Reversible Errors (51 page)

"Do I take it, Larry, that this is on the Gandolph case? The one I've been reading about in the papers?"

Given the Byzantine alliances in the Hall, Larry had not identified the case in the paperwork and so Mo's prescience caught him up short. There was an ethereal element to Dickerman. McGrath Hall was a good place to appear not to notice stuff, and Mo's consciousness was believed to be confined to only two subjects, fingerprints, naturally, and baseball, about which he also seemed to know everything, ranging from the seasonal totals for Home Run Baker to the present statistical likelihood of the Trappers scoring three runs in the bottom of the ninth, odds that always approached zero.

"That's a pretty good guess, Mo."

"I wouldn't really call it a guess, Larry." From the other side of his desk, where the crumpled paper bag from his lunch still rested, Mo treated Larry to an extended look.

"What are you telling me, Mo?"

"Well, let me just show you what I did. You can draw your own conclusions."

With that, from a metal file drawer behind him, Mo removed the pistol and the carbons of several forms that had accompanied the gun from Evidence. It had been resealed in the heavy plastic, now brittl
e a
nd brown along the creases, in which it had been stored since Erno shot Faro in 1997. Larry hadn't seen the weapon until now. It was a revolver, a .38 by the looks of it. Given procedures established to combat the notorious propensity of firearms and narcotics to disappear from the police Evidence Room, Larry, in the absence of a court order, would have had better luck getting a look at the Crown Jewels, and he'd simply requisitioned the pistol to Fingerprints once he'd determined it had never been released. When a prosecution was complete, the legal owner of a firearm utilized in a crime could apply for return. Evidence would check with ATF and examine the indexes of stolen firearms. If the gun was clean, the owner could have it. But Faro Cole had never bothered, which hadn't surprised Larry, given Faro's disappearance after the shooting.

In his tedious fashion, Mo now explained how hard it was to lift fingerprints long after a suspect's last contact with the object. Because prints were generally left by an oily residue emitted with perspiration, they tended to evaporate over the years. Larry knew all of that, which was why, in the days when he was looking hard for Faro, he had requested that the Fingerprint God himself conduct the examination. Notwithstanding the lectures, it had been a good thought, because Mo appeared to have had some luck.

"In this case, the only latent that developed with standard techniques was right here." Mo pushed his black glasses up 011 his nose and pointed with an eraser tip, through the plastic, at a couple of spots on the barrel, then showed Larry the digitial photos on his computer monitor. "They're very, very partial. AFIS kicked out about half a dozen ten-cards. After visual examination, I'd say they appear to be from the right middle finger and thumb of this guy. But I wouldn't call it a courtroom-quality opinion. A good defense lawyer would have me looking like a barking seal for making on such scant impressions."

He laid down the ten-card. It was a six-by-nine file card, filled with the familiar black reliefs of fingerprints, four each in two rows for the fingers, two larger blocks for the thumbs, and then, at the bottom, a simultaneous impression of five fingers 011 each hand. To ensure the reliability of the identification, a face-on photo of the fingerprints' donor was laminated to the upper left-hand corner of the card. The handsome young man, looking entirely vacant in the light of the flash, was Collins. Larry's better senses had told him this was coming, but apparently he'd held out hope, because a sigh forced itself from him. Life would have been easier.

"Seems he was holding the gun by the muzzle," said Mo.

"That's what the reports said," Larry told him. "But I still need to be 100 percent it's this guy." Larry tapped the ten-card. With something less than absolute certainty, Arthur would have a harder time making any use of the evidence.

"I understand. And I wanted to confirm my opinion. I did a second-tier examination. Down here on the butt, I noticed something. What does that look like to you?" He was indicating a filament of color, almost the same shade as the ochre handle of the gun.

"Blood?"

"I'd say this man has a chance to be a homicide detective. There's usually blood at a shooting. And blood is an interesting medium for prints. It dries quickly. And the impression is often more permanent than a finger-oil print. But when you're identifying prints in blood, the chemicals the techs routinely dust with, which adhere to sweat residues, don't work. Here the latent is literally etched in the blood, and often so faintly it's not visible. You don't see any bloody prints on that gun, do you?"

