Nothing Left (Jack Widow Book 16), page 5
Voss said, “They visibly checked him to make sure he wasn’t carrying a firearm too large to conceal.”
I nodded, and said, “Maybe that’s part of it. But this was an act of intimidation, too. I suppose they wanted him to stand there and feel humiliated—useless, powerless. They wanted him to feel at their mercy. They put him on display to show him they had the power.”
“That’s a little sadistic. Not what we’re trained to do.”
I nodded, and said, “Definitely, and that tells us something else.”
“Like what?”
“One more second. Let’s follow their actions first,” I said, and I led her around the scene. We stepped lightly, avoiding the footprints and tire tracks. “They stopped here and talked. No struggle. At least no physical one. Maybe they exchanged harsh words, but these cops weren’t afraid of him. Maybe they patted him down and found no weapons on him. They let their guard down. Then they gave him some kind of bad news, something that he was fearing. Maybe his biggest fear. Whatever they told him was enough to set him off.”
I moved along the sets of tracks, and said, “The cops turned here and went back to their car. The shooter waited for them to get back in their car. He stayed where he was. He stood there for a long moment, deliberating what to do. He became enraged. He was probably stuck, frozen in place, because he didn’t know what to do. The rage overtook him. Maybe he became temporarily insane. He didn’t know how to react. The shooter became a hard-edged man. He went from a meek informant to a stone-cold killer.”
Voss asked, “Like Jekyll and Hyde?”
“A man with nothing to lose. The rules didn’t apply to him anymore. He had nothing left. He snapped.”
She asked, “How on earth do you know that?”
I moved over to the kill point, and said, “This is where he stood when he opened fire on them.” I mimicked the shooter. I held the gun out one-handed, like an amateur would. I mocked pulling the trigger, not squeezing it. Then I ejected a magazine, and inserted a new one, and continued firing. I pointed at the empty magazine on the ground. Voss saw it and nodded.
I moved my pointed finger away from the empty magazine and toward the shooter’s tracks in the dirt, and said, “The killer’s tracks go from where they met back to his car. He didn’t run. He walked casually. On the front seat of his car, there must’ve been a gun waiting. Look here,” I said, and pointed at the ground. “There are no tracks from him running back to the spot where he shot them. He sauntered to the car, grabbed a gun, and casually walked up to the front of their car like a man possessed. I bet they saw him and didn’t even believe what they were seeing.”
Voss nodded as if she understood. She said, “So they pushed him too far.”
“Maybe they bullied him. Rode him too hard. Or whatever.”
“So he’d had enough, and he literally snapped?”
I said, “They met with him before. Maybe a few times. They trusted the fact that he was weak. Probably believed that he’d never be so ballsy. Never. And maybe ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they’d be right, but this time they were wrong. They underestimated him. So he went back to his car, grabbed a gun, probably a Glock twenty-three, and he shot them.”
She asked, “How do you know the gun? Did you find it?”
“No. Of course not. I would’ve told you that first off. I’m guessing make and model. There are twenty-six bullet holes and twenty-six casings on the ground.”
“Maybe he didn’t fire all his bullets?”
“Rage like this, he did. He emptied the magazine, and he did it twice. There’s an empty magazine over there,” I said, and pointed back at the empty magazine on the ground. “And the second would still be in the gun. I didn’t touch it, and I couldn’t make out the markings in the dark, but I bet they both hold thirteen bullets each, pairing them with a gun from a short list.”
Voss studied the magazine on the ground. She said, “And the Glock twenty-three is on that list. But it isn’t the only gun that has a thirteen-round magazine. What about a Heckler and Koch USP? It holds that many.”
“Right, but Glock is the gun they both have in their holsters and it’s the one that you’re carrying.”
“What’s that mean? You’re back at thinking I killed them? You just got finished telling me you didn’t believe that.”
“I don’t. But you aren’t the only cop who is issued a Glock. These guys could’ve been killed by another cop. Maybe. Is that why you’re not calling backup? Were you already investigating someone?”
Voss didn’t answer that question directly. She said, “You just convinced me this guy is an amateur. How would a cop be an amateur? And a cop who has never fired his gun before? That’s unbelievable. He’d at least have fired it in training and practice. Firearm practice is required, you know. At least, in my department it is. I can’t speak for the SEAL team you were a part of.”
“True. But I like to have an alternate theory. You never know when you might be wrong, and I’m wrong just as much as the next guy.”
She frowned at me, and said, “Guess now you’re going to give me another lesson. Show me up.”
“I’m not trying to do that. It’s not my intention. I’m just trying to help.”
“I’m sorry. Of course, I’m glad for your help. I guess you weren’t lying about being in the NCIS. What else do you see?”
I said, “In our second theory, this guy might be a cop.”
“Explain?”
“The meeting itself. Sure, it could’ve been an informant meeting them out here. That’s the most plausible theory. But it signals that these two cops were corrupt. I mean, meeting an informant way the hell out here? In the dark? Seems shady all the way around. So it could be they squabbled over money or blackmail or whatever.”
Voss asked, “But your second theory, the cop one?”
