Viper - Michael Morley [101]
Marco cringed. ‘I see it.’
Sylvia paced around again; her feet in slip-ons, similar to the plastic clogs surgeons wear. ‘Get the techies to send me the first reports when they’ve run a laser trajectory kit over it.’ She pulled up beneath the blood spray and examined the area at her feet. ‘This carpet’s all fucked up with blood, but look at the wall. This brown spot here around waist height looks like something else, maybe a trace of faeces. Did the great La-fucking-Russo sniff this one out?’
Marco shook his head.
Sylvia took in the room from the killer’s perspective.
Walked it through. ‘Sorrentino was made to stand here by the shooter. Then – well, then he literally had the shit frightened out of him before he was killed. He’d pressed himself against the wall, scared to move.’ She pointed to the dead scientist. ‘When you move him, you’ll see he messed himself. Our ME should have seen that. And if he had been sober and not aching to run for his next drink, then maybe he would have done.’ Something else was wrong. A shot from close up should have blown a bigger hole in the wall, not to mention a bigger hole in Sorrentino’s head. ‘Forget what the Prof said. Bernardo wasn’t killed straight away. It wasn’t that kind of killing.’ Her eyes roamed across the room. ‘Even more interesting is the question of where our shooter had been standing.’
Marco was still staring at the stains of blood, brains and shit. ‘Why? Why does it matter that much where he was? Someone blew Sorrentino’s brains out and dumped him on his bed.’
Sylvia wagged a finger. ‘It certainly does matter. For a start it tells us the killer is a man, not a woman. Look at the carpet pile and the blood flow. There are no drag marks across the carpet. Someone picked up a six-foot-tall, dead man, carried him several metres and dumped him on the bed. Not many women can do that.’
‘I’ve dated a couple,’ he joked. ‘Not that that’s anything to brag about.’
‘As may be, Romeo. But I doubt any of them could put a bullet in your brain from across the bedroom with one single shot.’
Marco started to get the picture. ‘The killer was a pro?’
Sylvia wondered how Marco had made lieutenant. ‘Another thing; given most of the blood is on and around the bed, leaking out towards the wall, our man may well have got himself covered in it. You can bet someone’s burning old clothes tonight, if they haven’t done so already.’
Marco V started making notes. He’d have street dumpsters, house garbage sacks, garden fires and local drains checked straight away.
Sylvia walked and talked from the doorway to the corpse. ‘I think our killer was waiting in the dark. I’d say he stuck his gun to Sorrentino’s head when the light came on. Then he moved him over here.’ She stepped gingerly to the spot where the carpet was stained the heaviest. ‘While Sorrentino stood here, the gun still on him, the shooter stepped back and made himself comfortable on the bed. I think for a minute or so he just sat there and enjoyed scaring the living crap out of him.’
‘Forensics said they’d come back to the bed, they’re still dusting other parts of the apartment.’
Sylvia moved back to the corpse and examined it once more. ‘Then, after he’d had his moment of fun, he shot him. Just the once. Dead centre in the forehead from nearly three metres away. Hence the blood and brain sprayed up there on the wall and ceiling.’
‘So, I’m right. It certainly sounds like a pro job.’
‘You’re an annoying little shit, but yes, you are right.’ Sylvia pointed up at the wall in front of her. ‘Now, when forensics dig the bullet out of that wall, I want to know its entire ballistic history and I want to know it in Ferrari-fast time. I’m betting that for once it’s Sorrentino’s work and not his play that got him into trouble. And I also bet that slug matches those from the victims at the Castellani campsite.’
Sylvia had seen enough. She stepped out of the crime scene and shuffled off her gloves and changed shoes. On the way to the car she checked