Revolver by Duane Swierczynski Page B

in addition to the hurricane in his guts.
    And it’s not going to get any better once he sees what’s waiting for him downtown.
      
    Two squad cars are blocking off Twentieth and Pine, yellow tape already up. The uniforms’ faces are familiar but Jim can’t recall their names. He fakes it with a nod.
    They lead him to a stairwell a dozen yards away from the corner, along the side of a building. A black wrought-iron fence prevents passersby from taking a tumble down the stairwell, which leads to the basement level.
    And there she is.
    Her neck is twisted as if someone called her name and she whipped her head around to see who. Mouth slightly open, registering surprise. Eyes closed.
    Top half of her is on the concrete landing, the rest of her curled up on the last two steps from the bottom. She’s athletic, good body, wearing nothing but a pair of sneakers, socks, and a sports bra. A ripped black tank top is in the corner of the landing. No sign of her pants.
    A set of keys, a few steps down.
    Jim takes a step back, takes in the context. This is a beautiful block, one of the nicest Philadelphia has to offer. Tree-lined, with immaculate turn-of-the-century rowhomes, with late-model cars parked in front of them. The kind of place Jim could afford if he didn’t have three kids.
    Jim’s beeper goes off. The number: 215-744-5655. He doesn’t recognize it. If it doesn’t have anything to do with this particular job, he doesn’t want to hear about it right now. He’s no good at multitasking.
    A few yards away, the passenger window of a Plymouth Acclaim is cracked.
    “Does the car belong to the 5292?”
    The number is slang for a dead body—and the last four digits of the old city morgue phone number.
    “We’re running the plates now.”
    “Call Tow Squad and make this car a guard for prints.”
    Between the Acclaim and the stairwell is a Walkman, headphones still attached. Jim bags it—maybe it belonged to the vic. If so, robbery was not a motive. Though he knew that from the missing pants.
    “Any ID on the 5292?”
    Nope.
    He asks a uniform who called it in.
    At about 7:40 a.m., guy walking his dog happened to look down, see the body. At first he thought it was a department store dummy. Then he realized she was real. He threw up, then went to a pay phone to dial 911.
    Guy checks out, at first glance—he’s an attorney, gay, young, rich. Worth a follow-up, but he’s probably not the guy.
    “Who can tell me about that door?”
    A patrolman tells Jim the landlord says it can only be opened from the inside. No knob on the outside.
    Aisha’s not here yet—she’s coming all the way from Mount Airy and Lincoln Drive is probably a nightmare.
    Jim has the stairwell photographed like crazy. He doesn’t want a single detail to disappear.
    Jim tells the uniforms to watch for any lookiloos. The kind of creep who would snuff a girl, then hang around to watch the aftermath. There’s always a decent chance the doer is there watching them process the scene.
    The TV news trucks arrive, one after the other. Word spreads fast. Jim has the patrolmen keep them back. This story is going to blow up; he knows that already. Pretty dead white girl killed in a nice neighborhood—the nicest neighborhood in the city, in fact.
    Aisha arrives just after the first news van. She’s a few years younger than Jim, pretty new to homicide, married with two kids, unhappily from what you gather. But works hard to keep both sides of her life going at full tilt.
    “Hey.”
    “Detective. What do you have?”
    Jim tells her, jack shit, then brings her up to speed. The girl is probably in her early twenties. The coroner will tell you more.
    But a narrative is already forming. Part fact, part questions, part possibilities.
    Girl out for a morning run, some scumbag grabs her, maybe with the idea that he’s going to pull her into a car and take her somewhere. She’s strong and fit; she fights back. Scumbag doesn’t like that. Scumbag slams her