He didn't.

"A decade ago," said Mo, "that would have been the end of the line. Today, we take an infrared digital photograph that highlights the blood and screens out the underlying medium, in this case, the brown handle. Then I filtered that photo further for any striated imagery. And when I did, there were four blood-prints present-three partials and a very clear thumbprint. Two partials and the thumb turned up on the gun handle. And one partial was on the trigger."

Mo slid his chair back so that Larry could see the pictures on the large monitor. Larry nodded dutifully, but he was impatient.

"Did you run those through AFIS?"

"Naturally," said Mo.

Dickerman reached into his file folder and laid two ten-cards on the desk in front of Larry. One was close to twenty-five years old, taken upon
Erno Erdai's entry into the Police Academy, the other from his arrest for shooting the man whom Larry now knew for certain was Collins.

"That's how come you realized it was the Gandolph case," Larry said.

Mo nodded.

"See," said Larry, "Erno took the gun off the guy who was holding it by the muzzle-let's assume it's Collins-and shot him. Thats what Erdai was doing time for. And that's why his print's on the trigger."

"That information could have been helpful," said Mo dryly. "Not having it at the time, I went over the weapon once more, still hoping to confirm the identification of Mr. Farwell. As an afterthought, really, I did what I should have done in the first place and checked the cylinder for ammo. I was delighted to learn that Evidence had sent over a loaded piece-and that I'd been dumb enough to work on the trigger without checking to find out."

"Sorry," said Larry, "but that sort of figures. Erno's lawyer had said he would plead by the time they got him to the station. So I guess nobody bothered processing the weapon after that."

"I guess," said Mo, shaking his head at the legendary stupidity of everyone, including himself. "My wife thinks I have a nice desk job. Do you think anybody would have figured it was suicide?"

"Not during baseball season, Mo."

Mo made a mouth and nodded. He hadn't thought of that.

"How many rounds were there?" Larry asked.

"Just one. But there were also four casings in the other chambers with firing-pin markings."

Mo was saying the weapon had been fired four times. The reports were uniform that Erno had shot Collins only once. With Mo's permission, Larry reached out for the bag and pressed down on the plastic to get a better view of the gun. It was a five-shot revolver, definitely a.38.

"Any rate," said Mo, "once my heart started beating again, it turned out to be a worthwhile expedition. Very clear prints on every casing. Those chambers, I guess, kept things moist." Mo clicked to display new photos, then pointed to the bullets and the four casings in a separate plastic envelope inside the bag with the gun.

"And did you get a hit on the prints in the database?"

"Yep. Man was arrested in 1955 when he was twenty-two for Mob Action." Mob Action usually meant a bar fight, charges that were almost always dismissed. Mo laid that card down, too. After ten years, Larry had to work to place the face, particularly because the man in the picture was far younger than the guy Larry knew. But it came. The fellow with the hangdog look in the black-and-white mug shot was Gus Leonidis.

For just an instant, Larry was pleased with himself for remembering. Then a sensation of radical alarm fired through his limbs as he took in the meaning.

McGrath Hall had been built as a World War I Armory. The Force had occupied the building since 1921, and as the jokes went, several of the clerks had been here since then. It was a gloomy timeless tomb. In recognition of his status, Mo had an office with a northern exposure. The large double-hung windows overlooked the crumbling Kewahnce neighborhood nearby, buffered by a patchy lawn, an iron fence, and several trees. Larry could see a fast-food wrapper tumbling along in the wind like a frisky boy and he watched until it rose out of the frame. This case, he thought. Man, this case.

Larry bent again toward the weapon. It was a Smith & Wesson - Guss gun, no doubt of that. And Guss gun had Elmo's print on the trigger, and one unfired round in the cylinder. Another slug had been removed from Collins Farwell in surgery. That left three bullets unaccounted for. Larry told himself, No, then No, then followed the train of thought to the end of the line.

