Page 65 of Paranoia

“How do you figure?”

“Same caliber, same manufacturer, but fired from an NYPD rifle at the Rodman’s Neck range a while back. We’ll leave it here. The cops will process it. They’ll think the shot came from one of their rifles. Provided they have everything documented and tested the way they should.”

“Still won’t matter. They’ll locate the gun and see it hasn’t been fired or has been under lock and key.”

Joe shook his head. “I’m telling you, it’ll delay things. Maybe for a long time. Those knuckleheads will be off on a wild-goose chase, thinking one of their own turned bad. I think it’s brilliant.”

Doyle eyed his accomplice. “Where’d you get a spent NYPD round?”

Joe shrugged his shoulders. “I been around a long time. I know people. I may owe some favors, but there are favors owed to me too.”

Doyle looked over at the building they were watching. “All this seems like a lot of work for a cop who may or may not even be onto something.”

Now Joe had a little edge to his voice. “I told you already. Bennett is a prick. I wanted to do this at his house in front of his kids.” He looked at Doyle and said, “We can still move this party over to his apartment on the Upper West Side.”

The only thing Doyle was thinking about at that moment wasHow hard would it be to shoot this shithead in the face, then get rid of the body?He got ahold of himself long enough to say, “We’re already set up here. Let’s do it and get on with our lives.”

Doyle bent his head and said a quick prayer, then crossed himself. When he looked up, Joe was staring at him.

Joe said, “You praying that everything is going to work out well and this job is going to go fast?”

“Something like that. I’m also asking for God to forgive my sins.”

“You picked the wrong business to worry about sins.”

Doyle was thinking he’d picked the wrong business no matter what.

CHAPTER 95

I FELT A pang of guilt for the way I’d snuck out of the apartment this morning without waking Mary Catherine. I’d gotten home very late last night after our run-in with the DEA, and Mary Catherine had been already asleep. I hadn’t seen any of the kids except Brian, who’d been up watching ESPN when I walked in last night, and Juliana, who was already making breakfast for everyone this morning when I crept out of bed. She’d given me the okay to head out. I’d kissed her on the forehead and raced to the office.

It’d taken a little work, but I managed to get everyone into the Manhattan North Homicide office at the same time. Terri Hernandez was at her usual place when she visited, in the conference room, with her laptop set up at the end of the table. Trilling was at his desk next to mine, and Walter Jackson was finishing up some reports he would send us.

We’d just taken a sharp turn onto the off-ramp of our investigation. There was no other way to describe it. We’d been so focused on the homicides and how the drug gang might’ve been associated with them that we never considered a DEA operation might be underway. Apparently, abigoperation.

Both Trilling and I were trying to shake off the effects of our near catastrophic visit to the gang’s warehouse, our subsequent visit to the DEA, and how badly we had miscalculated our case. At least, by the end of it, we’d had our NYPD-issued Glocks handed back to us.

Based on the way Walter Jackson cleared his throat, both Trilling and I knew it was time to step into the conference room with Terri Hernandez. We went through everything from the last couple of days. I told them how Trilling had moved like lightning to save Jaime Nantes’s life—before Nantes double-crossed us to his gang.

Terri surprised me by saying, “Super Jock did the same thing a few days ago.” She seemed proud of the nickname.

I wasn’t sure what she was talking about.

Terri saw the expression on my face and said, “Oh, my God. He didn’t tell you about it, did he?” She looked at Trilling. “If I’d rescued an elderly woman and a little girl from a speeding van, that’s all I’d talk about for a week. Super Jock is starting to impress me.”

It was clear Trilling didn’t want to spend any time on either incident. We had a fun few minutes forcing him to talk about it anyway. I wasn’t sure if this young man would ever stop surprising me. I hoped not.

Then we got down to business. We took a little time to look over the details we had on each of the former police officer victimswe’d identified. I wanted to find another angle to investigate, but I didn’t see many new ways to look at the so-called accidents and overdoses and suicides. We made a half-hearted list of things to follow up on, like checking all the video feeds from stores along the street where Lou Sanvos had crashed. Another idea was to interview family members in each case to see if they had any idea who might’ve wanted to hurt their loved one. They were sort of lame assignments, but we needed to do something.

Walter asked, “What about the two guys down in Florida?”

“I was pretty impressed with Special Agent Carol Frederick. She’s following up on several different issues herself, and also told her bosses she no longer believes it was a double suicide. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has a great reputation, so I’m not worried about that case.”

Then a thought flashed through my head. The kind of thought that I didn’t take time to examine before I just blurted it out. I sat up in my chair to get everyone’s attention. Then I said, “Roger Dzoriack, the retired detective on Staten Island, didn’t have visitors.”

Trilling added, “Just the super, the librarian, and maybe the neighbor next door. You told me you left your card on her door. I’ve called a few times to follow up, no answer.”

I smiled, appreciating the little fact that my twenty-four-year-old partner was learning how to investigate, following up on a lead that had fallen through the cracks. I said, “This may be one of the few times lifting prints from different spots in an apartment might really give us a suspect. We can take a copy of Dzoriack’s prints with us and eliminate them on the spot. Whatever we find that isn’t the patrol officers’ prints could be our suspect’s.”

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