Chapter03

 

Det. Sergeant Kevin Miller staggered a little as walked from the car towards the front door of the hotel, his scarf wrapped around his neck and the lower part of his jaw. He pale eyes watered a little, as did his nose, as he snuffled, coughing slightly.

But he looked more angry than sick, as he glared at the shorter, balding and more than a little overweight, but remarkably competent CSI man named Steve Ransom.

“What do you mean the hotel room door is open?” Miller said, the rasp of Ransom’s radio echoing slightly against the array of glass doors through which the lobby glowed brightly.

“It’s what the officers said when they reached the room,” Ransom said.

“We get a report of a shooting and nobody secures the suspected scene of the crime?” Miller growled. “Sloppy police work. I’m sure the chief will give me hell for it. Let’s go have a look. Have the hotel management get a report on the room’s activity. When the party checked in, how many times the room was accessed. I’m sure they have computer readout somewhere.”

Miller moved towards the door. One of the bell hops opened it ahead of him, nodding as if Miller and Ransom were special guests.

The warm air of the hotel interior struck Miller in the face and chest, and made him sneeze. Ransom moved towards the check in counter to the left while Miller, accompanied by two uniformed patrol officers headed to the bank of elevators to the right – the room glowed gold, from the combination of paint, carpet and the brass framing that encircled the elevator doors and the banisters to the stairs to one side of them.

Ransom hurried across the room with a tall gray headed man in a gray business suit.

“This is the manager, Roberts” Ransom said. “He says he can’t give us a report on the apartment right away.”

“Why not?” Miller asked, glaring at the hotel manager.

The tall man’s right eye twitched nervously.

“We don’t run that software here,” Robert said in thin voice. “All of it is run out of Chicago.”

“So call Chicago and get it,” Miller said.

“No one’s there at this time of night, even figuring the time difference.”

“For Christ’s sake,” Miller mumbled, wondering if this was going to be one of those cases were every petty detail got in the way. “Wake somebody up.”

“I’ll do my best,” Roberts said with a nod and hurried away.

The elevator door bell pinged, and the doors parted, an old woman expensively dressed stepped out, glaring at Miller for standing in the way.

Miller and Ranson got into the carriage, and Ranson punched the button for the appropriate floor.

“What do we know about all this?” Miller asked, coming close to another sneeze which did not materialize.

“It appears to be an exchange of gunfire,” Ransom said.

“Street gang related?”

“Not in a hotel like this,” Ransom said. “Not domestic either. The guy who rented the room was a soldier – somewhat well-connected.”

“And the other?”

“We don’t have much on him except for the kind of weapon he used.”

“Is that significant?” Miller asked.

Ransom took a long breath. He thick black brows folded down over his eyes in a nervous frown.

“It will be significant to you,” he said. “The other party used a Mauser 96C.”

The carriage stopped at the sixth floor and the doors opened, but neither man moved. Miller stared straight into Ransom’s eyes.

“It couldn’t be the same as…?” Miller asked, half to himself.

“We have no way of knowing that until we actually get one of the bullets. All we have to go on now is the casing our people found on the carpet in the room. The other casing came from a conventional military 9 millimeter. We assume it was military issue and the soldier – signed in as a David Billman – had a permit to carry it.”

“This sounds complicated,” Miller said, finally stepping to the hallway, Ransom accompanying him and pointing towards one of the apartments. A police officer stood guard there. “Do we know where Billman is?”

Ransom sighed. “Unfortunately, we do,” he said, again, drawing Miller’s stare.

“Unfortunately?” Miller asked.

“He was shot to death near Sheridan Square – most likely by the same man who shot at him here. We have some witnesses in the lobby that said they saw a man chasing Billman out of the building at some point after the shooting up here, but prior to the killing on the West Side.”

 

 

“Get ballistics on those bullets,” Miller said, and then started towards the apartment as Ransom mumbled some command into the police radio before scrambling to follow.

The police guard at the door nodded – a young cop, doing his first tour after the academy, assigned to odd details until he could get some experience.
Miller nodded back, thinking of all the long years ago when he had done similar duty, and how life as a cop was made up of such rituals of passage.

