Emile nodded. "Yes."
"You were right about him."
"Right how? That he works for O'Malley?"
Loud shouts came from half a block down the street. Emile heard feet pounding on the brick pavement as policemen ran toward him and Dantonio. The detective turned around and looked down the street. Then he glanced back at Emile. "If you know what's good for you, stay out of it, or you'll end up just like Teddy."
As two uniformed policemen arrived, Emile tugged on Dantonio's jacket. "I heard him speaking to you in Sicilian. What did he say?"
One of the cops shoved Emile out of the way. Then the patrolmen hung Dantonio's arms across their shoulders and hauled him off the porch.
"What did he say to you, John?" Emile shouted.
Dantonio stumbled along between his two escorts to the sidewalk. Then he glanced over his shoulder at Emile. "I already told you what he said. But I'll tell you again, Denoux, because I want you to listen. He said, stay out of it."
CHAPTER 23
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1919
12:15 P.M.
"The first bullet entered here," Dr. Delachaise said, twisting the tip of his index finger into a hole in Salvatore Marcello's bare chest. The hole was one inch above Marcello's left nipple and two inches toward his sternum.
The doctor stood on the opposite side of the examination table from me. "It traversed the chest cavity along a horizontal track, exiting ..." He rolled Marcello onto his side so I could see the dead man's back. "Here, between the left scapula and the spine." The jagged hole in Marcello's back was the size of a quarter, roughly four times larger than the entry wound. Dr. Delachaise probed the hole with his bare finger. "The path of the bullet probably passed through the left atrium and likely took a piece of the scapula out with it."
"Fatal?" I asked.
The doctor returned the body to its supine position, then peered at me through his thick glasses. "Probably fatal, although it hardly mattered since the second shot was certainly and instantaneously fatal."
Salvatore Marcello had a bullet hole in his face, an inch below his left eye.
"How do you know which shot was fired first?" I asked.
The doctor lifted Marcello's head by the hair. He rubbed two fingers against a bump high on the back of the head, near the crown. "Unless I'm very much mistaken, this protrusion is from the bullet striking the back of the skull. When I open the cranium, I'll dig it out, but for now let's assume I'm correct."
"Okay," I said.
When the doctor let go of Marcello's head, it struck the iron examination table with a wet thunk. "Did you note the height difference between the wound to the face and the protrusion on the back of the skull?" Delachaise asked.
"The bump is higher."
"By at least two inches, indicating an upward trajectory of the bullet."
I nodded.
The doctor continued. "Mr. Marcello was only five feet, five inches tall, so unless he was attacked by a midget, the killer was probably as tall or taller than him and would not have had to reach up to shoot him in the face. Therefore, I think the shot to the face was fired after Mr. Marcello was already on the ground."
Feeling as if I were back in school and had to prove to the teacher that I was paying attention, I pointed to the faint black stippling on Marcello's face. "He's got powder burns on his face. Did he have any on his jacket or shirt?"
Dr. Delachaise's eyes brightened behind the lenses of his glasses. "An excellent question. In fact, there were no traces of gunpowder residue on his jacket or shirt, which means ..." He looked at me expectantly.
"That the shot to his face was fired from closer range than the one to his chest."
The doctor was beaming. "Exactly. And since it would seem natural for the killer to advance on his fallen foe rather than retreat from him, we can reasonably conclude that after putting Mr. Marcello down with the shot to his chest, the killer then stood over him, probably somewhere near Mr. Marcello's feet, which would account for the slight upward trajectory, and shot him in the face, thus delivering the coup de grace."
"Your theory fits the facts."
Dr. Delachaise smiled. "You know, Detective Fitzgerald, you are the only policeman I'm acquainted with who is even the slightest bit interested in the rigorous application of science to the craft of criminal investigation." He waved a hand in the air. "Your colleagues seem entirely uninterested."
"That's because it's easier to beat a confession out of someone than to search for evidence," I said.
