Mortal Wounds

by Max Allan Collins

  Grissom’s half-smirk was humorless. “We’d like to solve it too, Jim. We’re all working double shifts, what more—”

  “Whoa, whoa,” Brass interrupted, holding up a palm. “Remember me? I’m on your side.”

  Shaking his head, Grissom said, “Sorry. Stress. We’re all feeling the pressure on this one.”

  “Warrick said it was like a sickness.”

  “The flu you can get over,” Grissom said. “Search for the truth has no cure.”

  “Who said that?”

  Grissom blinked. “Me.”

  Looking surprisingly fresh in a blue silk blouse and black slacks, Catherine strolled in, a devious smile making her lovely face even lovelier.

  “I was wondering who committed the crime,” Grissom said.

  “What crime?” she asked.

  “So you’re the one that ate the canary.”

  Her smile widened, eyes sparkled.

  Brass looked at her, then Grissom, then back at Catherine. “What?”

  “She knows something,” Grissom said, his own smile forming.

  Pouring herself a cup of coffee, she said, “I know a lot of things.”

  “For instance?”

  “For instance…I know that the same gun killed both Philip Dingelmann and Malachy Fortunato.”

  Brass said, “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. The same killer responsible for two murders, fifteen years apart?”

  Grissom remained skeptical. “We can’t say that yet, can we?”

  “No,” Catherine said, sitting down with them. “Not quite yet. But I can prove that both men were shot with the same gun.”

  Astonished, Brass said, “I thought you found a discarded gun barrel with the mummy.”

  She said, “We did. Riflings matched the bullets we found in Mr. Fortunato’s head, too.”

  Brass struggled to follow. “But the bullets didn’t match Dingelmann, right?”

  “No match, that’s right.”

  “So,” the detective asked, “how can you say they were shot with the same gun?”

  Grissom—arms folded, sitting back—just watched her work.

  “Wait,” Brass said, thinking back, “I’ve got it. This is just like Brad Kendall, the coffee shop guy.”

  “Not quite,” Catherine said. “Even though Kendall had changed out the barrel, we proved he used bullets from a box in his possession, matching the manufacturer’s imprint. We can’t do that here—these bullets not only didn’t come from the same box, they didn’t come from the same manufacturer. Doubtful our man would be using bullets from the same box of ammo, fifteen years later, anyway, right?”

  “Right, right, of course,” Brass said, bewildered.

  Grissom just smiled.

  Catherine continued, “When a bullet is fired from an automatic what happens?”

  Brass sighed. “The firing pin strikes the primer, the bullet fires through the barrel, the casing gets ejected.”

  “Bravo,” Grissom said.

  “Shut up,” Brass said.

  “There are,” Catherine said, “three distinct marks on any shell casing fired from an automatic. Like you said, the firing pin strikes the primer. The extractor scratches the casing as it grabs it, and the casing gets slammed into the breech wall before it’s sent sailing out of the pistol. Each of those strikes leaves its own individual mark that, like fingerprints, is different for every weapon.”

  Eyes narrowed, Brass said, “And you’re saying…”

  “The shell casings from the Beachcomber and the casing we pulled from Mr. Fortunato’s driveway are from the same weapon.”

  Brass allowed a smile to form. “Can we use that in court?”

  “There’s no way of arguing against it,” Grissom said.

  “But couldn’t they say this evidence is tainted, because one of the casings was buried under asphalt for years?”

  Catherine said, “The defense can say that, but saying it’s tainted won’t make it so, and the argument won’t fly.”

  “Why?”

  “You familiar with these guys that collect guns from the Old West?”

  Brass shrugged. “What about them?”

  “Lately they’ve been using these same marks to verify the authenticity of pistols from Little Big Horn.”

  “Matching firing pins to shell casings?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “They’ve dug up shell casings from the battlefield and matched them to firing pins from pistols used by Custer’s men. Those casings have been in the ground for over a hundred years. Our casing was protected from the environment between the gravel and the asphalt, and for only fifteen years.”

  “Science and history meeting,” Grissom said, loving it.

  Brass could only ask, “And this will work?”

