Shoot (20 page)

“Correct.”

I paid the cab, got a printed receipt, walked up the steps into a glassed-in lobby and told a woman behind a counter why we were there. I was still wearing the GOP ID card from the convention around my neck and Jane had her own plastic ID card on her lab coat. We were directed downstairs, to “The Pit.” It looked like a hospital, but without any of the equipment needed to monitor or sustain life. It smelled like formaldehyde. The long white room had eight rectangular stainless-steel autopsy tables lined up across one wall. Each table had a gray metal tray set into the tabletop and five of the eight slabs hosted familiar congressional corpses. The farthest one held a naked Percy Chesterfield and around him stood Phil, Izzy, and an unfamiliar man and woman. An older male pathologist, his face the color of dark chocolate, wearing blue scrubs, blue gloves and headgear with a clear plastic face shield, was doing the post-mortem. An assistant moved about, busy with organs and equipment.

Izzy and Phil greeted us with muted cordiality.

“Just in time,” Izzy said to me. “Cleaning and photos are done. X-rays show what Dr. Warner says looks like a ball bearing lodged in the spine.”

“I said it
could
be a ball bearing, especially if this was an explosive device,” said the pathologist. “But, from what you tell me, it is more likely to be a musket ball, fired by black powder. Certainly smells like it. We’ll see.”

“A musket ball?” Jane asked, intrigued.

“Give me a friggin’ break,” Izzy groaned. “A musket? Couldn’t be anything simple?”

“That makes sense,” I told Jane. “These are gun nuts, who worship weapons and the Second Amendment. Also, they’re calling themselves the New Minutemen—you know, like the Revolutionary War guys with muskets. This is a political statement. ‘We’re using the Founding Fathers’ firearms to kill you’? Very cute. That might explain the gunpowder smell. Old-fashioned black powder. You gotta give it to these guys, Izzy. They have style.”

“And maybe a sense of humor,” Jane added.

Izzy responded with a string of obscenities that did not include any props to the killer for style or wit.

Dr. Warner opened the chest, probing while speaking his findings out loud into a tiny wire microphone. His words appeared magically on a flat-screen TV above the table, obviously a speech-to-word-processing program.

“Okay,” Warner said, “there is a red ecchymosis ring around the point of apparent entry. Referencing the earlier charring of clothing, extensive and pronounced stippling of the skin, probably with propellant. We have a small section of fabric embedded in the main wound, possibly consistent with the victim’s clothing. The wound tracks slightly upward from front to back. As we explore the wound track, the skin and musculature of the chest was forced inward from the concussion wave of the blast, several ribs were fractured from this force… the heart is ruptured and perforated.”

He listed the specific ribs and the organs struck by the metal ball. “The projectile is lodged into the inside of the anterior spine with considerable force at the T5 level. There is extensive comminution of the backbone, with displacement of bone spicula.”

Izzy gave him a look. Warner sighed.

“The backbone was fractured. Lots of bone fragments blown around everywhere.”

It took a pair of pliers and some serious yanking to remove the shiny sphere from Chesterfield’s spine. The pathologist placed it in a metal tray and hosed off the blood.

“The ball shot is barely deformed,” Warner said. “Measuring approximately three quarters of an inch. No evidence of ballistic lands and grooves markings on the projectile. Heavy, possibly stainless steel. Looks like a musket ball to me but not lead. We will test to determine what kind of metal it is.”

“With my luck, it’s plutonium,” Izzy grumbled.

“The force of impact would likely have knocked the victim over,” Warner continued. “Death was virtually instantaneous.”

His assistant used a caliper to measure the metal sphere and announced for the record that the diameter was slightly smaller than three quarters of an inch—point six nine inches. The ball looked heavier than a fifty-caliber slug. Dr. Warner used forceps to remove another small bloody object from the open body cavity.

“From the musculature, I have removed what appears to be a small two-inch square of fabric, possibly more clothing contaminating the wound,” Warner said.

He rinsed it off at the adjacent sink and declared the rough material was green in color, and charred. It was bagged and Izzy and Phil peered at it.

