Ambush

Chapter 44

I knew it was time to take this investigation to a new level. Harry Grissom listened as I explained everything, and considering that someone tried to shoot me in front of Holy Name, he agreed that I wasn’t being dramatic. There was a conspiracy. But I had my own gang to help me stop it.

It didn’t take long for me to put together a task force of detectives and NYPD forensics people who were familiar with the case. I just needed some input for now.

I made the trip across town to the office of the chief medical examiner on East 26th Street, across from the City University of New York.

I spoke to an assistant medical examiner who had worked on Cassie Max’s double homicide in Madison Square Park. He had worked in the ME’s office for more than a dozen years and had given me insight on homicides I never would’ve gotten anywhere else.

He said, “I’ve made some calculations, and I think whoever delivered the strike stands between five foot seven and five foot ten. They have some understanding of anatomy and are fairly powerful.

“I also looked at the other homicide you showed me, and I would have to say that the alignment of the bullet wound on the body confirms my estimate of the killer’s size. What else do you have?”

I said, “Basically, the killer is someone with enough resources to hire gunmen, enough guts to come after a cop, and enough skill to commit a double homicide in a park right in the middle of the city. The killer appears to be very professional by the way they’ve disabled security video systems and tracked their victims. I need all the help I can get.”

The assistant medical examiner laughed. “If you have Cassie Max working on this with you, I think you’ve got a lot of help. She never seems to wear out. You know what we call her?”

I shook my head.

“The Terminator. Once she has you in her program, she never stops. Plus she’s not too bad to look at.”

“You getting lonely locked away in here with all the dead people?”

“I prefer it to wandering around a city filled with loud, obnoxious people. I went to Johns Hopkins. I could be a pediatrician in Baltimore if I wanted. I prefer the quiet, comfortable stillness of the morgue.”

I looked at him and said, “I can never tell if you’re pulling my leg or just plain crazy.”

“Do they have to be mutually exclusive?”

That made me laugh out loud. “You got any ideas about my case?”

“I told you how tall the killer probably is. That they’re professional because of the precision of their strikes. My guess is that they’re very bright as well. I make that assumption based on their knowledge of anatomy. But I also know that detectives like you and Cassie don’t let this shit slide. I figure you’ll have this asshole in cuffs sometime in the next few days.”

I liked his confidence. I was trying to form a picture in my head of how calm a killer has to stay to use a weapon like that, getting in close to deliver such a precise blow to the victim.

I also hadn’t forgotten that a woman was probably involved in the murder of one of the gunmen who killed Antrole Martens. There was no telling if she was a local killer or perhaps someone who worked for the cartel.

Once I had a puzzle like this in my head, I tended to shut out almost everything else. This time I had to solve the puzzle before the killer figured out the puzzle of how to kill me.