Past Master

by Richard Stockford

  At ten minutes after ten, a jail van pulled into the lot followed by an older Honda civic. A lean deputy got out of the van and spoke briefly with the man getting out of the Civic before walking around and opening the side door of the van. Three men in County Jail orange jumpsuits stepped out onto the pavement and the deputy started them towards the jail while the man from the Civic followed a few paces behind.

  The rifle itself was scarcely recognizable as a firearm. An early Remington model 700 in .300 Winchester Magnum, its straight-grained walnut stock and worn blue steel finish were overlaid with mottled shades of green and brown spray paint, and the heavy twenty-six-inch barrel was draped with scraps of taupe netting festooned with bits of leaves and twigs.

  Although the mid-morning sun was behind the sniper’s left shoulder, the lens of the telescopic sight atop the rifle was carefully shielded, and he wore no jewelry to catch and throw the sun’s rays.

  The sniper slid his rifle into position and began to align the shot.

  Gerard smiled in the warmth of the late autumn sun, happy that court was over and they were back in time for lunch. He didn’t mind the jail; its routine was comforting, and no one on the inside bothered him. He ambled along beside the other two prisoners, towering over them, across the lot and onto the crushed stone walkway.

  From a twenty-six-inch barrel, the .300 Winchester Magnum round fires a thirty caliber, one hundred-eighty grain bullet at an initial velocity of about 3,000 feet per second, developing almost 4,000 ft. lbs. of kinetic energy. One second later, eight hundred yards downrange, the velocity is down to around 1,750 feet per second; the bullet, succumbing to gravity's pull, has dropped one hundred and forty-five inches in its flight; and it now only packs about 1,250 foot pounds of energy—only being relative, as this is still approximately three and a half times the muzzle energy of the vaunted .45 automatic pistol.

  The sniper’s shot had been somewhat oblique as Gerard walked away from him at a slight angle to the left. At the moment of the shot, Gerard was turning slightly to say something to the lawyer on his left, and the bullet took him from the side, just behind his left upper arm, traveling downward through his chest cavity before exiting between the fourth and fifth ribs on his right side. In its wake, it left a shredded left lung, a neatly bisected heart and a ruptured liver.

  The lawyer, following but angling away toward the public entrance, was a sheltered child of privilege who had never been in harm’s way, and so had no immediate recognition of the loud, wet slap that suddenly echoed against the ancient jailhouse bricks, nor of the distant pop that followed a split second later.

  Not so the deputy who had survived two Marine deployments in Afghanistan; he actually hit the ground a split second before Beaudreau’s lifeless knees unlocked and allowed his corpse to fall.

  Hiram Buck looked on uncomprehendingly as the deputy dropped to the pavement, rolled behind a trash can, and immediately popped up with gun in hand. His incomprehension turned to a flare of instant anger as the deputy reached out an arm and swept his feet out from under him, but the anger just as quickly turned to horror as he landed on the gritty pavement face-to-face with Gerard Beaudreau’s lifeless, staring eyes.

  Clipper was sitting in his office with Ken Thomas and Evan Paul, going over the new interviews in the Kristen Pollack case. “Pretty much the same as the first time around,” Paul was saying, “but now we got Beaudreau cold for Pecheski, maybe we can do a deal for a plea on Pollack and Amburg.”

  Clipper shook his head. “We can talk to his lawyer, but he just doesn’t feel right for Pollack to me. She wasn’t raped, and he never cared much about covering up or hiding his victims.”

  “Yeah, but he never killed one before,” Thomas said. “Maybe he panicked or something.”

  “Bullshit,” muttered Paul, in uncharacteristic profanity. “He sure as hell killed that kid in Waldo County, no matter what the judge said.”

  “Nah, just doesn’t feel right.” Clipper said. “I like him for Amburg, though. If Dave find’s her prints on that pocketbook we took out of his house, we’ll be golden for a warrant for DNA and blood type samples.”