“Doesn’t look like it came from Chesterfield’s tie or shirt,” said Phil. Jane and I stepped in closer to see for ourselves.

“That looks like silk or linen,” Jane said.

“It’s wadding,” I said. “Musketeers used patches to wedge the musket ball into the barrel.”

“You may have something there, Sherlock,” Izzy agreed. “But how the hell do we do a ballistic match on this ball, without identifying marks?”

“You don’t have to,” I told him. “Just look for guys with muzzle-loading antiques, like Revolutionary War re-enacters or gun collectors. How many can there be?”

“A lot,” Izzy countered. “You can buy muzzle-loaders, new single-shot flintlocks and percussion cap weapons through the mail, as kits or fully assembled replicas. Black powder and musket balls, too. It’s legal. And, thanks to our wonderful gun laws, not only can anyone buy them but they are not registered and don’t even have serial numbers.”

“Oh,” I said. “So anyone using a musket to kill someone is, basically, using an unlisted gun—an untraceable murder weapon.”

“Maybe,” Dr. Warner responded. “We are going to do testing on everything—the powder, the musket ball, the clothing—and we might find a distinctive signature of some kind to compare to a suspected weapon.”

“If we find one,” Izzy pointed out. “Which we haven’t, so far.”

“Think positive,” Warner suggested.

“Where the hell could they hide a friggin’ musket?” Phil wondered. “Some of those things are five or six feet long.”

“The same place you would hide a tree, maybe,” I told him. “In a forest of long guns.”

“One of the assholes carrying rifles at the convention?” Izzy asked.

“Just a thought.”

Izzy smiled and nodded. Phil made a call to the team at the convention and asked them to find out who was carrying what type of weapon—especially anyone carrying an antique.

“A lot of the delegates have already split,” Phil informed Izzy. “We’ll have to track them down.”

“
Pluma a pluma, se pela la grulla
,” Izzy sighed.

“Feather by feather, the goose is plucked,” Jane translated, with a smile.

I forgot that she spoke Spanish.

The morgue got crowded. A mob of detectives in suits arrived first, led by the Chief of Detectives and feds in chinos and FBI windbreakers. Next to join the crew were men and women wearing Department of Homeland Security uniforms; agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, wearing ATF jackets; and more men and women in plainclothes, harder to peg. Then the Mounties arrived—at least they looked like Mounties—New York State troopers with Smokey Bear hats, cross-chest gun belts and tall black leather boots. Izzy pointed out a few from the State Attorney General’s office, and Manhattan District Attorney Krystal Ryan.

“Wonder which ones are from Scotland Yard?” I asked.

Phil and Izzy chuckled but kept their mouths shut. Izzy reported to his boss, who didn’t look very happy about what Izzy told him.

“What the fuck?” the Chief of Detectives erupted. “A musket?”

The killer’s little joke was having its effect. The news buzzed through the law enforcement horde in seconds like weird wildfire.

“The chief tells me we are going to keep the musket thing under our hats,” Izzy said when he returned. “We’re waiting for three more pathologists to arrive and autopsy the other four bodies, this time with a larger audience. Some of these guys are pissed off that Chesterfield’s was done without them present.”

“Weren’t they all killed the same way?” Jane asked.

“Yup. But there’s hope that one of the other bodies will yield some new evidence.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “The real reason we’re here is to hold onto our case. Because all of these Staties, feds and spooks want to steal it. We are probably going to become that terrible thing—a multi-departmental task force.”

“Let the feds have it,” Phil protested. “This is a disaster, a toxic clusterfuck that already has out-of-state connections.”

“I’m with you, Phil, but the boss is holding onto this and we have orders to fight to keep the cases. We get to keep them—or we get some major favors if we give them up.”

“So he can be commissioner?” Phil asked.

“Actually, I think he wants to be the next mayor. For now, we still own it.”

“Don’t forget, Izzy,” Phil warned, “when the elephants fuck, the mice get squashed.”

“We ain’t no mice,” Izzy shot back.

Amy called and I filled her in on the autopsy.

“A musket? You are pulling my dick.”

“No, Amy, I’m not pulling your dick. Wait, my editor is calling. I’ll talk to you later. Hey, Mel, what’s up?”

