Hank nodded and joined in on the chorus. “Upside, inside out, she’s livin’ la vida loca!”
The two of them salsa-danced into the back alley and out of view, still singing.
Vic exchanged a look with Erin. “I know the Lieutenant’s pissed about me letting off rounds,” he said. “But do you really think he’d mind if I kneecapped those two?”
She shrugged. “He might even help you fill out the paperwork.”
The detectives picked over the wreckage along with the CSU guys, but it was hard to figure what had happened. It was one of the messiest crime scenes Erin had ever seen; at least, the restaurant was. The back alley was almost too clean.
“This is weird,” Erin said for the second time that day. “It’s like two different crimes stacked on top of each other.”
“Say that again,” Webb said.
“What?”
“Two different scenes.” The Lieutenant spun an unlit cigarette in his fingers. “These MOs don’t match at all.”
“No,” Erin agreed. “You think the shooter in the back alley wasn’t connected with the firebombers?”
Vic shrugged. “Or it’s like we thought before, and the whole thing was a plan to drive them out the back.”
“Maybe we’re looking for two gangs,” Webb said thoughtfully.
“Or one gang and a lone wolf,” Erin said.
“If the shooter out back was a loner, he’s one hell of a confident guy,” Vic said. “One man with a handgun hitting a whole team of Mafia goons?”
“This is speculation,” Webb said. “And we don’t have enough facts to start making guesses.”
“I thought guesses were for when we didn’t have facts,” Vic objected.
“And that’s why you’re still a Detective Third Grade and I’m a Lieutenant,” Webb said.
Vic bristled.
“He means we need to make educated guesses,” Erin said. “Not wild ones.”
“I know what he meant,” Vic growled. “But even when he’s right, he’s kind of an—”
“Thin ice, Neshenko,” Webb said, pointing the cigarette at him like the barrel of a gun.
“—astronomical pain,” Vic caught himself, then added, “sir.”
“We’re done here, for now,” Webb said. “You missed the witness statements, O’Reilly. But there wasn’t much to them. We’ll go back to the precinct, check the traffic cams, go over the statements again, and wait for IDs on our victims.”
“Mafia,” Vic predicted. “This is a big batch of misdemeanor homicides, bad guys taking out other bad guys. My prediction is, we’ll find out some jackasses did the world a favor.”
“What about the rest of the people in the restaurant?” Erin asked. “We’ve probably got civilians in there, too.”
That shut Vic up.
Erin called her brother’s house from the car. Her sister-in-law Michelle answered the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Shelley,” Erin said.
“Erin! We’re just about to set the table. We can hold dinner for you if you hurry.”
“Sorry, I can’t. That’s why I’m calling. I’ve got a work thing. Mom and Dad will understand.”
“So do I,” Michelle said. Her husband was a trauma surgeon, and she was no stranger to unusual hours and last-minute cancellations. “I’ll tell them. Anna was looking forward to seeing Rolf, though. You have to bring him by sometime soon.”
“You ever think about getting a dog?”
Michelle laughed. “Don’t let Anna hear you say that. She’s already leaning on me.” Then she lowered her voice. “Speaking of family pressure, your mom’s been pumping me for information about your boyfriend.”
“Oh, God.” Erin wanted to put a hand over her face. Michelle was the only member of Erin’s family who knew about Carlyle. Shelley didn’t know his name; Erin wasn’t crazy enough to spill that. But she did know Erin was seeing a guy with a criminal record, one who’d been involved in one of her previous cases. That by itself might be enough for her dad to crack the whole thing open. Erin often suspected the only reason Sean O’Reilly hadn’t made Detective was that he’d preferred to keep doing Patrol work. He was plenty smart, with great street instincts and a career’s worth of experience.
“Erin? You okay?”
“Yeah. What did you tell her?”
“Nothing!” Michelle sounded shocked. “You’re my sister. I would never!”
Erin smiled. “Thanks, Shelley.”
“But you should tell them. I mean, it’s good news, isn’t it? Mary’s been itching for you to find the right guy for years now, and I know you’re crazy about him.”
“That obvious?”
“That obvious.”
“It’s complicated,” Erin said. “Look, just sit on this for me, okay? I owe you.”
“Copy that,” Michelle said and giggled. “That’s what you say, right?”
“That’s what we say,” Erin confirmed. “I’ll come by when I can, but if it’s late, I’ll drop you a text instead. I don’t want to wake up the kids, and I don’t know how long I’ll be stuck on duty.”
“Okay, Erin. Take care.”
Information was already flowing through the pipeline by the time Erin, Vic, and Webb got to the Precinct 8 station. They had a statement from the main witness, recorded from an officer’s body camera, and preliminary IDs on the three victims from the alley based on documents in their pockets. They also had snapshots from CSU waiting on their computers.
“Neshenko, plug these guys into facial recognition,” Webb said.
Vic got to work on the computer. It always amazed Erin how fast the NYPD’s software could get results. Just a few minutes later, he had their answer.
“Sal Pietro, Nick Carmine, and Marco Conti,” he said. “We’ll do the prints to make sure, but it’s them. They’ve all got records. Mafia, like I said. Pietro and Carmine were muscle, Conti was a mid-level associate.”
“Which family?” Webb asked.
“Lucarelli.”
Erin felt a shiver. She’d tangled with some of the Lucarellis on their last big case, and it hadn’t been pleasant. “These guys have any connection to Vinnie the Oil Man?”
“Of course,” Vic said, giving her a funny look. “I said they were Lucarellis. Vincenzo Moreno runs the family these days.”
“How nice,” Webb said dryly. “I was wondering how long it’d take