  “Yeah,” Grissom said. “It will work fine.”

  “But we don’t have the gun?”

  “Not yet,” Catherine said. “But now we do know we’re only looking for one gun, and the chances are if this guy hasn’t gotten rid of it in the last fifteen years, he won’t get rid of it now.”

  Now Brass had something to offer: “It is amazing how some of these guys have a sentimental attachment to a damn weapon. It’s put a bunch of them away.”

  Sara joined the group. Grabbing a soda out of the fridge, she plopped into the chair next to Brass. She looked at Catherine, but her question was for all of them. “Why would a hit man…gee, somehow that’s fun to say…why would a hit man this successful have a five-year hole in his career? Then, suddenly, resurface now?”

  “A hole?” Grissom asked.

  “Yeah,” Sara said, nodding, sipping her soda, “no one’s reported anything on this guy for just over five years. It’s like he fell off the edge of the world.”

  “Or went to jail for something else,” Brass offered.

  Grissom shook his head. “No, there would have been a set of prints to match, then.”

  Brass said, “Yeah, right. Didn’t think.”

  “Maybe he was sick,” Catherine tried.

  “For five years?” Sara asked.

  “Or retired,” Grissom said.

  They all paused to look at him.

  “Anything’s possible,” he said. “No more guessing—keep digging.”

  “Well, fine,” Sara said, “but where do you look on the Internet for retired hit men?” And she rose and headed back to work, her soda in her hand.

  Brass blew air out and said, “I better get going, too. I’ve got to hit the retailers that sold those running shoes.” He got up, looked at Grissom and shrugged. “I guess we do what the man says.”

  Grissom nodded. “The part about keeping the FBI at bay, I got no problem with.”

  The detective departed leaving Catherine staring at Grissom. “And what was that about?”

  He tried to shrug it off, but she was having none of it.

  “C’mon, tell me.”

  “Politics. Mobley wants to let Culpepper ‘help’ us, then he wants us to make the bust and cut the FBI out of it.”

  “Kind of a dodgy game.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  She smiled. “But then, Culpepper is a real son of a bitch.”

  Grissom managed to keep a straight face. “Yes, he is.”

  In a nicely padded desk-type chair, Warrick sat next to a security guard in front of the wall of Beachcomber monitors. The guard, a short Hispanic guy in his early twenties, had just loaded the tape that Warrick brought in, showing Peter Randall’s back at the poker machine, and Philip Dingelmann’s reaction to seeing Randall. Then Dingelmann disappeared around the corner, Randall got dragged back to the machine, pulled his card, then followed, disappearing around the corner as well.

  They reran the tape and Warrick pointed at Randall. “I want to see anything else you might have with this guy in it.”

  The guard nodded. “He’s here nearly every Monday and Wednesday.”

  Warrick’s pulse skipped. “What was your name again?”

  “Ricky.�
�

  “Hey, Ricky. I’m Warrick.”

  Pleased, the guard said, “Hey, Warrick.”

  “Tell me more about this guy, this regular.”

  “Well, he didn’t come this Wednesday, but he’s a guy who likes the kind of off-times. Even a big place like this, you get to spot the regulars—particularly when studying these monitors for hours and hours.”

  Dingelmann had been murdered Monday morning; and “Peter Randall” had missed his usual Wednesday round of poker-machine playing.

  “This guy, Peter Randall, he’s a regular?”

  “I mean, I don’t know the guy’s name, but he’s been around a lot—but just Mondays and Wednesday, early hours, like I said, off-times, slow times. Some people don’t like a crowded casino.”

  Warrick had never had a preference, as long as the dice were rolling. “Ricky, can you show me some more tapes of Mondays and Wednesdays?”

  “Warrick, don’t get too excited. I don’t wanna get your hopes up, man. You’re not going to see his face on camera any other day either.”

  “Why not?”

  Nodding again, the guard said, “I noticed him, all right? But he’s pretty careful.”

  “If you never saw his face, how do you recognize him?”

  “I don’t know, man—watch these monitors long enough, you get a feel for it. I mean, the back of him always looks the same, right?”

  “Oh-kay,” Warrick said.

