LITMIR.BIZ

       8

      It’s a few minutes past one when Marino walks me around to the back of the Victorian house.

      The first floor of it is clapboard, the upper stories and gables shingled. Up close I see the dark green paint is peeling and drainpipes are rusting. What’s left of the yard has been sutured by an ugly wooden fence, and the trunks of old trees crowd against it like something massive and lumbering trying to escape. I can imagine what an estate this must have been in an earlier era. What’s left of the subdivided property is no more than a sliver of land crowded by recently built bright brick town houses on three sides.

      The windows of the corner first-floor apartment are small. The curtains are drawn, and the door they used to access their apartment has no patio or overhang. It must have been unpleasant hurrying inside when the weather was bad, especially if one was carrying groceries. It would have been awful in the ice and snow, treacherous in fact.

      “So this is the exact way he came after he got out of his car,” Marino says as we walk through unbroken shade, chilly and still beneath leafy canopies, the earth pungent and spongy under my booted feet. “He carried three bags, walked around to the back of the house and let himself in with keys that are on the kitchen counter. There’s a knob lock and a dead bolt.”

      “What about an alarm system?”

      “He probably disarmed it when he went in unless it hadn’t been set, and I’ve got a call to the alarm company to find out the history for earlier today.” He glances at his phone. “Hopefully I’ll be getting that any minute.”

      “Machado certainly handed off a lot of detail considering how much the two of you don’t seem to like each other at the moment.” I’m going to make him talk about it. “There’s no room in a homicide investigation for personal problems.”

      “I’m a hundred percent focused.”

      “If you were I wouldn’t have noticed that anything is wrong. I thought you were friends.”

      His gloved hand turns a modern satin chrome knob that is an insult to the vintage oak front door.

      “It’s completely closed now but when the first responding officers got here it was ajar.” He continues to ignore my questions.

      I follow him in and stop just beyond the jamb, pulling the door shut. Opening my scene case I retrieve shoe covers for both of us as I glance around before stepping farther inside. The apartment is tiny, the kitchen and living area combined, the oak paneling painted chocolate brown. The wide board flooring is heavily varnished and scattered with colorful throw rugs. One bedroom, one bath, two windows across from me and two to my left, the drapes drawn, and I take my time near the door. I’m not done with him.

      He and Machado are fighting and I wonder if it’s over a woman, and my thoughts dart back to Liz Wrighton. I’m rather startled but probably shouldn’t be. Single, in her late thirties, attractive, and I recall that when Marino worked for me, the two of them sometimes went shooting together or grabbed a few drinks after work. She’s been out sick since Monday and for some reason Machado knew about it.

      “Did you mention to Machado that Liz has been out sick?” I ask.

      “I didn’t know about it.”

      “Is that a yes?”

      “It isn’t.”

      I look up at two rubbed bronze hanging fixtures shaped like inverted tulip bulbs. Cheap. What’s called antique inspired. Their bulbs are glaring, the dimmer switches near the door pushed up as bright as the lights will go. I doubt Jamal Nari did that when he came in with groceries and left the door ajar. I have a feeling Machado did plenty of looking around when he did his walk-through, and I suggest this to Marino. I ask him if the lights were on when the police got here or if Machado might have done it.

      “I’m sure he turned them on so he could see anything in plain view before we got the warrant.” Marino is skimming through it, his mouth set angrily. “And guess what? I don’t see a sniper rifle on it. What if we find one in the closet or under the bed? It’s not like I didn’t damn tell him.”

      “I don’t understand. Are you implying Joanna Cather shot her husband with a rifle they keep in the apartment?”

      “I’m implying that Machado is being bullheaded and jerking me around. What he doesn’t want to hear is we’re probably looking for a special type of firearm. One that not so long ago wasn’t readily available to the public. So he’s not acknowledging anything I tell him.” Marino’s gloved hands pick up keys on the kitchen counter next to three upright brown paper Whole Foods bags. “A 5R. Like the rifle used in New Jersey.”

      He’s talking about the engraving on the bullet made by the rifling of the barrel.

      “Five lands and grooves with rolled leading edges,” he says. “And when do you see that in shooting cases?”

      “I’m not sure I have.”

      “I personally don’t know of any homicides where the shooter used a rifle with a 5R barrel except the two Jersey cases,” Marino says. “Even now there’s only a few models out there unless you custom-build, and most people don’t know crap about barrels or even think they’re important. But this shooter does because he’s damn smart. He’s a gun fanatic.”

      “Or he somehow got hold of a gun like that …”

      “We need to look for anything that might be related, put everything on a warrant including solid copper bullets, cartridge cases, a tumbler.” Marino talks over me. “Anything you can think of in any place we search including any vehicles like the wife’s rental car. But Machado’s fighting me. Basically he’s giving me the finger because if I’m right it’s a huge case and it’s mine not his.”

      “Under ordinary circumstances it should be both of yours.”

      “Well the circumstances aren’t ordinary and I should be the lead investigator. He’s already run the wrong way with the ball.”

      “Your hope is that it’s Machado who gets reassigned.”

      “Maybe he will and maybe he should before there’s a bigger problem.”

      “What bigger problem?” There’s more to this than Marino is saying.

      “Like him pinning this murder on some kid who maybe was fooling around with the dead man’s wife. A kid didn’t do this,” Marino says but that’s not his reason. There’s something else.

      He opens his scene case on the floor as I survey the sitting area.

      A chesterfield brown leather sofa and two side chairs. A coffee table. A flat-screen TV has been dismounted from the wall and so have framed Jimi Hendrix, Santana and Led Zeppelin posters. In a corner are three black carbon fiber guitars on stands, iridescent like a butterfly wing when the light catches just right, and I get close to inspect.

      RainSong.

      “He must have really loved his guitars

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