Heat Wave, page 9
He seemed to be overdoing the casualness, trying too hard to show that he and the two MDPD officers were players on the same team.
Pals.
“What can I do ya for?” LaRussa asked chummily.
All business, Caine sat forward. “We need a piece of evidence from one of our cases that you’re using in a federal one.”
The tight smile that flashed in response betrayed the first crack in the friendly manner. “Do tell.”
Caine read him the property number.
Shrugging, letting out a sigh, LaRussa unclasped his hands and sat up. “Horatio, I never said I was a genius. If you think property numbers’ll ring a bell…how about you refresh my memory?”
“Julian Pelitier—Faucone drug dealer.”
“Ah. But why is he your business?”
Tripp said, “He’s our business because we’re moving forward on his arrest for murder.”
LaRussa sat forward and rubbed a hand over his face. “Horatio, Frank, you know, normally, I’d jump at the chance to help you. Mi casa, su casa—”
“Normally,” Caine said.
“But this Pelitier thing…” He grinned, made an embarrassed, open-handed gesture. “The negotiations are at a critical point. Perp’s about to roll over on half a dozen other dealers and his suppliers. If he and his lawyer found out that the state charges were going forward, Pelitier might clam up.”
Tripp’s face tightened. “Ken, do I have to remind you that this asshole did a spray-and-pray in a neighborhood full of kids?”
“I understand that very well, Frank,” the attorney said, “but if we roll this guy, we can keep drugs off the streets and out of the hands of those kids…and thousands more.”
Tripp looked at Caine; they had, of course, anticipated this, but they’d devised a strategy, and this was part of it.
Caine said, “Putting one gang leader away does not stem the flow of drugs. But convicting a murderer stops him from murdering again.”
“Horatio’s right, Ken, and you know it,” Tripp said. “And you know as well as we do that some other asshole’s going to step into Pelitier’s shoes, soon as he’s gone…if they already haven’t done it!”
LaRussa shrugged again. “What can I tell you, fellas, the greater good, as I see it, is served by sending Mr. Pelitier through the federal system.”
Caine wondered if the attorney actually believed what he was saying, or if—as Speed and Delko seemed to think—LaRussa might have a reason to cover up the gun’s disappearance.
Tripp had that look he got when he couldn’t think of the next move; the big detective was clearly out of mental ammunition.
Caine gave the attorney his brightest smile. “All right, Ken, there’s three ways we can play this.” He held up a finger. “One, you help us voluntarily.”
“Not going to happen. Sorry.”
The CSI held up a second finger. “Two, I get a search warrant…and you try to explain to a judge why you won’t honor it. Of course you may have to talk fast, because some of these state judges have an attitude and would like nothing better than to throw a U.S. attorney into jail for contempt.”
LaRussa shrugged, seemingly unimpressed.
A third finger went up. “Three—I call Pelitier’s attorney and tell him that my opinion, as a forensics specialist, is that he should get a court order for an independent firearms examiner.”
Now LaRussa held up a finger of his own—not so friendly now.
Ignoring that, Caine continued: “And Pelitier’s attorney comes to you with that court order and, again, you’re in front of a state judge, trying to avoid going to jail for contempt.”
LaRussa grunted a laugh. “Horatio,” he said, his voice as sweet as sugar but as synthetic as saccharin, “are you threatening me?”
“You know”—Caine beamed at LaRussa, much as LaRussa beamed at the two presidents in those framed pictures—“I believe I am.”
LaRussa made a scolding click in his cheek. “You know that won’t work with me. I’m a trial lawyer, Horatio, you think I intimidate this easily?”
The guy had a point….
Leaning forward behind the desk, fingers tented, eyes shrewd, all false friendliness gone, LaRussa said, “You have a reputation as a straight shooter, Horatio…well-earned. Why don’t you shoot straight with me?”
Caine said nothing. Tripp gave the CSI a sideways glance.