  “I mean his height, shape of his head, haircut, even the style of clothes…you just start to read people. Know ’em.”

  “Ricky, you ever get tired of this job, come see me where I work. I may have somethin’ for you.”

  Warrick and his new best friend looked at a tape from the previous Wednesday, about the same time. Again, Randall sat at the poker machine, his back to the camera, obviously wearing a different sports coat. He never turned toward the camera and when they tried other cameras in the casino, he managed to avoid those too.

  “How does a man come in here every day and never get his face on a camera?”

  Ricky shrugged. “Beats me.”

  Warrick rolled his eyes. The guard had been right though, Randall came in every Monday and Wednesday; and his hair, frame, style of dress, made it easy enough to spot him, when you knew what you were looking for. They watched tapes for the Monday before the murder, and of the week before that, loading multiple tape decks of multiple angles on the casino, and Randall always showed up.

  He didn’t always play the same poker machine, but he never went to the tables where he would have to interact with a live dealer. In fact, he usually stuck to the row of poker machines closer to the back door. Monday, Wednesday, week after week, he came. He played for about two hours, then he left. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost. Either way, the next Wednesday, the next Monday, there he was again. And never once did the son of a bitch show his face on any camera.

  Todd Oswalt, the slot manager, stuck his head in once to ask how it was going.

  “We’re still working,” Warrick said. “Still looking. Ricky’s a big help—Ricky’s the man.”

  Ricky beamed, and Oswalt said, “Glad to hear it—was that address a help?”

  “Everything’s a help, sir. But the maildrop he already abandoned. And the address he gave those people was for a street that doesn’t exist.”

  Blond Oswalt in his navy blue suit shook his head and tsk-tsked. “Well, best of luck, Detective Brown.”

  Warrick didn’t correct him. “I’m about due for some luck, sir.”

  Oswalt ducked back out.

  They were five weeks back in the tapes now and Warrick wondered how many of these he should watch before he gave up. In truth, he wondered how many more of these he could take. It was like watching this bastard’s boring life in reverse. On Wednesday of that week, Randall got up from his machine and disappeared off the screen. Warrick looked at the camera pointing up the main aisle—no Randall.

  “Whoa, whoa! Where’d he go?”

  Ricky shook his head as if he had been daydreaming. He swiftly scanned all the screens, finally spotting their man in the frame in the lower right hand corner.

  “He’s over there,” Ricky said, pointing. “Just using the ATM, is all.”

  “Stop the tape,” Warrick said quietly.

  The guard was back in his own world and didn’t hear.

  Warrick said it again, louder. “Stop the tape, Ricky. Run it back.”

  Ricky did as told. “That’s it. We got him. Run it back.”

  Sitting up a little straighter, the guard again ran the tape back. Then, in slow-motion, ran it forward. They watched as Randall—back to the camera—used the ATM again.

  “Yeah,” Warrick said. “Yeah! What bank owns that ATM?”

  Ricky shrugged. “I don’t use the ATM here. I’m sure Mr. Oswalt would know.”

  “Get him. Please.”

  It took the slot host almost ten minutes to return to the security room, but Warrick didn’t care—he had a clue.

  Finally, Oswalt trudged in. “Yes, Detective Brown, what is it?”

  “What bank owns this ATM?” Warrick asked, pointing at the frame.

  “Uh, Wells Fargo. Why?”

  “Mr. Oswalt, thanks.” Warrick patted the guard on the shoulder. “Ricky, muchas gracias for your help, man. And you can take that to the bank.”

  “Hey, I remember that show,” Ricky said, with a grin.

  But Warrick was already gone.

  11

  Nick leaned over to open the door for Sergeant O’Riley, who hopped into the Tahoe for the ride to Marge Kostichek’s. As they rolled across town, O’Riley made a point of studying the features of the SUV. “Nice ride,” he said at last.

  Nick nodded.

  O’Riley shifted his beefy frame in the seat. “Lot better than those for-shit Tauruses they make us drive.”