Miller tried not think about the Mauser and the shooting near Sheridan Square. He tried not to think of Jerry Garcia, the man who had shared many of those early rituals with Miller, who had pulled so many practical jokes during their academy training together both nearly didn’t pass, and how over the first part of Miller’s ten years, Jerry had always been the one that kept him straight, teaching him the streets in a way only a street-wise ghetto boy could when a middle class kid from Long Island like Miller was clueless.

Miller tried not to think of that night when the call came in saying “officer down,” and his race to the scene to find his best friend and sometime partner dead in some upper west side apartment, two Mauser bullets nearly fired into his head, and more than a little hint of scandal following the investigation when the department uncovered Jerry’s off duty activities that included protecting prostitutes, gambling and the sale of drugs.

Jerry apparently had gotten greedy, wanting more than his share and the powers who operated all such institutions decided he was a safer bet dead, and brought a professional to perform yet one more ritual of a dirty cop’s life.

Miller had spent years trying to track down the men behind it, but the trail never went anywhere, partly because Jerry was never the big player on the scene, and other cops, dirty cops with rank, had done more, and for their benefit, Jerry’s life had been extinguished. Maybe some others in the department feared Jerry’s ambition, a man who even on the straight side of the law, eyed the next stepping stone up.

Although Miller admired this at first, he came to realize there was no end to it, and that Jerry went to the dark side because is promised him more, than he could ever get on the right side, and others, who Jerry would have to push out of the way to get to the top there feared him.

Back from the start, Miller had suspected the whole thing as an elaborate set up. He believed Jerry dirty, but suspected that the whole deal that led to his death had been staged.

A good cop gunned down like that, and the department would not have closed the investigation like they did.

Miller alone kept asking questions until warned eventually to stop or risk departmental action.

“You’re a good cop,” the police chief told him. “But this is an obsession.”

So overtly, Miller stopped, although kept his eyes and ears open for a break that might allow him to pick up the trail again – a break such as the use of the same rare weapon – a Mauser from pre-World War II – and the signature of a professional hit.

 

Inside the apartment, more police scrambled in a variety of duties, this shooting elevated to a murder crime scene because of its connection to the killing across town.

Even Ransom put on thin white surgical gloves.

The suite smelled of expired gunpowder, a scent that lingered with the smell of cleanser and air freshener,

The staff – a woman photographer, a fingerprint man and others moved through the place like a small army, some detailing odd bits of information, such as the ashtray on the floor and the overturned lamp on one of the small tables. Outside, an apparently reluctant to come in, several hotel workers stared through the open door from the hall.

“One of the neighbors reported hearing a shot,” Ransom said, striding beside Miller through the main portion of the apartment, a foyer and a living room arrangement with a large screen TV, couch, arm chairs and small desk complete with computer. The computer was still on showing one of the more popular social media sites.

“Only one?” Miller asked. “I thought you said there was an exchange of gunfire?”

“The other gun was probably silenced,” Ransom said, drawing a glance from Miller.

“Let me guess which one.”

Ransom nodded. “The Mauser.”

Miller halted, glancing around the room with a troubled expression.

“Then there’s more to all this than it appears,” he said. “You don’t hire a hit man to kill a soldier unless…”

“My thinking exactly,” Ransom said.

“Do you think it’s the same man?”

“You mean the man with the Mauser?” Ransom asked.

Miller nodded.

“It’s not the weapon of choice for most hit men I’ve ever heard of,” Ransom said. “But we’ve been watching the scene since Jerry’s death and not seen the weapon used in any other local hits. I thought the man, who ever he is, retired or got rid of the weapon. Many pros use a gun once and then dump it.”

“That’s not this guy’s style,” Miller said. “You don’t use a historic weapon like that and just throw it away.”

“We’ll know more when ballistics comes back.”

“Keep the report as quiet as you can,” Miller said. “If the chief or the captain find out, they might pull me off the case. You know how they feel about it.”

 

 

 

“I won’t be able to keep it quiet for long, but I’ll get it to your first,” Ransom assured Miller. “But remember, this call came from the top, and so someone big got the call in the first place, and will want an update. A posh place like this, no doubt management has a direct line to Gracie Mansion.”