"Indeed," the doctor said in an offhanded way as he straightened Marcello's head. Then he turned to a steel tray resting on top of a wheeled cart beside the examination table. A soiled cloth covered the bottom of the tray. Inside the tray lay the doctor's autopsy instruments. "The sooner I start this, the sooner I can get to your Mr. Pepitone." He picked a scalpel from the jumble of steel tools.
"Can you tell what caliber the gun was?" I asked.
The doctor set the scalpel back down and looked at me. "Another good question." He pushed his glasses higher on his nose and then used his index finger to again probe the entry wound in Marcello's chest. "What kind of pistol do you carry?"
"An Army forty-five."
"Can you extract one of the bullets and let me use it for a moment? I need something for comparison."
I drew my Colt pistol and noticed that the doctor leaned away from me as I pushed the release button on the side of the grip and dropped the seven-round magazine into my left hand. I thumbed out the top cartridge and handed it to him.
He rolled the heavy cartridge around in his hand, then held it with his fingertips and examined the bulbous, copper-jacketed bullet protruding from the brass case. "I thought all policemen carried thirty-eight-caliber revolvers."
"I used to," I said. "But not anymore."
"And why is that?"
"In France, I saw my platoon sergeant shoot a German four times with a thirty-eight. All of them good shots, dead center, just like they taught us. But the squarehead didn't die until after he buried his bayonet in the sergeant's chest."
"That makes sense," Dr. Delachaise said, still staring at the cartridge. "The projectile is bigger and obviously heavier, so even though it would, presumably, travel at a reduced speed, it would strike the target with more force, and its larger mass would create greater tissue damage, thus more and faster blood loss and increased impairment of the central nervous system, all of which would result in ... a quicker death."
"Yeah," I said. "That's just what I was thinking."
The doctor ignored my sarcasm and tried to insert the tip of the .45 cartridge into the hole in Marcello's chest. It wouldn't fit. "Too big by about twenty percent," he said. "Which would likely make the bullet that killed Mr. Marcello ..."
"A thirty-eight," I said.
He nodded, then wiped my now-bloody .45 cartridge on his filthy apron and handed it back to me. I reloaded it into the magazine and shoved the magazine back into my pistol.
Dr. Delachaise seemed in a contemplative mood as he lit a cigarette and reached for the Dickel bottle. After pouring himself another drink, he held the bottle out to me, but I shook my head. The doctor took a long sip of whiskey, then asked me, "Have you ever heard of the emerging science of ballistics?"
"No."
"I think it will revolutionize criminal investigation."
The smoke from the doctor's cigarette smelled good. I pointed to it. "Got another one?"
He handed me a cigarette and I lit it. The smoke burned as it went down, but it tasted good. I thought about the whiskey, how it might work to wash the taste of death out of my mouth. I nodded toward the bottle. "Changed my mind," I said.
"By all means." He passed the bottle to me. "I often find that a little libation liberates my mind for higher level thinking."
"I usually find just the opposite," I said as I poured a couple of fingers of whiskey into the same beaker I had used earlier. After a generous sip, I said, "What were you saying about revoluti
onizing criminal investigation?"
Dr. Delachaise looked up at the ceiling and scratched his chin. "Imagine if you could extract a bullet from a murder victim and prove scientifically that it was fired from the suspect's gun."
"That would be great evidence in court, but is it even possible?"
He nodded. "The science not only exists, it is being used in several jurisdictions."
"Why haven't I heard about it?"
The doctor drained his beaker of whiskey in one gulp and then wiped his lips on his shirtsleeve. "Because no judge in Louisiana has accepted the science behind the methodology."
"How does it work?"
He set down his empty beaker and held up a finger. "Wait here." Then he rushed out the door.
As I waited beside the putrefying remains of Salvatore Marcello, I could hear Dr. Delachaise across the hall rummaging through his cluttered office. He was gone nearly ten minutes, long enough for me to wonder if I should leave and come back later. The stench of death was making me nauseous. Then the door banged open and the doctor burst through waving a magazine high in the air. "Took some searching, but I found it."
"Found what?"
