Stuart Kaminsky - Dead of Winter

Stella inserted the first slide into the microscope and examined it as Danny said, "Iron oxide. Whatever was screwed in there was iron, almost new."

Stella moved to the side to let Flack look at the slide. He did and saw little dark chips in no particular arrangement. When he moved away from the microscope, she inserted the second slide, the one from the room above Alberta Spanio's. She looked for a few seconds and made room for Flack. More chips, but these looked different from the ones on the other slide.

"Steel," said Danny. "Taken from the particles Detective Flack took from the groove in the window above Alberta Spanio's bathroom. They don't match the iron in whatever was screwed into the window."

"And what do you make of that," asked Flack.

"Nothing more than whoever dangled that steel object out the window," Danny said, "had to have something heavy pulling at him on the other end to make a groove like that in the sill."

"A kid?" asked Flack.

"A kid was lowered to the window, went through, and stabbed Alberta Spanio in the neck?" asked Stella.

"I've known kids on the street who'd do it for a few hundred dollars," said Flack. "And maybe it was a woman, skinny, maybe wasted from drugs, willing to risk her life for drug money."

"How about this?" said Danny. "Someone lowered a chain from the window above Spanio's bathroom with a hook on the end. The hook fit into another hook or hoop screwed into Spanio's bathroom window. He pulled the window open and kept pulling till the screwed-in hoop came out, leaving the hole."

"And then someone climbed down the chain?" asked Flack.

"Possible," said Danny. "Or they were lowered."

"Dangerous," said Flack. "Climbing down a steel chain."

"In a snowstorm," added Danny.

"And then climbing or swinging through the window," said Flack. "Hard for a kid or a druggie."

Stella felt weak, tired. She wanted to put her head down on the table and get an hour of sleep. Instead she said, "Let's go take a closer look at that room above Spanio's bathroom window."

Spread out on the stainless steel table in front of Dr. Sheldon Hawkes was the body of Charles Lutnikov. There was a clean long incision from just below the dead man's neck to just below his stomach. The flap created by the incision was open and deep, dark red surrounding exposed ribs.

Viscera lay open, chest cavity cracked and open like a large book. The light above the corpse left no shadows, exposed every twist of colon and curve of bone and artery.

The room felt slightly colder to Mac than usual, for which he was grateful. The aroma of whatever the dead man had eaten that morning or the night before wafted through the room. Mac looked at Hawkes, who had both hands on the table across from Mac.

"Man had a pizza for breakfast," said Hawkes. "Meatball, eggplant, and onion."

"Interesting," said Mac.

"We start with the easy stuff," said Hawkes. "What do you know about our man?"

"His fingerprints were matched in the military database," said Mac. "Lutnikov served four years in the United States Army in the Military Police. Served in the first Gulf War. Purple Heart."

Hawkes pointed to a scar on the dead man's leg, just above the ankle.

"Probably a land mine," he said. "Still a few small fragments of shrapnel. Surgeon probably decided not to probe for them and cause more trauma. Probably a good decision."

"What about the shot that killed him?"

Hawkes reached down and closed the left side of the chest cavity like the cover of a book.

"Wound that killed him came from a handgun, judging from the size of the wound, a small caliber, probably a.22. Bullet went straight into the heart, almost no angle. He was standing in front of the shooter, who either knew what he or she was aiming for, or got lucky."

Mac nodded and leaned forward to examine the wound.

"Aiden ran a blood splatter drop from the floor of the elevator," said Mac. "Blood from the wound dropped four feet six inches."

"Dead man is five ten and a fraction," said Hawkes.

"So, since the bullet went straight in, Lutnikov was standing up," said Mac.

"And…?" asked Hawkes.

"If the shooter was standing straight up with the weapon held out…" Mac went on.

"The shooter was about five foot one or two," Hawkes continued. "Want to hear about the flight of the bullet?"

Mac nodded.

"Bullet went through the heart, took a turn, hit a rib, turned around and came back out a few inches from the entry wound."

Hawkes produced a thin metal trajectory rod like a magician and inserted it in the entry wound. "As I said, and your blood-splatter test confirms, it went straight in."

Hawkes produced another trajectory rod that he inserted into the exit wound at a sharp angle upward, carefully following the path of the bullet through the chest cavity.

Hawkes pulled out the rods and said, "You found no bullet?"

"Not yet," Mac confirmed. "You find anything else?"

Hawkes reached under the table and came up with a small see-through plastic zip bag. He handed it to Mac, who held it up and looked at Hawkes.

"Came from wound one," said Hawkes. "Small pieces of bloody paper."

"Aiden got some of those same fragments at the crime scene," Mac said. "The bullet must have gone through paper before it hit Lutnikov."

"A lot of paper," said Hawkes. "Assuming some of the paper burned on impact, that still leaves the pieces Aiden found and the ones I've been able to dig out so far."

"A book?" asked Mac.

"Your problem," said Hawkes, reopening the chest flap. "But a few of those fragments have ink on them. Oh, yeah, Lutnikov's blood and the sample you took in front of the elevator at Louisa Cormier's apartment. Perfect match."

Five minutes later, Mac Taylor's cell phone rang while he stood over Aiden's shoulder in the lab where she was looking through a microscope at the bloody paper fragments.

"Taylor," he said.

"Mr. Taylor, this is Wanda Frederichson again. I'm sorry to bother you, but I talked to Mr. Melvin in the office and he said Monday is impossible. We won't be able to get a crew in to plow the snow, and the driveways will be…"

"What if someone dies," Mac said.

Aiden looked up from her microscope. Mac stepped away from her and across the room.

"Pardon?"

"What do you do if someone dies between now and Monday?" asked Mac.

"Do you really…?"

"Yes."

"We keep the bodies refrigerated," she said.

"What about Jews?" asked Mac.

"Jews?"

"They have to bury their dead within a day or two, don't they," he said.

"That's really a question for our Jewish director, Mr. Greenberg," she said.

"I'd like to talk to Mr. Greenberg," Mac said.

"Please Mr. Taylor," Wanda Frederichson said patiently. "I know…"

"Detective Taylor," he said. "Do you have a number for Mr. Greenberg?"

"I can connect you," she said with a sigh.

"Thank you," said Mac, looking at Aiden, who was doing her best not to pay attention.

There was a double ring and then another double ring and a man's voice, "Arthur Greenberg, can I help you?"

Mac explained the situation to him and Greenberg listened quietly.

"Let me take a look," Greenberg said. "Take me a few seconds to access my file here on the computer. Normally, I wouldn't be here on Shabbat, but we had a… Let's see. We've never had… Yes. Mr. Taylor, I'm reading the circumstances in your file. We'll get it done."

Mac gave Greenberg his cell phone number, thanked him, and clicked the phone shut, moving back toward Aiden.

She looked up at him, showing her curiosity. He ignored it.

"What've we got?" he asked.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine," he said. "What've we got?"

"What we don't have is a weapon or a bullet," she said. "What we do have are pieces of heavy duty, white bond paper A4 size, 80gm/2, acid free non-erasable. They match the paper in Lutnikov's apartment."