“Understood,” Miller said. “Do you best. Now let’s see what we have here. We have an open door, two shots fired, a vague description from someone in the lobby saying two men run out, one them the soldier, who was apparently wounded – and wound up dead on the other side of town. What about the second man? Do we have a description on him?”

“The desk clerk saw the second man,” Ransom said. “A dark skinned man, about 5 foot 8, wearing a dark coat. He had a curved scar on one side of his face.”

“Dark skinned? Are you saying both men were African American?”

“No, the second man was white – well tanned,” Ransom said. “That’s why the scar stood out so well.”

“What about the scar? Anything on that?”

“Nothing except that it fit the description people gave over at Sheridan Square. I had my people run a mud shot program with the desk clerk, but so far we’ve got no matches.”

“There weren’t any the last time either,” Miller mumbled.

“Do you think it’s the same man?” Ransom asked.

“After three years, it might be too much to hope for,” Miller said. “Still the gun and the scar seemed a little too coincidental. If ballistics gives us a match…” Miller said, staring off into space for a moment, then shook himself. “If it’s the same man, we’re going to catch him this time.”

 

From the other side of the room near where several doors opened onto the lounge area, one of Ransom’s men waved, and Ransom moved swiftly across the carpet to consult with him, pausing several times in route to question one of the other men engaged in finger print dusting or photography.

Miller scanned the whole scene, feeling something odd in it all that warned him that everything was not as it seemed.

As always, he couldn’t quite pin down what it was he felt or why, but the years had taught him to pay attention to the feeling. And so he looked at everything, from the ashtray over flowing with cigarette butts to the two bottles of Southern Comfort – one empty, the other nearly so with remnants of liquor in a water glass situated near them.

His trained eye caught glimpses of violence here, the sense of struggled that explained the couch cushions scattered on the floor, the overturned lamp, the shattered pieces of what had been a second water glass. The violence lingered in the air, too, with the subtle scent of expended gunpowder the central air-conditioning could not eradicate, a lingering, teasing scent that all such conflict scenes held, and always disturbed something in the deepest part of Miller’s stomach. It was the scent of death and dying, of that point when reason ceases and the death struggle begins.

Despite his nearly 20 years on the force, Miller hadn’t yet gotten used to it.

“I should have been a fucking clerk” he thought, and then noticed Ransom rushing back across the room to him, bearing an alarmed expression that told Miller something had indeed gone wrong.

“What is it?” Miller asked, even before the puzzled Ransom could utter his announcement.

“A curiosity,” Ransom said. “We found blood all over the bathroom. Some in this room, too.”

“Which means what?”
“Well, gauging from the other stuff we found in the bathroom – empty packages of gauze, some medical tape and a bloody bottle of mercurochrome, I’d say one of the two men stopped to fix himself up.”

“But that’s impossible. We have witnesses in the lobby who saw one man chasing the other.”

Ransom nodded and glanced back towards the bathroom door.

“I can’t say without running some additional tests, but it looks like the blood in the bathroom is significantly fresher than the blood we have on the carpet where the shooting took place.”

“Fresher? By how long?”
“An hour maybe.”

“An hour? That would mean…”

“That one of them came back, fixed himself up, and then left before we got here.”

“The soldier?”

“I suppose. At least, someone took clothing out of the closet and the dresser. We found a bloody suit jacket and shreds of a bloody shirt in the bedroom.”

“Let’s have a look at them,” Miller said, shuddering slightly, an odd chill running through him as he followed Ransom in the direction of the bedroom.

 

Fingerprinting men floated around the room like bumble bees leaping flower to flower, but instead of stealing pollen, they left it, marking never every surface that seemed suspicious. A woman police officer snapped photos from one of the corners, fully efficient, utterly devoid of reaction to the streaks of blood that showed on several items, including the bed.

Miller struggled to keep his focus, recalling a similar scene and how utterly helpless to emotion he’d felt knowing the blood was his partner’s and the killer had escaped.

“There,” Ransom said, pointing a small boney finger towards the blood-soaked garments sprawled on the bed. The shirt no longer looked like a shirt, but a shredded piece of meat, with a few pale spots indicating it had once been something of quality. On the floor near the foot of the bed lay a dark suit jacket and beside it an overcoat, both clearly tailored.

