“And the silencer alone would only deal with the muzzle blast, which would have left an audible supersonic report, which would explain the need for the firecracker distraction. So—cautious approach, thorough planning. Is that the way it’s being understood?”

“That’s the way it should be understood, but who the fuck knows what they understand? It never came up in the trial. Lot of shit never came up in the trial. Lot of shit that should have come up.”

“But why leave the gun and remove the silencer?”

“No fucking idea. Unless it was one of those super-sophisticated five-thousand-dollar jobs—too good to leave behind?”

Gurney found that hard to digest. “Of all the ways a vindictive wife might kill her husband, the prosecution narrative is that Kay Spalter chose to take the most complicated, expensive, high-tech—”

“Davey boy, you don’t have to convince me that the narrative sucks. I know it sucks. More holes in it than an old junky’s arm. That’s why I picked it for my kickoff case. It’s got major reversal potential.”

“Okay. So there was a silencer, but the silencer was taken. Presumably by the shooter.”

“Correct.”

“No prints left on anything?”

“No prints, no nothing. Latex glove job.”

“This rotten-apple detective—he didn’t plant anything in the apartment to incriminate Spalter’s wife?”

“He didn’t know her then. He didn’t decide to put her in the frame until he met her and decided he hated her and she had to be the shooter.”

“This guy is the CIO named in the case file? Senior Investigator Michael Klemper?”

“Mick the Dick—that’s our boy. Shaved head, small eyes, big chest. Temperament of a rottweiler. Martial arts fanatic. Likes breaking bricks with his fists, especially in public. A very angry man. Which brings us back to the timing issue. Mick the Dick was divorced by his wife a few years back. Super-ugly divorce. Mick … Well, now we get into some … some unsubstantiated hearsay. Libel, slander, lawsuit territory, you get what I mean?”

Gurney sighed. “Go on, Jack.”

“According to rumor, Mick’s wife was doing the deed with a certain influential organized crime figure she happened to meet because Mick happened to be—so the rumor goes—on the take from the aforesaid crime figure.” Hardwick paused. “You see the problem?”

“I see several.”