  “Well, I think he’s the best bet we got for Pollack, too,” said Paul. “Other than him, we’re dead in the water.”

  Clipper opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the strident ring of his desk phone.

  “Clip, we've got a shooting at the County Jail. At least one dead, apparently by a sniper.” The dispatcher's normally bored voice vibrated with suppressed excitement. “I've got units on the scene, and Doc Church has been notified.”

  “Shooting at the County Jail—call Dave Adams and Randy Bissonette and tell ’em I need them out asap,” Clipper said to Paul, getting up from his desk. “I'll be at the scene.”

  As he headed out of the station, Clipper called John Peters, who was taking the day off. Peters, always willing to put action before personal time, said he would be at the courthouse in five minutes.

  Clipper arrived at the courthouse parking lot to find several uniformed officers and as many Penobscot County Deputy Sheriffs forming a physical cordon to contain what seemed like an army of press and television reporters already gathered around the parking lot. He shouldered his way through the line and stepped to the walkway where an officer named Derry was working with a deputy to rig a small tarp between the body crumpled on the gravel and the cameras in the parking lot.

  “One shot from over there somewhere,” said Derry, nodding his head to the east. “It’s Gerard Beaudreau. They were just bringing him back from court.”

  John Peters arrived in time to escort Doc Church through the media tangle, and he and Clipper huddled while Church knelt to make his preliminary exam of the body.

  “I'll handle the scene and those vultures,” Clipper said, lifting his chin toward the parking lot, “if you figure out where the shot came from. I'm thinking it was a long-range rifle from somewhere across the stream.”

  As Peters nodded, Doc Church rose from the body and turned to gaze across the stream. “You want to look up there,” he said, pointing to the highest point of land on the other side of the stream. “The bullet track was high to low, side to side through his chest.”

  Peters looked at the hilltop. “Got to be a half mile,” he mused. “Pretty heavy caliber if it punched clean through at that range. I'll grab a couple of guys and see what we can find.”

  As Peters left, Clipper joined Ellen Davis, who had arrived right behind him and was already conducting preliminary interviews with the deputy and Beaudreau’s lawyer. He listened in until he had a good feel for what had transpired, before walking to the parking lot to speak to the media.

  Holding his hands up for quiet, Clipper waited until the barrage of questions died down. “We are investigating a homicide that occurred here some thirty minutes ago,” he said. “At this point we have no suspect, but we also have no reason to believe that there is any further danger to the community. I am not going to speculate right now as to who committed this homicide or what their motive was, but there will be a press conference at four pm at the police station to release any updates we have. Thank you.”

  “Who got shot?” yelled a Dailey News reporter.

  “The victim was a County Jail inmate named Gerard Beaudreau,” Clipper said.

  Ignoring the cacophony of shouted questions and comments, Clipper stepped into the crowd to assist Dave Adams and Randy Bissonette, who were arriving with their boxes of crime-scene gear.

  “Be sure to get me some shots of the crowd,” Clipper said as they walked back towards the body. “Might be interesting to see who's there besides the press.”

  John Peters found himself puffing a little as he neared the top of the ridge, but once again took some consolation in the fact that the one of the patrolmen to his rear sounded even worse.

  “Keep it down and watch out for tracks,” he whispered, even though there were only leaves and rock underfoot.

  He squatted just below the crest
and took a couple of deep breaths. A skilled hunter and woodsman, Peters knew instinctively that they were alone on the ridge, but he would show the patrolmen the right way to approach a potentially dangerous site. Gun drawn and stepping carefully on stone, he moved cautiously onto the reverse slope and immediately saw the empty sniper's bed. Kneeling above it, he looked across at the tiny figures standing by the distant Courthouse and shook his head in silent appreciation of the unknown sniper's shooting skills.

  By three pm, the preliminary investigation was complete. The body was on its way to the state lab in Augusta for autopsy, and the courthouse crime scene had been released. Both scenes had been recorded with hundreds of photos and video clips under all conceivable lighting, and the sniper's nest was under plastic cover and under guard as Dave Adams led a microscopic search of the area to uncover any shred of evidence that might point to the sniper's identity.

