, collectors-and we have a fair number of all of those in the Dairy State."
"That's about the same list I came
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