Free Chasing the Dragon by Domenic Stansberry

didn’t want to push the old woman over the edge, but the police work so far had not been as tight as it should be, and in cases like this family members were always suspect. He forced himself past the doctor and took Gary Mancuso by the arm.
    “I just need a minute.”
    “What, what?” said the old woman. She was disoriented and her color was bad. Ying edged the son away.
    “Where were you this afternoon?”
    The son gave him a vague look, and Ying repeated the question. “Where were you?”
    “At the warehouse.”
    “Anybody around who can verify that?”
    “Huh?”
    The paramedics were coming in the door now. There was a rush of activity and Ying used the confusion to push himself into Gary Mancuso’s face. The man was nervous. Ying did not like the curl to his lip, or the way he averted his eyes.
    “I said can anybody verify where you were this afternoon?”
    “The men on the dock, I guess. I was in and out.”
    “You guess?”
    “Listen—”
    “You work on the dock.”
    The guy looked offended. “It’s the family business. I had paperwork this morning, in the office, then I went out to lunch.”
    “But you spent some time on the dock, this afternoon.”
    “That isn’t what I said.”
    “You have a secretary there, in the office?”
    “Of course, but . . . I can’t do this now.”
    The doctor cut in. “Listen, can’t this wait?”
    Ying glanced back. The paramedics had strapped the women into the gurney, but she was looking toward her son, her eyes very wide and full of fear. Ying could see he wasn’t going to get anything else out of Mancuso, not now. He turned to Toliveri. “All right,” he said. “Let’s seal this scene. But do it right this time. And get Forensics in here.”
    Outside, Ying watched the old woman and her son and the doctor make their way to the ambulance. He was tempted to send Toliveri along to push things, to get a formal statement from Gary, and maybe something from his mother, if possible, but he needed Toliveri here. So he called Central and told them to get a detective out to the hospital, a woman preferably, maybe Louise Roma. After the ambulance was gone, he lingered on the front porch. He studied the neighboring residences, looking for windows and doors that had a direct sight line into Salvatore Mancuso’s house. There was a place across the street, with the blinds half open, and those curtains fell closed as he watched.
    Ying strolled down into the crowd that had gathered on the street. The street crackled with the odd energy it had at times like this, and they gawked at the gangly Chinese detective in his white shirt and thin tie.
    “Who lives across the street?”
    “The Widow Bolinni,” said one of the old-timers.
    The crowd had questions of their own, but Ying paid no attention. He went inside and got Toliveri, then sent him over to talk to the woman while he supervised the scene. It took him a while, but eventually Toliveri came back with the news.
    “I got something,” said Toliveri. He looked excited. “The Widow Bollini—she says she saw the deceased’s nephew outside the house around two o’clock.”
    “What’s the nephew’s name?”
    “Dante. Dante Mancuso. She saw him leaving the house.”
    “The ex-cop?”
    “Used to work Homicide. He was Angelo’s partner. That was before the Strehli business, if you remember all that.”
    “Two o’clock, she said?”
    “Yeah. Two o’clock.”
    “That puts him here at the time of death.”
    “Pretty close.”
    “Let’s go talk to him.”
    “He lives down on Fresno.”
    “I know.”
    “Of course,” said Toliveri. “You know everything.”
    The man who opened the door on Fresno Street was not soft or pretty. He had hard, angular features. His nose was prominent, his skin dark, his lips thin—with a downward turn, almost sensuous—and altogether he had about him the looks of the old world, Moorish and cruel, but handsome, too. He wore pajamas, expensive pajamas, but he did not seem