Cut Out (17 page)

“Get them all,” Master ordered.

The technician picked up a handheld scanner from the case and quickly ran it over all the surfaces, electronically recording the prints. “They’re loaded,” he announced, checking the small digital display on the back of the scanner. “Ninety-three percent pickup. More than enough to make a positive ID.”

“Run them.”

The technician looked up in surprise. “From here? We might get traced back once I break into the system.”

Master pointed at the phone. “Run them.”

The technician shrugged and quickly hooked the modem of the laptop computer into the phone line. On the numeric keypad he punched in a number and then a security code. “I’m in the system,” he said. He downloaded the scanner into the computer and typed for half a minute, giving the appropriate orders. Then he settled in to wait. He glanced at Master, who stood gazing impassively out the window into the darkened parking lot. “If someone checks on this run, they’re going to get this location, and they’ll know the code I entered was misappropriated.”

Master shrugged, long past worrying about such minor stuff. This whole thing was threatening to get out of control. He snapped the latex rubber gloves they’d put on during the ride up in the elevator. “We’re clean as far as the room goes. I’ll dump the ID once we’re done here, and I doubt the clerk will remember the name we gave her.”

The hard drive on the computer whirred, and the screen came alive with an incoming message.

“The female prints are Lisa Cobb’s,” the technician announced. His fingers flew over the keyboard. “The clearest ones on the door lever belong to a Riley, David. Chief warrant officer, U.S. Army, SSN 104-56-9246.”

Master looked over the man’s shoulder at the screen. “Give me more on Riley.”

The technician shook his head, nervous about being on the modem that long, but his fingers hit the keys. “Current assignment A Company, First Battalion, First Special Warfare Training Group, Airborne, here at Fort Bragg.” The technician glanced up. “He’s an instructor in the Special Forces School.”

A cold smile crept over Master’s lips. “A Green Beanie, eh? That explains some of this shit. Get me an address.”

The technician typed and then pointed. “Here in Fayetteville. Off Yadkin Road.”

Master noted the street and number. “How about a photo?”

“That’s all they have in the fingerprint file. I’d have to access army records to get anything more, and I highly recommend we do that from a secure location.”

Master nodded. “All right. I’ve got enough.”

Chapter Ten

FAYETTEVILLE

31 OCTOBER, 12:34 a.m.

The lights were still on in the upstairs bedroom, which fronted the street outside. Riley sat quietly in the dark downstairs, waiting, weapons close by. His eyes narrowed as a set of headlights pierced the darkness at the corner, then raked across the front of the apartment complex as the car turned in. The headlights went out, and Riley watched the darkened vehicle make its way slowly into the parking lot. It came to a halt fifty meters away, brake lights flashing briefly, front end pointed almost directly at Riley’s townhouse.

He knew the lights in the bedroom were the only thing giving the men in the car pause. He’d left the lights on to give himself a few extra minutes before anyone came crashing through the door. No need to delay the party any longer. He walked into the kitchen, opened the fuse box, and flipped off the power to the second floor, bathing the entire house in darkness. He figured the men in the car would wait about a half hour before trying to come in, if that’s what their plan was. The bait set, Riley settled back in the dark shadows and continued his vigil.

CHICAGO

30 OCTOBER, 11:47 p.m.

Giannini flipped through the homicide files; there was no record of Tom Volpe’s body being discovered. That meant that whoever had killed him and knocked her out either still had the body or had hidden it. She knew it might never be found. Giannini felt torn, knowing she should report what happened, but not sure how that report would be received and what effect it would have on Lisa’s safety.

She realized it was already too late: by not immediately calling in from Tom’s house, she’d compromised her professional integrity with the police department. But the events of the previous year, and her close association with Dave Riley, had reinforced one very strong lesson: never act until you’re sure what’s going on. Overriding all those concerns, though, was the fact that she would have to explain why she was at Tom’s house.

Guyton’s strange behavior this morning at the filtration plant still bothered Giannini. Besides the obvious problems with Lisa Cobb, there was something very odd going on with regard to the investigation into the death of Jill Fastone and, backing up farther from that, something was not quite right about the whole Torrentino case.

Giannini shook her head in frustration—and then immediately stopped as shock waves of pain radiated through her head. She put down the evening’s reports and looked up as the door to the Homicide squad room opened and Howie Willis walked in, eyes still half closed from sleep.

“Hey, Howie, what’s new?”

Willis glanced at her. “You’re here late—or early.” He peered at her more closely. “Do I look as bad as you do?”

Giannini forced a laugh. “No, you look worse.”

“Yeah,” he said as he sank down at his desk. “Got to get this stuff cleared off so we can go out on the streets in the morning.”

“You get the report back on Fastone?”

Willis leaned back in his chair. “You know, strange thing, that case. Seems like a whole bunch of people are interested in what happened. We had Guyton from the task force crawling all over us right after you left yesterday morning.”

“It was a mob hit; of course Guyton would be there,” Giannini said.

“Uh-huh. ‘Cept why’d he tell us not to talk to you? You working for the mob?” Willis asked with a chuckle. “You got the right kind of last name—one of them that ends in a vowel.”

“I was closing out one of his old files on the Torrentino case and I found some discrepancies,” Giannini explained. “He didn’t take that too nicely.”

“No, I imagine he wouldn’t.” Willis looked up at her. “What kind of discrepancies?”

“Nothing I can put my finger on.”

“If you put your finger on it, and it pertains to this case, you’ll let me know, won’t you, Lieutenant?”

“Of course. What about Fastone?” Giannini reminded him.