“That’s what you’re supposed to flapping tell me,” he snapped. “Kaplan at the cop shop just called. He said some kind of antique blunderbuss was used to kill these guys?”

Jesus, that was fast. The news about the musket had travelled from this room, to One Police Plaza, to our reporter, to my editor, and back to me in just five minutes. The shot heard round the world.

“That’s off the record,” I told Mel. “They don’t want that out.”

“Tough titmouse,” Mel snarked. “If we got it, the
Mail
will get it soon. Frigate—we’re going with the soaking story.”

He was gone. I gave the bad news to Izzy, who relayed it to his boss, who went, well, ballistic.

“The next asshole who leaks anything to the media from my investigation is going to get his pension shoved up his ass so far he’ll be able to read the fine print when he looks in the mirror!” he shouted.

I asked Izzy who the couple were that had observed Chesterfield’s examination with us.

“No clue,” Izzy responded. “They were very polite but I couldn’t get a fucking thing out of them.”

“Department of Agriculture?” Phil wondered, sarcastically.

I checked the
New York Mail
website, but they hadn’t got the musket story yet, and were covering the mass exit from the convention.

The story described the “gun-shy” Republican convention as “a circular firing squad.” My paper’s webline had already updated. I showed Izzy and the others.

There was a picture of a flintlock musket and an inset file photo of a generic musket ball. There was also another file shot of Miranda Dodge, wearing a Tea Party three-cornered hat and firing a flintlock.

“Case solved,” Phil said.

After standing around in the autopsy room for a while, I got bored. I asked Izzy if I could go back and look over the murder scenes, now that the Crime Scene Unit was done with them.

“You’re leaving our little cop convention? Why?”

“I didn’t really get a chance to get a good look at Chesterfield’s room, or the other scenes, and it might help me think.”

He made a face at the word “think,” shrugged and had Phil make another call “You can do walk-throughs but under police escort, and for God’s sake wear gloves.”

I turned to Jane. “You want to come?”

She shook her head. “This is too fascinating. I’ll see you at home later, okay?”

I shrugged and kissed her, which raised a few eyebrows, not least from Izzy and Phil—they were no doubt thinking of my private time with Tiffany. Apparently none of the others in the police posse were on kissing terms. I carefully threaded my way through the crowd of cops, agents, lawyers, spies—and one gorgeous veterinarian—and left.

I used my GOP ID to get back through security at the convention center. It was so deserted, the only thing missing was tumbleweed. The cops at Chesterfield’s room insisted on calling Izzy again before they would give me blue surgical gloves and paper booties to put over my shoes. A uniformed female NYPD sergeant, whose nameplate identified her as R
EED
, dropped the bright yellow
NYPD CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS
tape and unlocked a new shiny padlock, which was fixed onto a new hasp screwed into the doorframe.

When she opened the door, you could still detect the fireworks smell, the black powder odor. The sergeant walked in front of me down the short hallway and stood blocking the bloodstains on the rug where Chesterfield fell. The small burned area on the left was still there but his cigarette butt had been bagged and removed.

The color scheme in the Presidential Suite was red and gold, including gilded furniture, which gave it a regal look. Even the wall-mounted TV screen was framed in gold. Fingerprint powder was brushed over every surface, including his crystal whiskey glass on a table.

“Don’t step on the rug here,” Reed said, pointing toward the blood. “Our guys have been here but the FBI evidence crew won’t get here until later—they’re doing the other scenes upstairs first.”

I walked around the spot and looked at the large window I had warned Chesterfield about. The drapes were wide open and the Hudson River was still occupied by the giant warship. I moved closer and looked at the glass but couldn’t find any holes. The round didn’t come through there. The window was sealed tight. I looked for Chesterfield’s belongings on the coffee table—the unfinished drink, a cellphone, a pack of Lucky Strikes and a gold lighter—but it, too, had been tagged as evidence and removed.

The bedroom was palatial, with a huge gold canopy bed and a sitting area and another giant TV. I looked at the large gilded windows, which were also sealed shut. Hotels did not like people to commit suicide by jumping out their windows, so they did not open.