A Good Kill

by John McMahon

  Remy and I had discussed this on the drive over. That 3D gun printing may be part of this story.

  “So sniper rifles are well beyond anything in process?” she asked.

  Chester leaned in closer. He smelled like kerosene. “That’s the going knowledge,” he said.

  “What about the other piece?” I asked. “The box?”

  Chester walked to the table at the far side of the room. “That piece had a pin inserted to hold things in place,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind. I took it out so I could look inside.”

  I stared at a number of tiny parts laid out. Whitish, unstained plastic pieces. One circle looked like a ball bearing. Another was the metal flange we’d seen sticking out. Also a tiny plastic clip.

  “This doesn’t make sense,” I said, swinging over a magnifying arm from nearby.

  Chester was nodding, and his face had grown serious. “So you see now,” he said.

  “What?” my partner asked.

  “This box has a half-dozen discrete parts inside, Rem,” I said. “You wouldn’t make those if this was just a model or a toy. Models are empty inside. You don’t need the guts of something to hang it on your wall or put in a case.”

  I exhaled, shaking my head.

  Because suddenly I realized why all these bodies were piling up. I also knew what had been in that case on the back seat of the Chevy Caprice.

  This crime wasn’t about drugs. And this wasn’t a plastic model of a gun or some toy.

  “You’re saying it might work,” I whispered.

  Chester’s eyes met mine, and he held his hand out, warning me. “So far all we got are two pieces, Paul.”

  Remy swiveled the magnifying arm her way, glancing from the tiny pieces to Chester. “I thought you just said the edge of the technology was assault rifles. That these 3D makers couldn’t even get the assault rifles right.”

  “I said that was the going knowledge.” Chester ran his hands through his curly hair. “So I called up a friend who builds models. I mean really intricate shit. Most of it 3D-printed.”

  “He looked at the two parts?” Remy asked.

  “Five minutes before you got here.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “I told him you were coming, and he took off. Doesn’t like cops.”

  I walked over to one of the monitors and saw a man, sitting on the edge of a lowered, black pickup truck, two parking spots down from my Silverado. He wore a big coat, but even in black and white, I could see he was bone thin.

  “This guy,” I said, almost as a question. “He hasn’t left, Chess. What’s he want from us?”

  Chester smiled at me, staring at the monitor that covered the parking lot. “You always were the smart one in the group, Paul. He’s got a warrant. Going eighty in a fifty-five.”

  “And he didn’t show up in court?” Remy asked.

  Chester shook his head.

  “Tell him if he helps us out, we’ll clear it,” I said. “Get him in here.”

  Chester walked outside then. A minute later, he was followed in by a skinny white guy in his late twenties. “This is Lowell M. Forster,” he said. “You’ll need that name to clear the warrant. But everyone I know calls him Wolf.”

  Wolf’s eyes were sunken, and his skin was sallow. A meth addict was my first thought. But he looked sober. He took off his jacket, and underneath he wore a gray tank top with an image of Chewbacca on it.

  “Take us through what we’re we looking at, Wolf.” Remy pointed to the gun parts.

  The skinny guy looked to Chester and back to us. He carried all a hundred and thirty pounds like a gangster, dipping his shoulders as he moved.

  “Well, first thing y’all should know,” Wolf said, “is that this shit ain’t manufactured. That’s straight-up number one.”

  Up close, Wolf wasn’t bad looking. His oblong face was unshaven and he had green eyes and hair that he’d purposely shaved short. Definitely not high. Just unusually thin.

  He took a kit the size of a shaving bag from his jacket and removed a series of instruments. Miniature screwdrivers and something that looked like forceps, but were smaller.

  “Okay,” I said. “Meaning what?”

  “It’s handmade, yo. It’s a one-off. Custom.”

  My face must’ve given a “so the fuck what” look, because Wolf glanced from Chester to me.

  “Take your time,” Remy said, calming the skinny kid.

