5 Bad Moon by Anthony Bruno Page A

a wall with five-and-a-half-inch nails, through the head, shoulders, and abdomen. He did exactly the same to the housewife, except that he used the woman’s kitchen knives in that case. After he was apprehended, he told the police he was ‘blessing’ them because they were sinners and they needed absolution. He said he had to give them the sign of the cross.”
    Gibbons got up to get the marmalade from the refrigerator. “This is her only good point, Lorraine. Don’t blink, you’ll miss it.”
    Cummings continued to ignore him. “Sabatini Mistretta and his bodyguard, Jerry Rella, were slain with the same wound pattern. They were both given the sign of the cross.”
    “However,” Gibbons said as the refrigerator door slammed shut, “Emerick used nails and knives to kill those women. Mistretta and Rella were shot, and the wounds may not have been the cause of death. In Rella’s case, they appear to have been inflicted after death. So it’s not the same.”
    “I beg to differ, but in essence it is the same. Assuming that career criminals like these two Mafiosi would put up significantly more resistance than two terrified women unused to violent confrontation, Emerick simply may have had to kill them first to accomplish his goal. And as for the weapon, whether it was bullets, knives, or nails, in each case the same goal was achieved, which apparently was to satisfy some distorted inner need.”
    Gibbons shook his head. “First of all, that hooker Emerick killed? She had been working the trade for quite some time, so she was probably no stranger to violent confrontation. I’ll bet she put up more of a fight than a seventy-four-year-old mob boss with more aches and pains than Carter’s got little liver pills. As for the wounds, my guess is that they’re some kind of bullshit Mafia symbolism. I’ve seen stuff like this before. Dead canaries in the mouth, balls cut off and stuffed down the throat, tongues up the ass, eyes gouged out—there’s nothing new about this.”
    Lorraine looked a little green. She pushed her bowl of mush away.
    “I’ve checked the archives on symbolic maimings connected with La Cosa Nostra murders. There actually aren’t that many, and none of them come close to resembling this.”
    “You think wiseguys consult the archives before they do what they do?”
    “The bodies were found in a sandpile under the West Side Highway, but it’s been established that those men weren’t killed there. They were moved, which to me indicates some kind of compulsive behavior. Generally, mobsters leave them where they fall. No?”
    Lorraine looked out the window.
    “I just told you. Wiseguys don’t follow rules. So what if they moved the bodies? All that says to me is that wherever they whacked Mistretta was too incriminating. They did it too close to home.”
    “Can we change the subject?” Lorraine was still looking out the window. Both her legs and arms were crossed.
    “What about the thumbprint on Mistretta’s watch and the partial palm print on the bodyguard’s neck? Wouldn’t mobsters take precautions against leaving prints? A psychotic killer doesn’t worry about leaving fingerprints. Getting caught doesn’t even enter his mind because he feels perfectly justified in what he’s doing.”
    Gibbons shook his head. “We haven’t gotten anything back on those prints yet. They could be the victims’ own prints, or their wives’ or their girlfriends’ or their kids’. It’s too soon to tell.”
    Cummings folded her arms and stared at him. “You cannot be so stupid as to think that there’s no connection between those wounds and Donald Emerick.”
    Gibbons leveled a stare right back at her. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe Immordino got the idea from Emerick? You ever think of that?”
    Cummings frowned. “Mental institutions are not like prisons. Psychotics like Mr. Emerick and Mr. Immordino don’t compare notes. Now, I know you don’t believe that there’s anything wrong