"You think this is the murder weapon on my case, Mo?"

"I think Ballistics can tell you for sure. And I suspect the DNA deacons can say whose blood was on Erdai s hand. I need to send this gun back to the Evidence Room for purposes of the chain. But I'm going to make damn sure somebody comes over here and signs for it. I just wanted to give you a heads-up."

Mo handed over an envelope containing his report. Larry put it in his jacket pocket, but his mind was stumbling along. All Larry had to go on right now was the same witchy instinct that so often guided him. But the cool, deliberate homing mechanism of instinct said the blood on Ernos hand was not Collins's. Now that he had time to think, Larry realized that the reports from the shooting at Ike's all said at least a dozen cops had jumped on Erno right after he shot. The gun had been wrested from him before Erno approached his bleeding nephew. So the blood on the handle of Gus Leonidis's gun came from somebody else. Like a slow grinding mill, Larry turned through the possibilities, fighting mostly himself. Luisa Remardi had been shot point-blank. And if Erno's fingerprint was etched on the trigger in Luisa's blood, that meant Erno was the shooter on July 4, 1991.

Erno was the shooter. This was the murder weapon. And somehow Collins had that gun in his hand six years later. Collins's prints were there, too. The only guy whose fingerprints weren't on it was Squirrel. And he had confessed.

"So Erno and/or Collins did this together with Squirrel," Larry said. "Squirrel didn't rat them out, and Erno returned the favor once he knew he was dying."

Mo shook his long face. "All I can tell you, Larry, is whose fingerprints are there."

Larry knew that. He was just explaining it to himself. Squirrel had confessed. Squirrel had known about this very gun. Squirrel had Luisa's cameo in his pocket. And Squirrel had told Genevieve he was going to kill Luisa. Nothing had changed. Not so far as Squirrel was concerned.

What in the hell was up with Collins?

When Arthur got hold of this, it was going to be mayhem. The case that wouldn't end was going to rev up again to 7500 rpm's. As Larry stood, Mo pointed toward his sport coat where Larry had placed the report.

"I'll let you be the messenger in Center City."

"Eternal gratitude," he said. He looked at Mo and added, "Fuck."

Outside, in front of the Hall, there were splintered park benches where the civilian personnel often ate their sandwiches in the summer months. The squirrels, accustomed to feasting on crumbs, came out of hiding and jumped around Larry as soon as he sat down to think.

There wasn't even a word for what he was. 'Upset'? But he always learned things at these moments of revelation. And what he was learning here was that he wasn't really surprised about Erno. He'd always factored in the possibility that Erdai was messing around in proximity to the truth. Erno was the shooter. He repeated it to himself several more times. The consequence shook him, but not the fact.

What bothered him more, as the minutes wore on in a day of wearying humidity, was Muriel. He was going to have to see her now. For real. He sat on the bench enduring everything he'd been going through for the last two days, the same congested feelings, his pulse skipping at the thought of being in the same room with her. And in this moment of revelation something else was clear: Muriel was never going to leave Talmadge. She was never going to sever herself from Talmadge's influence with an election sixteen months away. No matter what, she hadn't changed that much. And even forgetting the election, she'd invite scandal by admitting she was sleeping with a witness in an ongoing-and controversial -case. The hard-boned, clear-eyed part of Muriel that had always drawn Larry to her meant, in the end, that she'd never give up her entire career for his sake. What was left for the two of them was skunking around, more hotel rooms, begging for time. And Nancy, since she was a woman, the kind who paid attention, would know. What he was really butchering himself about was the life he'd made without Muriel. The fact that he was even considering chucking it in order to reach for something ungraspable filled him with bitterness, as if his heart was pumping battery acid.

He could feel the report in his breast pocket. He wasn't ready for any of this. Not for Muriel. Or to read in the press about some new fucking breakthrough in a murder case that was solved a decade ago. He was ready for Rommy Gandolph to be gone and for his own life to be at peace.