  “People like me print these,” Wolf said, picking up the trigger guard. “Piece by piece. Once you dry ’em and sand the edges, you paint ’em with a polyurethane. The black parts—a gunmetal acrylic stain. I mean, no one wants a plastic-looking gun, amirite?”

  “Sure,” I said flatly. “It doesn’t look cool.”

  “’Xactly,” Wolf said. He grabbed the box and carefully placed the white ball bearing and flange back into place. The plastic clip. Then he popped the pieces back into the box, using the two plastic dowels to hold them.

  “In a real gun”—he held up the small box—“you’d call these pieces inside the stop release and the detent ball—”

  “They’re all part of the trigger assembly,” Chester finished his sentence.

  “’Xactly,” Wolf said. “So guys like me—we’ve made 3D handguns. And it’s expensive, yo. Cheaper to get a black market gun if you really wanna shoot. Plus, my boy Snake—you’ve met him, Chester—he shot a 3D Beretta last year, and it exploded in his damn hand on the first shot. Homeboy’s got permanent burns.”

  I looked to Chester. Were we learning anything here?

  “But here’s the thing,” Wolf said. “How that ball was made. How this guard piece functions.” He held it up. “Someone done skipped over the Holy Grail of Assault Weapons. Went to the next level.”

  Wolf was smiling now—mostly at Remy, who was holding the trigger assembly.

  “’Cause what you got there, girl,” he said, “are pieces to a prototype. You’re holding parts of the first functioning, 3D-printed M24 sniper rifle.”

  “We knew that before you walked in,” I said. Grabbing the piece from him.

  “Sure,” he said. “But that’s ’cause I’m the one who told Chester. And he told y’all while I was outside.”

  I smiled at this. The kid was right.

  “Okay, tell me something, Wolf,” I said. “If you had the rest of this rifle and you lost these two pieces, what would you do?”

  “That depends,” he said. “If I got the plans and a printer, I’d just make another two pieces. But that ain’t always the case.”

  “Why not?” Remy asked.

  Wolf explained how 3D printing worked. How architects or engineers designed CAD, or computer-aided design, plans. Sometimes the ones for weapons were published online for free, and 3D printers could use them to make any product. And sometimes they purposely weren’t published online, because of their value.

  “You know a federal judge shut down a website last year for putting out handgun designs, right?” Wolf asked.

  I nodded. We’d been briefed on this at work. The Liberator was the name of the gun.

  Wolf explained how the printing process worked, by a machine printing tiny layers of plastic atop each other, slowly forming the intricate curves and edges of whatever the CAD plan dictated. It could produce a toy. A household object. Even a gun.

  “So it’s possible someone can’t replicate the same gun twice?” Remy asked.

  “If they don’t own the plans,” Wolf said, “they definitely can’t make the two replacement parts.”

  “Or maybe they’re just struggling to replicate it,” Chester said.

  “With assault rifles, these guys in Alabama produced four M4A1 carbines,” Wolf said. “But each time some piece broke off on the gun as they took the first shot. Something different on each weapon too. Usually after thirty
seconds, they flat-out fell apart.”

  “Like literally apart?” Remy asked.

  Chester jumped in again. “These are guns made of plastic, Detective Morgan. So like anything that’s machined, there’s tolerances before the plastic gives way. Plus, guys like Wolf paint ’em and sometimes that throws off the tolerance. You gotta shave the pieces down, just to fit ’em together.”

  I blinked hearing this. Found the evidence bag in my satchel. The one holding the tiny pieces of paint that I’d found in the trash at the Homewood Suites.

  Wolf shook the clear evidence bag, so the tiny filaments separated. He grinned, showing off a metal-capped incisor. “Now you’re getting it, boss,” he said to me. “So if you were making a rifle from 3D-printed parts, you’d print each piece one at a time. Then paint ’em. Then put the pieces together. But sometimes—as cool as it is to have a resin or stain on a piece—it can mess with how the parts fit together. You follow?”

  “Sure,” I said, staring at the bag of filaments. “Someone put part of this sniper rifle together. But they had to sand a little paint off some pieces to make it work.”

  “’Xactly,” Wolf said.

