“All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse”

     ==John Quincy Adams

Renee Murdoch and Delia Sanchez sat in Domenicalli’s office along with Michael himself. The interview with Jenni Talvert had taken place 4 hours ago and Michael seemed no closer to being able to go home and get some much needed rest. A quick glance at the clock showed that it was well past midnight. A look around the room communicated to him that his coffee was gone, his cigarettes were gone, Sanchez was chewing her lips in thought and Murdoch was slipping in and out of consciousness. Michael tossed the empty pack of cigarettes into the trash in disgust and got up to refill his coffee. Having a coffee machine in his office was one of the perks of being a lieutenant and Michael took full advantage of it. “Alright, thoughts. Next steps. What have we got our head around? What do we need to get ahead of and what is possibly going to trip us up?”

Murdoch sat up a little straighter and uncurled her eyes, “Eyewitness testimony has been gathered for what it’s worth. Between the three of us it appears that Jenni Talvert’s version of events is pretty accurate. Four other witnesses have corroborated all or parts of her story and a cursory look at the crime scene seems to back it up as well.”

Renee followed Michael to the coffee machine, a right only she and Sanchez had, and poured herself a cup. She took a deep breath, “Jamaican Blue, this is getting serious.”

Sanchez flipped her pen between her fingers, taking her time to answer as she usually did. “Interviews have also been done with most of those who were hospitalized. Not much of it was useful. Predictably no one is certain who attacked Rita Jameson. There are still two people in the hospital and we have been unable to interview them due to their injuries. Marjorie Adams from the Upper West Side is being held for observation and will probably be released tomorrow. She had a concussion, three broken fingers and several contusions. Father Thomas Jenkins of St. Stephens Parish is in serious condition in the ICU. Last report is that he had a ruptured spleen, six broken ribs, a broken nose, a broken clavicle, and a concussion. He came out of surgery about an hour ago.”

Sanchez stood and poured the last of the coffee into her own mug before shutting off the machine, “Caffeine addicts.” She smiled and took a sip from a cup labeled “Number 1 Mom”. A picture of three children was emblazoned on the cup, their features all slightly different but clearly showing a sibling relationship. The mother of the three children, Mrs. Delia Sanchez, was short and solidly built. She was not overweight but rather muscular and powerful with a figure traced back three generations to her great grandmother and the Island of Puerto Rico. She took pride in her physical condition and had enjoyed working out with her late husband. Though she was in her late thirties, not  a trace of gray could be found in her shoulder length jet black hair. She pushed it back from her eyes and sat down, careful not to spill any coffee on the now rumpled violet pant suit she wore.

The addict comment drew an extended tongue and an extended middle finger used to scratch an imaginary itch on the nose of Renee Murdoch. Murdoch smirked before laughing openly, her blond curls bobbing back and forth as they so often did. Renee eased her trim six foot frame back into her chair. In her office sat a picture of her only child, her son Joe, now sixteen. Murdoch and Sanchez, though polar opposites in many ways, were lifelong friends. Each had helped the other through the deaths of their husbands. Renee’s husband had been a firefighter who died in an apartment fire twelve years earlier. Delia’s husband a SWAT team leader shot in the line of duty some seven years after that. Their friendship and shared experience had cemented a bond both on and off duty. However, during work hours their shared concern was for the man in front of them, Michael Domenicalli.

Gruff, impatient and a perfectionist; Michael Domenicalli was not the easiest person to work for. To balance this he was also loyal, kind and fiercely devoted to his job. He also had a bad habit of internalizing the rigors of his job; adding unnecessary stress to an already stressful job. It had taken a toll on the man and his health over the years and Murdoch and Sanchez were divided as to whether it was a personality flaw or a result of his Catholic upbringing. Both of them had urged him to see the department shrink for years, a request he had denied repeatedly in rather emphatic fashion. Thankfully he did have one release in the form of his twin brother, one Father Gabriel Domenicalli. Patient in the face of his brothers impatience, serene in the face of his brothers gruffness; Gabriel was the perfect counterpoint for his overstressed brother. With most Catholic Italian men one only needed to call their mother to get them in line but Sanchez and Murdoch had learned long ago to use Gabriel to lance the wounds that Michael let fester.

Michael rubbed his temples, obviously shaken by the thought of a priest being attacked in such a manner. “What’s his prognosis?”

Sanchez carefully put her mug down on the desk, “Expected to make a full recovery, eventually. The missing spleen will follow him for the rest of his life. Someone would have really had to do a number on him to rupture it. We usually only see that in car accidents or something equivalent.”

Domenicalli turned his attention to Murdoch, “Where are we on that surveillance video? It shouldn’t take this long to get it here and get someone to start looking at it.”

Murdoch shrugged and stood up, “I left Murphy at the scene and told him to collect it. He should have been back a while ago but I haven’t seen him. Let me see if I can track him down. Give me a few minutes.”

Murdoch walked out of the office closing the door behind her but not before her voice could be heard booming out “Anyone seen Murphy!”

Michael turned back to Sanchez, “Alright, what about the medical examiner? Any word on when they’ll do what they do and get us something more to work with?”

