One Shot (5 page)

The scratches tie the weapon to the garage location.

The garage location ties the crime to the guy who left
the trace evidence behind.' Rodin said nothing.

Emerson knew he was thinking about the trial.

Technical evidence was sometimes a hard sell. It lacked
a human dimension. 'The shell case has got fingerprints
on it,' he said. 'From when he loaded the magazine.

Same thumb and index finger as on the quarter in the
parking meter and on the traffic cone. So we can tie the
crime to the gun, and the gun to the ammo, and the
ammo to the guy who used it. See? It all connects. The
guy, the gun, the crime. It's a total slam dunk.' 'The
videotape shows the minivan leaving?'

'Ninety seconds after the first 911 call came in.'

'Who is he?' "We'll know just as soon as the
fingerprint databases get back to us.'

'If he's in the databases.'

'I think he was a military shooter,' Emerson said. 'All
military personnel are in the databases. So it's just a
matter of time.'

It was a matter of forty-nine minutes. A desk guy
knocked and entered. He was carrying a sheaf of paper.

The paper listed a name, an address, and a history.

Plus supplementary information from all over the
system. Including a driver's licence photo. Emerson
took the paper and glanced through it once. Then again.

Then he smiled. Exactly six hours after the first shot
was fired, the situation was nailed down tight. A must-win.

'His name is James Barr,' Emerson said.

Silence in the office.

'He's forty-one years old. He lives twenty minutes from
here. He served in the U.S. Army. Honourable discharge
fourteen years ago. Infantry specialist, which I'm betting
means a sniper. DMV says he drives a six-year-old
Dodge Caravan, beige.'

He slid the papers across his desk to Rodin. Rodin
picked them up and scanned them through, once, twice,
carefully. Emerson watched his eyes. Saw him thinking
the guy, the gun, the crime. It was like watching a Vegas
slot machine line up three cherries. Bing bing bing! A
total certainty.

'James Barr,' Rodin said, like he was savouring the
sound of the words. He separated out the DL picture
and gazed at it. 'James Barr, welcome to a shitload of
trouble, sir.'

'Amen to that,' Emerson said, waiting for a compliment.

I'll get the warrants,' Rodin said. 'Arrest, and searches
on his house and car. Judges will be lining up to sign
them.'

He left and Emerson called the Chief of Police with the
good news. The Chief said he would schedule an eight
o'clock press conference for the next morning.

He said he wanted Emerson there, front and centre.

Emerson took that as all the compliment he was going
to get, even though he didn't much like the press.

The warrants were ready within an hour, but the arrest
took three hours to set up. First, unmarked surveillance
confirmed Barr was home. His place was an
unremarkable one-storey ranch. Not immaculate, not
falling down. Old paint on the siding, fresh blacktop on
the driveway. Lights were on and a television set was
playing in what was probably the living room. Barr
himself was spotted briefly, in a lighted window. He
seemed to be alone. Then he seemed to go to bed.

Lights went off and the house went quiet. So then there
was a pause. It was standard operating procedure to
plan carefully for the takedown of an armed man inside
a building. The PD SWAT team took charge. They used
zoning maps from the city offices and came up with the
usual kind of thing. Covert encirclement, overwhelming
force on standby front and rear, sudden violent assault
on the front and rear doors simultaneously. Emerson
was detailed to make the actual arrest, wearing full body
armour and a borrowed helmet. An assistant DA would
be alongside him, to monitor the legality of the process.

Nobody wanted to give a defence attorney anything to
chew on later. A paramedic team would be instantly
available. Two K9 officers would go along, because of
the crime scene investigator's theory about the dog in
the house. Altogether thirty-eight men were involved,
and they were all tired. Most of them had been working
nineteen hours straight.

Their regular watches, plus overtime. So there was a
lot of nervous tension in the air. People figured that
nobody owned just one automatic weapon. If a guy had
one, he had more. Maybe full-auto machine guns. Maybe
grenades or bombs.

But in the event the arrest was a walk in the park.

James Barr barely even woke up. They broke down his
doors at three in the morning and found him asleep,
alone in bed. He stayed asleep with fifteen armed men in
his bedroom aiming fifteen submachine guns and
fifteen flashlight beams at him. He stirred a little when
the SWAT commander threw his blankets and pillows to
the floor, searching for concealed weapons. He had
none. He opened his eyes. Mumbled something that
sounded like What? and then went back to sleep,
curling up on the flat mattress, hugging himself against
the sudden cold. He was a large man, with white skin
and black hair that was going grey all over his body. His
pyjamas were too small for him. He looked slack, and a
little older than his forty-one years.

His dog was an old mutt that woke up reluctantly and
staggered in from the kitchen. The K9 team captured it
immediately and took it straight out to their truck.

Emerson took his helmet off and pushed his way
through the crowd in the tiny bedroom. Saw a three-quarters-full pint of Jack Daniel's on the night table,
next to an orange prescription bottle that was also
three-quarters full. He bent to look at it. Sleeping pills.

