Crossfire (16 page)

Door knocking on every gun dealer in the county was admittedly a shot in the dark. But sometimes you got lucky.

And although they were all cooperative enough, Cait was also subjected to a Second Amendment lecture at each and every one of them. She’d also had pointed out to her what she already knew: Since the federal statute against semiautomatic weapons hadn’t been renewed, it was no longer illegal to sell, buy, or shoot the weapon her UNSUB had used for the first two killings.

Unless he’d altered it to make it fully automatic, which, of course, each and every one of those gun shop owners felt the need to remind her needlessly, was illegal.

Like a guy who was okay with blowing people away in the street would be bothered by that little detail? Cait didn’t think so.

She didn’t find anyone who’d ever seen the Russian sniper rifle in question. Though, unsurprisingly, everyone asked to get an up-close-and-personal look at it if she got her hands on it.

‘‘When,’’ Cait had repeatedly corrected them. ‘‘We’ll get him. And his stash.’’

Three of the twenty dealers she questioned had asked to be notified if the feds decided to put the 9 mm VSS silent sniper rifle up for auction.

It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. No, not a haystack, Cait decided as she headed toward the bridge out of town. There were even more dealers in the more rural part of the county, where bumper stickers reading GOD, GUNS, AND GUTS MADE AMERICA GREAT were particularly popular.

‘‘It’s like looking for a needle in a damn hayfield.’’

Her phone trilled. Cait looked at the caller ID screen. Rolled her eyes. She was beginning to understand that Valentine Snow hadn’t made it to the top of the TV news business on her looks. She was as tenacious as a pit bull.

‘‘Cavanaugh,’’ she answered.

‘‘Cait.’’ The reporter’s usually perfectly modulated voice had a shaky tone Cait had never heard in it before. ‘‘I received another letter. Here at the station.’’

Damn. Cait turned on the red flashers behind the grille of the sedan, then punched the gas.

‘‘I’ll be right there.’’

She made it to the station in five minutes flat. Partly because the streets weren’t nearly as crowded as they’d been just yesterday. Or even last night. A serial sniper, it seemed, was not very good for tourism.

The TV station, coincidentally kitty-corner from St. Brendan’s and down a few doors from Michael Gannon’s free clinic, was well secured. The receptionist sat behind a glass window, and the double glass doors leading from the lobby into the back offices and studios were kept locked, opened by a button beneath the receptionist’s desk.

The vanilla bean ice cream-colored walls of the narrow hallway were brightened by posters in narrow black frames. While many of the posters featured the network’s most popular shows, it seemed that Valentine Snow smiled down at visitors from at least every third one.

The main newsroom reminded Cait of the police station: all the desks together, phones jangling, computer keys tapping, the scent of burned coffee lingering in the air, the buzz of conversation that abruptly stopped the moment she entered the room.

Valentine was not smiling when Cait entered the station owner’s office.

The walls in this expansive office, which overlooked the harbor, had been faux-painted to look like dark brown leather. Rather than colorful posters, the trophywalls were covered with photographs of the station owner, Talmadge Townsend IV, doing the ‘‘grip and grin’’ with various politicians, including, she noticed, both state senators and three former presidents.

The third person in the room was introduced as the station’s attorney. Not surprised to see him and thinking that this must be Constitutional Awareness Day, Cait prepared herself for an argument promoting the First Amendment.

‘‘The mail room already opened the envelope,’’ Val said apologetically.

‘‘We’re going to have to start making sure we get to it first,’’ Cait said, even as she hated the idea that this case would drag on long enough for them to even be concerned about another letter. ‘‘All mail to Valentine needs to be set aside the minute it arrives. And I need to be notified.’’

‘‘You were the first person we called,’’ Val pointed out.

‘‘Good.’’

Cait reached into the evidence case she’d retrieved from the trunk of the bureau sedan, pulled on the latex gloves, and, using a pair of tweezers, plucked out a tarot card showing Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Complete with the snake and a winged angel hovering overhead.

‘‘Do you know anything about this stuff?’’

‘‘Sorry.’’ Val shook her head. As did Townsend and, unsurprisingly, the lawyer.

Deciding that they would have to check out a New Age store, she next pulled out the single piece of folded paper from the envelope.

‘‘Dear Valentine. You looked especially lovely in that red suit. I look forward to seeing what you’ll be wearing on tonight’s newscast. While I approve of the power color, I’d strongly advise you to consider something a bit more somber, which will give you more gravitas. More like the way you looked when you broadcast during those early days of Shock and Awe. Because we certainly wouldn’t want viewers, or even more importantly, those executives at the network, to think you take multiple homicides lightly. Love always, your most loyal fan.’’

‘‘Oh, God. He’s not done,’’ Valentine said.

‘‘No.’’

