Eleventh Hour

from Carver’s sister, Eloise DeMarks. And Delion wasn’t blind. The man was hurting, bad. He was also a Fed. All the Feds Delion had ever met hadn’t seemed to feel much of anything. They all just wanted to press their wing tips down hard on his neck. Of course, he’d never seen a Fed in this situation before. Murder of a family member—something very personal, something over which he had no control at all. It couldn’t get tougher than this.
    Dane said, his voice effortlessly calm and compelling—it was a very good interview voice, Delion thought—“Yes, I appreciate that. Tell me what you have.”
    “I’m really sorry about this, but the first thing we need to do is go over to the morgue and you need to identify the body, not that there’s any doubt, just procedure, you know the drill. Or maybe you don’t. You ever been a local cop?”
    Dane shook his head. “I always wanted to be an FBI agent. But yes, I know the drill.”
    “Yeah, I hear that’s usually the way the thing works. Me, I always wanted to be local. Okay, Dr. Boyd did the autopsy this morning, and yeah, I was there. Your brother died instantly, like I told you last night. Boyd also says that was the case, if it’s any comfort. I’ve spoken to your sister. She wanted to come up today, but I told her you would be here to handle things, that you’d fill her in. I’ll need to speak to her, but in a day or two. I figured you’d rather take care of things.”
    “Yes. I’ve spoken to Eloise. I’ll speak with her tonight. Now, about the gun—”
    “No gun found at the murder site or anywhere in the church or within a two-block radius of Saint Bartholomew’s, but the coroner extracted a twenty-two-caliber bullet from the concrete wall behind the confessional. So the bullet passed through your brother, out the confessional, and another six feet to the wall, not very deep, just about an eighth of an inch into the wall, and it was in pretty good shape. Our ballistics guy, Zopp—yeah, that’s really his name, Edward Zopp—was on it right away. The thing is, you know, your brother was a priest, a very active, well-liked priest, and that’s got priority over about everything else going on. The bullet was intact enough to weigh and measure, and Zopp was very happy about that. Usually it’s not the case. Zopp said he counted the grooves and the land, and determined, of all things, that the gun is probably a JC Higgins model eighty or a Hi Standard model one-oh-one—both of those weapons are really close.”
    “Yeah, and they’re also pretty esoteric. Neither of them is made anymore, but they’re not hard to find, and they’re not valuable. They’re cheap, in fact.”
    “Yeah, that’s it. Also Zopp told us it was weird because it’s like the same gun the Zodiac killer used back in the late sixties and early seventies. Ain’t that something? You remember, the guy was never caught.”
    “You’re thinking there could be some sort of connection?”
    Delion shook his head. “Nope. We’re wondering if maybe our perp is an admirer of the Zodiac killer. Hey, it’s a real long shot, but we’ll see. Since we got the bullet, when we find the gun, we’ll be able to match it for the DA.”
    Dane sat back in his chair and looked down at his wing tips. He hated this, hated it to his soul, but he had to ask. “Angle of entry?”

THREE
    “The killer was sitting right opposite your brother. They were looking at each other. The killer raised the gun and fired through the screen.”
    Jesus, Dane thought, seeing Michael, his head cocked just slightly to one side, listening so carefully to the penitent, trying to feel what the person confessing was feeling, trying to understand, wanting to forgive. But not with this guy, Dane was sure of that. His brother had been worried about this guy. The guy just raised the damned gun and shot him right through his forehead? For a moment, Dane couldn’t even think, the horror of what had happened to Michael deadening his brain. He wished it would deaden the rest of him, but of course it didn’t. He felt hollow with pain.
    Delion gave Dane Carver some time to get himself together, then said, “We’ve already started checking local gun shops to see if they still carry either of these models or have carried them in the past, and if so, who’s bought one in the last few years. Our local gun shop folk keep very thorough records.”
    Dane couldn’t imagine using such a gun to murder someone,