Dirty Fire

by Earl Merkel

  “I thought you test fired the guns in the lab,” one of the legislators spoke up.

  “That’s right—and you can get a pristine bullet from a test firing in the lab,” Darnell agreed. “Even with that, finding other crimes where the same gun had been used meant a lot of time digging through records and manually comparing any suspect bullets. Ballistics identification has always been labor-intensive—harder than actual human fingerprints to work with, from a forensics point of view.”

  Darnell patted the computer screen with a confidence he sincerely wished he felt.

  “Bummers”—shit! Darnell winced at his slip—“pardon me, I mean our new Ballistics Mapping and Retrieval System, changes that equation because it does most of the work electronically,” he said. “Using an ultraviolet laser, it scans the surface of a bullet and creates a digital map of it. If the bullet is mushroomed or even fragmented, the system uses sophisticated logarithms to enhance whatever markings are discernible. Finally it files that record in an electronic database.”

  “Here’s the payoff for Illinois law enforcement,” Darnell said. “We—and all participating Illinois police departments—can access that databank. When the database is completely set up, we’ll be able to compare any bullet to every other bullet in the system in seconds.”

  “The database is inclusive statewide? You get a bullet from, say, Peoria; you can tell if the same gun was used in a Chicago shooting?” This from a studious-looking man in a sports jacket. In one hand he carried a Palm Pilot on which he was making notes.

  Ah, a techno buff, Darnell thought to himself. One in every crowd. He made his face light up in an encouraging smile.

  “That’s it, exactly,” he said. “For the first time, ballistics comparison becomes a proactive crime-solving tool rather than a technique that can only react. We’ve already scanned in recovered bullets from a number of crimes.”

  “Really?” the boyish-looking senator asked. “How far back do your records go?”

  “Only for the past six months,” Darnell replied, apologetically. “As you can imagine, there are a lot of bullets flying around these days. We’re kind of swamped trying to keep up. But over the next year, we hope to expand the ballistics files dramatically.”

  He hesitated, then decided to take a chance.

  “Maybe you’d like to see the system work?”

  He turned to the attractive Asian woman who had been working at an BMRS console in a corner of the room.

  “Cathy, what do you have that we can run right away?”

  Cathy Li had been listening to her supervisor’s practiced patter. She had heard it before. In fact, she had contributed to it, adding her comments and criticisms and suggestions—often as she lay beside Darnell in the Near North Side apartment they had shared since the previous Christmas.

  She tried not to look surprised at her boyfriend-supervisor’s request. A real-time demo of the system was definitely not part of the standard presentation—and shouldn’t be, she thought, not until the database was firmed up enough to provide a reasonable chance of a match. So now I get the opportunity to look like a boob.

  Cathy made a mental note to make Darnell pay for that transgression when the two of them were alone.

  All right, Bummers—try to make me look good, okay?

  She called up the most recent file, a bullet that had arrived at the lab in the morning delivery from the Cook County Sheriff’s office.

  “This bullet was fired at a police officer this week,” she said, her hand moving over the trackpad as the digitized image rotated on the screen. “As you can see, BMRS has mapped out all the surface characteristics and generated this screen image. It’s pretty precise as an image, already. But let me assure you, the digitized information is even more exact. That’s the data the computer is working with. It’s accurate enough to be used as evidence in court, though our current practice is to confirm every BMRS match through traditional ballistics-comparison techniques.”

  She moved the pointer to a menu line and tapped the pad lightly, twice. “We are now searching through the files to see if this mapping duplicates anything there.” She looked up at the group of visitors. “It’s not very likely we’ll have a match,” she cautioned them. “We still have a relatively small database to work with, and there’s—”

  “That was fast,” the young senator said, impressed.

  She stopped, blinking in surprise. The image had switched to a split-screen mode that looked much like what you’d see in the old-fashioned comparison microscopes, except this image was much more colorful. On the left was the original green-shaded graphic of the first bullet; on the right, in shades of red and yellow marking the grooves and lands, was an image identical to it.