The attorney continued. “Why don’t you just tell me why you’re in such a rush to get your hands on this particular gun…at this particular moment?”
Caine thought about it, but just for a few seconds; then he decided to tell LaRussa the truth and gauge his reaction—the honesty appealed to his nature as a “straight shooter,” the experiment of it to his scientist’s nature.
“I don’t think you have the gun, Ken.”
“What…?”
Caine cast another of his patented smiles at the attorney. “My firearms expert matched it to both the Wallace hit and the attack on Jeremy and Joanna Burnett.”
LaRussa’s mouth dropped like a trapdoor. “No goddamn way….”
“Way, Ken,” Caine said easily. “You know Calleigh Duquesne? Or certainly know of her?”
The attorney nodded, eyes narrowed. “She’s the best in the state…everybody says so. Your much-vaunted ‘Bullet Girl,’ right?”
“I don’t call her that,” Caine said. “But there’s plenty of reason why others do.”
“Well, nobody’s infallible,” LaRussa said with a dismissive shrug, “and I’m afraid she just got this one wrong, Horatio. It happens. Gun’s been here for months, locked up tight in the gun safe of our evidence room.”
LaRussa, skilled courtroom orator that he was, had delivered this speech convincingly; but toward the end his voice had gotten a little louder, as if he was trying to fill his words with a bravado he suddenly didn’t feel.
“Well then,” Caine said, with artificial casualness, “let’s just go have a look.”
LaRussa’s gaze was hard; then it melted into the familiar politician’s grin. “You’re good, Horatio…damn good. You almost had me there…but I don’t think so.”
“Maybe you could do me a small courtesy, then.”
“Try to. Of course.”
Caine got out his cell phone. “Would you happen to have handy the number for Pelitier’s attorney?”
They sat staring at each other with two of the coldest smiles imaginable for perhaps thirty seconds; Tripp shifted several times in his seat during the stare-down.
Finally LaRussa caved, throwing his hands in the air. “Fine…fine!” Then he waggled a finger at Caine, as if scolding a gifted student who insisted on disrupting the class. “We’ll go look. But if the gun’s here, you leave me alone.”
Caine shook his head. “Sorry. If the gun’s here…and I doubt very much that it is…I take it with me, Calleigh tests it. Then we bring it back.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’ll tell you how serious I am, Ken. I’m as serious as if a federal law enforcement agent and his wife had been shot with this very weapon.”
LaRussa absorbed the telling words, then said, almost feebly, “What about Pelitier’s attorney? The gun will have to be signed out…he could find out.”
Caine lifted one shoulder, set it back down. “Yes, he could.”
LaRussa lapsed into silence, considering his options. None of which, Caine knew, were terribly appealing.
After a long moment, the attorney said, “You really think this gun was used in the attack on Jeremy and Joanna?”
“The casings match ones picked up at both homicides. You wouldn’t have to be a ‘bullet girl’ to make that analysis.”
“All right, then, for Joanna Burnett, and for Jeremy,” LaRussa said after a very long sigh. “He’s a good agent and he deserves to have us watching his back.”
“Yes, he does,” Caine said.
“For him, Horatio—we’ll go have a look.” The waggling finger again. “But when I give you that gun, you fill out a form one-ten and have it back here in twenty-four!”
Not sure whether he was dealing with a clever politician, a clever suspect, or an honest, if self-interested, law enforcement professional, Caine nodded his agreement.
The evidence room was, typically, in the basement. During business hours, a guard held sway at the sealed door with FBI, DEA, and ATF agents coming and going intermittently. After hours, though, no guard was posted in the room. Two cameras covered the area as armed guards patrolled the halls of the building, as well as the perimeter of the entire federal complex.
LaRussa searched the log to find out where the gun should be, and less than ten minutes later they faced the gun safe—actually, one of seven gun safes lining a wall. The safes were locked, and the guard, while on duty, held the keys; the rest of the time the keys were locked in a desk near the front of the evidence room. It wasn’t Fort Knox, but it was secure, particularly in the context of the general post-9/11 measures controlling the building itself.