The doctor spread a hand towel across Marcello's bare chest and laid the magazine on top of the towel to prevent it from getting bloody. The magazine was the June 1900 issue of the Buffalo Medical Journal. Recognizing that I had taken note of the publication date and the yellowed pages, Dr. Delachaise said, "The science has been around for some time." He flipped to a dog-eared page in the middle, to an article titled "The Missile and the Weapon" by Dr. Albert Llewellyn Hall.
Dr. Delachaise tapped a bony, blood-crusted finger on the text. "In this article, Dr. Hall describes how to scientifically link a bullet to the gun that fired it, something that, given the right circumstances, can be done with absolute certainty."
"How?"
"By using a microscope or a powerful magnifying lens to compare the striae on the surface of the evidentiary bullet to those on a bullet fired from the same gun."
"Striae?" I asked, butchering the word and again getting that feeling of being back in school, and failing.
"The plural form of the Latin word stria, meaning the tiny grooves cut into the bullet as it passes through the barrel."
I nodded. Not having done too well in science class, or Latin, I didn't have much to say.
"As you are no doubt aware," Dr. Delachaise continued, "the reason a bullet spins through the air upon being fired is due to the twisting action imparted to it as it travels the length of the barrel. The barrel provides torque to the bullet by means of a series of twisting grooves cut longitudinally into the barrel's inner surface."
I knew that much, but I didn't interrupt him.
"When the projectile, which has a microscopically greater diameter than the barrel, is driven down the barrel by the explosion of the powder charge contained in the shell, the ridges between the grooves, called lands, force the bullet to spin."
"I understand how a gun works, Doctor, but how does this magnified comparison prove that a certain gun fired a certain bullet?"
"Because no two barrels are cut exactly the same," Dr. Delachaise said. "The lands and grooves of each barrel leave distinctive striae-marks, if you will-on the bullets that pass through them, and those marks are distinguishable from the marks left on projectiles fired from any other gun."
For a moment, I rolled the possibilities over in my mind. "So to match one bullet to another, you would need to have the same gun in order to fire a second bullet to compare with the first?"
"Exactly," he said. "Although, logically speaking, you could, of course, also base a match on the comparison of two bullets that were already known to have been fired from the same gun."
I thought of the two missing bullets fired from Michael Pepitone's revolver.
After moving the journal to the instrument cart, Dr. Delachaise picked up his scalpel and carved an incision from the back of Marcello's right ear, across the top of his scalp, to the back of his left ear. Then he set down the scalpel and wedged the fingers of both hands into the incision and yanked down hard. Marcello's face peeled away from his skull like the rind being pared from an orange.
I felt the whiskey in my stomach churning.
"With any luck," the doctor said," we can find a relatively undamaged bullet at the back of the cranial vault."
"With any luck," I repeated.
Using the scalpel again, Dr. Delachaise sliced and peeled the skin from the back of Marcello's head. Then he tossed the scalpel back into the steel tray and picked up a foot-long bone saw. The blade had a fine serrated edge and a tear-shaped metal guard around the handle. At the back of the blade was a small round hole for the operator's index finger.
The doctor pressed the blade against Marcello's forehead and started sawing back and forth across the bare bone. When the serrated edge cut through to the interior of the skull, blood sprayed with each push and pull. Fortunately for me, Dr. Delachaise rotated Marcello's leering skeletal face away as he worked the saw around to the back of the head.
When the cut was finished, the doctor pried off the top of Marcello's skull with a chisel and exposed his brain. It was pink and had the consistency of cranberry sauce.
My stomach was doing flip-flops and threatening to push the whiskey back up my throat.
Dr. Delachaise lifted Marcello's head and set a steel pan beneath it. He used his fingers to scoop the gelatinous red mess into the pan. "The brain is usually a solid structure, much like a sponge," he said. "Most of the time it can be removed intact. In this case, the gunshot to the head caused severe structural damage." Using a wooden spoon, the doctor scraped out the last bits of brain from Marcello's skull.
Next he picked up a pair of forceps from his instrument tray and fished around inside the nearly empty, blood-smeared skull. "Aha," he said. "Just as I thought."