“These are expensive garments,” Miller said. “Too expensive to buy on a soldier’s pay”

“And tailored for a larger man,” Ransom agreed.

“Such as the man our witnesses said chased the soldier through the lobby?”

“That would be my guess.”

“This doesn’t make sense. They two of them couldn’t have stopped after shooting each other to change clothing, and so this would mean that the larger man came back here, not the soldier.”

“That’s what this seems to indicate,” Ransom said. “That would explain the difference in time between the blood stains.”

“But why?” Miller asked. “You shoot someone here, then chase him across town, shoot him again, the last place you would want to go is where you shot him in the first place.”

“Unless he forgot something.”

“If this is the same man who shot my partner, he wouldn’t have come back.”

“Unless whatever he forgot was part of the price,” Ransom said.

 

 

“Any idea of what that might have been?” Miller asked.

“I’m good, Kevin, but not that good.”

Miller sighed, and stared down at the night stand where a pair of dog tags listened under the light, along with several packets of vitamins, and an unplugged adaptor to portable computer.

“Maybe we over looked something,” Miller said, then waved to one of the uniformed officer. “Have someone interview everybody on staff. I want to know if anyone saw anything unusual – I mean besides the chase through the lobby. And I want to know if anybody saw anybody carrying anything strange out of the building.”

“Strange?” the officer said.

“I don’t know what. Just ask questions.”

The police officer gave Miller an odd look, but then nodded and hurried away.

“I don’t know what you expect for them to find,” Ransom said.

“Neither do I, but maybe we’ll get lucky.”

 

A ruckus started in the other room, turning Miller’s gaze towards the door to the main part of the suite, the kind of disturbance he had become all too familiar with from other investigations that centered scenes where friends of public officials or other important people took place.

He let out a very long sigh, stiffening his shoulder the way a soldier might readying himself for a fight. Then slowly, he turned and made his way out into the main room where two superior officers stood near the front door.

Both men made good use of their gold braid, unnecessary in any scene other than some formal ceremony, but clearly used daily as if to make sure anyone they came in contact with understood just how important they were.

But Miller’s gaze did not rest on them long, but the squatter figure of the police chief for whom these officers parted like a gate. If possible, Police Chief Gregory Mason wore even more gold trim than those who escorted them, each bit of brass glistening off of him even in the dullest light. Prematurely gray 20 years too early, Mason even wore that as a decoration of rank, inspiring many lower ranked officer to award him the name “Silver Top,” only not with any affection.

Behind him, the city’s police commissioner, Ronald Hasley, came, a political hack appointed by a mayor who needed to keep tight control over the police, and Miller’s immediate superior, Captain Daniel Davis – a good cop once, but stretched thin by demands of a job, looking haggard and unhappy, his nervous gaze searching out the crime scene for any possible infraction that might draw the rage of the men who he accompanied.

Then, Davis saw Miller, and left the side of his two dignitaries to approach Miller, who had stopped at the bedroom door.

 

 

Davis’ face said more than his urgent question, “What’s going on here?” His dark eyes kept glancing in the direction of the Police Chief and the commissioner as the two men prowled through the crime scene like sharks sniffing for blood with whole careers at risk of being devoured with a single clamp of their jaws.

“We had a report of a shooting here,” Miller said. “From every indication it looks like a professional hit.”

“How on earth could you tell that?” Davis said, turning his concerned gaze Miller.

“There was an exchange of gun fire. One of the weapons was silenced,” Miller said.

“That doesn’t automatically mean a pro,” Davis said, looking back towards Silver Top. “But it does seem suspicious. Anything else?”

“Yes, this shooting may be connected to another shooting near Sheridan Square.”

Davis seemed to stop breathing, and this time when he looked at Miller, concern registered in his eyes.

“That’s a different investigation,” he said angrily.

“Maybe not,” Miller said, recognizing the deception in Davis’ eyes. “The same weapon appears to have been used there as here.”

“Stay out of that,” Davis warned his, an urgent and hushed whisper.

“Why?”

