Seven Grams of Lead by Keith Thomson

not going.”

13
    Traffic clogged the Jersey Turnpike. Hard rain and sleet hammered the Cadillac. As Musseridge drove, he grumbled about the latest round of nonessential home renovations that his wife considered vital. Next to him, Lamont couldn’t have been happier. Just three days after receiving the ad from the Au Bon Pain, Quantico had a result: COLD HIT. The blood matched nine of the thirteen chromosome locations, or loci, on an FBI database specimen from a white forty-one-year-old named Ralph Brackman. In 1996, the failed academic had served a month for cocaine possession and distribution. The Bureau put the odds of unrelated people sharing so many genetic markers at approximately one in 113 billion.
    An hour later, Musseridge parked the Escaladeacross from Brackman’s house, a run-down 1960s ranch, similar to half of the homes on the suburban block in Teaneck, New Jersey. The rest of the houses were undergoing major renovations or had already been expanded into residences that dwarfed their tenth-of-an-acre lots. Brackman’s place sat between a three-story Tudor replete with turret and a sprawling yellow Mediterranean villa.
    The backup team from the Newark field office radioed their readiness from a white cargo van parked at the far end of the block. Lamont received a similar message from one of the Teaneck PD patrol cars, the cops reporting that Brackman’s wife had left home an hour ago, driving the couple’s two young children to a local Catholic school, before proceeding to her secretarial job at a commercial construction company.
    Getting out of the Cadillac, Lamont hoped the Teaneck PD also had eyes on Brackman, given the suspect’s skill as a marksman. Alleged skill. The record offered nothing to suggest he was a hit man. Ralph Gerard Brackman was the only surviving child of Arthur and Penny Flaherty Brackman, who had been lifelong residents of Brooklyn. After graduating from City College in 1994, Ralph Brackman bounced around the tristate area in a series of career false starts and extensive stretches of unemployment. Now he worked out of his house as an “Internet consultant.” There was no hint of criminal activity since the coke bust, no visits to pistol ranges, not even aparking ticket—though assassins took pains to avoid leaving such trails.
    Lamont pressed the buzzer, and he and Musseridge waited on the stoop for twelve seconds, the average time span from ringing a bell to an open door. Converting his excitement into hyperawareness, Lamont noticed for the first time the cold drizzle, and, on the two neighboring houses, flames swaying in unison in lanterns suspended above the front doors. Then he heard hurried footfalls inside. Maybe the suspect had been in the can. Or readying a weapon. Lamont inched a hand closer to his holster.
    Brackman cracked the front door. Unlike the shooter described by witnesses at the St. George Ferry Terminal, he was thin. Of course, he might have used padding as part of his disguise that night, or worn Kevlar. He also looked remarkably cheerful: His eyes sparkled, and his wide mouth seemed set in a smile, even as he peered out, circumspect, from beneath the bill of a Phillies cap. Rosy cheeks added to a youthfulness that made it easy to overlook the gray in his curly black hair. He wore only an undershirt, sweatpants, and socks. No sign of a concealed weapon.
    “You guys from the FBI?” he asked.
    If this surprised Musseridge, he didn’t show it. “You expecting the FBI?”
    “No, but the local detectives don’t wear suits, and, all due respect, you guys look too old to be Mormon missionaries.”
    “So you were expecting detectives?”
    “I’m the only person in the neighborhood who’s been convicted of anything heavier than a DUI, so I get plenty of opportunities to ‘assist’ local law enforcement.” Brackman pulled open the door. “Why don’t you come in out of the rain? Tell me what I’ve done this time.”
    He was too cool, thought Lamont,