The Watchmaker’s Hand

Fine with him. He had work to do. He slipped through the gate and began vacuuming up trace on the way to the corpse and then started on the body, collecting from the victim’s clothing, scraping fingernails, taking a hair sample, looking for the slugs, which turned out to be still within the body. The autopsy doc would remove them and have them sent to ballistics in Queens. Aside from the huge Desert Eagle.50, or the tiny.17 HMR, it’s hard to tell the caliber of the slug from the wound. Most guns are in the 9mm, 380 or .38 range — all basically the same. And these rounds appeared around that size, but there are thousands of weapons with that caliber, so it was pointless to speculate what the make and model might be.

The absence of exit wounds was intriguing. The accuracy meant the shooter was not far away when he pulled the trigger. Normally at that range, the bullets would likely have penetrated the chest cavity, if not the skull, and exited. That this didn’t happen meant he’d possibly used a silencer, which dramatically reduces not only the sound but the velocity of the shot. This theory was born out too by the absence of 911 calls reporting gunshots or of ShotSpotter alerts. Despite what you see in the movies, silencers aren’t that common. Muggers and your average thieves rarely have access. Organized crime and professional triggermen, yes.

So, as Sanchez had speculated: the shooter was likely a pro.

No spent shells. The gun might have been a revolver, which would leave none — and despite the gap between chamber and barrel, it was somewhat quieted by a silencer. A semiauto, conversely, would have ejected brass. Then again, pros always took the empty shells with them. He found, however, where the brass would likely have ended up — to the right of where the shooter stood — and six to eight feet away he took samples of the dirt from where the flying shells would have landed.

Gilligan’s own weapon, a common Glock 17, was on his hip. No extra mag on the opposite side of his body, which told Pulaski that he didn’t do much fieldwork. You never ventured out of the office without at least one extra magazine.

Pulaski then began on the spiral ham. His comprehensive search.

There were a half-dozen footprints, but much of the site was hard-packed clay and gravel and grass, none of which yielded any impressions.

He dropped off what he’d collected at the bus and proceeded to the Lexus.

And what will you have for Mr. Locard and me?

The interior contained the typical: an empty coffee cup, two water bottles, DMV and insurance documents. The vehicle was only a month old. There was paperwork in the door and center console. Car stuff mostly. No more toll receipts nowadays. That information, often helpful, was available with a warrant only, from the bridge, tunnel, and toll road authorities.

He found several restaurant receipts, some recent, though none from this morning.

He lifted soil samples from the carpet, passenger seat and backseats, latents from the wheel, touchpad screen, other controls and surfaces, and door handles, both sides.

In the trunk was a laptop. He bagged this too.

Finally, a search of the seats. Under them, of course, but also in them: a place that no evidence-collecting book — even Lincoln Rhyme’s — suggested searching. But Pulaski patted down the supple leather, as if frisking a suspicious-looking gangbanger for drugs or weapons.

And here he found it, behind a slit cut into the side of the driver’s-side backseat.

Something that put Andy Gilligan’s murder in a whole new light.

18

A lot of people had second phones — the providers courteously offered great deals to suck you in — but Gilligan’s was a burner.

You could tell because it was a brand name, but an older model — three years out-of-date, yet in good shape, no scuffs or chips. Pay-as-you-go companies bought up inventories of older phones like this, selling them to a diverse crowd: those with limited means, teenagers learning how to budget and... to murderers and drug dealers.

As he placed it in the evidence bag, Pulaski was reflecting that a cop could certainly have a burner for legitimate reasons. So he could talk to CIs or suspects and not give away his personal number. Maybe Gilligan did some undercover work.

But why hide it so carefully?

If he was worried about it being stolen, there was the trunk or the glove compartment.

So Pulaski seized on the idea that Gilligan was involved in something illegal and the phone was one he used to communicate with a partner, Mr. X.

Think, he told himself.

Had he come here to meet that person, who had ambushed him?

Pulaski looked at it logically. Gilligan had died facing the shooter. If it was a stranger coming at him in a random attack, the detective would at least have reached for his own gun. But, based on his posture in death, that hadn’t happened.

So then, assume they were partners and met here for some reason. Think! Speculate!

Bold...