Chapter 9

"Oh this is fucking fantastic," Brian grunted the next day. "Routine piss test, what a great way to begin my shift."

"What's the problem?" Marie teased. "You didn't do anything you weren't supposed to the last thirty days, did you?"

"Not unless you count a few beers here and there."

"Well, if they tested for booze, about eighty five percent of all the departments would be fired, so I think you're safe."

"Still, I hate this thing. I can't exactly piss on demand, not to mention I don't really relish some old hag or some dude staring at my dick."

"Drink a lot of coffee," Marie suggested. "You should be fine by the time your name comes up."

"You're just a ray of sunshine today," Brian replied. "I'm guessing the arranged date went well."

"Maybe," Marie shrugged with a smile.

"Uh oh." It was his turn to joke around. "Someone got laid."

"Typical man that thinks with the wrong organ," Marie rolled her eyes. "Not that it's any of your business, but yeah. You know, you should go out more often. If you're not working, you're working your buddy's case on the sly, and if you're not doing that, you're looking after that little hooker girl. What gives? You go gay?"

"You wish, kiddo. If that was the case, I wouldn't think the new secretary downstairs had a great ass on her."

"I'll let Carmen know the next time I'm down there to see her," Marie laughed.

"Right, just what I need on top of everything else, the prospect of someone yelling sexual harassment. You will do no such thing."

"Too bad. She is a cute girl," Marie pointed out. "Anyway, is there anything new on the case?"

"Delgado's digging into something for me," Brian answered. "He came across something a few days ago that could be related, five unsolved cases back from when I first came into the department and was working Traffic."

"Wow, talk about cold cases," Marie said. "But how would they mix in with the Stephens shooting?"

"Seems whoever killed her went after hookers before. Anyway, according to both him and Wolfe from the lab, the DNA found on the samples of all five dead hookers match the skin cells Wolfe found inside the gloves left behind near the shooting scene when Stephens was killed."

"This could be something big then."

"Yeah, but now it's just catching the guy, and both getting his DNA and a positive ID from Joey."

The phone rang on Marie's desk, which she promptly answered, spoke for a few minutes and then hung up. "That was the tech. You're up for your test."

"Whoopee," Brian rolled his eyes, getting up. "The highlight of my day."

A few days later:

"Hey Detective," Delgado said from the other end.

"Let me guess," Brian joked. "I had a hot piss test."

"Not really, but that's more Wolfe's department, whom I have with me here on conference, by the way."

Brian sat up, now very interested. "What's going on?"

"Well, as you know, Wolfe also works in the lab that does the drug tests, and I just came across the reports on Stephens' shooting. There's all kind of details about London's gun and the sweatshirt that were recovered and tested, but nothing about the gloves. Wolfe said he sent the report up after he'd finished, but there's no note of anything."

"Luckily, I kept a copy of it," Wolfe added. "When I heard the report wasn't noted, I got suspicious, so when the drug tests came in, I went 'underground' as you can say and did some DNA tests on the samples."

"Wait," Brian said. "You can't do DNA tests on piss. Even I know that much."

"You can if there's skin cells in the samples," Wolfe corrected. "But long story short, I got a hit when I compared my tests to the one from the gloves. You still sitting down?"

"Jesus Christ," Brian sighed. "It is someone in the department, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but it wasn't who any of us think it was."

"Not Thompson?"

"No. His sample didn't match. Neither did London's, but I didn't need to tell you that."

"Then who?"

Wolfe told him, with Delgado filling in the blanks.

"Jesus Christ. Are you sure?"

"You if anyone should know science doesn't lie, Detective."

"Yeah…but still, that was the last guy I expected, considering he's been gung ho about working on this case, according to Downtown."

Brian then sighed. "You know, I think it's time for me to have a talk with my old boss and IAB, now that we have hard evidence there's a killer among us, and it sure as hell isn't Paul. It's about time the right guy answered for this and I bring Joey down to ID him just to make sure. But I think with what you have might be strong enough. It's probably going to land all of our asses in trouble, but at this point, I don't care anymore."