Though he was a street smart patrolman, the brass ruled him out for detective work due to his inexperience. The others on the squad all had years in homicide. Rejected a third time, Stone didn’t punch the wall in frustration, hit the bars, or go home and kick the dog.

He became motivated instead. On the way out of the captain’s office, he angrily ripped an old wanted poster off the squad room bulletin board. I’ll show them, he thought. The yellowed poster had hung there for eight years, so long that it left its outline on the board.

The fugitive in the picture was still wanted for murdering his wife. First degree. The man had a rap sheet longer than most people are tall, for him getting busted was a lifelong habit. How, Stone wondered, could this guy not be arrested in the eight years since he murdered his wife? Something was clearly wrong.

He called records. Nothing in their computers, but the warrants division still showed him as wanted. Evidently nobody had bothered to send a copy of the warrant to records. Or if they did, some one had slipped up and never filed it. Stone asked ID to transmit the man’s fingerprint classification to the FBI, to ask if he been arrested anywhere since the murder. And guess what? The FBI quickly responded that the man had been arrested 27 times under another name during the past eight years. His offenses were mostly minor; drunk driving, shoplifting, assault and battery. Most recent arrest? Six weeks earlier, up in Ocala, Fl.

Stone called Ocala’s police chief. "Here’s the real name of a man you arrested three months ago," he said. "We want him in Miami for murder. Think he might still be up there somewhere?"

The chief called back an hour later. "We’ve got him for you," he said. "Come and get him."

Stone had found the fugitive in less than two hours with a few phone calls. He landed the job on the Cold Case Squad.