  Officers had conducted a door-to-door survey of all the residences within a quarter mile of the sniper's nest, and statements had been collected from all the witnesses they could find to the shooting. The physical evidence amounted to a blunted, semi-jacketed bullet found at the base of the jailhouse wall and a short segment of video film shot from a distance of fifty yards by an enterprising news cameraman which actually showed the victim going down.

  Clipper, back at the station, worked up a short press announcement and took it down to Lieutenant Josh Preston, the department's public relations officer.

  “Sorry, Josh,” he said. “This is all we've got.”

  Clipper went back upstairs and stopped by John Peters’ desk. “Let’s get a list of all Amburg’s and Pecheski’s close friends and relatives, and anybody else that Beaudreau might have screwed over. Check ’em for hunting licenses, military service—whatever you can think of that might put ’em behind a rifle. Oh, and speaking of people Beaudreau screwed over, get a list of the friends and family of the girl he was acquitted of killing in Waldo County.”

  Peters nodded.

  Clipper turned to leave, but turned back, adding thoughtfully, “Better see if you can find out where Otis Conroy was this morning, too.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Well, that closes the Pecheski rape, and I’m betting we get DNA or fingerprint matches on the Amburg case too, but now we got a sniper to worry about.”

  It was Wednesday morning, and Clipper was sitting with the district attorney and Assistant Attorney General Irwin Myer in the DA’s office.

  Myer stood and grabbed his coat. “You should get together with SP and UMPD,” he said. “Maybe you’re both looking for the same sniper, although from what I know of Beaudreau, I can’t really see him having anything in common with a drug dealer.”

  Clipper nodded. “I’ll do that, but I think this was probably more like the Petersen shooting—some friend or family member taking their revenge.”

  When Clipper got back to his office, he put in a call to Max Trimble, asking about the Henderson shooting. “Ah, that’s pretty much dead in the water, right now,” Trimble said. “Wound was consistent with a high-powered rifle, but we never found the bullet or exactly where the shooter was. No witnesses, and there ain’t word one on the street.”

  “Mind if I take a look at what you got?” Clipper asked.

  “No problem. I’ll make a copy of the file and have one of the guys drop it off this afternoon.”

  As Clipper was hanging up, John Peters came in and slumped into a chair.

  “We went back early and hit every house around the ridge again,” he said. “Couple of people thought they might have heard a shot, and one kid on the way to school thinks there was an old pickup parked near the path that leads up to the ridge when he went by on his way to school at eight o’clock yesterday morning, but he didn’t notice the make or model.” Peters chewed at a thumbnail. “I wonder if we might be dealing with a silencer? Pretty quiet up there; I would have expected more people to have heard the shot.”

  Clipper shrugged. He knew a single, distant gunshot was often ignored, especially during hunting season. “Maybe. The deputy thought he heard the shot, but it could have been the sound of the bullet. It’s worth taking a look at.” He picked up his phone and dialed. “Good morning, most omniscient and bountiful uber-cop,” he said when Cameron Shibles answered.

  Shibles was the special agent in charge of the two-man Bangor FBI office. Clipper liked and respected the older man and, unlike many in local law enforcement, worked to maintain a cordial working relationship with the Federal agency.

  “Wondered when you’d find time to call,” Shibles answered. “How is it up there on the front line?”

  “Oh, we’re managing to stay busy. Look, can you check with someone at ATF and see if we can get a list of anybody local with a registered silencer?”

  “Sure, might take a few days, though.”

  Clipper grunted. “That’s better than the few weeks or months it would take if I called.”

  “Consider it done. You think you got a professional sniper?”

  “Probably not, but it occurred to us that no one heard any shots either in our case or the one up in Orono last month. Just one more thing to check off the list.”

  When Peters left, Clipper called Doug Holland. “Doug, its Tom Clipper. You got any idea where I could find an old sniper to consult on a couple of cases?”