  “But tell me something, Wolf,” I said. “Knowing this rifle will fall apart—”

  “And with a high-velocity rifle,” Chester said, “it probably will after one or two shots.”

  “Then who the hell would buy it?” I asked.

  “Someone like him.” Wolf pointed at Chester.

  We all looked at my friend since third grade. “Hey, man.” Chester held up his hands. “Okay. Sure, there’ll be a market for this, and I’d be interested.”

  “You mean a collector?” I asked Wolf.

  “Sure.”

  “Disregard a guy like that,” I said. “I don’t care about someone who has a room like this to show off to their friends. Who else wants one?”

  “Someone who only needs to shoot once,” Wolf said.

  “Meaning what?” Remy asked.

  “Someone principled,” Wolf said. “And angry. A cause in mind.”

  I squinted at Wolf.

  “A guy who buys this,” Wolf said, “he wants to pull a trigger from a half mile away and kill someone. Then take his time packing up and go home to his family. Tuck his kids in bed. Like nothing happened.”

  “Why not just get a gun like that one?” Remy asked. Pointing at Chester’s real M24 rifle.

  “That might fall under the category of making a statement,” Wolf said. “Lately the bullets are even different in 3D guns. So when cops like you find a body—you’re gonna know.” Wolf made a gun with his hand. “Pow, I got you with a ghost gun.”

  I swallowed.

  “And if he’s real careful,” Wolf added, “he’ll melt the gun so it never existed. ’Cause some dude in Britain figured out how to trace 3D guns using plastic polymers. So the non-traceable thing—that just got harder.”

  A synapse in my brain fired.

  I took out my case notebook and paged backward, to my notes on the Chevy Caprice.

  Carlos had told Remy that there was a ring in the shape of a semicircle on the trunk carpet. A mark where something had eaten away at the fabric of the trunk.

  “So if I sold you this gun,” I said to Wolf, “but also included a vat of acid, that’s a good pairing, right?”

  “For sure,” Wolf said. “Drop the gun in that after and go home to the wife. Poof goes the proof.”

  I nodded, seeing the story from start to finish. Then I told Wolf his warrant was clear.

  31

  It was chilling to hear Wolf describe it, but a story line was emerging. Someone had engineered plans to make a 3D-printed sniper rifle that was untraceable. Unregistered. And disposable.

  A prototype was made, most likely for a one-time use.

  I stepped outside while Remy went back through the details with Wolf and Chester. Meanwhile, I called Abe and asked him to double the canvass around the Homewood Suites. To trace anywhere that the old assassin might have gone.

  Now Remy and I were in my Silverado, headed back to the Homewood.

  “Twenty-four hours ago,” Remy said, “I was sure our double was linked to drugs.”

  I shook my head. “And now it’s about a damn ghost gun.”

  “When you stepped out to talk to Abe,” Remy said, “Wolf made this statement. Like he wanted us to know. These guys are makers, P.T. Craftsmen.”

  “I’ll tell you what they’re crafting, Rem. Goddamn weapons.”

  “Sure, but they’re not all nuts, P.T. A lot of these guys are pro-freedom. Pro-open-source. Pro—”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve got sympathy for Wolf,” I said.

  Remy shrugged and went quiet for a minute. Had my partner somehow gotten liberal in the time I’d been suspended?

  “Let’s get water-tight on our current theory,” I said.

  “Sure.” Remy nodded. “So Carilla was hired by some unknown person to carry a 3D-printed M24 sniper rifle up to Mason Falls for some meeting.”

  “Check.”

  “He had two buddies who ran drugs up here, and they knew the routes,” Remy said. “Carilla decides to make a road trip of it with them. He gets protection. They know the area and he cuts them in.”

  “Copy that,” I said.

  “We know from transactions on Vinorama’s debit card that the other two stopped near the Georgia–Florida line,” Remy said. “Crashed for the night at a Comfort Inn.”

  I changed lanes and got off 909, heading back toward the Homewood Suites. A sleeping bag lay discarded in the grassy median between the north and southbound sides of the highway.

