Read Online Rhymes With Prey by Jeffery Deaver - Free Book Online

hands.”
    Firing any pistol, and most rifles, results in burnt gunpowder particles and gases contaminating the hand holding the weapon.
    But Lucas muttered, “Fuck, that’s easy. He fired twice.”
    â€œYes!” Lincoln said enthusiastically. “Good. Verlaine lets the perp in. He—or she—stands beside him and blows his brains out. Then the perp puts the gun in Verlaine’s hand and pulls the trigger again. Bang . . . Verlaine’s fingerprints’re on the piece, and GSR’s on his hand. Perp collects the second shell and leaves the gun on the floor.”
    â€œBut where’s the other slug?” Cooper asked.
    Lucas, clearly pissed his friend had been set up, snapped, “Christ, just look at the pictures of the scene! The whole goddamn studio’s like a gun-range bullet trap—a thousand hunks of metal. Half of his quote art looks like a monkey pounded on it with a hammer. Nobody’d spot a bullet ding.”
    Amelia said, “Okay, that could work. But the big issue: what about Lily’s fingerprint on the shell casing fired from the murder weapon? How the hell did the perp finesse that?” She tossed her long red hair over a shoulder. Lincoln was amused to see Lucas following the sweep closely. He reflected: Just ’cause you’re a faithful husband doesn’t mean you are blind.
    Lincoln said, “Internal Affairs is claiming that Lily picked the gun up at the scene where she shot Levon Pitt—rescuing his son. What was the name again?”
    â€œThe boy?” Mel Cooper asked, flipping through a file. “Andy.”
    Lucas then snapped his fingers. “Hold on. Something’s wrong here. It’s Levon Pitt’s gun—and presumably it was loaded with Pitt’s ammo. Why would Lily reload the mag with her rounds? That makes no sense. I’m not saying she’d take somebody out like that, but if she did, she wouldn’t be stupid about it.”
    Amelia said, “Somebody stole one of her cartridges and popped it in the mag.”
    â€œWore gloves.”
    â€œOr knuckled it,” Lucas said, referring to loading a weapon by holding the bullets between your fingers, never letting the tips come in contact with the brass or slug.
    Lucas nodded. “Our friend Markowitz ain’t real crazy about the boys and girls from Narcotics being involved. But it’s leaning that way to me.”
    â€œWell, IA’s not going to take our word for it,” Cooper pointed out. “How do we prove somebody copped a spent shell from Lily?”
    An idea occurred to Lincoln. “Call Ballistics. Have them test fire a round from the bottom of the mag of the gun at Verlaine’s suicide. I want three-D images of that shell compared with the one with Lily’s prints on it. And I fucking want them now.”
    â€œWill do.”
    Not that fast, but it wasn’t bad. A half hour later the images were on the big monitor in front of them.
    Lincoln glanced toward Lucas then Amelia. “You two are the shoot-em-up mavens. What do you think?”
    It took no more than a fast glance. They nodded at each other. Lucas said, “The shell with Lily’s prints was machined to fit the receiver of Pitt’s gun. The real perp got one of her cartridges and altered it.”
    â€œYep,” Amelia agreed. “So whoever did it knows weapons and metalwork. It’s real high quality, close tolerances.”
    â€œOkay, that proves she was set up. But it doesn’t get us any closer to who’s setting Lily up,” Cooper said.
    Breaking a lengthy silence, Lucas said, “Maybe it does. Amelia, you know somebody in the NYPD evidence room?”
    â€œKnow somebody?” she asked, laughing. “It’s my home away from home.”

    STAN MARKOWITZ STOOD AT THE podium beside the police commissioner, along with some minion from the mayor’s office and a Public Affairs officer or two. They