“You know why, Kevin,” Davis said. “You want to reopen the wound? Silver Top may have gotten over some of what went on with all that back then, but he won’t have forgotten. You start up with the old shit, he’ll have you canned.”

“Then you suspect the same thing I do?”

“I suspect nothing,” Davis snarled. “Just stop.”

“They’re connected, Dan.”

“If they are, then I’ll yank you off this part of the case, too,” Davis said. “Is there anything relevant to this scene I should know about?”

“Only that something was apparently taken from here,” Miller said.

“Taken? Such as what?” Davis asked, a little of the anger ebbing from his eyes. “I’ve read the reports from the shooting scene. The killer didn’t seem to be carrying anything.”

“Whatever it was, he came back here to get it,” Miller said.

“Back?” Davis said, shock raising his dark eyebrows. “As in returning to the scene of the crime?”

“We believe so.”

“Damn it!” Davis mumbled, casting a glance towards Silver Top again. “This was bad enough when the mayor called to tell us about the shooting here. The hotel owner is a personal friend. But now, with all this… Damn!”

 

 

“Is there something I don’t know about all of this?” Miller asked. “This is a lot of hullabaloo for a shooting, even or a murder.”

“I know as little as you do,” Davis mumbled, his voice cowered, and words slurred. “The sooner you find this gunman and turn him over, the better it will be for all of us.”

“Turn him over? To whom?”

“Ask him,” Davis said, tilting his head in the direction of Silver Top and the entourage that had taken notice of Miller and steered toward him like a small, invading army with Silver Top’s stern gaze focused like a cannon on Miller.

The man was tall and lean, and so stood a whole head above the others, and above Miller so that when he arrived, he looked down with great affect, his gray eyes mirror-like and intense, giving him additional cloud. Just his stare intimidated men, and Miller was no exception.

“Well, Detective Miller?” Silver Top asked in a voice a cold as his appearance. “What have you found?”

 

 

Miller repeated what he had told Ransom, drawing a deep frown from the gray-eyed official, the crease between his brows the only real sign of deep thought. The gray gaze turned towards Davis.

“This coming and going is not at all acceptable,” he said. “Do you not know how to secure a crime scene?”

Davis gulped. “We weren’t aware of the extent of the crime until recently,” Davis said, looking even darker and smaller under Silver Top’s stern gaze. Davis gave Miller a panicked glance, but looked back to Silver Top.

“I understand,” Davis mumbled.

“I don’t think you do. It would seem you have too few personnel on this case,” the tall man said. “I want it rectified.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Davis mumbled again. “I was unaware of just how seriously your office was taking this matter. I’ll bring on another investigation unit immediately.”

“Now that you understand, Davis, wrap this up as quickly as possible so I can notify Washington.”

“What does Washington have to do with a routine shooting?” Miller asked, drawing yet one more panicked glance from Davis as well as the more critical stare of Silver Top.

 

“Let’s say they have an interest in how this investigation transpires,” Silver Top said.  “Frankly, you would be the last person I would see in charge of this. But since Captain Davis seems to think differently, I’ll leave the choice up to him – at least for now.”

Then turning, robotic-like on his heals, Silver Top moved on, back for one more quick survey of the operation, his collection of stooges at his heals, and to the place where the rest of the big wigs waited near the door to the hall.

They seemed uncomfortable, as if the shooting would break out again at any moment, and they wanted to part of real danger – something Miller found distasteful, even vulgar, believing down deep that anyone who commanded police should have had experienced some of what it took to make a good – or even a bad cop – not some mayoral appointment.

“That was pleasant,” Miller said, bitterly, the moment the entourage moved out into the hall again.

“You don’t have the best reputation, Kevin,” Davis said.

“Bullshit. I haven’t had a drink in…” Miller said, glancing at his watch. “…three or four hours at least.”

 

 

“This isn’t funny, Kevin,” Davis snarled. “We’re under pressure. The mayor is running for reelection, and the last thing he needs is a dead soldier dangling form his neck.”

“Not to mention Washington,” Miller mumbled, “and the fact that old Silvertop is a candidate to head Homeland Security.”

“Will you stop calling him that!” Davis hissed. “You want him to hear you?”

