The gaunt man took a pencil from his inside pocket and drew the point along his hairline at the forehead. ‘Singed hair along the frontal lobe here. In fact the hair was burned in places. Also some scorched bits of skin embedded in the wall with the pellets that didn’t hit her. The heat from a shotgun blast dissipates very rapidly. So I would say the weapon was three to four feet from the victim’s face when it was fired.
‘Judging from the destruction, the pattern was already wide, seven to eight inches in diameter. Where it hit the wall there it has already spread to ten inches. That’s the kind of dispersal we would normally expect at eight or ten yards. So I would say the gun was fired from the vicinity of the door and that it was sawed off pretty close, maybe eight or nine inches from the firing pin as opposed to a normal barrel length of thirty or thirty-two inches. Mr. Barret?’
‘Thank you, Mr. Grimm. As for the weapon,’ Barret said, ‘if you listen to Sharky’s tape recording you will notice that the two shots came almost simultaneously; in fact they overlap slightly. They are too close together for the weapon to be an automatic or a pump or lever action. So what we got is a sawed-off double-barrel twelve-gauge shotgun and one that was very effectively silenced.’
‘A lupara?’ Livingston asked, and there was surprise in his voice.
‘What’s a lupara?’ Sharky said.
‘It’s Sicilian for a shotgun of this kind. The classic Mafia execution weapon,’ Barret said. ‘Certainly a possibility.’
‘You sayin’ this is a Mafia hit?’ Friscoe said.
‘I’m saying it’s a similar kind of weapon. And I’m also saying that this was no amateur at work. No amateur would have a weapon like that. Certainly not one that was silenced. Besides, this was very well planned.’
‘There’s another thing,’ Twigs said. He knelt and picked up one of the pellets from a plastic bag with a pair of tweezers and held it under Friscoe’s nose.
‘Smell anything?’
‘Yeah,’ Friscoe said, ‘gunpowder.’
‘Anything else?’
Friscoe closed his eyes and sniffed. His forehead wrinkled up. ‘What is that — garlic?’
‘Exactly,’ Twigs said.
‘Don’t tell me,’ Friscoe said, ‘the shotgun had spaghetti for dinner.’
Barret smiled. ‘Perhaps. It is another Mafia trademark. The caporegimi, the Mafia lieutenants, sometimes soaked their bullets in garlic. it infected the wound and also made the wound more painful. It was a tactic used mostly for revenge or official executions. But never in a shotgun. it’s quite strange.’
‘You’re not saying this is some kind of official Mafia hit?’ Friscoe said.
‘I tend to doubt it.’
‘What then?’
‘Maybe it’s part of his m.o.,’ Sharky said.
‘That’s more like it,’ Barret said. ‘A habit. Or perhaps even a trademark.’
‘So he could be an old-time caporegime,’ Livingston said.
Barret nodded.
‘What the hell good is that?’ Friscoe said. ‘So you’ve narrowed the field down to a coupla thousand ace hitmen spread out all over the country. Big deal.’
‘Profiles, dear Barney, profiles,’ Twigs said. ‘A few more details. The projectile was upward. You can tell from the way the shots hit the wall. The victim measures approximately 178 centimetres, that’s about five-ten. Assuming from the other physical evidence that the killer was standing in the doorway, we can draw an imaginary line from the centre of the pattern through the victim’s head to a point where the killer was standing. We can assume he did not shoot from the hip. If he had, the second shot probably would have hit him in his own chin. So he either fired with the piece under his armpit or against his shoulder. From all this we can make a pretty good guess at the killer’s height. Mr. Barret?’
Barret had drawn a diagram on a sheet of paper and was punching the keys of a small pocket calculator. ‘Five-nine tops. More likely five-seven or eight. Also from the position of the two shots, I would say you’re looking for an over- under double-barrel rather than a side-by-side.’
‘Pretty common, right?’ Friscoe said.
‘Yes,’ said Barret, ‘I wouldn’t waste my time trying to trace the gun. The significant thing is that it adds to his m.o.’
‘The more you talk, the more I think we better get Riley and company up here fast,’ Friscoc said. ‘Let Homicide and the OC worry about it — it’s their problem.’
‘If D’Agastino gets involved you can forget it,’ The Nosh said. ‘Before it’s over, he and Riley will be killing each other. That D’Agastino actually keeps evidence to himself so the OC can get the glory.’
‘That’s okay. I’ll put Riley against him any day. You ain’t seen nothin’ till you’ve seen that crazy Irishman mad.’
‘Barney, Phil Riley got his job because he deserved it. D’Agastino is a politician. In your experience which gets preference ih the official hierarchy, politics — or talent? Riley’s going to spend weeks wading through the red tape and then he’ll be lucky if the case stays in his department.’ Twigs took out his Maalox bottle and celebrated his analysis with a swig of brandy.
‘Let’s add up what we know about the shooter, shall we’?’ Barret said. ‘I think we’re looking for an old-timer, some.. one with definite habits. Extremely cautious, a careful planner, experienced enough to be sure of himself. I’d say he goes back a ways. The young ones avoid habits. They vary their methods constantly to avoid detection. The older ones are too set in their ways. They follow traditions. They’re scared to make changes. They stick with what they know works. So I’d say an old-timer definitely. Late forties, early fifties at least, maybe older. Five-seven to five-nine. Quite possibly a contact killer, someone who likes to work close to the victim, perhaps even psychopathic in that sense. Mafia and possibly an executioner fairly high in the Mafia hierarchy, because of the garlic thing. The use of garlic these days, I would think, is part of his ritual, something associated with luck or tradition.’
‘Thank you, Mr. Barret,’ Twigs said.
‘Thank you, Mr. Grimm,’ Barret said.
Papa broke into the conversation from the balcony. ‘You know what I think?’
‘God knows,’ Friscoe said.
‘The fink was watchin’ the apartment. Had to’ve been. Wouldn’t stand in the stairwell all day waitin’ for her to come home. Wouldn’t be out in the open — too easy to spot. Phone call was probably to make sure she was home. Had to be where he could see lights come on. He was watchin’. From over there someplace.’ He gestured towards the east tower.
They all looked towards the other building, at the irregular boxes of light shining through apartment windows. Sharky felt a sudden chill. Goose pimples rippled along his arm and he rubbed them away as surreptitiously as he could. Perhaps the killer had been there, all day, watching as Sharky listened from his perch on the roof. Anger began replacing the sorrow he felt for Domino, worms nudging his instinct for revenge, urging it into motion. He remembered the previous day when they were planting the mikes in the apartment and Domino had returned. He said, ‘Papa’s right. He had to be watching. It happened too fast to be luck or coincidence. And you can’t see this apartment from the street. Yesterday Arch had to warn The Nosh and me when we were up here. We couldn’t see her when she came home.’
‘You can’t see it too good from the swimming terrace, either,’ Papa said. ‘Which leaves the north side of the building, and that’s all residential, a lot of trees and backyards. . .‘
‘And over there,’ Papa said.
They all stood on the balcony, looking across at the east tower.
‘He could be sitting over there watching us right now,’ said Twigs.
‘You kiddin”?’ Friscoe said, ‘He’s halfway to Detroit by now.’
‘Makes sense, y’know,’ Barret agreed. ‘Perhaps an empty apartment?’