in diameter, on the foreheads of both
victims.
The watch on the dead man’s wrist
was shattered, showing the time it
had stopped as 2.42. He wore a gold
signet ring and, although there was
no money in his wallet, it was open at
the compartment that held his driving
licence. In his jacket pocket Ryan found
a leaflet from the fairground roller-
skating rink in Mineola, Long Island.
The woman wore a gold cross on a
fine chain round her neck. Her purse
contained no money, only her door key
and a ticket for the Mineola skating
rink, serial number 1140.
Police commissioner Lewis Valentine
turned to Ryan: “Crack this case fast
and don’t stint on the expenditure,” he
told him gravely as Howard Neail, the
medical examiner, came forward to give
them his preliminary findings.
“The boy died instantly,” he said.
“Two shots entered his right temple,
piercing his brain. The girl has two
in-and-out wounds running from right
to left. These came from a small-calibre
revolver, probably a .25.”
“What about the stab wounds?” asked
Ryan.leaves only two possibilities. Either
the left window was open during the
shooting or the killer shot her while she
was out of the car.
“If he shot her while she was in the
car, as seems most likely, and the left
window was open, what point would the
killer have for closing it? And if he shot
her outside the car, he’d have had to
drag her back in it again.”
“I think we can safely say she waskilled inside the car,” said Neail. “The
entry and exit wounds are in an even
line.”
The missing bullet was never found,
but one of Ryan’s lieutenants recovered
four exploded shells, a cartridge,
a crumpled Chesterfield cigarette
wrapper, an empty aspirin box, and
three cigarette butts.
“I think it’s what we haven’t found
in the car that’s most important,” said“Whoever did that wanted to make
sure she was dead,” said Neail, kneeling
beside the girl and gently unbuttoning
her blood-soaked blouse. “I’d say he
used a long, thin-bladed instrument like
a stiletto for this.”
“Was she sexually assaulted?” asked
Ryan.
“Judging from the condition and
position of her clothes, I’d say no.
Though I won’t know definitely until
I’ve done the autopsy.”
After the bodies had been shifted onto
stretchers and taken to the morgue,
Ryan and his men began an intensive
search for the bullets that had killed
the girl and passed straight through
her. Eventually, they found one dented,
bloody slug on the floor of the car, but
there was no sign of the second.
“Keep looking till you find it,” he
ordered. “The second slug could be
very important, especially if it came
from a different gun. This would
establish whether more than one person
committed the murders.”
He turned to Neail: “Say, doc, are
you sure all the shots were right to left?
If they were, the second bullet must be
somewhere in the car.”
“Absolutely certain,” said Neail.
“That’s strange,” said Ryan. “The
left-hand car window was closed and
there are no bullet holes in it. That
Victim Lewis
Weiss and (above)
the macabre
crimson circle left
on his forehead.
Below, the bodies
of the youthful
victims are
removed from the
crime scene as
officers continue
to search for clues“The boy died
instantly. Two shots
entered his left
temple. The girl
has two in-and-out
wounds running from
right to left”