  Holland chuckled. “Well, I guess I might qualify for the ‘old’ part, but my sniping skills are at least a couple of decades out of date.”

  “I’d just like you to take a look at two shooting scenes. Maybe you’ll see something we’re missing.”

  “Well, okay. I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

  But the next morning, Clipper was just pulling into Holland’s driveway when his cell phone chirped.

  Max Trimble was brief. “We got trouble, Bub,” he growled.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jason Cord had been a skinny nineteen-year-old small-time drug dealer who specialized in supplying marijuana and amphetamines to high school parties. Now, he was just a ragged bundle of old clothes and dead meat sprawled in a pool of blood on the sidewalk in front a wine store in Orono’s small business district.

  When Clipper and Holland pulled into the wine store parking lot, a small crowd, mostly college kids, was pressed up against wooden Public Works barricades that had been hastily erected by Orono PD. Max Trimble, Doc Church, and Nelson Miller were standing over the body, now covered with a piece of dirty tarp that Clipper thought probably came off the same town truck as the barricades. Two Orono cops—an older, balding guy and an excited-looking younger one—were keeping the onlookers back, and a uniformed State Trooper was waiving traffic past.

  Clipper skirted the barricade and introduced Holland. “Doug was a sniper instructor in the Army,” he said. “We were on our way to take a look at the Henderson and Beaudreau scenes, see if anything popped out at him.”

  “Good idea,” Trimble said. “I had one of our snipers take a look at the Henderson scene already, but he couldn’t add anything to what we already figured.” He nodded at Miller. “This one looks a lot like the Henderson shooting, but this time, we already got a real good idea of where the shot came from. We got three witnesses; one of ’em was walking towards the victim on the sidewalk and saw the hit. He says the bullet must have come right past his shoulder from over there across the river.”

  They were standing beside Orono’s, main street on a hill which led down to a bridge over the Penobscot River. Midway up the left side of the hill on the other side, Clipper saw a cluster of cruisers in a motel parking lot.

  Clipper nodded at the tarp. “Who’s your vic?”

  “His name’s Jason Cord,” said the younger Orono cop in a loud voice from his position by the barricade. “Local scumbag, shoplifts and sells dope for a living. Lives in a dump out on the Bennock Road with some skank. Definitely no loss.”

  Clipper glanced at the onlookers at the barriers and wondered if the cop had been asleep during the
sensitivity training classes at the academy. He turned back to Trimble. “Anybody see anything else?”

  “Naw. We’ve already cleared the motel, and they’re knocking on doors over there now.”

  “Anybody hear the shot?” Clipper asked.

  “Not that we’ve found so far.”

  “Got the slug?”

  Trimble shook his head. “Still looking. It was a through and through.”

  Clipper turned to Holland, who was scanning the opposite side of the river through a small pair of binoculars he had brought from his house. “What do you think, Doug?”

  “Well, I make it to be about around four hundred and fifty yards to that motel, but it would be a pretty easy shot from anywhere up to the top of the ridge on that side. Maybe out to around five-fifty, five seventy-five. Hopefully you can get a better idea of exactly where if they can figure the trajectory of the wound path. Can we find out if those motel windows can be opened?”

  Trimble spoke into his radio, and seconds later the answer came back. Negative, LT. The windows are all sealed and intact and there’s nobody in any of the rooms on that side.

  Holland turned to Clipper. “Can we go over there?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Clipper said. “And then we’ll take a look at the scene over on campus.”

  Nelson Miller spoke up. “I’ll go with you, if you don’t mind,” he said. “Maybe a different set of eyes will help.”

  At the motel, Holland prowled the small part of the parking lot that wasn’t hidden by the building, then walked the long second-story balcony overlooking the river, stopping frequently to peer across through his binoculars. He paid particular attention to the balcony’s wooden railing and the parapet of the building’s flat roof, which they accessed through a ladder and trap door.