“Relax, Davis,” Ransom said, hurrying over from some part of the other room where several officers worked. “The old bugger has gone. He said he had to meet with the mayor for a session of kissing ass.”

“Stop!” Davis yelped, and glanced around nervously. “Someone will hear you.”

“So?”

“So it if gets back, it’s my career on the line, not yours,” Davis said. “The two of you ruined your careers a long time ago.”

“Always a politician, eh Dan?” Miller said with a laugh.

“I know how to play the game, you don’t,” Davis said. “That’s why the chief and the commissioner don’t trust you. The only reason you still have a job is because I am a politician and I fought to keep you on.”

“I understand that, Dan,” Miller said more seriously. “And I do appreciate it.”

“Then you can show that appreciation by wrapping up this case as quickly as possible.”

“Believe me,” Miller said, staring around the room, but not particularly at any of the people. “I want to catch this killer as much as you do.”

Davis gave him an odd, suspicious sideward glance, squinting at Miller as if to make out the detective’s expression better.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“He thinks this guy is the same guy that plugged his partner,” Ransom said, when Miller didn’t immediately respond.

 

Davis’ mouth twisted so that the thin moustache wiggled on his upper like an agitated caterpillar. But it was the hardening of the eyes that showed his rage, growing wide and then narrowing.

“You’re not going there, Kevin,” he said in a very low voice, not frightened of being over heard, but private, as if to keep this conversation between old friends, rather than superior and subordinate.

“Go where?” Miller asked.

“Down the old road. We both know where it leads.”

“And where’s that?”

“To the bottom of a bottle.”

“I’m not making this up,” Miller said.

“You never do.”

“Ask him,” Miller said, jerking his thumb in the direction of Ransom. “He’s the one with the evidence.”

“I could be,” Ransom said.

“It’s not,” Davis said harshly, and with more vehemence so that some of the others in the room glanced over.

“And it if is?” Miller asked.

“I’m telling you once and for all, Kevin. This is not the same who killed your partner. And if you insist that it is, then I’m taking you off the case. Is that understood?”

Miller let out a low sigh and nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I get it.”

“Good,” Davis said, looking relieved. He patted Miller’s shoulder. “You’ve always been a good cop, Kevin. But this case – whatever’s behind it – is bigger than you, bigger than all of us.”

“I said I got it,” Miller said. “You want me to put a bow on it when I’m done.”

“No,” Davis said. “Just handcuffs, and then turn the killer over to the feds.”

Then Davis, without looking at Miller again, crossed the room, and vanished out the door to the hall. Miller stared after him for a long moment.

“That was pleasant,” he said.

 

 

“He’s only doing what he thinks best,” Ransom said.

“Do you agree with him?”

“About the drinking, I do,” Ransom said, giving a steady look from under his thick black eyebrows. This was a look that Miller had seen before, not the usual professional gaze that Ransom maintained in advising him, but a look that bordered on friendship that the two men really didn’t share. They were close, but never that close, and so these moments were rare. “But you have good instincts, and if you see a pattern here, then I’d trust you.”

Miller grinned. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he said. “I needed that more than I do a drink.”

Ransom gave a mock cringe, but reverted to his professional mode.

“I may have more information for you,” he said. “I just didn’t want to bring it up in front of Davis.”

“Such as?”

“We found a hotel worker downstairs, bound and gagged, and a half full of witnesses who said they saw someone who might be the suspect coming back into the hotel through the service halls. One bell hop actually guided the man into the front lobby.”

“Is it the same guy – the one people saw running after the soldier?”

“According to the desk clerk, it is. The clerk said he saw the man leaving the hotel a short time ago, carrying a brief case – and dressed like a soldier.”

“Like a soldier?”
“Wearing a field jacket at least – probably something he took out of the closet here when he fixed himself up.”

“And went where?”

“That’s the best part. He hopped into a cab out front.”

“One of the regulars?”

“You bet.”

“Do we know the name of the driver?”

“No, but we can find out. I have a call down to the garage to find out.”

“Good.”

“There’s one more thing, Kevin.”

“What’s that?”

“We have a somewhat hysterical woman in the hall, who claims she’s the victim’s sister.”

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