Lanier wasted no time. "I know all of you are busy with your own cases, and a couple of you are on the Boscacci force, but in light of these Executioner killings, Deputy Chief Glitsky thought it might be helpful to do some brainstorming. Abe?"
Glitsky looked over the inspectors' faces, realizing with some surprise that most of them had never worked personally under him. Of the assembled group, only Sarah Evans and Darrel Bracco had been homicide inspectors while he'd run the detail. Of the other four- Belou, Russell, Glen Taylor and Dan Cuneo- two were almost complete unknowns. The other two, Cuneo and Russell, had actually investigated Glitsky in the weeks before last year's shoot-out. It was common knowledge that they still weren't among his fans. So it was not as congenial a group as Glitsky might have hoped.
Still, he needed their cooperation. "First, I'm only here because Marcel asked me to come down. I've been working with a small team on the Boscacci killing, and frankly, we haven't made much progress. Marcel tells me it's basically the same situation with these Executioner hits, although we've got the ballistics match, that connection between the victims. My question is whether there's another one."
Sarah Evans spoke up. "Nothing's leaping out at us, sir. The elderly woman, Edith Montrose, lived alone, and has no local survivors, although a son and a daughter have both flown in from out of state for the burial. Neither of them had ever heard of the other victim, Philip Wong. And Mr. Wong's wife, Mai Li, didn't know Montrose."
Evans's partner, Darrel Bracco, added his voice. "We're close to eliminating robbery, too. We wouldn't know for sure with the Montrose woman, but Mai Li hasn't found anything missing. Both of them look like, pardon the phrase, executions."
"Am I missing something?" This was Dan Cuneo, sitting at his desk, playing some imaginary bongo drums between his legs.
"What's that, Dan?" Lanier asked.
The inspector stopped drumming. "Well, you've got this Boscacci thing on the one hand, and the two executions on the other." He turned to Glitsky. "Aside from the fact that we've got very little on any of them, I don't see any connection at all."
"I don't either," Glitsky said. "But along with no connection, I see total evidence of two slugs. No witnesses, no prints, no forensics, no motives, no nothing. Am I wrong?"
"No, sir," Evans admitted, speaking for the rest of them.
"This spark any ideas for anybody?" Glitsky asked.
"Does what spark any ideas?" Cuneo asked. "Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'."
"Wait a minute," Belou stepped out from behind her partner, Russell. "We do have another open case with that profile."
"Hell, Pat," Cuneo said, "I've got about a dozen myself if you want one."
"Yeah," Lanier interjected, "but are any of them citizens?"
"Elizabeth Cary was," Belou said.
"Yes, she was." Glitsky filled in for those who didn't know. "Couple of weeks ago now, Elizabeth Cary, a middle-aged, white housewife, was gunned down at her front door, one bullet in the heart. The shooter left no sign except a nine-millimeter casing."
"Was there a slug?" Cuneo asked.
Belou shook her head. "No. Through and through, then through the drywall and stucco out the back of the house. We had CSI look for a whole day. They couldn't find it."
"So we don't know if it was this Executioner or not?" Russell asked.
"Right," Glitsky said. "He left us nothing. Now my question to all of you is: why does this sound familiar?"
"Excuse me, sir." Cuneo had straightened up in his chair. "So you're saying you think because we got nothing on these separate cases, that they're related. With respect, that seems like a stretch." He got agreeing nods from at least Russell and Taylor, and went on. "It's like saying beer isn't water, and milk isn't water, therefore beer is milk."
"I realize that." Glitsky, knowing what he'd come down here to propose, was prepared to remain unruffled. "And of course it's a good point. But on the other hand, since we've got nothing on these four homicides in this past fortnight, maybe the only way we'll catch a break is to go outside the box. We can expect this Executioner to hit again, and until he's kind enough to leave us a clue, maybe we ought to work with what we've got."
"Which," Evans said, "I thought was nothing."
"No, Sarah, not quite," Glitsky said. "We've got only the ballistics connection if we're looking at the Twin Peaks killings. But if we go on the assumption, first, that Boscacci may have been an Executioner victim…"
Cuneo nearly jumped out of his chair. "Wait wait wait! You're really losing me here, sir. You're saying maybe the Executioner killed Boscacci? Next is Kennedy maybe, too, huh?"
Lanier came to Glitsky's defense. "No one's denying it's a reach, Dan."
"If we had anything else at all to follow up on the Executioner's victims," Glitsky said, "I wouldn't waste anybody's time talking about this. But the fact is, we don't have anything."
"And nothing with Boscacci either," Cuneo said.
Glitsky: "Not quite. We believe it's likely he was shot with a silenced weapon. In fact," he turned to Lanier, "that's why we need to have the lab reexamine the slugs from Twin Peaks."
"They already ran ballistics," Lanier said. "And the Boscacci slug was deformed so they couldn't cross-check."
"I know," Glitsky said. "I'm not talking about ballistics." He talked to the group. "Boscacci's slug had a fairly distinctive scuff. Sometimes, if a silencer isn't fitted properly, it scuffs a slug as it leaves the barrel, and normal ballistics wouldn't pick it up, especially if the slug is deformed. But," he added, "they get a visual match with the Twin Peaks's slugs, maybe we're in business."
"So these are pro jobs," Taylor said.
"Maybe," Glitsky said. "In any case, it would be worthwhile to find out if anybody in Twin Peaks heard a gunshot. Or," he turned to Belou, "near Mrs. Cary's home?"
"Yeah, but so what?" Cuneo asked. "Every witness says they heard nothing, which is the answer every time I ask anything. They didn't hear nothin', they didn't see nothin', as far as they can recall if their memory serves them at that particular point in time they were out of the area code if not the hemisphere when the incident occurred. Then what? We're going to consider that some kind of positive evidence?"
Glitsky remained calm. "At least positive enough so that the ATF will supply us with people who bought silencers. These we interview and try to find some connection between any one of them and any of the victims. At least it's doing something, instead of just waiting for another strike."
"And meanwhile," Taylor said, "when the Executioner does hit again, then what?"
"Then, if he leaves us anything at all, we move on that, of course. But until we've got something better, we've got to eliminate other options, the best one being that a silenced weapon has killed four people instead of two."
"And," Lanier said, "we can know the answer to that by, say, tonight, if we all go out and canvass now, when witnesses are likely to be home."
Evans chuckled softly. "That was subtle, Marcel."
Lanier smiled all around. "Thank you. I like to think it's the key to effective management."
"So we're approved on the overtime?" Russell asked.
This was always a thorny issue. Lanier hesitated, looked over to Glitsky, who nodded. "Put it all on the event number," he said.
"One more thing," Cuneo said. Everyone turned to him. "When we started talking about Boscacci, you said, first, you were going on the assumption that he was one of these Executioner victims. Was there something else?"