'Danny,' Stella said with barely veiled impatience.
'Flour,' Danny said. 'Unprocessed, unbleached. This guy has been breathing in flour.'
'You tested the flour?' she said, holding back a sniffle.
'Traces in the vomit. Marco's Bakery. Perfect match to our sample,' he said.
'And the rubber marks in the hallway of the bakery definitely match the heels of Collier's shoes?' asked Stella.
'All trails lead back to Marco's Bakery,' he said.
He put the test tube down and turned to her.
'Mind if I make a clinical observation?' he said. He didn't wait for an answer. 'Your nose is as red as a maraschino cherry.'
'Stella the red-nosed CSI investigator,' she said.
'No kidding,' Danny said. 'You should be- '
'I thought you said you were finished with playing doctor,' she said.
Danny shrugged.
'Want to know about the blood work?' she asked.
He nodded.
'As expected, most of the samples from the sidewalk and the doorway match Guista's,' she said. 'He's losing a lot of blood. If he hasn't already, he'll pass out soon if he doesn't get to a doctor. But there's also blood from someone else.'
Danny sat on a lab stool. Stella sank slowly into another one.
'Guista gets shot by Flack,' she said. 'He drives his bakery truck to Brooklyn, abandons the truck in front of a deli, takes a car. Gets out and walks half a block. Someone's waiting for him.'
'And someone gets a surprise,' said Danny. 'My guess: Guista hits him hard. He throws up, bleeds, loses a tooth. Guista's on the run again. Or on a slow walk.'
Stella nodded and said, 'Something like that. The kids who took the bakery truck said he used the telephone. Did you check the call?'
Danny shook his head. 'I'll check it now. You go home.'
The look she gave him made Danny decide to end his crusade to get Stella to take care of herself. Finally.
'Did you check the names of the people in that apartment building?'
'Thought you'd never ask,' said Danny. 'All but one has an arrest record.'
'So- ' Stella began.
'The one without the arrest record is a Lynn Contranos,' he said.
'You look absolutely glutinous with self approbation,' Stella said.
'With…?'
'It's from a Hitchcock movie,' she said, wiping her nose. 'What about her?'
'Lynn Contranos aka Helen Grandfield,' he said. 'Dario Marco's trusted assistant.'
Stella nodded.
'But that's not all,' Danny said adjusting his glasses, eager. 'Helen Grandfield's name, before she married Stanley Contranos, who is doing a minimum of ten to twenty for Murder Two, was Helen Marco, niece of Anthony Marco who is on trial as we speak. Ergo, Dario Marco is her father.'
'All roads lead back to Marco's Bakery,' said Stella. 'Let's pay them another visit.'
'And take a couple of uniforms with us?' he asked.
Stella nodded and reached into her pocket for the small plastic bottle of tablets Sheldon Hawkes had given her less than an hour ago.
'Might make you more tired,' Hawkes had said. 'But it'll numb you down.'
She opened the bottle.
The name of the young man who had confessed to the murder of Charles Lutnikov was Jordan Breeze, who lived on the third floor of the Belvedere Towers in a studio apartment. Breeze, a Drexel University graduate, was a computer programmer for an Indian company on 55th Street. His job was to create software programs to help track and map the universe.
Mac looked up from the folder in his hands into the eyes of Jordan Breeze and then back at the folder. Breeze had never been in trouble with the police, didn't belong to any radical groups. After questioning the neighbors, Mac had determined that he was a quiet tenant who always had a 'good morning' for others. However, he had been seen less and less over the past few months. A number of other tenants had seen him at the Starbucks two blocks away working on his computer and a Grande Latte, but not for a while. Mac turned on the tape recorder.
'You're sure you don't want a lawyer?' Mac asked.
'Certain,' said Breeze.
'Why did you kill him?' asked Mac.
'He called me a queer,' said Breeze. 'Not just once. Many times. I shuddered when I left my apartment in the morning or went back in the evening, afraid I'd run into him. I see the question in your eyes.'
'What question?' asked Mac.
'Am I gay,' said Breeze. 'I'm not, but some of my friends are, and I'm not going to suffer homophobic fools. I took it for almost a year.'
'And then,' said Mac. 'You killed him. How?'
'With a gun,' said Breeze. 'He was on the elevator. I could have avoided him if I had chosen to go down the stairs, but he would have seen me.'
'You had the gun with you?' asked Mac.
'I did.'
'You planned to kill him the next time he started in on you?'
'Yes,' said Breeze. 'I got in the elevator. The doors closed. He started…'
'He called me a skinny-ass fag,' said Breeze. 'The gun was in the outer pocket of my computer case. There is some shit I will not eat.'
Mac nodded, looked at the file folder again and then up at Jordan Breeze.
'Where did you get the gun?' he asked.
'It was my father's,' said Breeze. 'He died a few years ago, cancer.'
'What kind of gun?'
'A.22 millimeter.'
'What were you doing on the elevator to the upper floors?'
'I followed Lutnikov when he got off and changed elevators,' said Breeze. 'He seemed surprised and amused.'
'You got on the elevator because you planned to kill him,' said Mac.
'Yes.'
'What did you do with the gun after you killed Charles Lutnikov?'
'Got off the elevator and sent it up. Then I trudged happily through the snow to the East River and threw it in,' said Breeze. 'It went through a thin layer of ice. I threw the leather gloves I was wearing into the river too. I'm afraid you have me on charges of murder and polluting the river.'
'How many times did you shoot Lutnikov?'
'Twice,' said Breeze. 'Once when he was standing and again when he fell.'
'The doorman doesn't remember you going out,' Mac said.
'I waited till the afternoon and lots of people were going in and out.'
'How well do you know Louisa Cormier?' asked Mac.
'Never met her,' he said. 'Don't even know if I've even seen her in the building. I know she's in the penthouse. I haven't been in the building that long.'
'Do you mind if we look at your apartment? We can get a warrant.'
'Please,' said Breeze, 'by all means examine my apartment and check my storage locker in the
