The Dark Hours (Harry Bosch #23)(12)

“You mean the firing into the sky, right?” Ballard said.

“I do, and it’s interesting. We have thirty-one shells recovered and I think it adds up to only three guns in play — including the murder weapon.”

“Show me.”

Beside the graph paper was a clipboard with Manzano’s notes and drawings from the scene. There was also an open cardboard box containing the thirty-one bullet casings in individual plastic evidence bags.

“Okay, so thirty-one shots produced thirty-one shells on the ground,” Manzano said. “We have three separate calibers and ammunition brands, so this becomes pretty easy to figure out.”

He reached into the box, rooted around in it, and came out with one of the bagged bullet casings.

“We have identified seventeen casings as nine-millimeter PDX1 rounds produced by Winchester,” Manzano said. “You will have to get confirmation from FU, but to me, as a nonexpert, the firing-pin marks on these look alike, and that would suggest they all came from a nine-millimeter weapon that would hold sixteen rounds in the clip and one in the chamber if fully loaded.”

Manzano had referenced the Firearms Unit, which was no longer called that because of the other meaning associated with the acronym. It had been updated to Firearms Analysis Unit.

“I think you are probably looking at a Glock seventeen or similar weapon there,” Manzano said. “Then we have thirteen casings that were forty-caliber and manufactured by Federal. I looked at our ammo catalog, and these likely were jacketed hollow points, but FU would have an opinion on that. And of course these could have been fired by any number of firearms. Twelve in the clip, one in the chamber.”

“Okay,” Ballard said. “That leaves one.”

Manzano reached into the box and found the bag containing the last casing.

“Yes,” he said. “And this is a Remington twenty-two.”

Ballard took the evidence bag and looked at the brass casing. She was sure it was from the bullet that killed Javier Raffa.

“This is good, Anthony,” she said. “Show me where you found it.”

Manzano pointed to an X on the crime scene schematic that had the marker number 1 next to it and was inside the rectangular outline of a car. To the right of the car was a stick figure that Ballard took to be Javier Raffa.

“Of course, the victim was transported before we got there, but the blood pool and EMT debris marked that spot,” he said. “The casing was nine feet, two inches from the blood and located under one of the wrecks in the tow yard. The Chevy Impala, I believe.”

Ballard realized that they had caught a break. The ejected shell had gone under the car and that made it difficult for the gunman to retrieve it before people started to notice that Raffa was down.

She held up the evidence bag.

“Can I take this to Firearms?” she asked.

“I’ll write a COC,” Manzano said.

He was talking about a chain-of-custody receipt.

“Do you know if anyone is over there?” Ballard asked.

“Should be somebody,” Manzano said. “They’re on max deployed like everybody else.”

Ballard pulled her phone and checked the time. Tactical alert would end in fifteen minutes. It was Friday and the January 1 holiday. The Firearms Analysis Unit might possibly go dark.

“Okay, let me sign the COC and get over there before they leave,” she said.

The FAU was just down the hall and Ballard entered with ten minutes to spare. At first she thought she was too late — she didn’t see anyone. And then she heard someone sneeze.

“Hello?”

“Sorry,” someone said. “Coming out.”

A man in a black polo shirt with the FAU logo stepped out from one of the gun storage racks that lined one wall of the unit. The unit had collected so many varieties of firearms over the years that they were displayed in rows of racks that could be closed together like an accordion.

The man was carrying a feather duster.

“Just doing a little housekeeping,” he said. “We wouldn’t want Sirhan’s gun to get dusty. It’s part of history.”

Ballard just stared for a moment.

“Mitch Elder,” the man said. “What can I do for you?”

Ballard identified herself.

“Are you about to leave at the end of the tac alert?” she asked.

“Supposed to,” Elder said. “But … whaddaya got?”

It had been Ballard’s experience that gun nuts always liked a challenge.

“We had a homicide this morning. Gunshot. I have a casing and was looking for a make on the weapon used, maybe a NIBIN run.”

The National Integrated Ballistic Information Network was a database that stored characteristics of bullets and casings used in crimes. Each carried markings that could be matched to specific weapons and compared crime to crime. Casings were a better bet than bullets because bullets often fragmented or mushroomed on impact, making comparisons more difficult.

Ballard held up the clear evidence bag with the casing in it as bait. Elder’s eyes fixed on it. He didn’t take long.

“Well, let’s see what you got,” he said.

Ballard handed him the bag and then followed him to a workstation. He put on gloves, removed the casing, and studied it under a lighted magnifying glass. He turned it in his fingers, studying the rim for marks left by the weapon that had fired it.