“It makes more sense that it was a cop or someone in law enforcement who met them out here. Look around. This is a good meeting place for cops who want to talk about something sensitive. Or something they wanna talk about with some discretion.”
“Or could’ve been something off the books, or illegal, like the exchange of money for a bribe. Or something,” Voss added. “But what about the amateur angle? You said the shooter was an amateur.”
“Amateur doesn’t mean inexperienced. Amateur means slapdash, unskillful, substandard, or unprofessional, which in my experience some cops are. No offense.”
“None taken.”
I said, “Two cops fit this category, and they’re found in every police department in every corner of the world. They aren’t as common as most, but they’re out there.”
“And who’s that?”
“Rookies or retirees or desk guys or volunteer deputies. How many states employ volunteer deputies who ride along with real cops?”
She nodded. She understood. It was a possibility.
I asked, “Does New Mexico have volunteer deputies?”
She nodded again, and said, “Some counties do. They’re called reserve police. But this county doesn’t. The reserve police are mostly used in urban areas like Albuquerque. But these two are state cops, not volunteer deputies.”
“The dead cops were, but that doesn’t mean the shooter wasn’t.”
Voss said, “True. Maybe he could be a rookie volunteer. They’re novice by definition. Inexperienced.”
“Sure, they practice and practice, but fieldwork differs from training. All the training in the world can never truly prepare a person for real-world experiences. It can be helpful, but sometimes a guy who is not prepared will fall through the cracks. A guy who isn’t ready for this line of work and may never be. Do you have any rookies in your department?”
Voss shook her head, and said, “No.”
“Retirees?”
Her eyes opened, and she nodded. She said, “We got some old flunkies from El Demonio. They used to be cops. Before the town went belly up. I know of one guy who lives in Angel Rock. We get complaints about him from time to time. He’s a real bastard. Keeps to himself mostly, though. I couldn’t imagine him having business with state cops.”
“Sounds like he could be worth looking at.”
She said, “Yeah. Maybe. We’ll have to keep them on the list.”
5
Voss stepped around the front of her police cruiser. The lights from the halogen bulbs washed across her uniform pants like floodlights over an ocean at night. She turned and faced south and leaned back against the cruiser’s wheel well, like she needed a moment to think.
She stared at the black, far-flung horizon and sighed. The night moon watched over us like a hulking mass of reflecting light and darkness. The stars were out and bright. Sparse clouds hovered aimlessly in the sky. Coyotes howled again in the distance like passing trains. The wind whooshed and gusted across the hills and plains, causing the massive turbines to spin and crank. Voss breathed slowly and deeply like she was lost in thought.
I said, “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“What question?”
“Where’s the backup? Why didn’t you call any of your people out here?”
Voss ignored me and closed her eyes. She breathed in and out, like seeing me had stirred up something. Something bigger than the two dead cops. Something monumental, pivotal to the woman she was now. She pushed off the back of the cruiser and stepped away, and paced back to the road. Her mind went off somewhere, deep in thought, like she couldn’t help it. She was in a trance of thought. Some of it was thinking about the crime scene. Some of it was a memory that invaded her mind. A memory she just couldn’t shake. Was it a memory of me?
I turned and followed her, keeping some distance to give her space. We hopped and skipped over tire tracks and footprints and shell casings. We walked back down the track and down to the two-lane highway. Voss stopped and stood dead center of the lonely old road. I stopped walking and stood with her, in front of her and to the side, not blocking her view.
First, she turned her head and stared off toward Angel Rock, looking at the faint lights from the small town. They were faint and narrowly visible. Not sure if it was the distance or because the town was so small. It emitted little light. But you could see the lights.
Voss stopped and turned her head back straight. She craned it up to look at me, and said, “I was following them. That’s why I’m here.”
“You were following them? The dead cops? Why?”
She paused a beat, like she was weighing the choice of trusting me or not. She said, “Because I didn’t like them. The sight of them. The look of them. There’s something…off about them. Was something off about them.”
“What was off about them?”
“Something was wrong with them. Something odd. Something dark. Like a bad aura. They gave me a bad feeling. You know what I mean?” she asked, and paused. “I’ve seen them before. Several times. They came through my town every couple of weeks like clockwork. They did it for months. At first, I assumed it was part of their route, even though I never saw state cops patrolling my town before. And not state detectives. At first, they came every couple of weeks. But this last month, they’ve been coming every week. Last week. The week before. This week, they came every day.”
I shifted my weight to one side, and leaned on my left foot, faced north for a moment, opposite her. I looked down at her, and said, “Sounds like they were interested in something going on here?”
“There’s nothing going on here. Angel Rock is a quiet town. Always has been.”
“Something must be going on here. They’re dead.”
“These guys were up to something, Widow. I know it. I don’t think it was handed down to them like orders. I get the feeling it was something else. Something they shouldn’t be doing. Truthfully, I knew it the first time I saw them.”
I stayed quiet as she laid it out for me.