Cait slipped the card, letter, and envelope into a glassine pouch. She was going to send them to the crime lab, but she had the sinking feeling that they wouldn’t find anything. Her shooter was both evil and cunning. Not at all what she’d expect from someone with PTSD.

She didn’t know much about the disorder, but from what she’d Googled last night, she would’ve expected someone who suffered from the syndrome to be more scattered, less able to focus. Yet the envelope to this latest note bore a Charleston postmark, demonstrating that not only had he been confident enough to mail it before today’s shooting but he’d planned ahead.

‘‘Maybe I can send him a message on the air,’’ the newswoman suggested. ‘‘Make him think I’m on his side. Arrange a private interview.’’

‘‘Right,’’ Cait said. ‘‘And turn him into a sick celebrity like Son of Sam or the Zodiac Killer.’’

‘‘He’s already becoming a celebrity,’’ Townsend argued. His Scotch-Irish heritage had given him a head of hair that looked like a rusty Brillo pad. The same heredity was responsible for his ruddy complexion.

‘‘Celebrity is exactly what he wants. No point in giving it to him.’’

‘‘You could risk angering him,’’ Valentine warned.

Unlike her boss, Val seemed more willing to look at the big picture than to zero in on how this shooter gaining nationwide publicity could benefit her career. Then again, she had walked away from a multimilliondollar New York gig.

‘‘So we piss him off,’’ Cait said. ‘‘What’s he going to do? Shoot someone?’’ She shook her head. Held her ground. ‘‘For now, we just need you to stick to the facts of the case,’’ she said. ‘‘No personal messages.’’

‘‘I don’t exactly see how you can legally put a gag order on this station.’’ The lawyer now entered the conversation. ‘‘Given how that other FBI agent has already given an interview to Charleston’s Channel 4.’’

‘‘That was inappropriate.’’ Cait hated to criticize another FBI agent, but no way was she going to allow Frank Angetti to set the standard for press coverage of this situation.

‘‘That reporter who interviewed that agent’s real cute,’’ Townsend drawled. ‘‘Little gal probably used her feminine charms.’’

‘‘That little gal just happens to have a degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Georgia,’’ Val said through gritted teeth.

‘‘Wonder if she was a Daawgs cheerleader,’’ Townsend mused. ‘‘She’s sure got the looks for it.’’

‘‘Look.’’ Cait wanted to cut this conversation off before the reporter shattered those perfect white teeth. ‘‘The FBI is sending in a media spokesperson. He should be here within the next few hours.’’

She turned toward Valentine. ‘‘Meanwhile, I want to ask you some questions about the time you spent reporting in Iraq. And just to show my appreciation for your discretion, I’ll tell you what I can. And give you an exclusive when we nail this guy.’’

‘‘If you nail him,’’ Townsend said.

If looks could kill, the one Cait shot him would’ve put him six feet under in Somersett’s Queen of Angels Cemetery. For her part, Val looked equally annoyed. Even the station lawyer looked uncomfortable.

‘‘Nailing the lowlife’s a given,’’ Cait said.

Failure was not an option.

Unfortunately, the opening days of Operation Iraqi Freedom had been hectic for Valentine, who’d been embedded with the Marines’ Charlie Company. She admitted that her memories of racing toward Baghdad,and the battle that would be remembered as one of the most savage of the war, were all pretty much a blur.

‘‘Except the faces of the dead and wounded,’’ she said. ‘‘I’ll never forget them.’’

Which was much the same thing Quinn had said.

Wondering how she could get the records of any Marines from that campaign who might now be living in or around Somersett, Cait told Val what she could, leaving out any possible theories on motive.

She did not share what type of weapons the sniper had used because she didn’t want to tip her hand to any gun dealer or private trader who might have sold it to her UNSUB.

She did give Val the joint task force phone numbers so she could put them on the air, asking anyone who might know anything to call in.

She was leaving the station, intending to take the note back to the JOC, when out of the corner of her eye she caught a glint of something in the cathedral’s bell tower.

She looked up. Every muscle in her body tensed when she saw the male form cast into silhouette by the early-afternoon sun.

Magdalena Mendez Henriques was running late. Her day had begun badly when her bus broke down and she was forced to wait by the side of the road with the other passengers—most of them wearing the pink or black uniforms of domestic workers—for the twenty minutes it took for the company to send a replacement.

That delay had caused her to arrive late at her employer’s house on Officers’ Drive, which in turn had earned her a lecture on punctuality. Including several not-so-veiled references to the stereotypical Latino laziness.

As far as Magdalena could tell, all Mrs. Stockton did was spend the morning on the phone before heading off to the gym and day spa, after which she would have lunch—and several martinis—with friends. Or, according to Carlos, her driver, a noontime rendezvous at a motel across the river with a light colonel from the military academy.