Using the key he’d received from the guard, LaRussa unlocked and opened the oblong safe. Inside, nearly a dozen long guns stood on end, bracketed in place: two shotguns, four rifles, three semiautomatic rifles, and an old Thompson submachine gun in a neat row.
And at the far end, almost off by itself, an AK-47 with a drum magazine leaned against the back of the safe.
Caine’s stomach tightened. What the hell was going on?
“Right where it’s supposed to be,” LaRussa said, making no effort to conceal his smugness.
Then the attorney, rather impulsively it would seem, reached toward the gun. Caine put a hand on the attorney’s elbow and stopped him.
LaRussa looked at him with wide, irritated eyes. “What are you—”
“Ken, do you really want your fingerprints on that weapon?”
The attorney looked at his open palms as if they belonged to a stranger. “Hell…I’m sorry. I never even thought—”
“Mind?”
Caine withdrew a pair of latex gloves from his sportcoat jacket and slipped them on. As he did, the attorney backed out of Caine’s way and stood next to Detective Tripp, letting the CSI supervisor carefully pull the gun out.
Then, together, they compared the tag tied to the trigger guard to the number on the 110 form.
All three of them could see that the numbers matched.
“I’m afraid,” LaRussa said, “even Bullet Girl can make a mistake.”
Caine’s mouth smiled but his eyes did not as he signed the form and took the gun. “We’ll see, Ken—we’ll see.”
The guard found them an empty duffel bag to load the weapon into, and with another round of handshaking and some conversational attempts to agree that all three of them were on the same team after all, Caine and Tripp took their leave.
Back at the lab, Caine delivered the gun straightaway to Calleigh. “One AK-47 with drum magazine.”
Her eyes were saucers. “It was there?”
“Right where it was supposed to be—locked up tight in the gun safe.”
She paled. “Horatio, there’s no way…I mean, I checked and double-checked that match. There’s just…no…way.”
He shrugged. “And yet here it is.”
“I…I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything. Assumptions and emotions aren’t helpful right now. Just test it, and find out if this is the right gun.”
Her eyes were tight. “You don’t think I screwed up?”
“No assumptions, Calleigh. Only one way to find out—try to get a match.”
“All right, let’s say it’s a match…if you give me just that one assumption, for a second. Then what?”
“Then,” he said in his measured manner, “we figure out how a gun locked up in a safe…in the most heavily protected federal building in the city…managed to get out and about to kill nine people.”
The unseasonably warm, clear weather of that evening served only to exacerbate an already volatile situation, and, as the night wore on—just as Caine had feared—the lid on the powder keg blew off.
First, not long after sunset, a carload of Mitus wandered into the Lemon City section of Little Haiti, where they opened fire on three Faucones standing on a street corner. Two were killed instantly, but the third managed to make a call for reinforcements, and three carloads of Faucones turned up in short order to assist him.
The four-car chase and running gun battle went on for the better part of half an hour, until the Mitus made it from Lemon City onto I-95 South. Along the way, one Faucone car—raked with automatic weapons fire—exploded in a flameball of gasoline, melted metal, and sizzling flesh. With the chase reduced to three cars, the vehicles veered west onto the Dolphin Expressway, where all three cars shot up a tollbooth as they blazed through.
The Mitus made the exit at Twenty-seventh Avenue, but before they could get off the ramp, the Faucones rammed them off the road, rolling the Mitus’ car down an embankment. Then the Faucones stopped long enough to gun down any Mitus who had survived the crash.
Later in the evening, with most of the second-shift CSIs still working the gun battle scenes, a second gunfight erupted when Trenchs drove by a Little Havana dance hall frequented by members of Las Culebras. Nearly two dozen dancers who had come outside to smoke or make out or just get some air had little chance.
Two carloads of Trenchs drove by, firing automatic weapons. Nine of the revelers were killed and thirteen wounded, three so seriously they wouldn’t survive the night.
