Into this brassy haze a morning mist seeped gently and collected in tears on hoods and roofs of cars and on black asphalt. It damped the hair and faces of the silent watchers. It fell as a shroud on the bundle crumpled on the sidewalk. The kneeling priest completed extreme unction and rose from his knees. The waiting men replaced their hats; there was a subdued murmur of voices.
Delaney stared at this night lithograph, then walked forward slowly. He came into a hard white beam from the searchlight truck; men turned to look at him. Lieutenant Dorfman came hurrying up, face twisted.
“It’s Lombard, Captain,” he gasped. “Frank Lombard, the Brooklyn councilman. You know-the one who’s always talking about ‘crime on the streets’ and writing the newspapers what a lousy job the police are doing.”
Delaney nodded. He looked around at the assembled men: patrolmen, precinct and Homicide North detectives, laboratory specialists, an inspector from the Detective Division. And a deputy commissioner with one of the Mayor’s personal aides.
Now there was another figure kneeling alongside the corpse. Captain Delaney recognized the massive bulk of Dr. Sanford Ferguson. Despite the harsh glare of the searchlights, the Police Surgeon was using a penlight to examine the skull of the dead man. He stood away a moment while photographers placed a ruler near the corpse and took more flash photos. Then he kneeled again on the wet sidewalk. Delaney walked over to stand next to him. Ferguson looked up.
“Hullo, Edward,” he smiled. “Wondering where you were. Take a look at this.”
Before kneeling, Delaney stared down a moment at the victim. It was not difficult to visualize what had happened. The man had been struck down from behind. The back of his skull appeared crushed; thick black hair was bloodied and matted. He had fallen forward, sprawling heavily. As he fell, the left femur had snapped; the leg was now flung out at an awkward angle. He had fallen with such force that the splintered end of the bone had thrust out through his trouser leg.
As he fell, presumably his face smacked the sidewalk, for blood had flowed from a mashed nose, perhaps from a crushed mouth and facial abrasions. The pool of blood, not yet congealed, bloomed from his head in a small puddle, down into a plot of cracked earth about a scrawny plane tree at the curb.
Delaney kneeled carefully, avoiding a leather wallet lying alongside the body. The Captain turned to squint into the searchlight glare.
“The wallet dusted?” he called to men he couldn’t see. “No sir,” someone called back. “Not yet.”
Delaney looked down at the wallet.
“Alligator,” he said. “They won’t get much from that.” He took a ballpoint pen from the inside pocket of his uniform jacket and gently prized open the wallet, touching only one edge. Dr. Ferguson put the beam of his penlight on it. They both saw the thick sheaf of green bills.
Delaney let the wallet fall closed, then turned back to the body. Ferguson put his light on the skull. Three men in civilian clothes came up to kneel around the corpse. The five bent over closely, heads almost touching.
“Club?” one of the detectives asked. “A pipe maybe?”
“I don’t think so,” Ferguson said, without looking up. “There’s no crushing or depression. That’s blood and matting you see. But there’s a penetration. Like a puncture. A hole about an inch in diameter. It looks round. I could put my finger in it.”
“Hammer?” Delaney asked.
Ferguson sat back on his heels. “A hammer? Yes, it could be. Depends on how deep the penetration goes.”
“What about time, doc?” one of the other detectives asked. “Looks to be within three hours tops. No, call it two hours. Around midnight. Just a guess.”
“Who found him?”
“A cabby spotted him first but thought he was a drunk and didn’t stop. The cabby caught up with one of your precinct squads on York Avenue, Captain, and they came back.”
“Who were they?”
“McCabe and Mowery.”
“Did they move the body or the wallet?”
“McCabe says they didn’t touch the body. He says the wallet was lying open, face up, with ID card and credit cards showing in plastic pockets. That’s how they knew it was Lombard.”
“Who closed the wallet?”
“Mowery did that.”
“Why?”
“He says it was beginning to drizzle, and they were afraid it might rain harder and ruin any latent prints on the plastic windows in the wallet. He says they could see it was a rough leather wallet and chances are there’d be a better chance of prints on the plastic than on the leather. So they closed the wallet, using a pencil. He says they didn’t touch it. McCabe backs him up. McCabe says the wallet is within a quarter-inch at most from where they found it.”
“When did the cabby stop them on York Avenue and tell them there was someone lying here?”
“About an hour ago. Closer to fifty minutes maybe.”
“Doctor,” Delaney asked, “can we roll him over now?”
“You got your pictures?” a detective roared into the darkness.
“We need the front,” the reply came back.
“Careful of that leg,” Ferguson said. “One of you hold it together while we roll him over.”
Five pairs of hands took hold of the corpse gently and turned it face up. The five kneeling men drew back as two photographers came up for long shots and closeups of the victim. Then the circle closed again.
“No front wounds that I can see,” Ferguson reported, his little flashlight beam zigzagging down the dead body. “The broken leg and facial injuries are from the fall. At least the abraded skin indicates that. I’ll know better when I get him downtown. It was the skull penetration that did it.”
“Dead before he hit the ground?”
“Could be if that puncture is deep enough. He’s a-he was a heavy man. Maybe two twenty-five. He fell heavily.” He felt the dead man’s arms, shoulders, legs. “Solid. Not too much fat. Good muscle layer. He could have put up a fight. If he had a chance.”
They were silent, staring down at the body. He had not been a handsome man, but his features were rugged and not unpleasant: strong jaw, full lips, a meaty nose (now crushed), thick black brows and walrus mustache. The teeth still unbroken were big, white, square-little tombstones. Blank eyes stared at the weeping sky.
Delaney leaned forward suddenly and pressed his face close to the dead man’s. Dr. Ferguson grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back.
“What the hell are you doing, Edward?” he cried. “Kissing the poor bastard?”
“Smell him,” Delaney said. “Smell the mustache. Garlic, wine, and something else.”
Ferguson leaned forward cautiously, and sniffed at the thick mustache.
“Anise,” he said. “Wine, garlic, and anise.”
“That’s an Italian dinner,” one of the detectives said. “Maybe he stiffed the waiter and the guy followed him down here and offed him.”
No one laughed.
“He is Italian,” someone said. “His name isn’t Lombard, it’s Lombardo. He dropped the ‘o’ when he went into politics. His district in Brooklyn is mostly Jewish.”
They looked up. It was Lieutenant Rizzo from the 251st. “How do you know, lieutenant?”
“He’s-was my wife’s cousin. He was at our wedding. His mother lives around here somewhere. I called my wife. She’s calling relatives, trying to find out the mother’s address. My wife says Lombard came over from Brooklyn occasionally to have dinner with his mother. She’s supposed to be a good cook.”
The five men climbed shakily to their feet and brushed their damp knees. Dr. Ferguson signaled toward the ambulance, and two men came forward lugging a canvas body bag. A man came from the laboratory van with a plastic bag and a small pair of tongs to retrieve the wallet.
“Edward,” Ferguson said, “I forgot to ask. How is your wife getting along?”
“She was operated on tonight. Or rather yesterday afternoon.”
“And…?”
“They had to take out one of her kidneys.”
Ferguson was silent a moment, then…“Infected?”