While police remain mum on details of the murder, witnesses claim gunman fired shots at man who shouted “Police!” while chasing gunman from hospital.
He scrolled down to see if the story had been updated.
And he found that there was something new. It was a single-sentence paragraph at the end of the article:
Update (5:44 p.m.): According to the anonymous source inside the hospital, the patient who was shot to death was J. Warren Olde, Jr.
Then Dowbrowski scrolled down to the comments section. His comment was there, of course:
From Hung.Up.Badge.But.Not.Gun (2:56 p.m.):
I talked to an inside source, too, and was told that this was a hit job. Maybe not a professional one, but the burn victim (there?s more to that story that I cannot share) was targeted. So sad to see this happening in Philly. I?ll say it again: Shoot?em all and let the Good Lord sort?em out.
And below it there were five new postings, including one that seemed vaguely familiar:
From Death.Before.Dishonor (3:20 p.m.):
What about “Thou Shalt Not Steal”??
The only sad thing about what happened is the gun didn?t empty all of its bullets into that pendejo! Skipper deserved every damn bullet!
Recommend [0] Click Here to Report Abuse And he repeated to himself: “Something there’s not right.”
At three twenty, that article had not ID’d who got shot.
And it sure as hell hadn’t said “Skipper.”
I only know the guy’s name was Skipper Olde because Stephanie told me. And that he was the son of that McMansion builder.
He glanced over at the secondary LCD screen, where he could see the e-mail in-box. The list of e-mails included Stephanie’s.
Maybe this guy knew him, too?
But how did he find out?
And that screen name, “Death.Before.Dishonor,” rings a bell.
Where the hell else I have seen it?
He sipped his bourbon, then clicked around the newspaper site, trying to remember.
He saw a link in the box that read TODAY’S MOST READ ARTICLES.
In the box was: 2 DEAD AFTER METH LAB EXPLODES, BURNS PHILLY INN MOTEL.
He felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
That’s it!
Death.Before.Dishonor had posted a comment at the end of that article that said, “Fuck you!” and something else.
It was listed right after mine.
He clicked on the link, then scrolled down. He found his comment and the one after it:
From Hung.Up.Badge.But.Not.Gun (9:50 a.m.):
Amen to both of you, Indy1 amp; WWBFD. I spent enough time walking the beat to see everything at least once. And nothing is as insidious as what these drugs do to families of every walk of life. I say, Shoot?em all and let the Good Lord sort?em out.
Recommend [4] Click Here to Report Abuse From HowYouseGuysDoin’ (9:22 a.m.):
And amen to that! I?ll provide the ammo! This nonsense has got to stop. The inmates are running the asylum!
Recommend [1] Click Here to Report Abuse He scrolled farther down the list. There were four other comments.
But not one from Death.Before.Dishonor.
And clearly not the one that ranted about “fuck you!”-oh, and said that drugs were no different from booze and hookers.
It’s gone now.
Huh. Guess someone reported it as abuse, and they pulled it off.
Stanley Dowbrowski quickly clicked back to the article on the Temple University Hospital murder.
He scrolled down and saw that the Death.Before.Dishonor comment was still there.
He clicked on the printer icon, and in a minute his color printer was spitting out sheets with the article and all of its comments on it.
Then he reached over and picked up the phone. He punched in a number.
Great.
Got his answering machine.
“Yo, Tony,” he said to the answering machine. “Stanley Dowbrowski here. Sorry to bother you this late at home. But I got something weird here. Not sure what. Or even if it’s really anything. But it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. It’s about that shooting at the hospital. And the motel that blew up over on Frankford. That damn thing rattled the hell out of my windows this morning. Thought the world was coming to an end. Anyway, give me a call when you can. 555-1840. Later.”
Stanley Dowbrowski then picked up his James O. Born cop novel and wheezed his way down the hall to the bedroom.