  “Vinorama and Dilmendes picked up Carilla and his package the next afternoon,” I said. “Drove up here. But they’re early for the drop. They go drinking at Tandy’s Tuesday night. Buy those T-shirts. At some point along the way, Carilla opens the case.”

  “He realizes that what he’s carrying is worth a whole lot more than he’s being paid,” Remy said. “And he gets greedy. Sends that text on Wednesday that we found in his phone. To the unknown cell number. Asking for a pay bump.”

  “More scratch,” I said, using Carilla’s words.

  Remy nodded.

  “Whoever he texted,” I said, “they called the old guy to come get the gun and get rid of Carilla and his two buddies. But Carilla got out of the car. He escaped.”

  “That’s when the old guy opens the case,” Remy said. “Goes back to his hotel and puts together what he can of the M24. Realizes he’s missing the trigger assembly and the trigger guard.”

  I nodded. It all tracked.

  “So what would you do next?” Remy asked. “If you’re this old assassin.”

  “If I’m him, the whole situation has gotten hotter than I probably anticipated. A sting at a bar? Cops chasing me and Carilla out into a forest? If I’m that old guy, I’m thinking that I didn’t get paid enough for this shit.”

  We turned onto Tanus Road toward the Homewood Suites, and I slowed, seeing Abe’s Lexus SUV parked alongside a cruiser in front of a Cracker Barrel about four blocks down from the hotel.

  I turned into the lot, and Remy and I got out of my truck.

  Was there a lead on the old guy?

  We headed inside the restaurant, passing through the gift area that sold knickknacks and candy. By the far side of the restaurant, Abe was standing with Patrolman Ingram. He saw us and walked closer, meeting Remy and me by the hostess stand.

  “I was just about to call you,” Abe said. “The old guy was here. Came in around ten-thirty today after the breakfast rush. Held down an area and tipped heavy.”

  I noticed Glenda Yantsy, the blue-suiter from the hotel, was sitting in a booth with a blonde in her late twenties. The woman wore the white short-sleeved dress shirt and brown apron that I’d seen on every Cracker Barrel wait
ress in my life.

  “That’s who waited on him?” I asked.

  “She’s a little shook up to discover that he was a killer,” Abe said. “The old guy gave her a two-hundred-dollar tip. Told her he wanted to sit in a specific section that was closed.”

  I eyed the woman. She was white with freckles, her face as plain as homemade soap. Her apron had three gold stars on it, above which was her name: Therese.

  “Video?” Remy asked.

  “Manager’s working on pulling it up. Ten minutes, he says.”

  Remy flicked her eyebrows at me and turned to Abe. “I say we let golden boy here chat her up.”

  Abe turned to me, his palms out. “Then we wait on your charm with bated breath.”

  I walked over, and Officer Yantsy looked up. She introduced me to Therese Kuth and heaved herself out of the booth.

  “Therese,” I said, “this is that moment you’ve seen on TV. Where the second cop comes over and you gotta repeat all the stuff you said to the first cop. You okay with that?”

  “Sure.”

  “I could use a cup of coffee,” I said. “How about you?”

  “Yes.” She smiled faintly. “Let me get—”

  I held out my hand. “You relax,” I said. “You’ve had a tough enough day already.”

  I turned to Remy, but she’d already heard me and was heading toward the hostess stand.

  Therese proceeded to tell me how the older guy came in and requested to sit in an area that had just been mopped and was closed.

  “I said no.” Therese shrugged meekly. “But he offered me two hundred bucks. Gave me an extra hundred for the shift manager.”

  Remy laid down a tray, and Therese instinctively grabbed the jug of coffee. Filled my cup first.

  “He had this case with him,” she said, motioning with her hands spread about four feet apart.

  I figured this was a gun case, but wanted to be sure. I took the tack of going the other way. “Like a guitar case?” I asked. “Musical instrument? Luggage?”

  “No, it was rectangular,” she said.

  I’d once owned a Pelican gun case that was two feet by four. About eight or ten inches thick.