Mel Dlouhy was still sitting in his chair. The single bullet wound in his temple looked relatively clean, with a small blue-black halo around the entry. Sampson pointed to it with the tip of a pen.

“Let’s say he gets shot here,” he said, and raised the pen about six inches to where Dlouhy’s head would have been positioned. “And it comes in” — he drew the pen in an arc until it was pointing at the broken glass — “over there.”

“That’s a downward angle,” I said. The bullet had pierced one of the top panes in a six-over-one window that looked out to the backyard. Without any discussion, we both walked around to the dining room and outside through a pair of French doors.

A brick patio in the back gave way to a long, narrow yard. Two floodlights on the side of the house lit about half the space, but it didn’t look like there were any outbuildings or trees big enough to support someone’s weight.

Beyond that, the rear neighbor’s three-story Tudor was backlit by the streetlamp on Thirty-first. Two huge oaks dominated that yard, mostly obscured in the shadow of the house.

“You said nobody was home over there?” Sampson asked. “That right?”

“Out of town, in fact,” I said. “Someone knew exactly what he was doing. Maybe showing off. Shooter’s got a reputation to live up to after that first hit.”

“Assuming this is he.”

“It’s he,” I said.

“Excuse me, Detective?” Sergeant Ed Fleischman was suddenly standing there. I looked down at his hands, to make sure he was gloved.

“What are you doing back here, Sergeant? There’s plenty for you to do out front.”

“Two things, sir. We’ve had a couple of neighbors reporting strange vehicles.”

“Vehicles, plural?”

Fleischman nodded. “For whatever it’s worth. One old Buick with New York plates parked up the street off and on for several days.” He checked the pad in his hand. “And a large, dark-colored SUV, maybe a Suburban, definitely beat up. It was out on the street for a few hours late last night.”

This wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where old cars looked at home, at least not outside of service hours. We’d have to follow up on both the vehicles right away.

“What was the other thing?” I asked.

“FBI’s here.”

“Tell them to send ERT around to the neighbor’s yard,” I told the sergeant.

“Not ‘them,’ sir. It’s an agent. He asked for you specifically.”

Peering back inside, I could see a tall white guy in a generic Bureau suit. He was leaning over, with his blue-gloved hands on his knees, staring at the hole in Mel Dlouhy’s head.

“Hey!” I called through the broken window. “Why do you need to be in there?”

He either didn’t hear me or didn’t want to.

“What’s his name?” I asked Fleischman.

“Siegel, sir.”