That's a lot of jobs, Matt thought. Especially here.

Probably another political lie.

Payne couldn't help but notice that the sign was plastered with homemade flyers that bore a crude representation of the city councilman.

"Badde wanted for crimes?" Kerry Rapier then wondered aloud.

"Everyone's got their own idea of what constitutes a crime," Payne said. "As far as I know, Badde hasn't broken any laws on the books. Arguably, he's bent the living hell out of a few, but then that's what politicians do."

Payne saw that except for a line of five row houses-Make that four and a half, considering that hole in the one on the end-only smelly, raw earth remained on the once-residential city block. There was some heavy equipment and the white PEGI signs in each corner of the block. And that was it.

Yellow POLICE LINE tape was strung from the half-fallen wooden back fence of the semidemolished row house to the rear of the red-and-white Link-Belt crane, then to a four-foot-high iron pole in the concrete sidewalk that once held a parking meter, then past the Medical Examiner Office's van and all the way down the sidewalk to the farthest row house at the corner of Jefferson and Mascher.

Payne looked at the small group gathered beside the crane and saw a familiar face, Detective Harry Mudd of the Crime Scene Unit.

Mudd-a muscular, five-foot-eleven thirty-five-year-old with fiercely inquisitive eyes and salt-and-pepper hair trimmed short-was a ten-year veteran of the department. Payne knew him to be a no-nonsense and damned thorough investigator.

Mudd stood with his arms crossed and head somewhat cocked as he listened to one of the three beefy men who looked like construction workers.

Or heavy-equipment operators, Payne thought when he saw the sloppily hand-lettered cardboard square sign-TURCO DEMOLITION amp; EXCAVATION-that was taped to the side of the crane.

Mudd's eyes darted to Payne, who was leading Harris and Rapier toward him. He held out his right index finger as a Hold that thought a moment gesture to the beefy guy who was doing the talking. Then Mudd turned and started moving to intercept Payne.

"Sergeant Payne, good to see you," Detective Mudd said, offering his hand.

"It's 'Matt,' Harry," he said, taking it, then he gestured to the others. "You know Tony Harris. And this is Corporal Kerry Rapier."

"Harry Mudd, Kerry," he said, shaking the corporal's hand.

Kerry Rapier nodded, more than a little impressed by Mudd's grip. He was almost afraid he was going to pull back his hand and find his fingers crushed to a bloody pulp.

"Nice to meet you, Detective," Rapier said.

Tony Harris said, "How they hanging, Harry? It's been a while."

Mudd nodded. "It has. And if you mean, how are the bad guys hanging, I wish I could say by a noose. Otherwise, the answer's the same, one lower than the other."

He and Harris exchanged grins.

Payne looked over at the three men standing beside the Link-Belt crane. The tallest one, who appeared somewhat pale and had his chin almost to his chest, had a real look of gloom. The shortest of the three, who had a cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth, glanced at his wristwatch as he anxiously kicked the raw dirt with his boot toe, then glared in Payne's direction.

"I'm assuming one of those guys is Mr. Turco?"

Mudd glanced over. "Yeah, two actually. The tall one's name is Bucco, Bobby 'The Ballbuster' Bucco. He was running the crane when the ball found the deceased. The owner of the company is the short one who's sucking on the cigar stub. Thomas 'Little Tommie' Turco. And he's ten kinds of pissed off."

"What's his problem?"

"You."

"Me? I just got the hell here."

Mudd nodded. "And that's why he's pissed. I told him I was under orders to wait for the head of the homicide task force to get here. You're here in that shiny undercover car-nice wheels, by the way; where'd you steal them?-and he's probably guessing that I'm talking with The Man."

Payne decided it best to ignore the hot-car question. But the fact that Mudd raised it indicated that it wouldn't be the last time someone was going to ask how he came by a nice new vehicle when almost everyone else in the department was driving battered hand-me-downs with six digits on their odometers. It damn sure wasn't the kind of vehicle that was going to hide in plain sight very well.

"So," Payne said, "I still don't get why he's pissed at me."

"He wants to return the crane to the rental place, which he says is now charging him Sunday double time. But I told him I couldn't release him or his equipment until you gave the go-ahead."

Payne raised his eyebrows.

"Like I said, Matt, I'm just doing what I was told. You know how antsy the department's chain of command gets when Mayor Carlucci holds a press conference. And that shit flows downhill so fast."

Payne nodded. "Understood, Harry. You know I have full faith in your skills, so we can skip the formalities. What the hell is going on here?"

Mudd pulled out his spiral notepad and began, "Thomas 'Little Tommie' Turco's company was hired by HUD to turn the whole block back to dirt-" "-and he's really pissed at 'that expediter sonofabitch who's really going to pay for all this,' " Mudd finished a few minutes later.

"So, three dead?" Payne said. "But no idea why they were in the condemned buildings and no idea what killed the other two?"

Mudd was shaking his head. "No idea. And of course, until we hear from Dr. Mitchell's autopsy, we won't know for sure if the third died of blunt trauma. The one thing that is clear, however, is that there were people living in these houses right up until sometime today."

"Really?"

"Yeah, these folks were holdouts. They didn't want to move. They refused the buyout from PEGI." He pointed down the street. "That middle house? We found one of the dead at the kitchen table, slumped over with his face in a bowl of apparently just-made tomato soup."

"Possibly putting the time of death around noon?" Payne asked.

"Possibly," Mudd said. "Who knows?"

Payne looked at Harris and Rapier.

"Any thoughts, gentlemen? You know as much about the cases as I do."

Kerry Rapier shrugged, then grinned. "Death by drowning?"

Harris and Payne groaned.

"Only the obvious fact," Tony Harris then said, "that this doesn't fit the pop-and-drop MO in any way at all. Unless we're missing something…"

Mudd glanced at the line of five remaining row houses and said: "Do you want to take a look inside?"

"Not right now," Payne said. "It's going to be dark soon. Let's talk about the other dead guy."

"Even better," Mudd said, "let's go over to the scene."

Payne gestured that Mudd should lead.

As they started walking along the sidewalk in front of the half-demolished row house, they heard an Italian-accented voice bark, "Aw, what the fuck, youse guys?"

When they all turned, they saw a frustrated Little Tommie Turco standing with both arms above his head, palms up.

Detective Harry Mudd held up his right index finger again, this time in a gesture meant to signal Back in a minute.

They heard Turco then bark, "Oh, for fuck's sake!" and watched as he tore the cigar stub from his mouth and threw it to the dirt. [TWO] As they rounded the corner from Jefferson to Hancock, Matt Payne saw that there was yellow POLICE LINE tape strung between two boarded-up row houses, blocking the entrance to an alleyway.

The first thing Payne saw behind the yellow tape was the blood trail. He took another step forward, his eye following the trail up the alleyway until he saw in the shadows the body of a very big black male. On the concrete beside his head was an inverted-V plastic marker with a black numeral "01" on it.

Parked on the street, blocking off the alleyway, was a Chevy Impala squad car. The right rear door was open, and a young black boy was sitting in the rear seat, turned so his back was to the scene.