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“No. Give it to me. Maybe I’ll take it to a psychic.”
Candelle chuckled.
“I really am sorry, Tony,” he said.
Harris punched him affectionately on the arm.
“We both are, Dick,” he said. “What do you feel like eating? ”
They went to DiNic’s in the Reading Terminal Market on Twelfth Street and sat on stools at a counter. Both ordered roast pork sandwiches with sharp provolone cheese and roasted hot peppers and washed them down with beer.
“I hate to reopen a wound,” Candelle said, “but I just had another unpleasant thought.”
“Which is?”
“It’s really a shame Luther Stecker retired.”
“Who’s he?”
“The State Police guy, in Harrisburg. Lieutenant.”
“Oh, yeah. I don’t think he could have done anything you couldn’t,” Harris said. “I hadn’t heard he’d retired.”
Candelle looked at his watch.
“Today,” he said. “I was invited to his retirement party. Tonight. I decided Harrisburg was too far to drive for free beer.”
“What makes you think he could have helped?”
“He’s got a new machine, AFIS. It stands for Automated Fingerprint Identification System.”
“And?”
“It’s supposed to be able to get points off a week-old print on a dry falling leaf in a high wind.”
“You’re serious?”
Candelle nodded.
“Harrisburg, here I come,” Tony said.
“I told you, Stecker’s retiring today.”
“Well, there ought to be somebody else out there who knows how to operate this wonder machine.”
“Tony, if I thought there was, I’d suggest you go out there.”
“Well, won’t the FBI have one?” Harris asked. “As a last desperate move, I’m going to send the goddamn hat to them.”
“They probably have a half-dozen of them. But whether they have anybody who knows how to use one, get all that it is capable of from it, is another question.” He paused, then added, “There’s a question of experience, even art, in this.”
“So we’re dead, huh?”
Candelle shrugged.
“It looks that way. I’m sorry. So what are you going to do now?”
“We’re down to showing the artist’s sketches to everybody again. And we both know that’s not going to work. Everybody in the place saw somebody else.”