Voss said, “They rarely stopped in Angel Rock—at first. Except to catch lunch at the diner. Which isn’t suspicious in itself. But it’s the way they did it. The way they carried themselves. My officers saw them. We’ve all made note of them. No one complained. None of my citizens filed complaints. Not formal ones. But there’ve been rumors—whispers.”
“Whispers? Like what?”
“The local females, especially the young ones, they’ve said things. Not directly to me. Not most of them. But I hear things. They didn’t like the way these two cops spoke to them or looked at them or behaved with them. This one girl—she works at the diner—she said these two guys came in, sat in her section, and looked her up and down. They would lock their eyes on her chest. They stared at her. She said one of them would lick his lips every time he got the check. He made it real obvious to her.”
I said, “That makes them sound like creeps, but staring isn’t a crime. We had guys like that in the Navy and the Marine Corps. Of course, they’re usually young guys, not quite corrected yet. We cut them slack at first. Most of them were just boys a month before going off to boot camp. The military knocks that sort of behavior out a boy real fast. Turns us into gentlemen.”
Well, most of us, I thought.
“Widow, this isn’t a couple of over hormoned boy-men. These were cops, grown men. And that waitress is only sixteen years old. They know it too. Had to have known it. It’s so obvious.”
I paused a beat, and said, “That’s worth calling their commander over. Did you?”
Voss didn’t answer. She said, “It put them on my radar. That’s not the only thing. The other is they kept passing through my town, but they never checked in with us.”
“Are they required to?”
“No, but have you ever heard of that before? You mentioned your mother was a sheriff of a town. The FBI. The Marshals. The ATF. Even the State Police? Did they ever come through her town without telling her they were there?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t think of that ever happening to me, or my mom, or any other cop I knew. Not in my experience. Never. I said, “In the NCIS, we always informed the ranking officers—base or platoon or unit commanders—that we were paying their region a visit, unless it was covert. Even then, someone high up the chain of command was notified—standard operating procedure. I guess if they were just passing through, why would they? Sounds like that’s not the case.”
“It’s a simple professional courtesy. At least stop by my station. Make your presence known. Not these guys. They just ran through, acting like we were invisible. Like they were some kind of VIPs. They behaved like they were above reproach. So I got interested. I got curious back when they first showed up. And even more when they started coming every week.”
“Did you call their C.O.?” I asked again.
Voss nodded, and said, “I called their switchboard and got the runaround. I called them over and over. Finally, I got a desk sergeant. He told me they were on official business. And referred me to an obscure statute and department policy, which said I wasn’t in their chain of command. In other words…”
“He brushed you off.”
“He was telling me to butt out without telling me to butt out.”
“But you didn’t?”
“No. I followed them—five more times after that. It was always in the dead of night. I tried to stay out of sight, but the last two times they lost me. I had to pull off the road.”
“What road? This one?” I asked.
Voss nodded, and said, “This stretch of highway is pretty straight and flat. They’d see my headlights coming up on them easily. It makes it hard to keep up and stay out of sight all at the same time. It made little sense though.”
“Why?”
“Look around. There’s nothing out here but wind turbines and grass.”
I stayed quiet.
Voss said, “It’s weird, but I kept losing them in the same spot. Like they knew I was following them. They kept shaking me loose at the old windmill.”
I looked at her, and then, above her head at another wind turbine. It was Brobdingnagian and forlorn, out further than the closest one, like it was an outcast. I asked, “Old windmill?”
Voss looked at me and glanced at the wind turbine I stared at. She said, “Not like one of those. It’s an old relic windmill from like two hundred years ago. It used to be a tourist attraction like thirty years ago. There was a family that lived around it. Those houses are all gone now. A bad twister blew through here and wrecked it all, but the windmill still stands.”
“They lost you there?”
“Yes. But I’m not sure where they went. They would be on the road, and then, gone. Like that,” Voss said, and she snapped her fingers.
“Did you ever see them meet with anyone? Could be a clue to the killer.”
“No.”
“So what made you come flying out here with your lights flashing?”
“This is the first time they came this way. Usually, they went to the windmill, in the other direction, on the other side of Angel Rock. I was confused at first. I hoped maybe they were leaving. But they weren’t. I kept a good distance away from them, more than usual. I thought maybe they made me. Maybe they were luring me out to the wrong direction to confront me with questions or belittle me or something. I backed off to keep from getting seen. I drove about twenty minutes until I couldn’t see them anymore. So I stopped and got out. I stood on the hood of my car and scanned the landscape. I didn’t see them. They gave me the shake. I wasn’t sure if it was on purpose or not.”
I stayed quiet.
Voss said, “When I doubled back, I knew I lost them. At first, I figured they were having fun with me. You know? They saw me and led me out here as a gag, maybe to show me they were smarter than me. Like they were better than some local cop from the sticks. So I returned to Angel Rock and went to the station. I didn’t tell my guys. I was embarrassed and pissed off. I felt like they were mocking me. I sent my guys out in other directions and told them not to return without hitting their nightly quotas in traffic tickets. I just wanted them out of my hair. They know my tone. They know not to question me. I even told the night desk guy to go out for a long dinner break. I told him I wanted to be alone.”