  In capital letters, centered and flashing across both, was a single word. MATCH.

  “Well, well,” she muttered softly. “I’ll be damned.”

  • • •

  “I’ll be damned,” I said. “Tell me that again.”

  Gil spread his palms in a ‘what can I say?’ gesture.

  “The State Crime Lab says that the bullet that killed Erlich in Sonnenberg’s apartment came from the same gun that killed Stanley Levinstein,” he repeated. “There’s no mistake, Davey. After their computers picked up the match this morning, they did a test fire of the gun. A manual comparison confirmed the match. Kolchenk’s gun killed Stanley.”

  I sat upright in the chair, thinking furiously. “So that locks it; everything happened just as Sam Lichtman told it. Nederlander is tied to this Russian thug,” I said flatly. “That links him with the Russian Mafiya. Or maybe it was some kind of contract job, with Nederlander—”

  “Davey, stop for a minute,” Gil Cieloczki interrupted, and his voice was a mixture of placation and exasperation. “Listen to yourself. This is evidence that points away from Bob Nederlander. I’m not saying there isn’t a connection of some kind, somewhere—but dammit, I’m concerned that your first inclination is to assume as indisputable fact that there is a connection.”

  I stared at Cieloczki, feeling my anger rise.

  “We have Chaz’s statement that Nederlander was tanking the investigation,” I said tightly. “We’ve established his involvement in the car insurance scam—it’s only a matter of time before we find his link to Rebecca Hunt’s murder. We have the receipts for the gasoline he used to torch the Levinstein place. Are you saying Nederlander isn’t our primary suspect?”

  “I’m saying that I won’t have this investigation run into a ditch simply because you dislike Nederlander,” Gil said, his own tone matching mine. “Davey, every damn thing doesn’t incriminate him. If you keep acting as if it does, trying to make everything fit a preconceived notion, we are going to miss something important.”

  I nodded stiffly, my lips a thin line on a face I struggled to make impassive.

  “So how would you like me to proceed…Boss?” I asked.

  Gil looked at me for a moment. Then he glanced at his watch; it was almost noon.

  “I’m going over to the hospital to see Terry and Mel,” he said. “How do I want you to proceed? I want you to act like a trained investigator. Like a professional.”

  I pivoted back to my desk, feeling a pulse pound hot in my ears. I knew Cieloczki was right, a fact that did little to temper my emotions.

  I wanted payback on Nederlander, badly; I ached to see Nederlander force-fed the same flavors of hell I had been through. I was livid, but I had seen other investigations derailed by that motivation.

  What we needed were facts—incontrovertible evidence that Nederlander had led a badge-wearing band of thieves, grifters and strong-arm thugs deep into a scheme that had spread to include multiple murder.

  We needed evidence.

  I had a good idea where we might, with luck and a little help from the Feds, find some.

  Chapter 36

  “Those goddam movies have it all wrong,” Chaz Trombetta grinned at me, pulling the T-shirt over his head. He wadded it into a ball
and tossed it onto my coffee table. “You know—all that bullshit about some unwritten code, that no cop would ever wear a wire to catch another cop.”

  With thumb and forefinger, he picked gingerly at a strip of clear surgical tape under which his chest hair matted in flattened curlicues.

  “Brother, is that a load of it,” he said. “Give a guy the choice between wearing a wire and going to the slammer, there’s only one question.” He looked up from under the black arch of his eyebrows, waiting for me to pick up my cue.

  When I didn’t respond after a beat, he provided the punch line himself. “‘Where do you want me to stick the microphone, boss-man?’ Alimentary, my dear Watson.” He looked at me, clearly peeved. “Chrissake, J.D. You’re starting to turn into a real dull SOB.”

  “It’ll hurt less it you don’t play with it, Chaz. One fast pull, just rip it off.”

  “Fuckin’ Santori. Bastard’s giving me a little early payback.”

  He stared dourly down his torso. The thread-like microphone lead was taped down his chest all the way to the tiny recorder—itself taped, snugly and intimately, where Chaz’s leg joined his torso.

