The Innocents by Nathan Senthil (autobiographies to read .TXT) 📕

Peter blinked in confusion. “What are they?”

“Homemade guns. Any asshole with a lathe, a milling machine, and mediocre skills to operate the apparatus can do it, which is totally legal in this God-blessed country but as illegal as Satan in other developed nations.”

“Do you think Lolly uses homemade guns?”

Joshua said, “I don’t. Most homemade guns use smooth bores for barrels.”

“No grooves, meaning no striations.”

“Yes. But the slugs obtained from his crime scenes all have rifling striations.”

“If he is using bored barrels, then it must have come from some brand, right?”

“That’s where I’m stagnated,” Joshua said. “The striations on Lolly’s .44 bullets reveal that he uses a gun with a barrel that creates a 1:21” twist rate.”

“Um… so?”

“There is no gun in the world with that combination.”

“Oh…” Peter said. “He must be like a ballistic genius, uh?”

Joshua laughed. “Not likely.”

“Why not? He has been doing this for what, nineteen years? And we don’t even know what weapon he uses. His gun is peculiar, yet we are unable to trace it.”

“I think he sucks at ballistics precisely for that reason. For using that broken gun.”

“B-broken?” Peter said. “What do you mean?”

“We need to go back to the spin of the bullets. Higher twist rate means the accuracy is compromised. Lolly is using a 1:21” which—”

“See. There.” Peter’s forefinger jabbed the table. “What type of criminal knows all this? I still think he is a genius.”

“Let me finish. Lolly knew his gun lacked accuracy, probably when he was practicing. That’s why all his victims were shot within fifteen yards or closer. Shoot someone farther than that, the bullet misses the target, according to our ballistic scientists,” Joshua said. “And get this, he never missed in his career. Not once.”

“Oh.” Peter scratched under his chin.

“But this accuracy problem has a simple fix. Care to guess?”

Peter pressed his knuckles against his pursed lips, head low. Then he lit up. “It’s the barrel that spins the bullets, right?”

“Right.”

“So… he can easily solve it by switching to a barrel that has a lower twist rate?”

“Yes!” Joshua clapped again. “And also, he could’ve made the gun more powerful with a barrel that supports .50 AE cartridges.”

“But he didn’t do any of that,” Peter said, more to himself.

“He is an expert in shooting an imperfect gun, and dare I say, I even admire the determination that went into mastering a broken gun, but an expert in ballistic? No, sir, that he isn’t.”

“Okay. I don’t think this new robbery in Staten Island is Lolly,” Peter finally admitted.

“But you could have learned it even before knowing all this.”

“How?”

“You tell me how. If you’re going to be my partner, I need you to be able to think. Not be a dead weight, dragging behind me, slowing me down.”

Peter frowned. “Lolly never visits the same place twice. Since he’d already hit Staten Island in ‘93…?”

“That’s something even a civilian could figure out from the MO. Dig deeper.”

“Clue?” Peter hesitantly asked.

Joshua pointed at a box on the back shelf. Peter walked to it, picked it up, and returned to the table. With one careless movement, Joshua upended the box and a bunch of crime scene photographs spilled out.

Peter observed the 8x10s, his fingers drumming the desk absently. “Lolly always shoots people on his left, and the other robber, the one wearing the red mask, kills people on the right.” He looked up, eyes beaming with excitement. “Lolly never attacks on the right!”

“Could it be that he is left-handed?” Joshua smirked.

“No… multiple witnesses have reported he is a rightie.”

“Why would a right-handed man prefer targets on his left? Maybe he is missing something that makes it harder for him to take the right side? Or rather, some kind of coordination?”

Peter squeezed his head, as if the strength his thumbs applied on his temples was directly proportional to the speed at which the answer escaped his brain. “Got it!” Peter said. “Hand-eye coordination.”

“What about it?” Joshua watched Peter expectantly.

“Lolly could be blind in the right eye. That’s why he needs someone else to cover that side. Even though all it takes is a slight twist of the head and a few microseconds, those seemingly little things can mean life or death when robbing a bank. The robbery I have now, the perp shot the victim on his right. So it probably isn’t Lolly.”

Joshua nodded. Peter was indeed smart. But he had one last test. “Why can’t it be that the red-masked robber, who always picks the right, is blind in the left?”

“Because at the three robberies between 1985 and 1987, he shot people on both left and right.”

“We have a winner. Yay…” Joshua yawned again. The energy the snus gave him had reached its limit.

Peter smiled and shook his head.

“What’s funny? I’m not a goof-off. I just exercise my jaws a lot.”

“Sure you do, but it’s not that. You’re a pro when it comes to Lolly, aren’t you?”

Joshua chuckled drily. He was a pro because he had worked hard and made sacrifices personally. Whenever news about Lolly broke, Joshua travelled to the city where the crime had happened. Then he would go through forensics and conduct parallel investigations.

Nothing would jump out, though.

The reports were all the same. Masked gunmen blasted through the entrance, locked it, shot either the customers or the security guards, and threatened the cashier into filling their rucksacks. By displaying sheer violence and determination, they always managed to terrorize the cashiers and prevent them from sneaking dye packs with real wads or pressing the alarm buttons under their desks.

“I wouldn’t call myself a pro.”

“Then how do you know so much about Lolly?”

“I can’t give up. And apparently, it is a bad thing.”

“I agree. You could