She’d make it back to the house approximately an hour before her husband—a former two-star general on staff at ASMA—returned home. She’d bathe, change her clothes, and be downstairs to greet her husband with a phony smile and the first of several glasses of scotch.

They would share a silent dinner, which Magdalena both cooked and served, neither seeming the least bit interested in each other.

Having lost her own husband, a newspaper publisher, to death squads in her native Central American country of Monteleón more than fifteen years ago, Magdalena couldn’t imagine living in such a cold, detached relationship.

Her own marriage had not been easy. The civil war had been raging the entire time they were married, and Diego’s insistence on writing editorials calling for basic human rights and dignity of the peasants had landed him in prison several times, causing extended separations.

And when he was home, they’d often argued about the dangers of her own work. As a social worker in the slums, she had drawn the unwanted attention of government troops, who routinely made sweeps of the ramshackle buildings, kidnapping young boys and conscripting them into the army.

Diego worried about her.

Magdalena worried about him.

But neither of them could surrender the work of their heart. Even at the risk of death.

Still, they’d loved each other deeply, passionately, with their entire hearts and souls, and even now, with the twenty-fifth anniversary of their marriage approaching, not a day passed that Magdalena didn’t miss Diego. Not a day that she didn’t feel as if she were merely passing time, waiting until the day when they could finally be reunited.

After making two bag lunches for the children, she’d put the Stocktons’ Tibetan terrier into his carrier, which she strapped down in the backseat of the family Lexus with the seat belt. The pampered Mrs. Stockton seldom used the car, preferring to be driven, which, considering her afternoon drinking, was probably a good thing.

Magdalena exceeded the speed limit by five miles an hour to make up the time the bus breakdown had cost her, her heart beating like a rabbit with fear of being pulled over by a Somersett policeman. Like all people who’d suffered under violent regimes, she was terrified of the police, which in her country had not been someone that you would ever go to for help, but someone you tried to avoid at all costs.

She was even more terrified that the authorities would discover that she was illegal and deport her.

A fact that her employer not only knew very well but also used to her advantage, working Magdalena as many as eighteen hours some days and paying her far less than the minimum wage—something she’d been getting away with for the past three years, since they both knew there was no way Magdalena could complain to the authorities.

Her first stop after dropping the children off at the school, just as the bell rang, was the dry cleaners, where she left the general’s shirts and two green dress uniforms that he would be using as soon as the semester began.

Unfortunately, her bad day was continuing when she was forced to wait five minutes for the counter clerk to locate the black silk dress Mrs. Stockton planned to wear to the memorial service at the academy.

The shootings had shaken Magdalena. She knew that there was no place in the world that was truly safe, but one of the reasons she put up with her employer was that Somersett seemed to be one of those towns that she would see in the old black-and-white TV shows she watched on TVLand back in her apartment at night. The ones she’d used to teach herself English.

Like Mayberry.

Or Mayfield, where the Beaver lived with his mother and father and his brother, Wally.

Or Springfield, where Betty, Bud, and Kathy’s father always knew best.

She couldn’t imagine anyone shooting off rifles in any of those towns. She still couldn’t quite accept that a killer had come to Somersett. The idea had kept her awake most of the night, and when she had slept, fitfully, she’d dreamed of death squads and gunfire, and bodies of innocent women and children lying in the street.

Assuring herself that this was not Monteleón, that no one would have any reason to want to shoot her, she hung the dress on the hook in the backseat, then headed to the groomers, where she dropped off the dog with instructions to change the terrier’s toenail polish from Sunset Coral to Platinum.

She moved on to the Piggly Wiggly to buy the ingredients for the buffet for high-profile guests who’d been invited to the house after the memorial service. General Stockton had been vying with General Jacob for the position of commander, and now that his rival was conveniently out of the picture, his wife—who’d already been going through stacks of fabric samples with a mind toward changing the window treatments in the commander’s house—had kicked up her lobbying efforts to get him appointed to the post.

Racing through the aisles at the supermarket, Magdalena managed to make up fifteen minutes, hopefully giving her time, she hoped, to stop by the cathedral and light a candle for those unfortunate victims of the shootings.

And, of course, she’d light another one for Diego. She’d kept a light burning for her deceased husband all the years she’d been in this country and when she’d been to Mass on Sunday, the current one had been burning low.

She pushed her loaded cart across the asphalt lot to the Lexus parked in the far corner. Mrs. Stockton had warned her against allowing the paint to be chipped, so, even in the worst rainstorm, Magdalena never parked anywhere near another car.

Magdalena Mendez Henriques never heard the shot that took her life.

Later, witnesses to the murder would tell Special Agent Cait Cavanaugh that there’d been no sound.

One minute the fiftysomething Hispanic woman wearing a pink uniform and heavy black rubber-soled shoes was loading groceries from her cart into the trunk of the car.

The next minute a mist exploded from her head, glowing crimson in the bright summer sun.