The tipster claimed to be a member of the Philly PD’s homicide squad, and was a fan of his work. (Lie #1, right there. The tipster wouldn’t be doing this unless it benefited him somehow.) He said that he’d been called to the scene of a weird triple homicide that he thought was just like the killings Knack had been writing about. (Lie #2, most likely. The tipster was trying to sound working-class, loquacious. Homicide cops considered themselves neither.) So either somebody was tipping him off for real, or this was somebody fucking with him. The caller ID pinpointed the caller’s location as Philly. And so far, other details had been right—the name of the bar, the approximate time of the attack. Still, Knack had this feeling he was being played. He’d driven up I-95 from D.C. and immediately started working the fringes—neighbors, people hanging on the scene. After a while he had enough to file a question-mark piece to his editor at the Slab: “Has Green’s killer struck again?”
