Tom Barber - One Way

She paused.

‘Three weeks ago, the head of the Lombardis, Gino, had a family gathering at his holiday place up in the Hamptons. It was a get-together to celebrate his fifty eighth birthday. Everyone was there apart from one of his kids who couldn’t make it. A hit team showed up and wasted the entire group. Machine-gunned the lot. The total body count was nineteen; men, women and children. It was the worst massacre ever recorded in the area. They hadn’t even had a single homicide around there for almost a decade.’

‘The trigger men?’

‘Four sets of footprints in the sand.’

‘How did they do it?’

‘They came in from the bay. Silenced weapons; sub-machine guns. MP5s, judging from the ballistics reports. They went right inside the villa too; there were bullet holes and shell casings all over the sitting room, kitchen and upstairs. The windows were intact, meaning they had their backs to them when they fired. The shooters were clever. They waited until lunchtime, when everyone was gathered inside the house, walked up and opened fire from the doorway to the veranda.’

‘Witnesses?’

‘None from the water or beach. The places either side were unoccupied, the owners out of town. Someone had done their homework. The weapons were suppressed, so no-one in the area heard any weapons’ reports. Most of Gino’s crew were armed but they never even had a chance to fire back. They were taken completely off-guard.’

Vargas paused.

‘But the four killers screwed up. They missed someone.’

‘Jennifer,’ Archer finished. ‘I mean, Isabel.’

Vargas nodded. ‘She was in the bathroom when they opened fire, washing her hands. She hid in a laundry basket and they didn’t find her. But then again, no big deal, right? She’s a seven year old child; what’s she going to do?’

Archer waited.

‘She was traumatised when two guys from East Hampton Town PD found her. They took her to the station straight away. Once they realised who she was, they contacted the city and an NYPD homicide team from the 1st Precinct who’d been building a case against the Devaney family sped up there.’

Archer nodded.

‘They brought in specially-trained officers to try and find out what she saw, but the poor kid still wasn’t saying much. She’d heard her entire family get murdered.’

Vargas paused.

‘However, she answered yes to a very important question.’

‘Did you see the people with the guns?’

Vargas nodded. ‘And she did. She’d heard them open fire and saw them through a gap in the bathroom door before she hid. This got the 1st Precinct detectives salivating, seeing as there was only one group of suspects.’

‘The Devaney gang.’

She nodded. ‘The evidence from the villa was gathered and sent to forensics for analysis. Once they ran some dust over the shell casings, they found four different sets of prints. Rory Gannon, Jim O’Meara, Brian Malley and Kellan Teague. All four are enforcers for the Devaney crew. That alone was enough for a conviction. But if Isabel ID’d them as the shooters, it was a big enough case to go after the entire gang. Try and prove Devaney ordered his boys to make the move.’

‘When’s the trial?’

‘Next week.’

He leaned back, nodding. ‘So that’s why she’s here. These men must be from the Devaney crew. They want to silence her for good.’

Vargas shook her head. ‘No, no. That’s not it. You didn’t let me finish.’

Archer frowned, confused. ‘Did I miss something?’

‘You’re thinking what everyone else did. The detectives starting pushing all the mug shots of the Devaney family under Isabel’s nose but they were barking up the wrong tree. The shooters weren’t part of the Devaney crew.’

‘What?’ How is that possible? They were fingerprinted.’

She didn’t reply.

‘So who were the hit team?’

‘A man called Mike Lombardi and three friends.’

‘Lombardi?’

‘Gino’s son.’

Vargas paused.

‘Isabel’s brother.’

‘Wait a minute; Lombardi’s son?’

She nodded.

‘ He killed his whole family?’ Archer whispered, in disbelief.

‘The detectives conducting the interview thought the girl was muddled at first. Maybe the shock of the incident had resulted in severe trauma which was affecting her memory. But then it started to make sense, at least psychopathically. Obviously, Mike was well aware of the history between the two families. He was a part of it, for Christ’s sake. He knew that the Devaney crew would be the inevitable suspects for the massacre. If they went down, it would remove both gangs, the Devaneys and the senior Lombardis. It wouldn’t even matter if they never found the murder weapons; they had the shell casings.’

‘Yeah, but how the hell did they get those? That’s ironclad evidence, Vargas.’

‘A few weeks before the incident, some of Devaney’s crew were jumped down at the East Side Docks. Held up at gunpoint then worked over by four guys with knuckledusters and bats. Not enough to kill them but enough to put them in the hospital for a few days. Their weapons were taken. All 9mm pistols. Copper Parabellums inside.’

‘Ammunition that would fit into a silenced MP5,’ Archer said quietly. ‘Smart boys. They knew Devaney’s people would have prints on at least a couple of the bullets.’

She nodded. ‘And in the resulting chaos, Mike could take control of the Lombardi gang.’

Archer shook his head, incredulous. ‘I can’t believe it. He killed his entire family? I thought the Mob was built on blood loyalty.’

‘He might have the same surname, but his mother wasn’t a Lombardi, only his father. Isabel is his half-sister. He was the product of an affair twenty five years ago.’

She sighed.

‘The detectives had totally overlooked him, thinking just the same as you. If Isabel had been killed, they would have tried and convicted the wrong people. But by the time the truth started to emerge, the press were already on the story of the Hamptons massacre.’

She paused.

‘And some idiot at East Hampton Town PD let slip that there was a survivor.’

‘So that’s where you, Foster, Barlow and Carson come in.’

She nodded. ‘We picked her up eight days ago. The press were taking a real interest in her. If Mike had seen the reports he’d have realised that he missed someone.’

‘He isn’t inside?’

‘The prosecution is building this case behind closed doors. That’s why the press screwed it up and Isabel’s gone into protection. If they hadn’t reported that she was alive, Mike and his crew would have had no idea until they were arrested. Now, he’ll know for sure that he missed her off his hit list.’

She shook her head.

‘The trial is due to start next week. If Isabel makes it to the stand and testifies, Mike and his crew are going down. There’s no death penalty in New York State anymore as you know, but they slaughtered nineteen people, with a witness seeing them open fire. They’ll serve multiple life sentences, no chance of early release. And that’s if they make it past the first week of their terms. Gino Lombardi had a lot of friends, and word in those circles spreads quickly. They’ve got a lot of enemies waiting for them in the joint.’

‘And what happens to Isabel after she makes the stand?’

‘Standard procedure. She’s relocated to a new city, given a new identity. She’s only seven so she’ll be placed with a foster family. They won’t even be told who she really is, the youngest daughter of a dead Mobster.’

‘No relatives?’

‘They’re all dead apart from Mike. All of them were gunned down at the house.’

Archer thought for a moment, this new knowledge clarifying their current situation and predicament. He thought of the little girl next door, scared and vulnerable, anonymous armed men repeatedly trying to kill her.