Viper - Michael Morley [116]
‘So it would seem.’
‘Now it turns bad. Give me the small print again.’
‘The slug dug out of the ceiling at Sorrentino’s apartment is a Remington nine-millimetre JHP.’
‘Jacketed Hollow Point, right? The nasty kind where the nose of the bullet flares out and makes a mess on penetration.’
‘The very same. Ballistics think it came from a Glock. It matches the rounds that killed your couple in the car.’
Sylvia scribbled in silence for a moment, then asked, ‘To be clear, this means it’s the same shooter?’
Marianna’s half-smile said it wasn’t going to be that simple. ‘This is where it loses shape. The bullets that killed the woman in the pit – and the two lovers, Novello and Valdrano – were the same ammunition that killed Sorrentino, but, and it’s a big but, the bullet that killed Sorrentino was not fired from the same gun. The same type of gun, yes. But most definitely not the same gun.’
Sylvia put her pen down. ‘So, same ammo at both crime scenes, but two entirely different guns?’
Marianna frowned. ‘Not entirely different. Ballistics say all the bullets were fired from Glocks – they can tell from the rifling – but…’
‘But different Glocks?’
‘But different Glocks.’
Sylvia made some more notes. Then pushed on with her questions. ‘How different? I mean, just what are we talking about here?’
‘Same make. All the bullets came from a Glock 19 – or, to be precise, two 19s. You know the model?’
Sylvia nodded hesitantly. ‘Enough to pick it out in a crowd, but I’ve never fired one. We’re all Berettas.’
‘They’re standard issue in Israel and the US, particularly loved by the NYPD and Shabak. USAF is also fond of them. It’s a serious piece of kit.’
‘The attraction being?’
‘Size. It may be the only time men brag about having something small. It’s especially good for concealed use.’
‘So it’s a weapon of choice for an assassin as well as a cop?’
‘You got it.’
Sylvia drummed her pen on her notebook. ‘Right now, what you’re telling me is pointing – no, let me correct myself – is jabbing a huge finger of accusation at Bruno Valsi, a sadistic young Camorrista who’s blipped on to our radar.’
‘That would make sense. Camorra links with the US are good, and they’ve always had a penchant for foreign weapons.’
‘Okay, so let’s go on to the DNA and trace-evidence reports.’ Sylvia turned a fresh page and braced herself to hear the findings again.
Marianna shuffled files and spread out three separate sheets. ‘Easy one first. Paolo Falconi. He comes up clean everywhere. No DNA or finger-print matches with any of the victims or crime scenes.’
Sylvia allowed herself a slight smile. It was good to at least eliminate someone.
Marianna picked up another sheet of her report. ‘Now then, Franco Castellani. This is a different story. We got clear DNA profiles from his bed sheets. The things were so crawling with evidence they could have walked to the scopes themselves.’
Sylvia pretended to hurl.
‘Franco’s DNA is all over the car where Rosa Novello and Filippo Valdrano were killed, and all over the pit where the woman was burned. But there wasn’t a trace of him at Sorrentino’s apartment.’
Sylvia weighed up the two out of three strikes against Franco. On what she’d just heard, a court would probably convict him of the killings of Novello, Valdrano and the Jane Doe in the pit, but wouldn’t entertain a case against him for Sorrentino. Yet she and Jack were both sure that whoever had killed the first three also killed Sorrentino. She was full of questions. ‘Our profiler mentioned that he thought there might also be DNA on the door frame. He had some theory about the killer taunting Rosa while she was in the back of the car.’
‘I don’t know about the taunting, but he was certainly right about the DNA.’ Marianna ran a finger down the columns and paragraphs. ‘We found genomic DNA on the window and door frame in dried saliva spittle. It was fresh enough to obtain a good amplified profile.’
‘And?’
Marianna read Sylvia’s mind. ‘It’s not Franco Castellani’s DNA. And so far, our