Legal. Recently prescribed, to someone called
Rosemary Barr. The label said: Rosemary Barr. Take
one for sleeplessness.

'Who's Rosemary Barr?' the assistant DA asked. 'Is he
married?'

Emerson glanced round the room. 'Doesn't look like it.'

'Suicide attempt?' the SWAT commander asked.

Emerson shook his head. 'He'd have swallowed them
all. Plus the whole pint of JD. So I guess Mr Barr had
trouble getting off to sleep tonight, that's all.

After a very busy and productive day.' The air in the
room was stale. It smelled of dirty sheets and an
unwashed body.

We need to be careful here,' the assistant DA said.

'He's impaired right now.

His lawyer is going to say he's not fully capable of
understanding Miranda. So we can't let him say
anything. And if he does say something, we can't listen.'

Emerson called for the paramedics. Told them to check
Barr out, to make sure he wasn't faking, and to make
sure he wasn't about to die on them. They fussed
around for a few minutes, listened to his heart, checked
his pulse, read the prescription label. Then they
pronounced him reasonably fit and healthy, but fast
asleep. 'Psychopath,' the SWAT commander said. 'No
conscience at all.'

'Are we even sure this is the right guy?' the assistant
DA asked.

Emerson found a pair of suit trousers folded over a
chair and checked the pockets. Came out with a small
wallet. Found the driver's licence. The name was right,
and the address was right. And the photograph was
right. 'This is the right guy,' he said.

'We can't let him say anything,' the ADA said again. 'We
need to keep this kosher.'

'I'm going to Mirandize him anyway,' Emerson said.

'Make a mental note, people.'

He shook Barr by the shoulder and got half-opened
eyes in response. Then he recited the Miranda warning.

The right to remain silent, the right to a lawyer. Barr tried
to focus, but didn't succeed. Then he went back to
sleep.

'OK, take him in,' Emerson said.

They wrapped him in a blanket and two cops dragged
him out of the house and into a car. A paramedic and the
ADA rode with him. Emerson stayed in the house and
started the search. He found the scuffed blue jeans in
the bedroom closet. The crepe soled shoes were placed
neatly on the floor below them. They were dusty. The
raincoat was in the hall closet.

The beige Dodge Caravan was in the garage. The
scratched rifle was in the basement. It was one of
several resting on a rack bolted to the wall. On a bench
underneath it were five nine-millimetre handguns. And
boxes of ammunition, including a half-empty box of
Lake City M852 168-grain boat tail hollow point.308s.

Next to the boxes were glass jars with empty cartridge
cases in them. Ready for recycling, Emerson thought.

Ready for hand loading.

The jar nearest the front of the bench held just five of
them. Lake City brass. The jar's lid was still off, like the
five latest cases had been dumped in there recently and
in a hurry. Emerson bent down and sniffed. The air in
the jar smelled of gunpowder. Cold and old, but not
very.

Emerson left James Barr's house at four in the
morning, replaced by forensic specialists who would go
through the whole place with a fine-toothed comb. He
checked with his desk sergeant and confirmed that Barr
was sleeping peacefully, in a cell on his own with round-the-clock medical supervision.

Then he went home and caught a two-hour nap before
showering and dressing for the press conference.

The press conference killed the story stone dead. A
story needs the guy to be still out there. A story needs
the guy roaming, sullen, hidden, shadowy, dangerous. It
needs fear. It needs to make everyday chores exposed
and hazardous, like pumping gas or visiting the mall or
walking to church. So to hear that the guy was found
and arrested even before the start of the second news
cycle was a disaster for Ann Yanni. Immediately she
knew what the network offices were going to think. No
legs, over and done with, history. Yesterday's news,
literally. Probably wasn't much of anything anyway. Just
some inbred heartland weirdo too dumb to stay free
through the night. Probably sleeps with his cousin and
drinks Colt 45. Nothing sinister there. She would get
one more network breaking-news spot to recap the
crime and report the arrest, and that would be it. Back to
obscurity.

So Yanni was disappointed, but she hid it well. She
asked questions and made her tone admiring. About
halfway through she started putting together a new
theme. A new narrative. People would have to admit the
police work had been pretty impressive. And this perp
wasn't a weirdo. Not necessarily. So a serious bad guy
had been caught by an even more serious police
department.

Right out there in the heartland. Something that had
taken considerable time on the coasts in previous
famous cases. Could she sell it? She started drafting
titles in the back of her mind. America's Fastest? Like a
play on Finest?

The Chief yielded the floor to Emerson after about ten
minutes. Emerson filled in full details on the perp's
identity and his history. He kept it dry. Just the facts,
ma'am. He outlined the investigation. He answered
questions. He didn't boast. Ann Yanni thought that he
felt the cops had been lucky. That they had been given
much more to go on than they usually got.

Then Rodin stepped up. He made it sound like the PD