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“I did an area search with Officers Baskin and Casey We found a perfectly good man’s coat in a trash can on the Embarcadero A witness who may have seen the shooter told the unifor a nice coat So the coat we found qualifies as nice, and there were gloves in the pockets Maybe it was dumped by the shooter We handed it off to CSI Hallows”

Moran asked about the victim, and Hallows told him

that she had been shot twice in the chest No casings on the ground No ID on her person No phone Twenty-two dollars and thirty-eight cents in her coat pocket

“I’ll haveand after the ME signs off”

Stevens said to Hallows, “You’ve got my number”

I told Stevens I’d send him a copy of ood deed We can take it from here” He turned his back

You’re welcome

Conklin and I headed to our cars,through the perimeter We stood outside the tape as the ME’s techs moved in and prepared to remove the body

We could hear Stevens joking with Moran, saying that it was a good night for an unsolvable o down

Moran said, “Yeah, but no one is barking”

Their banter gave me a headache Someone had been murdered in a tourist area The crime scene had been contaminated by passersby The shooter and any witnesses to the crime had fled

Stevens and Moran just didn’t care

CHAPTER 28

THE WIND WAS to our backs as Conklin and I unlocked our cars

I said across the roof, “Here’s a thought, Richie They’re padding their time sheets I wonder how many hundreds of man-hours they can bury in a case with no witnesses The more dead ends, the better”