“Ten bullets, ten bodies,” explained Lieutenant Luis Amoro of the Delray Beach Police Department, a beefy Cubano of fifty who looked about two sizes too big for his khaki rayon uniform. “Guy started at the entrance, went seat by seat taking out each of his buddies, then ran upstairs, got the managers. We figure he came back down afterward, looked around, made sure no one was still alive, everything wrapped up nice and neat, then did himself.”
“Some shooting.” It was the only thing Dodson’s normally glib tongue could manage. For all his time on the job, for all the wanton and terrible things he’d seen and experienced, he was having a tough go with this one. The question “Why?” kept jabbing away at his mind, and he had no answer.
Since entering the building, he’d been overwhelmed by a desperate and irrational fear for his sons’ welfare. Though the infants were over a thousand miles away in McLean, Virginia, safe in their Talbots sweaters and Eddie Bauer strollers, he wanted nothing more than to hold them in his arms and guarantee their safety. “Christ our savior,” he whispered.
Leading the way to the end of the aisle, Amoro knelt beside one of the bodies and pointed to a neat round hole inside the man’s hairline by the temple. “We figure he’s the doer. Everyone else got theirs from a foot or more, usually in the back of the head.”
Dodson eyed the inert form. “Mr. Luca leave any note? Any message for his loved ones?”
“Not a word. Looks like he came in, worked for a little while. Around ten, something must have gotten him pissed. He got up, took out his haymaker, and went about his business.” Amoro did a double take. “Hey, how’d you know his name?”
Dodson ignored the question. His eyes were glued to the banks of monitors, the blinking screens of blue and yellow and green. “Wouldn’t figure a man to be so upset on such a good day,” he said, pointing at the ticker for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. “Market’s up three hundred points. I’d say that’s cause for celebration. Guess there’s just no pleasing some people.”
A large, dull gray pistol lay near Luca’s outstretched hand.
“A Glock,” said Amoro, kneeling down, pointing at the weapon with a pencil. He spoke with a docent’s tone, as if the men were touring a museum, not a charnel house. “Serial numbers are filed off, but if you use an acetate wash you can usually bring them back up.”
Dodson stooped to get a better look at the weapon. “Where do you suppose Mr. Luca got himself a toy like that?”
“I imagine the same place he got his bullets. We took one out of the wall. He wasn’t messing around. These things can penetrate a Kevlar vest. Cop killers, we call ’em. Not a good policy to be on the receiving end of one of these.”
Dodson nodded amiably. “I’ll take that under advisement, Lieutenant Amoro. Thank you.”
“Our boys are checking for prints. We’ll do a residue analysis on Luca’s hands once we get him to the morgue, just to tie everything up.”
“Good idea. Never can be too thorough.” Dodson’s eyes flitted across the crime scene. While murder was a matter handled by local or state police, the day trading angle and the use of the Internet raised questions of interstate commerce and securities fraud, both crimes squarely in the federal purview. Amoro might know a thing or two about dragging up filed-off serial numbers, but he was far too lax in securing a crime scene.
Laying a hand on the officer’s shoulder, Dodson guided him to a quiet corner. “It may interest you to know that Mr. Luca here was the subject of a Daisy tap and a participant in an international investigation involving the Russian mafiya. I’m afraid that I’ll have to declare this crime scene under federal jurisdiction. I’d like you and your men’s fullest cooperation.”
Amoro answered with surprising civility. “You want it, it’s yours. Worst crime we’ve had this year is grand theft auto and a rape up on the county line. Between you and me, it’s why I transferred out of Miami. It’s nice to be able to say that murder’s beyond your reach.” He added skeptically, “The Russian mafia in Delray Beach? Come on.”
“World’s a small place,” said Dodson. “Now if you’d be so kind, tell your men not to touch a thing. I’ve called in some of my colleagues from the Miami Dade office. They should be getting here any minute.”
He meant the members of the violent crimes unit, sixteen strong. DiGenovese had wanted to alert them yesterday and ask that they put a twenty-four hour watch on Ray Luca. Dodson had said no. The decision would haunt him the rest of his life.
Feeling a tug at his elbow, he turned to see Roy DiGenovese sliding several 8-by-12 photographs from a manila envelope. “Crowd pics from the crime scene an hour after the murders took place,” he explained. “Take a look. Second row. Good-looking guy, sunglasses, blond hair.”
Dodson slipped his bifocals out of his jacket pocket and looked hard at the face. “Couldn’t be,” he said. “Must be a resemblance.”
“Who else stayed in room 420 of the Ritz-Carlton in Palm Beach last night?”
Dodson was impressed. “My, my, Roy, well done. Seems I taught you well. Anything else up your sleeve?”
“Gavallan got in yesterday night at eleven. He’s booked back today at three. American out of Miami. He’s driving a Mustang convertible, gold.”
“All well and good, Roy. I am a tad curious, however, how Mr. Gavallan slipped past your boys in San Francisco?”
“We were soft,” replied DiGenovese unapologetically. “And we were strung too thin. We’d grown used to following him in his car. With two men on duty, it was tough to cover him on foot. Like you said, he must have slipped by.”
“Must have. Now let me take another look at these pictures.” Dodson brought a photo close to his eyes, shaking his head incredulously. “Come now, Roy, cooking the books with Mr. Kirov is one thing; this is major wetwork. You think he has the cojones for this kind of thing?”
“You heard the tape, sir. Gavallan said if he had his way he’d shut the Private Eye-PO up forever. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Gavallan’s here. The man has the means, the motive, and the opportunity. I think you taught me that, too.”
Dodson didn’t believe it was coincidence either, but he couldn’t get his arms around pinning Jett Gavallan, a wealthy, law-abiding citizen, a philanthropist, and an ex-Air Force officer, as a mass murderer. You didn’t put a square peg in a round hole.
“I’ll agree with you that it wasn’t poor Mr. Luca here who made such a mess,” he said. “My guess is gangland. One of Kirov’s American cousins. Let’s get on to surveillance in New York. See if any of the shooters in Little Odessa have taken a holiday of late.”
“Yes sir. But would you let me bring him in now? Get a B-4 for the records. I’d say we have probable cause.”
“All right, Roy, you can bring him in. Have the police issue an APB in the area, put some of our men on his house in San Francisco, get some agents into his office. We want him to know this is for real.”
DiGenovese nodded, unable to hide a malicious grin. “I’ll take real nice care of him, don’t you worry, sir.”
“But no arrest warrant until we collect some evidence, and I mean something that will stick in court. His lawyers come charging in now and we’ll never get a conviction.”
DiGenovese frowned, hanging his shoulders. “What about a fugitive flight alert?”
Again Dodson’s instincts told him no. If Gavallan was hanging around the murder scene, he didn’t appear to be in any hurry to leave the country or to fear being captured by the police. The acrid scent of burnt powder tickled his nose, making his eyes water. Standing there, feeling his assistant’s gaze burrowing into him, appraising him, exhorting him, damning him, Dodson wondered if his hesitancy to act more boldly was really prudence, or just a neatly disguised fear of failing. He forced himself to stare at the bodies, one by one. Each was a member of a family, a loved one who would be missed and mourned and grieved over for years to come. Fathers, brothers, uncles, friends, neighbors. The admission of guilt clutched him by the neck, and he found it difficult to swallow. He tried to argue that he wasn’t at fault, that he couldn’t have prevented this, but his words rang hollow. He’d let professional hubris and personal comfort interfere with sound police work. He might as well have pulled the trigger himself.