  The arrangement minimized the chance of discovery should anyone decide a pat down was in order. But adhesive tape pulls painfully with each movement, particularly when the wearer is possessed of the Mediterranean genes of my former partner. Earlier this morning, when he had met with Chaz to prepare the hidden wire, Santori had not thought to bring a razor to provide a smooth clearing in the jungle of follicles on Chaz’s chest and lower belly. Or so the FBI agent had claimed.

  But that was just physical discomfort. Worse was the strain of trying to manipulate the conversation so as to get statements that would be admissible—or even relevant—in court. In the event, Trombetta had found what countless moles and informers had always discovered: left undirected, most discussions tend to focus on irrelevant minutiae. It was seldom easy to lead the discussion to a review of the criminal activities in which the other party was engaged; at least, not without sounding both comic and suspect.

  “So I says to him, ‘How’s the crooked-cop business going for you?’” Trombetta was saying. “‘And while you’re at it, could you please speak a little more clearly into my chest?’”

  I was finding it hard to match Chaz’s bantering tone.

  “What did you get?” I asked. “Anything we can use?”

  “Mostly crap,” Chaz said, and then a look of satisfaction came over his features. “And then I went up to see Dixon.”

  This, supplemented by the recording he had made, is the story Chaz Trombetta told me.

  • • •

  Chaz had, throughout the day, compiled a litany of his fellow officers’ complaints—windy bitch sessions that were largely unworthy of the miniaturized computer chip on which they had been recorded.

  In fact, most were just like the conversation Chaz was having now with Sergeant Dahl Dixon, seated in the windowless evidence lockup that—in casual violation of the access limitation regulations—doubled as a lunchroom for many of the Lake Tower cops.

  Dixon’s voice was surprisingly high-pitched for one with a physique so wide.

  “Ever wonder why I’m still a sergeant?” he asked plaintively. “I mean, hell—I’ve got twenty years on the job here, and Nederlander couldn’t blow his nose without me. So how come I’m not a captain? Or hell— ‘least a goddam lieutenant?”

  “Might have something to do with your record, maybe,” Chaz’s voice speculated. “As I recall, there was a public protest—right out there on the steps of the Municipal Center, wasn’t it? All those citizens, upset about some bumper sticker you had. Refresh my memory: what did it say, exactly?”

  “It was your basic, valid political comment.” Dixon said. “And it was pretty damn funny, too. ‘If I knew it was going to be such a problem, I’d have picked the goddam cotton myself.’ Ever hear of free speech?”

  “Sure,” Trombetta said. “It’s just that not many captains, or even lieutenants, drive around with something like that on their personal car, even. Let alone on a squad car owned by the city.”

  Dahl Dixon shrugged.

  “Judgment call,” he said philosophically. “Did I complain when they torched that store mannequin? The one they dressed up like a cop? No, I goddam did not. Not even after that sign they put around its neck. You remember what they called me?”

  Chaz nodded. “Racist Dixon,” the sign had said, with a swastika in the place of the “x.”

  “Hell, they want to burn a dummy, that’s their right, okay?” Dahl said, oblivious to the irony of his statement. “Free speech. But if they get it, I ought to get it too.”

  “You oughta file a complaint, Dahl. You’re being discriminated against.”

  Dixon laughed, a sharp explosion that sounded like the single bark of a large dog. “Right. Discrimination. I’m Anglo-Saxon, I’m male, I’m straight and I’m a cop. Hell, Trombo—I’m probably the last person left in America you can discriminate against.”

  Chaz grunted in what he hoped sounded like agreement, or at least appreciation. He decided to force the issue, lowered his voice confidentially as he leaned forward.

  “Dahl, what’s your take on where we stand?” Chaz asked, as if he truly valued the other’s observations. “Things are starting to feel real loose around here, if you get my meaning. I even heard that this Levinstein case bullshit with Cieloczki is a cover—something to keep us on the rag while they’re really looking at what we’ve been running here. Is it true? The fireman—is he getting close to chilling out Nederlander’s action?”

  Dixon looked at Trombetta for a moment without speaking.

