Horace’s gruff laugh was his only reply.
The two men walked, guns drawn, at the ready, through a vast entrance hall decorated to the hilt with what looked to Ben to be Italian antiques. They followed their noses and stopped cold when they reached the huge vaulted kitchen, modern, shiny, pristine except for the three bodies pressed together in the middle of the kitchen floor, hands tied behind their backs. Two had fallen forward, one canted over as if he were sharing a secret with the man next to him. They’d all been shot in the back of the head, execution-style.
Sergeant Horace keyed the mike on his shoulder. “We need the crime scene unit and an ME out to Anatoly’s place. Triple homicide.” He turned back to Ben. “We gotta clear the house. Step careful.”
As Horace cleared the bottom floor, Ben went up the stairs, Glock steady in his hand.
In the second bedroom on the right, he found another body slumped on the floor, a male Caucasian, his back against the door frame, sitting in a pool of dried blood. His eyes were open, slightly gummed over, and he was facing the bed. He was dressed in black from head to toe. His hands were cupped around a wound in his stomach. He’d taken a while to die, Ben thought, looking at all the dried blood on his clothes, black now, stiff.
This man wasn’t big like the Anatolys. He had to be one of the shooters, had to be. So there were a minimum of two shooters, but his partner hadn’t shown him any love. He’d left him to die, and that was cold, real cold. Ben searched the man’s pockets but found no ID, no nothing.
The room itself was a mess, the bed unmade, smelled of dirty laundry, and, oddly, old toast. One of the sons’ rooms, then. He pictured the shooter coming into the room, and the son was fast enough to grab up a gun and gut-shoot him.
Had the son gone downstairs then, only to end up dead on the kitchen floor? He’d had a gun, he knew something bad was going on, but it hadn’t mattered. Whoever was waiting downstairs had overpowered him.
Ben methodically went through the rest of the rooms upstairs, then called down to Horace, “Upstairs is clear. Got a body, gut shot. Looks like he was part of the crew who broke in.”
“A quadruple homicide? Now, ain’t that something on a beautiful Friday.”
Ben rejoined him in the kitchen. Horace pointed at the bodies. “That’s Anatoly in the middle, and the younger ones are two of his sons. Someone was really pissed off. Nice of the killer to off them in the kitchen, no ruined carpet.
“But how the hell did he manage to get the drop on all three of these badasses? I just can’t see that.” They both stared down at the bodies.
Ben said, “Had to be more than one person responsible for this, had to be. Like you said, they were three very big strong men, even Anatoly.”
Horace nodded. “Plus, those Anatoly sons are meaner than hungry crocodiles. Their old man used to be, but he’s mellowed out, doesn’t kill those who piss him off himself any longer, just gives the orders. You need to see this.”
Ben followed Horace into what looked to be Anatoly’s office. The room hadn’t been ransacked. What looked to be an original Picasso had been gently lifted from its spot behind the huge mahogany desk and carefully placed against the wall. And there was a wall safe, the thick metal door hanging ajar.
Horace said, “There’s still packs of cash, legal papers, and lookee here—half a key of coke.”
Ben said, “That’s weird. If they found what they came for, why leave the cash and the drugs?”
“If I was the badass who broke in here,” Horace said, “I sure wouldn’t have left the C and C. I wonder what they did take out of that safe?”
Ben holstered his Glock.
“No clue.” He looked up to see Savich and Sherlock appear in the living room doorway.
56