I clenched my teeth and took a step closer to the examination table. "What?"
When the doctor didn't answer, I leaned in closer and saw he was using the pointed tips of the forceps to pick at something lodged at the back of the skull. After a few seconds, he withdrew the forceps. Squeezed between the tips was a bullet enveloped in a sticky coating of red gore.
"As I suspected," he said, beaming. "After penetrating the cheekbone and the nasal cavity, the bullet traversed the brain and embedded itself in the posterior portion of the cranial vault."
I put my hand on the doctor's wrist and pulled the bullet closer. It was slightly deformed, with a smashed nose and bulging sides. "Is it in good enough shape for a comparison?"
The doctor turned toward the wheeled cart and reached for the bottom shelf. He pulled out another bottle of George Dickel, uncorked the top, and poured a shot into a dirty beaker. "I hate to waste good whiskey, but in the interest of science I'll make an exception." Then he dipped the bullet, still clutched between the ends of the forceps, into the amber liquid and swirled it around.
When Dr. Delachaise pulled the bullet from the whiskey, the blood was mostly gone. He winked at me. "Officially, that's why I keep the whiskey around. It makes an excellent cleaning solvent."
He pointed to the barely discernable scratches along the side of the projectile. "Those are the striae I was telling you about. If you can find the gun, we can fire a test bullet into a bucket of water and compare the two."
As Dr. Delachaise dropped the bullet into a small buff-colored evidence envelope, I glanced along the row of examination tables, my eyes resting on the body of Michael Pepitone lying two tables away from me, ready for autopsy. I already knew how he had died. What I needed to know was who had swung the ax. I wasn't going to find that out by standing around the morgue watching Dr. Delachaise cut up another body.
CHAPTER 24
DANTONIO RETIRES AFTER MANY YEARS ON POLICE FORCE
Was Specialist In Italian Crimes And Black Hand Cases.
-The Daily Picayune
MAY 27, 1918
10:15 A.M.
> Emile Denoux had been sitting on the hard wooden bench in the fourth-floor lobby of the office building on Lafayette Street for an hour, though it seemed much longer. The middle-aged blond receptionist who had told him to take a seat and wait had been filing her nails the entire time. The uncomfortable bench had given Emile a backache. He was waiting to see the man most people regarded as the most powerful in the city-Dominick O'Malley.
Ostensibly, O'Malley was just one of many successful businessmen in New Orleans. He owned the city's largest private detective and security agency and had lucrative contracts to protect several important businesses and institutions, among them, the Thalia Street Wharf, the French Market, and Charity Hospital. His agency also did investigative work for Lionel Adams, the former district attorney who was now chief legal counsel for Carlo Matranga's network of businesses.
But what made Dominick O'Malley so powerful was the political influence he wielded. Although he held no official position within city government, O'Malley had been president of the Choctaw Club for almost ten years. Anyone who was anyone in New Orleans, or who hoped to someday be anyone, had to be a member of the Choctaw Club, and to become a member, an applicant had to obtain the approval of Dominick O'Malley. The mayor, the district attorney, the police chief, the city treasurer, the criminal and civil sheriffs, every judge, and every city councilman were all members of the Choctaw Club, as were the city's wealthiest businessmen.
Officially, the Choctaw Club, in addition to being a private social club that organized the city's most extravagant Mardi Gras parade and hosted its most lavish Mardi Gras ball, was also the headquarters of the city's ruling political party, the Regular Democrats, and Dominick O'Malley was the party chairman. Those twin posts, president of the Choctaw Club and chairman of the Regular Democrats, made O'Malley the de facto leader of the unofficial party-within-a-party known as the Ring, the political machine that had dominated New Orleans politics since Reconstruction.
Every appointed position in city government, from superintendent of police to the lowliest file clerk, was awarded as the result of Ring patronage. The Ring also ensured, through whatever means necessary-bribery, extortion, intimidation, and sometimes outright murder-that only its candidates won elective office.
The Axman of New Orleans Page 14