Only one had been an actual Culebra member.
Not to be left out, the late Kurt Wallace’s own people—thinking Las Culebras and Antonio Mendoza were behind the hit of their boss—broke into Mendoza’s Indian Creek mansion and killed a dozen Culebras, two of whom were Mendoza’s cousins. Then, incensed that they hadn’t found Mendoza home, they burned his house to the ground. They even shot his four dogs.
The firefights went on all night. Every time the police got to one location and managed to regain control, another battle would start up somewhere else.
By the time Caine and his CSI detail were called back in to work around three in the morning, nearly fifty souls had joined the nine of the first two nights’ killings, and the governor was talking about bringing in the National Guard and declaring martial law.
Caine knew that other places had survived ordeals like this—Watts, Newark, Detroit, the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam; and the city itself had survived its various hurricanes, so disaster was nothing new to Miami…though a full-scale gang war was.
This needed to be dealt with as quickly as possible, and Horatio Caine knew that the fastest way to deal with it was to find out who had killed Kurt Wallace and Joanna Burnett. The Wallace hit had started this bloodbath, after all: Maybe finding the killer would put a stop to it.
As the sun came up, Caine stepped outside the building for some fresh air. This morning’s Miami Messenger, a normally staid paper, screamed at him from the coin-op machine. The headline was large, bold, and only two words long: “GANG WAR!”
Rubbing his face with his hands, as if that might wipe away the exhaustion, Caine returned inside to get back at it. He was short-handed now. Alexx was doing autopsies in such record speed that she wasn’t even getting to know her “charges.” Speedle and Delko, siphoned off to help the graveyard shift get caught up with what had happened overnight, were still in the field, and no doubt dead on their feet.
Which meant that, for now, only he and Calleigh were left to concentrate on the Wallace and Burnett killings.
He found her in her lab sitting over a worktable, a round neon work light pulled down so she could see through the magnifying glass in its center. She was doing something with a marker, but from the door, he couldn’t tell what.
Looking over her shoulder, he realized she was marking both shells and casings with the felt-tip—something on the tip of the bullet, something on the bottom of the cartridge.
“What’s up?” he asked.
She looked up, smiled, then put the bullet in a box and picked up the slug next to it. “I’m numbering bullets,” she said with her usual sunny professionalism.
“Really.”
“Yes. I’ll load them into the drum in order, so that number one comes out first—”
“And seventy-five comes out last.”
“Right! Then we can match casings and bullets to find out which ones did what at our two crime scenes.”
She didn’t need to explain any more. Caine knew that as Calleigh—or, originally, the killer—fired off an entire mag of ammo, the gun would heat up. The barrel markings on the bullets and the firing pin and ejector markings on the casings would change subtly during the process as the gun got hotter and hotter.
If she knew what number sixty looked like because she’d marked it, she’d have an easier time picking out number sixty from each of the crime scenes. That was, of course, if the gun was the right one and the bullets matched at all.
“May I point out,” Caine said, “that in the face of overwork and bodies stacked up around us like cord-wood…your disposition is a bright light in a dark world.”
She beamed. “Well, thank you, Horatio! Isn’t that nice of you to say.”
“What are you going to do after you get done marking the bullets?”
She smiled up at him again as if the answer were the most natural thing in the world. “I’ll be going to Cabrerra University—to use their swimming pool.”
6
Pool Party
CABRERRA UNIVERSITY, NESTLED in upper-middle-class Coral Gables, had a respected academic reputation, but to most people, CU had made its strongest impression as a football power.
For Calleigh Duquesne, however, the school’s swimming program was, on this warm fall morning, the major point of interest, even though the swimmers weren’t rated as high nationally as the CU gridiron crew.
And she was not here for exercise, at least not of the physical variety; the only exercise she planned to perform had to do with test-firing the AK-47 her supervisor had acquired from U.S. attorney Ken LaRussa.