Sanchez usually handled the liaison with the coroner and had developed some good contacts over the years. These had allowed her to forge the kind of relationships that gave them early access to information and a leg up on the investigation. “They tell me it’s going slow. Someone is putting a lot of pressure on them and they are in full CYA dotting every I and crossing every T.”

Michael paused and looked pointedly at Sanchez. “Who?"

Sanchez shrugged and took another sip of her coffee as Domenicalli idly tugged at his beard.  "Why would they be pressuring them and not us? Don’t you find that odd?”

Sanchez nodded once as the door opened and Murdoch led in a youngish man in a plain brown suit. Dan Murphy was the sections rookie, promoted to homicide four months previously. He was a good enough kid but still wet around the ears and badly in need of seasoning. Murdoch looked angry and Michael did not envy the tongue lashing Murphy must have received.

“Go ahead and spit it out”, Murdoch sneered.

Murphy took a deep breath, sweat beading on his forehead. “I retrieved the footage from the restaurant but it’s an old VCR system. It’s going to be hard to get much detail.” Murphy took another breath and continued. “The clinic has a digital system but they told me it’s been on the fritz for the past week and their technician has been on vacation. They didn’t have any footage so I came back here and left the tape with forensics since you were doing interviews.”

Murdoch kicked the door closed, “You believed that crap story?! Come on Murphy, didn’t that seem awful convenient to you?”

Murphy looked pleadingly at Michael, “Why would they lie? What have they got to gain versus how much they would lose if we caught them?”

Michael raised his hand and gained everyone’s attention in the process. “We may never find out now. I hope you realize that.” Murphy looked down at his shoes as Michael continued. “Alright, what’s done is done. Murphy get back over there and take Phillips with you. Check out the story with the technician. Take a forensics guy with you as well and have them check the system. Check the logs, check the backups, check everything. Get going.”

Murphy flew from the room and Murdoch shut the door after him, “Sorry boss.”

Domenicalli shrugged, “Can’t be helped. Ride his ass to make sure we cover our bases here though.”

Michael sat on the edge of his deck and motioned Murdoch back into her chair. “What about the gun?”

Renee frowned and reached for a folder from the bag next to her chair. She retrieved the folder deliberately and began reading the particulars. “The gun was a Smith and Wesson Model 41 handgun. The Model 41 is a .22 caliber semi-automatic used mainly for competition shooting. The Model 41 is fairly expensive but is considered one of the best competition pistols in the country. Serial numbers were filed and forensics is trying to reconstruct them. So far no luck. Crime scene guys say one round of ammunition was expended and the weapon was found next to the second victim, Rita Jameson, with one round chambered and 9 rounds in the magazine.”

Sanchez looked at Murdoch and raised an eyebrow, “Now why would our girl have a pistol like that? Was she on Fordham’s competition shooting team?”

Murdoch checked the bio folders, “Not as far as we know. She was a junior transfer student majoring in biological sciences. She seemed to be getting good grades and was headed for possible post graduate work in molecular biology. The only thing she seemed to be involved with besides school was her church.”

Domenicalli watched the back and forth between the two women before interrupting, “So we have a lot of work to do with Miss Jameson. Is it possible there was a personal link between the two victims or was this random?”

Michael pointed at Murdoch, “We need to start digging everywhere and see what we can turn up. Start at Fordham but I mean everywhere; St. Stephens, Golden Apple, the clinic and the girls families which means one of you needs to go to...” Michael snapped his fingers looking for the name of Rita Jameson’s hometown.

Renee Murdoch chimed in “Deer Meadow Indiana?”

“That’s it,” Michael exclaimed with one final snap of his fingers. “I know the families are hurting but something smells weird though I’m not sure what.”

Murdoch and Sanchez gave each other exaggerated looks as both knew that their bosses sense of smell for cases like this was almost infallible. If he smelled something odd then they were probably in for a long couple of weeks. Murdoch stood and Sanchez mirrored her actions a moment later.

Sanchez looked over her shoulder at Michael, “You need to get home and get some sleep boss. You have anything else you need us to do before we punch you out of here?”

Michael was putting on his rumpled jacket and placing folders into his leather briefcase. “Push forensics to get us whatever else they can. Have someone start analyzing that VCR tape and then I have some hard work for you to do.”

“What’s that?” Murdoch asked.

Michael led the two women out of his office as he turned off the lights and closed the door. He looked each of them in the eye to convey the seriousness of his words. “Find a way to explain to me why a seventeen year old Catholic school girl makes an appointment at an abortion clinic and then walks through a protest to get there. A protest full of people from her parish and her priest by the way. You’re Catholic as well Sanchez, could you walk past your priest into an abortion clinic?”

Michael closed his eyes and shook his head in frustration and fatigue. “Don’t answer that. When you’re done figuring that out though, tell me why Rita Jameson felt it necessary to put a twenty-two between her eyes. My first job when I came off the beat was organized crime. Shots to the head are personal and send a message. What message was Rita Jameson trying to send?”

Both Sanchez’ and Murdoch’s eyes opened wide with surprise and Michael headed to the elevator with a gruff, “See you in the morning.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 5