The final house was a two-story row house with a metal awning forming a carport in front of the single-car garage. A small chain-link fence demarcated a postage-stamp-sized lawn that contained two pink flamingo statues.
“The man or the woman?” Tony asked, breaking his silence for the first time.
“The woman,” Angelo said. “And you can do her if you want.” He was feeling magnanimous with the evening’s work drawing to a close.
Breaking into the final house was a breeze. They did it from the alleyway, going through the back door. To their surprise they found the husband sleeping on the couch with an empty six-pack on the floor next to him.
Angelo told Tony to go upstairs by himself and that he’d keep his eye on the man. Angelo could see Tony’s eager smile in the half-light, and he thought the kid’s appetite for “whacking” was insatiable.
Several minutes later Angelo could barely hear the silenced report of Tony’s gun, followed quickly by another shot. At least the kid was thorough. A few minutes after that Tony reappeared.
“The guy move?” Tony asked.
Angelo shook his head and motioned for them to leave.
“Too bad,” Tony said. His eyes lingered a second on the sleeping man before he turned to follow Angelo out the door.
On the back stoop Angelo stretched and looked up at the brightening sky. “Here comes the sun,” he said. “How about some breakfast?”
“Sounds great,” Tony said. “What a night. It doesn’t get any better than this.” As he walked to the car he unscrewed his silencer from his gun.
7
* * *
7:45 a.m., Thursday
Manhattan
Although she hadn’t slept much thanks to her late-night call, Laurie made it a point to arrive at work a little early to compensate for having been late the day before. It was only seven forty-five as she mounted the steps to the medical examiner’s office.
Going directly to the ID office, she detected a mild electricity in the air. Several of the other associate medical examiners who usually didn’t come in until around eight-thirty were already on the job. Kevin Southgate and Arnold Besserman, two of the older examiners, were huddled around the coffeepot in heated debate. Kevin, a liberal, and Arnold, an arch-conservative, never agreed on anything.
“I’m telling you,” Arnold was saying when Laurie squeezed through to get herself some coffee, “if we had more police on the streets, this kind of thing wouldn’t happen.”
“I disagree,” Kevin said. “This kind of tragedy—”
“What happened now?” Laurie asked as she stirred her coffee.
“A series of homicides in Queens,” Arnold said. “Gunshot wounds to the head from close range.”
“Small-caliber bullets?” Laurie asked.
Arnold looked at Kevin. “I don’t know about that yet.”
“The posts haven’t been done yet,” Kevin explained.
“Were they pulled out of the river?”
“No,” Arnold said. “These people were asleep in their own homes. Now, if we had more police presence—”
“Come on, Arnold!” Kevin said.
Laurie left the two to their bickering and went over to check the autopsy schedule. Sipping her coffee, she checked at who was on autopsy besides herself and what cases were assigned. After her own name were three cases, including Stuart Morgan. She was pleased. Calvin was sticking by his promise.
Noting that the other two cases were drug overdose/toxicity cases as well, Laurie flipped through the investigator’s reports. She was immediately dismayed to see that profiles of the deceased resembled the previous suspicious cases. Randall Thatcher, thirty years old, was a lawyer; Valerie Abrams, thirty-three, was a stockbroker.
The day before she’d feared there’d be more cases, but she’d hoped her fears wouldn’t materialize. Obviously that wasn’t to be the case. Already there were three more. Overnight her modest series had jumped one hundred percent.
Laurie walked through Communications on her way to the medical forensic investigative department. Spotting the police liaison office, she wondered what she should do about the suspected thievery at the Morgan apartment. For the moment she decided to let it go. If she saw Lou she might discuss the matter with him.
Laurie found Cheryl Myers in her tiny windowless office.
“No luck so far on that Duncan Andrews case,” Cheryl told her before she could say a word.