Trueman Bradley - Aspie Detective Read Online Free Page B

He had holstered his gun and was leaning over me.
    “Trueman, are you okay?” he asked.
    “No,” I said. “I need to relax. I’m tense.”
    “No wonder!” he said. “You just got robbed!”
    “I did?” I asked.
    “Sure, you did!” said the cab driver. “That guy was trying to take all that cash in your coat. Lucky I was following you.”
    “Why were you following me?” I asked.
    The cab driver pulled out a badge and showed it to me.
    “Detective Sam Buckley, NYPD,” he said.
    “You mean New York Police Department?” I asked. “You’re a police officer?”
    “You could say that,” he said. “I’m a detective. Chief of detectives, actually. I was in the middle of setting up an undercover operation when I picked you up. I followed you ’cause I figured someone would try to rob you, walking around with all that cash. And what do you know? I was right! But it looks like he didn’t have the sense to take this with him.”
    He picked up the trench coat full of cash.
    “I guess I spooked him, huh?” he asked.
    He handed me the trench coat and helped me put it on.
    “I’m still missing 5,940 dollars,” I said. “Someone stole it from my pocket while I was in the teller’s queue.”
    “Oh, yeah?” he asked. “Okay, well that must’ve been this same guy that just tried to rob you. I watched him walking with you into the bank. He must have picked your pocket while you were walking with him. Thieves like him are good at what they do. They can reach into your pocket and take your money so gently that you don’t even notice.”
    “Seth stole my money?” I asked.
    “So that’s his name?” he asked. “Well, that helps. Listen, come with me. We’ll write up a quick theft report and then I got to get back to the station. Come on, Trueman, let’s go. This place stinks like hell and my cab’s double-parked.”

3
The Crime-Fighting Equation
    Reade Street was busy. Pedestrians and disturbing sounds were everywhere. But we were safe inside a cab. Detective Sam Buckley and I were parked on the street, outside my office.
    “So, you’re not really a cab driver?” I asked.
    “No,” he said. “This is just part of an undercover job I was working on. I get to pretend to be a cabbie. Lucky me, huh? Now let’s finish filling this report, alright?”
    He was writing the details of the robbery in his notebook. I watched him as he wrote. His brow was furrowed from concentration and his jaw was clenched. He was handsome, with black hair. He had a powerful physique and a square jaw. He looked a lot like Superman, from the original comic book series.
    “Did you know the Slam Bradley comic books were published before the first Superman comics?” I asked. “They say Slam was used as the model for Superman. That’s why they look so similar. You look a lot like Slam.”
    “Slam?” he asked. “Is this about the robbery, here? No, I don’t think so. I asked you about details. Let’s stick to the subject, Trueman. I don’t exactly have a lot of time on my hands, you know? Can you describe the guy that robbed you?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    He had his pen positioned on the paper, ready to write.
    “He was wearing a blue hat,” I said.
    “Good,” he said.
    “He was wearing navy blue jeans and a brown suede jacket,” I said. “And his hair was brown. His eyes were gray.”
    “Okay, Trueman,” he said, “I think that’s all we need.”
    “He had six holes in his jeans,” I said. “None of the holes were more than two inches in diameter. His shampoo smelled like coconuts. I recognized the smell of his wet hair. It smelled like someone who had just showered, maybe ten minutes earlier.”
    “Are you serious?” he asked.
    “Yes,” I said. “He had slight brown discoloration on the middle and index fingers of his left hand. From my experience, that means he smokes cigarettes with his left hand. I know it was cigarettes because I recognized the smell. It was the smell of a Marlborough Lite brand