  “Chaz, my friend—the trick is that you gotta stay cool…cool as a cucumber, right? Look, you ain’t been in as long as most of us. Trust me. Nederlander ain’t gonna let anybody shut us down. Far as Cieloczki running the murder case—Nederlander’s doing what needs to be done, okay?’

  Chaz stitched a frustrated look on his face.

  “None of us are virgins sitting here, Sergeant Dixon,” he said. “You don’t have to rub grease on it for me. But I’d feel better if I knew our fearless leader was doing more than just waiting for the roof to cave in. Think what you want about Davey—he’s a damn good investigator. And Gil Cieloczki strikes me as a guy who won’t just go away.”

  “Cieloczki gotta be one cool character, I’ll agree with you there,” Dixon said.

  He made a show of looking around the room as if searching for an eavesdropper.

  “Look, things are in the works, okay? Week ago, I took one of the video cams out for a little exercise. Nederlander told me to shadow Cieloczki’s wife and shoot some footage. Normal shit, you know? Walking down the street, going into stores—just stuff to show we had been watching and knew where to find her. Then I sneaked it into Cieloczki’s office. Put it right on his desk.”

  “And?”

  Dahl’s lips twisted in a disgusted expression. “And Nederlander’s been on my ass every other day since. Yesterday, I got fed up and told him, ‘Look—I shot the tape and put it where he couldn’t not find it. I can’t help it if he’s hasn’t run in to you shittin’ bricks over his poor, endangered wife.’”

  Dahl rolled his eyes and took a bite from his meatball sandwich.

  “I mean, Christ! Maybe Cieloczki’s got balls of steel where his wife’s concerned,” he said. “Or maybe he’s just tired of the ol’ ball and chain and wouldn’t mind if somebody did take her off. Fuck do I know, huh?”

  Chaz frowned in shared puzzlement. “You sure he even saw the damn thing?”

  Dahl shrugged. “I put it on his desk. It ain’t there; hasn’t been since the day after I did it.”

  “Threaten a guy’s wife, you got to expect some reaction,” Chaz said, hoping he was getting all this on the FBI recorder. “Especially when you’re trying to shake him off a double homicide case.”

  “Who cares, anyway?” Dahl said, almost yawning. “Hell of a note, giving one o
f our cases to a goddam fireman. Nederlander wants to rattle the guy’s cage, fine. But you ask me, Nederlander’d do better comin’ up with something to make up for the car thing. It’s starting to hit me where it hurts.”

  “Same here. You got anything going on I can maybe get a taste of?”

  Dahl shook his head sadly. “Nah,” he said, and his face brightened with the joke. “Not a cotton-pickin’ thing. Cotton picking, huh? Get it?”

  “Got it,” Chaz replied, and summoned up a half-hearted laugh.

  Cotton pick this, you asshole, he thought, very aware of the recorder taped against his groin.

  • • •

  The quality of the videotape was poor, like much of the surveillance footage I had seen in my career. The image blurred as it moved in and out of focus, occasionally bouncing as the camera was shifted by the unseen operator. It would never win a Palm d’Or at Cannes. But then, it was never meant for widespread distribution. The intended audience for this movie was only one person.

  Kay Cieloczki sat across from me at an angle to the television/VCR in her living room. During the few minutes it took for us to watch the recording, she had not taken her eyes off me.

  “Davey, what’s this all about? Is somebody following me?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Kay,” I said, trying to sound calm as well as calming. “Yes. You were followed, and somebody wants us to know that. Has Gil seen this?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. He would have said something. I found it in the den under a stack of things he must have brought home from the office. There was no label, no marking—I didn’t know if it was a program he had taped here or one of the training tapes Gil’s people use.”

  She looked at me intently.

  “Davey, what should I do?”

  I wondered if Kay sensed that I was the worst possible person to ask. I liked Kay and respected Gil’s determination and commitment. But I also understood how Gil felt about his wife. He was a firefighter, not a policeman; I had no illusions about his probable reaction. Gil had not envisioned a situation where his family would be in danger.