Willis hesitated for a moment, then pulled a file folder out from one of the many piles on his desk. He slid it toward her. “If anyone asks, you didn’t see that. Guyton may be a shithead, but he’s a heavy shithead, and I don’t need that kind of grief.”

“Thanks,” Giannini said. She flipped open the folder and quickly scanned the autopsy report. 9mm round. Most likely a subsonic load to work in conjunction with a silencer, which helped explain why the bullet had stayed in the skull. Giannini’s eyes widened slightly as she read another reason why the round had acted the way it had. The round was a modified Glaser safety slug. A Glaser round consists of a thin, serrated copper jacket filled with bird shot and sealed with a rounded polymer nose cap. On impact the round ruptures, saturating the inside of the target with the bird shot. In this case, someone had removed the usual number six bird shot and replaced it with larger number four shot. Liquid Teflon had also been added to slow down the dispersion of the shot, keeping it inside the target’s body. The modifications spoke of someone who knew what they were doing with weapons and ammunition.

Time of death was estimated between midnight and three in the morning on 29 October. There was little else, except for a short note regarding two small burn marks on the victim’s chest. Giannini glanced over the top of the manila folder at Willis, who was laboriously typing at the keyboard of his computer with two thick fingers. “What’s with these burn marks?”

Willis paused and glanced up at her. “I asked the examiner that. He said it looked like they were caused by electric current.”

“Electric current?” Giannini repeated.

“Yeah. Zap,” Willis amplified. “You know, one of those stun guns. Looks like someone zapped her, then finished her off. A stone cold killer, whoever it was. Professional all the way.”

“Any idea who the professional was?”

“Nope. The body was dumped and we got no fibers, no rope marks, no nothing. No sign of struggle. It was a very clean job.”

“If it was so clean, how come the body didn’t just disappear off the face of the earth?” Giannini asked. If someone had gone to such lengths to make sure nothing could be taken off the body and used in a case—other than the bullet—it seemed as though it would have been a lot easier to simply weight down the body and dump it in the lake.

“Good point,” Willis conceded. “I guess whoever killed her wanted her to be found.”

“A message,” Giannini mused. But to whom and for what purpose? Giannini handed back the file. “Thanks, Howie.”

She left Homicide and went back to her office. She flipped open her Rolodex and searched for a name and an address. It was time to pay the feds a little visit. Giannini pulled out a card and slipped it into her coat pocket. Then, with a great deal of effort, she managed to shut the door to her tiny office with herself on the inside. She took the chair off the desk, where she’d stashed it, and wedged it up against the doorknob. The feds didn’t start work until eight in the morning and she needed some sleep. She curled up on the floor, feet poking into the well of the small desk, leather jacket under her head, and fell asleep within minutes.

CUMBERLAND COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA

31 OCTOBER, 12:53 a.m.

Hammer pulled up to the old trailer at the end of the dirt road and parked behind it. “Home for the night,” he announced. He’d driven down dark roads for the last thirty minutes getting here, the ride in total silence. They’d passed a couple of trailers, then nothing for the last fifty meters. They were at the end of the line.

Lisa took in the decrepit structure and the empty wooded lots surrounding the area. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

Hammer was already out the truck door. He leaned back in. “It’s safe. We need to get some sleep. We have a lot to do tomorrow.” He escorted her inside, and made sure she was settled down in the back bedroom on an old mattress that was lying on the floor. He gave her his poncho liner. “I’ll be right down the hall if you need anything. All right?”

“All right.” Lisa paused, then asked the question uppermost in her mind: “Do you think my brother is in trouble?”

“Huh? What?” Hammer asked, his mind elsewhere.

“My brother. Do you think he’s all right?”

“I have no idea.” He seemed to focus back in. “Listen, I’ll check on things in the morning, okay? There’s nothing we can do now without stirring up a pack of trouble.”

She gave a brittle laugh. “Seems like more trouble won’t make any difference.” She looked at Hammer with her bloodshot eyes, holding his gaze, speaking slowly and firmly. “I want to know about my brother.”

Hammer held up a hand. “All right. I’ll check with Riley as soon as I can.”

She stared at him and nodded. “All right.” Her eyes were still on him as she asked another question. “Why did you do that in the bar?”

Hammer regarded her for a few seconds, as if the question had been posed in a foreign language and he had to process it. “We had to leave. They were blocking our way,” he explained, as if it was quite obvious.

“You didn’t have to hurt them.”

“I did them a favor,” Hammer said.

“A favor?” Lisa repeated incredulously.

“Yeah. They’re young and they’ll heal. The next guy they try to mess with in a bar might carve ’em up or put a bullet in their back in the parking lot. They got off easy and learned an important lesson.” Hammer pointed at her. “You got enough troubles without worrying about some kids in a bar. Now, get some sleep.”

Lisa pulled the poncho liner tightly around her body as Hammer closed the door. The snatches of sleep she’d had over the past few days had been derived from sheer physical and emotional exhaustion. She knew she couldn’t face another day without getting some rest. Things seemed to be so far beyond her control that she felt she was outside herself, watching everything going on with a sense of detachment. Only thoughts of her brother, and the danger she’d put him in, made her feel involved in this crazy scenario. As she slid into a troubled sleep, she wondered if it wouldn’t be easier to just give up.

Hammer made his way to what once had been the living room but was now a beer can-littered party room. The trailer was a safe house that Jim Lightfoot and his buddies used to escape irate wives or girlfriends, and occasionally the law. Hammer located the phone socket in the wall, then pulled up the wire through the debris until he found the device on the end—an old rotary-dial phone that had seen better days. He picked up the receiver and ensured he had a dial tone, then replaced it. Sitting down in the dark, he stared out into the woods, wondering how Riley’s vigil was going.