It was a scene of unforgettable horror. Bodies lying where they’d fallen on the thirty or forty square yards of bloody fiberglass deck, footprints leaving tracks in all directions. Articles of clothing had been dropped here and there — a red baseball cap was squashed underfoot, mixed with paper cups and hot dog wrappers and newspapers soaked in blood.
I felt a sickening wave of despair. The killer could be anywhere, and evidence that might lead us to him had been lost every time a cop or a passenger or a paramedic walked across the deck.
Plus, I couldn’t stop thinking about Claire.
“You okay?” Tracchio asked me.
I nodded, afraid that if I started to cry, I wouldn’t be able to stop.
“This is Andrea Canello,” Tracchio said, pointing to the body of a woman in tan pants and a white blouse lying up against the hull. “According to that fellow over there,” he said, pointing to a teenager with spiky hair and a sunburned nose, “the doer shot her first. Then he shot her son. A little kid. About nine.”
“The boy going to make it?” I asked.
Tracchio shrugged. “He lost a lot of blood.” He pointed to another body, a male Caucasian, white haired, looked to be in his fifties, lying halfway under a bench.
“Per Conrad. Engineer. Worked on the ferry. Probably heard the shots and tried to help. And this fellow,” he said, indicating an Asian man lying flat on his back in the center of the deck, “is Lester Ng. Insurance salesman. Another guy who could have been a hero. Witnesses say it all went down in two or three minutes.”
I started picturing the scene in my head, using what Willie had told me, what Tracchio was telling me now, looking at the evidence, trying to fit the pieces into something that made sense.
I wondered if the shooting spree had been planned or if something had set the shooter off and, if so, what that trigger had been.
“One of the passengers thinks he saw the shooter sitting alone before the incident. Over there,” Tracchio told me. “Thinks he was smoking a cigarette. A package of Turkish Specials was found under a table.”
I followed Tracchio to the stern, where several horrified passengers sat on an upholstered bench that wrapped around the inner curve of the railing. Some of them were blood spattered. Some held hands. Shock had frozen their faces.
Uniforms were still taking down the witnesses’ names and phone numbers, getting statements. Sergeant Lexi Rose turned toward us, saying, “Chief, Lieutenant. Mr. Jack Rooney here has some good news for us.”
An elderly man in a bright-red nylon jacket stepped forward. He wore big-frame eyeglasses and a digital Minicam about the size of a bar of soap hanging from a black cord around his neck. He had an expression of grim satisfaction.
“I’ve got him right here,” Rooney said, holding up his camera. “I got that psycho right in the act.”
Chapter 7
THE HEAD OF THE Crime Scene Unit, Charlie Clapper, crossed the gangway with his team and came on board moments after the witnesses were released. Charlie stopped in front of us, greeted the chief, said, “Hey, Lindsay,” and took a look around.
Then he dug into the pockets of his herringbone tweed jacket, pulled out latex gloves, and snapped them on.
“This is a fine kettle of fish,” he said.
“Let’s try to stay positive,” I said, unable to conceal the edge in my voice.
“Cockeyed optimist,” he said. “That’s me.”
I stood with Tracchio as the CSU team fanned out, putting out markers, photographing the bodies and the blood that was spattered everywhere.
They dug out a projectile from the hull, and they bagged an item that might lead us to a killer: the half-empty packet of Turkish cigarettes that had been found under a table in the stern.
“I’m going to take off now, Lieutenant,” Tracchio told me, looking down at his Rolex. “I have a meeting with the mayor.”
“I want to work this case — personally,” I said.
He gave me a hard, unblinking stare. I’d just pushed a hot button on his console, but it couldn’t be helped.
Tracchio was a decent guy, and mostly I liked him. But the chief had come up through the ranks by way of administration. He’d never worked a case in his life, and that made him see things one way.
He wanted me to do my job from my desk.
And I did my best work on the street.