De Souza gripped Passman’s arm like a vise.

“He started it!” Passman twisted around to glare at Rhoad. “Why don’t you lock his ass up!”

Cops shoved her inside the wagon and slammed the tailgate shut.

• • •

It was Chief Hammer’s NIJ mission to implement the New York City Crime Control Model in the Richmond Police Department, as she had in Charlotte and would do in other cities should health, energy and grant money allow. Understandably, this created a bit of a dilemma for her.

She was losing stamina and professionalism as she stood close to Bubba and listened to him talk. She wanted out but simply could not and would never pass the buck, look the other way, walk off and make this a problem for someone else. Hammer was here, and that was that. When a cop asks a suspect a question, the cop must listen to the answer, no matter how long and drawn-out it is.

Bubba was telling her about his vanity plate, recalling his trip to the DMV on Johnston Willis Drive, between Whitten Brothers Jeep and Dick Straus Ford, where he had waited in line at customer service for fifty-seven minutes only to learn that BUBBA was taken, as were BUBA, BUBBBA, BUUBBBA, BUBEH, BUBBEH, BUBBBEH, BG-BUBA, BHUBBA and BHUBA. Bubba had been crushed and exhausted. He could think of nothing else that didn’t exceed seven letters. Despondent and emotionally drained, he had accepted that the vanity plate was not meant to be.

“Then,” he seemed momentarily energized by the tireless account, “the lady at the counter said Bubah would work, and I asked if I could hyphenate it and she didn’t care because a hyphen doesn’t count as a letter and that was good because I thought it would be easier to pronounce Bubah with a hyphen.”

Hammer believed that Bubba had an accomplice named Smudge, and a graphic and believable scenario was materializing in her mind even as Bubba droned on and reporters continued to keep their distance. Bubba and Smudge somehow knew that Ruby Sink and Loraine were headed to the First Union money stop near the Kmart.

Possibly the men had been lying in wait for the wealthy Miss Sink, headlights and engines off, and when she left her residence, Smudge and Bubba tailed her, weaving in and out of traffic, keeping tabs on each other over cell phones and CBs.

It was at this point that Hammer’s re-creation of the crime became less well defined. Frankly, she couldn’t figure out what might have happened next and was not the sort to make things up. Yet she simply could not, would not walk away with no accountability and tell her troops the murder was their problem.

Somehow, Hammer had to get Bubba to answer the question of Smudge without Bubba thinking she had asked.

30

GOVERNOR MIKE FEUER had been on the car phone for the past fifteen minutes, and this was fortunate for Jed, who had made five wrong turns and sped through an alleyway, losing both unmarked Caprices, before finding Cherry Street and driving past Hollywood Cemetery and ending up at Oregon Hill Park, where he had turned around and gone the wrong way on Spring Street, ending up on Pine Street at Mamma’Zu, reputed to be the best Italian restaurant this side of Washington, D.C.