“But if it was a sniper,” Erin said, “why bother shooting the other two at all? Why not just take the one shot and get away?”
“Targets of opportunity?” Vic guessed. “Or maybe we’ve got a sick son of a bitch who just likes killing people.”
Webb pulled a pencil out of his trench coat and probed at the entrance wound in one of the younger guys’ heads. “Levine can confirm,” he said. “But this looks like a nine-millimeter hole. Maybe a .38.”
“Not a rifle, then,” Erin said.
“Handgun,” Webb agreed.
“Please stop poking my body,” a woman said from behind them.
Vic choked on whatever he’d been about to say. He leaned against the wall and recovered his breath, while the other two turned to see Doctor Levine approaching.
“Hey,” Erin said, wondering if the other woman had any idea how odd her word choice was. “We’ve got three out here, at least one more inside. Probably more.”
“GSWs,” Webb added.
Levine went directly to the first body, without saying anything else to the detectives. She was already wearing her gloves. She examined the dead man for several moments.
“Cause of death is obvious,” she said, not directing her comments to anyone in particular. Levine tended to talk to herself. “Cerebral hemorrhage as a result of a single gunshot wound to the cranium. The exit wound indicates the bullet will be somewhere downrange. The wound channel transects the left frontal and parietal lobes, exiting just above the occipital. Death was instantaneous.”
“We’re thinking handgun,” Webb said.
“The caliber supports your hypothesis,” Levine said, keeping her eyes on the victim. “Lack of powder stippling indicates the range was at least thirty centimeters.”
“Assuming the bodies haven’t been moved, the shooter was on this line,” Webb said, pacing the alley away from the body.
“If we’re thinking one shooter, he wouldn’t have had time to move more than a step or two,” Erin said, checking the angles. She knew stationary shooting was much easier than firing on the go. “If he shot all three from the same spot, it would’ve been about here.” She toed the pavement.
“The second victim presents almost identically to the first,” Levine said. “Cause of death is congruent.”
“If it was a nine-mil, it was an automatic,” Vic said. “That means we should have casings. The bad guys didn’t have time to recover their brass.”
Erin nodded. While Levine continued her examination, they canvassed the alley. Unfortunately, shell casings didn’t tend to lie in nice, neat piles. Once ejected from a gun, they could fly surprising distances. Even knowing where the shooter had likely been standing, it still took a few minutes of looking through the litter in the alley before Vic snapped his fingers.
“Got one!” he announced. “It’s a nine, all right.”
“Most common ammunition in America,” Webb sighed. “At least we’ll be able to match it with the weapon, assuming we can recover it.”
No one commented that the killer would have to be awfully careless to let that happen. All of them could see this was a professional job, and professional hitmen knew to get rid of a murder weapon as soon as possible.
Erin found another casing, and Rolf nosed out a third with his keen snout for gunpowder. They marked the spent brass with yellow evidence numbers and left them for the CSU guys to pick up and bag. Then Erin stood next to her boss and watched Levine work.
“This is a weird one,” she said.
Webb nodded. “I can see the guys shooting up the place and throwing in firebombs. That’s typical gangland MO. A little heavy-handed, maybe, but typical. But then we’ve got this professional operator waiting out back? Why have your best shooter on the bench? They should’ve been out front.”
“I think the plan was to flush the target out the back,” Erin said. “It’s like they do in England when they hunt birds.”
“Yeah,” Vic said, joining them. “Those upper-class idiots get all their people to beat the bushes while they wait with the guns. Then, when the pheasants or grouse or whatever try to get away from the beaters, the shooters gun ‘em down.”
“What do you know about English aristocrats?” Webb asked, surprised.
“Not much,” Vic said. “But I know a lot about shotguns. You oughta try trap-shooting sometime. Might improve your marksmanship.”
“This is not a good time to discuss shooting with me,” Webb said dryly.
Vic’s jaw tightened and he shut up.
“It’s a good thought, though,” Webb said. “I think O’Reilly might be right.”
“This guy was someone important,” Erin guessed. “Mafia, maybe?”
“We’ll know soon enough,” Webb replied. “CSU should be able to get us IDs on the ones outside, at least.”
“We’ll need dental records for the poor mopes in the fire,” Vic added.
“And that needs to wait for the fire to be out,” Webb sighed. “We’d better get comfortable.”
As they stood back and watched the building burn, Skip Taylor wandered over. Like them, the bomb tech didn’t have much to do for the moment. His job would come later, identifying the incendiary devices used to start the fire.
“Good shooting, Tex,” he said to Vic.
“How do you know?” Vic retorted.
“Your Tango’s down,” Skip said, using a slang term from his military days meaning “target.”
“Maybe the fire got him,” Erin said.
“Oh, the fire definitely got him,” Skip said, grinning.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Saw it happen all the time in Baghdad. There’s a roadside bomb, or a gas tank gets lit up, some dope goes down in the fire, and a few minutes later the dead guy’s ammo starts popping off.”
“Damn it,” Vic said. “I should’ve known. That guy wasn’t shooting at me.”
“Nope,” Skip agreed. “His bullets were cooking off from the heat. He was done before you even showed up.”
“Congratulations,” Erin said to Vic. “You just won a gunfight with a dead man.”
“You think this is funny?” he growled.
“A little bit.”
Vic shook his head. “This is another thing I’m never
