Chapter 40

 

“Detective Caplin, what’s this on your computer?” Captain Remington stood behind Bill’s chair, walking up so quietly Bill jumped.

Bill’s eyes darted between the captain’s face and his screen. It was pretty damning—he was using the department’s facial recognition program to look for a match on the mug shot Mrs. Fitzpatrick had identified as the man she knew as Richard Stone. If he stopped in mid-search, he would have to start over, but the program’s use was normally restricted to crime lab technicians working on the most urgent cases.

“It’s not personal business, is it? You know I warned everyone …”

“No, sir.” It grated on him to show deference to this man twenty years his junior. It really was time to retire. “This is a suspect in that robbery at the Philpont Museum last fall. One of the victims identified him but we have reason to believe he uses a number of aliases.”

All of that was true but it didn’t please Remington.

“Didn’t we determine the stolen item only qualified as petty larceny? Why are we wasting department time on a case this old?”

“The suspect identification is a recent development. I just thought I’d—”

Remington picked up two folders from Caplin’s desk. “These newer cases are more urgent. Get on them. You can piddle around with that cold case on your own time.”

Caplin held his tongue. “Yes, sir.”

He glanced back at his monitor where the comparison photos were ticking by. Remington had walked on, no doubt to nit-pick someone else’s work. Maybe he wouldn’t notice if Bill left the program running while he worked these other files. He made a show of opening the folder on top and picking up his desk phone to call one of the witnesses in another convenience store robbery.

Pissed him off that a few hundred bucks from a convenience store got priority over a valuable piece of jewelry. Of course he had to suppress thoughts of his own involvement and the fact that the necklace’s value had been purposely faked. A whiff of that around the department and he would be out on his ear in disgrace.

He punched in the number for the witness he’d already spoken to twice. He just needed to verify a little discrepancy. While the phone rang, he glanced back at the screen.

A match against his Richard Stone photo had showed up. The name on the other mug shot was Frank Morrell. Then it got interesting—Morrell was aka Frank Martin, Martin Frank, Frank Woods, Stone Martin and some others. He hung up the phone when it went to voicemail.

A rush of relief. Finally, some solid leads. He made sure Remington was nowhere nearby, then hit the key to print out the dossier on Morrell. A stroll to the printer across the room and he snagged the info he needed.

Remington had said to work the museum case on his own time—well, fine. He would do that. He had fourteen vacation days he’d not been able to take last year (because an intense case held him up) so he would use them now. He put in the request, framed more as an emergency, with HR then gathered the current-case files off his desk and dumped them on another guy’s desk before walking out the door.

He’d no sooner made it to his personal car than his cell phone rang. Damn. Was Remington going to disapprove the vacation time, make him come right back? But the readout showed Todd Wainwright’s name.

“What?” Caplin knew his tone was rude, but really, he’d basically told Todd he would let him know if there were developments.

“Uh, Detective?”

“Yeah, Todd.”

“Just checking to see—”

“Nothing, Todd. I’ve got one new lead but no time to work on it yet. I know your loans are due. I know your life is going to shit. Mine is too. I just can’t help you right now.” He clicked off the call and put the ringer on mute. Right now, he didn’t want to hear from anyone.

He got in his car and started to back out, belatedly remembering he’d left his list of passwords in his desk. Not that it mattered. He had no access to the department’s resources outside the city’s intranet system. He was going to have to use old-fashioned police work to do this. He exited the police garage and headed toward the airport.