LITMIR.BIZ

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have set up with a rifle. The frag appears to be solid copper, and if we’re talking about a handgun round such as a nine-millimeter solid copper hollowpoint, there wouldn’t have been sufficient muzzle velocity for the bullet to fragment like this. I think these were distant shots with heavy loads fired by someone with a high-power-rifle who is extremely precise and deliberate,” I reiterate.

      “It’s exactly like I was telling you.” Marino is back, and I notice his shoes behind me again. “Maybe the same damn sniper that took out two people in New Jersey.”

      “Jesus.” Machado’s dark glasses stare at the apartment buildings. He scans the nearby houses, pausing on the Federal-style brick multiunit dwelling directly across the street. “There we go with that again.”

      “Didn’t you mention that those two victims were shot in the back of the neck?” I ask Marino.

      “High up,” he says. “At the base of the skull.”

      “And a second shot after they were on the ground?”

      “You got it,” he replies. “Like some terrorist sending a message, making us feel nobody is safe taking the ferry or getting groceries out of the car.”

      “Someone motivated by terrorism or possibly someone having fun target practicing with human beings.” I rip open a packet and remove a pair of plastic tweezers. “In either case you’re right. It sends a message that nobody’s safe.”

      “Me? I’m keeping an open mind,” Machado says with an edge. “I want to find the kid on the bicycle before I start thinking murders committed by some ex-military guy gone berserk.”

      “An open mind?” Marino says loudly. “That’s a joke. Your mind’s about as open as the Federal Reserve.”

      “Watch it,” Machado says with the metallic ring of a warning in his tone. “You don’t ease up I’ll have you reassigned.”

      “Last I checked you don’t supervise me. And the commissioner and me are tight. Threw back a few at Paddy’s the other night with him and the district attorney.”

      Their squabbling and swipes are depressingly unhelpful and in poor taste. It’s as if they have forgotten the dead man who was minding his own business when someone violently stole his life and upended the worlds of everyone around him. I’m going to put a stop to the bickering the only way I can. I’ll separate them. I find a Sharpie in a drawer of my scene case.

      I label a small cardboard evidence box and with the tweezers begin plucking each fleck and shred of bright copper from hair, from brain tissue and blood. The largest piece of frag is the size of a baby tooth, curved and as sharp as a razor. I place it on the tip of my index finger. I look at it with the magnifying lens and see one land, a partial one, and a groove imprinted into the copper by the rifling of the gun barrel. Then Marino is next to me, squatting, his hands gloved in black. I feel his heat. I smell the dried sweat from his workout in the gym.

      “We’ll get ballistics on this right away,” I say to him. “Can you ask the investigators in New Jersey to email photographs from the two cases there?”

      “Hell yes. Jack Kuster is the man.”

      “Who?” Machado asks rudely.

      “Only the top guy in shooting reconstructions who also happens to know more about guns than anyone you’ll ever meet.” Marino is boisterous, and I feel the anger between them.

      “Get me anything as fast as you can,” I say to Marino. “The autopsy reports, lab results.”

      “What if it turns out the ballistics don’t match?” Machado pushes back at me now.

      “My concern at the moment,” I reply, “is that the M.O. and pattern of injuries are quite similar. A fatal shot to the back of the neck followed by a second shot that seems gratuitous and possibly symbolic. A shot to the mouth, a shot to the gut, a shot to an eye. We also have distant shots and solid copper bullets in common. Even if the ballistics don’t match, I suggest that we compare notes with Morristown. It’s in the realm of possibility that a shooter might not always use the same firearm.”

      “Not likely,” Machado counters. “If you’re talking about a sniper, he’s going to use what he knows and trusts.”

      “There you go with your assumptions,” Marino retorts.

      “Jesus,” Machado mutters, shaking his head.

      “Somebody’s got to work this intelligently before the fucker does it again.”

      “Back off, buddy,” Machado snaps at him.

      “I’m calling Kuster right now.” Marino pulls off his gloves and dips into a pocket of his jacket for his phone.

      I place the bloody copper frag into the cardboard box. I tape the lid securely, handing the packaged evidence to Machado. I’ve just made it his responsibility to receipt it to the CFC and in the process I’m separating Marino and him. I remind Machado that the bullet fragments should be processed in the Integrated Ballistic Identification System, IBIS, immediately.

      “There’s a problem with that. She’s not in …,” he starts to say, and I know what he’s alluding to and find it strange.

      My top firearms examiner, Liz Wrighton, has been out sick with the flu for the past few days. I’m not sure why Machado would know about it.

      “I’m calling her at home,” I reply.

      I need her to use IBIS software to image the marks on the frag and run them through the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, NIBIN. If the firearm in question has been used in other crimes we could get a hit in a matter of hours. I peel off my gloves.

      “Hello?” she says stuffily.

      “Liz? It’s Doctor Scarpetta.”

      “I heard about the shooting on the news.”

      “Apparently everybody has.” I look around as I talk.

      Some of the neighbors are outside loitering on the sidewalks, in the street, and every car that passes slows to a crawl as people gawk. The sound of the news choppers is constant, and I notice a third one in the distance.

      “The case is maybe two hours old. The media got here before I did,” I say to Liz.

      “I saw it on Twitter,” she replies. “Let me see, I’m looking. Boston-dot-com says there was a shooting homicide in Cambridge, victim Jamal Nari. And another tweet reminds us who he is, you know, his pulled pork powwow with Obama. And I’m quoting. No disrespect on my part.”

      “Can you come in? I’m really sorry. But this is important. How are you feeling?”

      “Congested as hell but not contagious. I’m actually at CVS buying more drugs.” She coughs several times. “I can be there in forty-five.”

      I look at Machado and nod that he can head to the CFC, and he walks swiftly to his SUV. Next I get my radiologic expert Anne on the phone. I tell her she has a case coming in that I want scanned immediately.

      “I’m especially interested to see if he has a hangman’s fracture,” I explain.

      A pause, then, “Okay. I’m confused. I thought this was a shooting.”

      “Based on the position of the wound at the back of his neck and his lack of a vital response after being shot, I have a hunch we’re going to find a fracture involving both pars interarticularis of C-two. On CT we should be able to see the extent of his cervical spine injury. I’m betting his cord was severed.”

      “I’ll do it as soon as the body arrives.”

      “It should be there in half an hour. If I’m not back by the time you’re done, see if Luke can get started on the autopsy.”

      “I guess no Florida,” Anne says.

      “Not today,” I reply,

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