The Dog Killer of Utica by Frank Lentricchia Page B

but no proof yetthat it was and who would have the motive to kill a dog and then Freddy? How are they connected, if they are?”
    “Both dogs?”
    “Very nice, Catherine.”
    “What do you always tell me? Humor knows no pieties? Our only weapon against the dark?”
    “Forget it, Catherine. What’s the connection of those two shootings with the shooting of Bobby Rintrona? If there is one.”
    Her cell. Belmonte. She listens without responding until the end, when she says, “This is insane.”
    “What is insane?”
    “Antonio called him to the house because—they have a Jack Russell terrier, named Jack Russell, did you know that, Eliot?”
    “They don’t
have
one, Catherine. They
had
one. Isn’t that what you’re going to tell me?”
    “Milly’s walking him. They’re in the driveway—no, I mean
she
’s in the driveway and the dog’s in the snow-covered lawn area on one of those retractable leashes that allows the dog—there was a shot. The dog’s head exploded. Something else. Worse. Apparently the bullet, which passed through the—it must have ricocheted off the driveway because Milly—a fragment shattered her knee. She’s at Saint Elizabeth’s where Don talked to her. Antonio is adamant. None of this gets out to the public.”
    “What did she tell Don about what she saw?”
    “Nothing. No car. No drive-by. Nobody around. Don concludes high-powered rifle with a scope from somewhere on the hill across from the driveway. No witnesses.No neighbors. Don says it would be highly unlikely to find a shell casing because the shooter, if he didn’t pick it up, fired from wooded and brushy terrain, and it would take many men scouring foot by foot in the deep snow and anyway Antonio wants this thing kept secret for some reason.”
    “If Don’s right—”
    “Don’s always right, El.”
    “A precision shot intended for the dog’s head. The shooter could easily have killed Milly, but didn’t want to. Where was Antonio when the shooting occurred?”
    “Don didn’t say. Why?”
    “If he’s at home, he’s in the clear.”
    “You cannot be serious.”
    “Call Don, tell him to pin that down. How did Antonio learn of the shooting is the point.”
    “You actually think—”
    “Rule nothing out in advance. Isn’t that what you’ve taught me, Detective Cruz? Motive—Jesus, I have no clue. Kill his own dog? Put his wife in danger?”
    “See the pattern, connect the shootings, Detective Conte. Tie irrefutable forensics to a subject who will never take the stand. The D.A. invents motive. Because the jury wants a story. Motive is beside the point except in those bullshit novels of the courtroom.”
    “Motive is totally irrelevant to the real-life police work of solving crimes? You can’t mean that, Catherine.”
    “Largely irrelevant. The pattern. The forensics. Plus one other thing: luck. Let’s review the facts.”
    “Okay: Bobby. Three from a car. What does three tell us, Catherine, if not that the shooter intended murder?”
    “What else it tells, El, he, or she, whatever, was not that good with a handgun. It’s hard, very hard, to be accurate with a handgun unless you have a lot of practice.”
    “Wait. Not necessarily. Maybe the shooter
was
good with a handgun on the practice range with a paper target. But with an actual human target, for the first time, he loses his composure. He’s like a first-time deer hunter with buck fever when the buck crosses his path, which he can’t hit no matter how close.”
    “Which leaves us at square one.”
    “The killer of Bobby’s dog, though. Bing! One shot.”
    “What we know about Troy, El: two different guns, two different cars. But likely same shooter because no other theory makes sense. Day one, Bobby. Day two, his dog. Same shooter, El. Has to be.”
    “Who suddenly becomes a deadly marksman?”
    “No, El. Who gets lucky with the handgun, but whose target is obviously the dog, lucky or not.”
    “Okay, Freddy Barbone. Head shot up close.