Wednesday, May 26th 9:00 A.M.
The last three days had slid by without anything unusual transpiring, at least on the Jeffrey Byrne matter. Sunday was a sleep-in-late kind of day, followed by a Phillies game on TV and a few naps in between mental re-hashes of the prior late-night conversation with Cynthia Byrne. Dean felt a pang of guilt for not putting the day to better use but figured he deserved a little time off to reconnoiter. Fred spent most of Sunday in his room either reading or playing with his notes until Dean had enticed him out by the smell of two steaks slapped on the outside grill. It was a subdued meal with neither mentioning the prior evening's conversation. Tommy DeLeo and his wife had invited them both over for a family cookout but Dean didn't want to be around someone else's comfortable world when his was a tossed salad.
By the time Dean made it to the kitchen Monday morning, Fred had already left on the early bus to Scranton. The note on the refrigerator said he'd be back in a couple of days and would check in by phone. Dean was beginning to have serious reservations about the trip and his tacit agreement to it now that it was a reality. In the meantime, Dean had all he could do to keep up with Parkside's police day-to-day activities.
The week started with a flurry of activity. On Monday, three Colombians were brutally murdered in Philadelphia and their dismembered body parts scattered like Easter eggs around the city of Brotherly Love. The crime was selling a zillion newspapers as the bloodthirsty public read with glee details of the gruesome treasure hunt that continued throughout the week. Somebody was making a statement and someone else wasn't taking it too well. By Tuesday afternoon, the Colombians had retaliated. Homer Flanders, Tic-Face to some of his friends, was found resting in a quiet corner of the Parkside bus terminal, his throat slit like a second grin. A small Colombian flag was neatly tucked in his open mouth. "No, Mabel, that ain't no bright red sweater on the guy in the corner! Oh, me-God! They done opened him up like a catfish!"
The Ice Lady of the Parkside Sentinel went bonkers. While killings in Philadelphia were fun reading, a murder in Parkside was a far different matter. Homer might not have been a resident, but he was murdered in our bus terminal! The streets of her city were no longer safe for women and children. Parkside was no safer than the worst of the worst-we might as well be living in Philadelphia, or, God forbid, The Big Apple! The Parkside men in blue were nothing but a bunch of incompetent misfits who should all be fired, so continued the tirade. School crossing guards offer better protection.