  Stokes refused to rise to the bait. Though the crime lab unit had helped Homicide solve numerous cases, O’Riley and many of his brethren referred to the CSIs as “the nerd squad” behind their backs. Harboring a feeling that down deep O’Riley longed for the good old days when a detective’s best friend was a length of rubber hose, Nick asked, businesslike, “What was that address again?”

  Pointing up ahead, O’Riley said, “Two more houses—there on the left.”

  Pulling up in front of a tiny bungalow with peeling pale yellow paint and two brown dead bushes that needed removing, Nick parked the Tahoe facing the wrong way. The whole neighborhood looked as though it could use a coat of paint and some TLC. The scraggly grass was almost as brown as the bushes, and as they got closer Nick could make out where the stoop had started to draw away from the house, as if making a break for it. With O’Riley in the lead, they walked up the cracked-and-broken sidewalk and the two crumbly concrete stairs, the detective ringing the bell, then knocking on the door.

  They waited—no answer.

  O’Riley rang again, knocked again, with the same lack of success. O’Riley turned to Nick, shrugged elaborately, and just as they were turning away, a voice blared from behind them.

  “Well, you don’t look like Mormons!”

  They turned, Nick saw a squat woman in a hot pink bathrobe and curlers.

  “We’re with the police, ma’am,” O’Riley said, holding up his badge in its leather wallet. “We’d like to talk to you.”

  Waving an arm she announced, as if to the whole neighborhood, “Better get your asses in here then, ’cause I’m not staying outside in this goddamn heat!”

  With arched eyebrows, Nick looked at O’Riley and O’Riley looked at Nick; whatever unspoken animosity might been between the cop and the CSI melted in the blast-furnace of this woman’s abrasive personality. Nick followed O’Riley back up to the house and through the front door, glad to let the cop take the lead.

  Little eyes squinted at them; her curlers formed a grotesque Medusa. “Don’t just stand there! Close the damn door. Do I look like I can afford to air-condition the whol
e goddamn city?”

  “No, ma’am,” O’Riley said, the idea of a rhetorical question apparently lost on him.

  Closing the door, Nick moved into the pint-sized living room next to the king-sized detective. Looking around, he couldn’t help but feel he had just stepped into an antique mart—and a cluttered one at that. A maroon velvet chaise longue stood under the lace-curtained front window. Next to it, a fern stretched toward the ceiling, threatening to outgrow its pot. The room also contained two tall cherry end tables with doilies on them, a nineteen-inch TV on a metal stand, and the oversized Barcalounger tucked in a corner. In the opposite corner was a writing desk, and everywhere were stacks of things—TV Guides, women’s magazines, antiquing newsletters, newspapers, mail.

  O’Riley, rocking on his feet, said, “Are you Marge Kostichek?”

  “That’s the name on the mailbox, isn’t it? Aren’t you a detective?”

  “I’m Detective O’Riley,” he said, either ignoring or not recognizing the sarcasm, “and this is CSI Nick Stokes.”

  “Cee ess what?”

  Nick amplified: “Crime Scene Investigator.”

  “Why, is it a crime to be a goddamn slob, all of a sudden?”

  “No, ma’am,” O’Riley said, flummoxed. “What I mean is, ma’am—”

  “Let me see that goddamn badge again. You can’t be a real detective.”

  Flustered, O’Riley was reaching for the badge when the woman grabbed his arm.

  “I’m just pulling your pud, pardner.” She laughed and various chins wiggled. “A big dumb boy like you couldn’t be anything but a cop.”

  Nick had to grin. In spite of himself, he was starting to like this cranky old woman, at least when she wasn’t on his ass.

  “We’d like to ask you some questions,” O’Riley said.

  “I didn’t figure you stopped by to read the meter.”

  Listening, Nick began to prowl the room—just looking around, stopping at this pile of magazines and mail and that, snooping. It was his job.

  O’Riley was saying, “We’d like to ask you about Swingers.”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ on roller skates,” she said, plopping into the Barcalounger. “I’ve been outa the skin racket for years now. I figured this was about that damned dog, two doors down! Goddamned thing won’t shut the hell up. Bark, bark, bark, all the time, yapp, yapp, yapp. Isn’t there a law against that crap?”