John Connolly - Every Dead Thing

The ME hissed through his teeth in irritation. “Strangled,” he said as he elbowed his way through the small group. “Knocked unconscious first with a blow to the back of the head, then strangled. Don’t even ask for a time of death. He could have been down here for a day or so, probably no longer. The body’s pretty flaccid.” Then the sound of his feet echoed through the sewer as he began to clack up the ladder.

The detective shrugged. “Ashes to ashes, shit to shit,” he said, then turned back toward the body.

I climbed up to street level, the ME behind me. I didn’t need to look at Barton’s body. The blow to the head was unusual, but not extraordinary. It can take as long as ten minutes to kill a man by strangulation, assuming he doesn’t manage to break free in the process. I had heard of would-be assassins losing handfuls of hair, patches of skin, and in one case, an ear to a struggling victim. Far better, where possible, to tap him on the head first. Tap him hard enough and strangling him might not be necessary at all.

Walter was still talking to the feds, so I moved as far away from the sewer as I could get while still remaining within the police cordon and drew deep breaths of night air. The smell of human waste underpinned everything, clinging to my clothes with the grim resolution of death itself. Eventually the feds returned to their car and Walter walked slowly toward me, hands stuck in his trouser pockets.

“They’re going to bring Sonny Ferrera in,” he said.

I snorted. “For what? His lawyer will have him out before he even has time to take a leak. That’s assuming he was even involved, or that they can find him. This bunch couldn’t find the ground if they fell over.”

Walter wasn’t in the mood. “What do you know? The kid was running shit for Ferrera; he fucks him over and ends up dead, strangled what’s more.” Strangulation had become the mob’s preferred method of dispatch in recent years: quiet and no mess. “That’s the feds’ line, and anyway, they’d bring Sonny Ferrera in on suspicion of ignoring a no-smoking sign if they thought it would stick.”

“C’mon, Walter, this isn’t a Ferrera job. Dumping a guy in a sewer isn’t…” But he was already walking away, a raised right hand indicating that he didn’t want to hear any more. I followed him. “What about the girl, Walter? Maybe she fits in somewhere?”

He turned back to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “When I called you, I didn’t think you were going to come running in like Dick Tracy.” He glanced back at the feds. “Any sign of her?”

“I think she blew town. That’s all I’m saying for the present.”

“The ME thinks Barton could have been killed early Tuesday. If the girl left town after that, it could tie her in.”

“Are you going to mention her to the feds?”

Walter shook his head. “Let them go chasing after Sonny Ferrera. You stay on the girl.”

“Yassuh,” I said. “I’ma keep lookin’.” I hailed a cab, conscious that the feds were looking at me even as I got in and we drove away into the night.

IT WAS common knowledge that the old man was having trouble keeping his only surviving son under control. Ferrera had watched the Cosa Nostra tear itself apart back in Italy as it tried, with increasing brutality, to intimidate and destroy the state’s investigators. Instead, its methods had served to reinforce the determination of the braver ones to continue the fight; the families were now like one of their own victims bound in the incaprettamento, the method of execution known as the goat strangling. Like a victim bound with ropes to his arms, legs, and neck, the more the families struggled, the more the rope around them grew tighter. The old man was determined that this should not happen to his own organization.

By contrast, Sonny saw in the violence of the Sicilians a method of tyranny that suited his own aspirations for power. Maybe that was the difference between father and son. Wherever possible old Ferrera had used the “white lupara” when an assassination was necessary, the complete disappearance of the victim without even a trace of blood to give away the truth of what had taken place. The strangling of Barton was certainly a Mafia hallmark, but the dumping was not. If the old man had been responsible for his death, then his final resting place would probably have been the sewers, but not before he had been dissolved in acid and poured down a drain.

So I didn’t believe the old man had ordered the killing of Isobel Barton’s stepson. His death and the sudden disappearance of Catherine Demeter had come too close together to be mere coincidence. It was possible, of course, that Sonny had ordered them both to be killed for some reason, for if he was as crazy as he seemed to be, then another corpse would be unlikely to trouble him. On the other hand, it was also possible that Demeter had killed her own boyfriend and then fled. Perhaps he hit her once too often, in which case Mrs. Barton was now paying me to find someone who was not only a friend but, potentially, her son’s killer.

The Ferrera house was set in tree-shrouded grounds. Entry was by a single iron gate, electronically operated. An intercom was set into the pillar on the left-hand side. I buzzed, gave my name, and told the voice I wanted to see the old man. From the top of the pillar a remote camera was focused on the cab, and although no one was visible in the grounds, I guessed three to five guns were in my immediate vicinity.

Some one hundred yards from the house sat a dark Dodge sedan with two males sitting in the front seat. I could expect a visit from the feds as soon as I got back to my apartment, possibly sooner.

“Walk through. Wait inside the gate,” said the voice from the intercom. “You’ll be escorted to the house.” I did as I was told and the cab pulled away. A gray-haired man in a dark suit and standard-issue shades appeared from behind the trees, a Heckler & Koch MP5 held at port arms. Behind him was another younger man, similarly dressed. To my right I could see two more guards, also armed.

“Lean against the wall,” said the gray-haired man. He frisked me professionally while the others watched, removing the clip from my own Smith & Wesson along with the spare clip on my belt. He pulled back the slide to eject the round in the chamber and handed the gun back to me. Then he motioned me toward the house, walking to my right and slightly behind me so that he could keep an eye on my hands. One man shadowed us at either side of the road. It was hardly surprising that old man Ferrera had lived so long.

The house was surprisingly modest from the outside, a long two-story dwelling with narrow windows at the front and a gallery running along the upper level. More men patrolled the meticulously kept garden and the graveled driveway. A black Mercedes stood at the right of the house, its driver waiting nearby if needed. The door was already open as we approached, and Bobby Sciorra stood in the hallway, his right hand clasping his left wrist like a priest waiting for the offerings.

Sciorra was six feet five inches tall and probably weighed less than one-sixty, his long thin limbs like blades beneath his gray single-breasted suit, his striated neck almost feminine in its length, its pallor enhanced by the pristine whiteness of the collarless shirt buttoned beneath it. Short dark hair surrounded a bald pate, which ended in a cone so sharp as to appear pointed. Sciorra was a knife made flesh, a human instrument of pain, both surgeon and scalpel. The FBI believed that he had personally committed more than thirty killings. Most of those who knew Bobby Sciorra believed the FBI was conservative in its estimate.

He smiled as I approached, revealing perfectly white teeth glistening behind narrow, slash lips, but the smile never reached his blue eyes. Instead it disappeared in the jagged scar that ran from his left ear across the bridge of his nose and ended just below the right earlobe. The scar devoured his smile like a second mouth.