by Jordan Cole
“Okay,” Metzer said. Removed his sunglasses, and immediately regretted it. The glare was blinding. “So Riley saves this girl. Convinces her that it wasn’t an isolated incident. What happened to the guy who accosted her? What was he driving?”
“Never found him or his car,” Throop said. “No real sign he even existed, at this point.”
“I’m trying to work this over in my mind. Why does the woman go along with Riley?”
“Who knows?” Throop said. “Fear? Coercion? One of her co-workers was reported missing. Guy named Peter Saccarelli. Ramirez looked into it. Turns out the guy’s a flake, makes a habit of dropping off the radar for weeks at a time. Maybe that got her rattled enough to trust Riley.
One of the crime scene techs came over, shaking his head.
“No sign of the bullet. No shell casings found in the house.”
“Keep looking,” Hennessey said. Metzer stared out at the grassy expanse surrounding the cabin. If the bullet was high caliber, it would have smashed through anything unlucky enough to cross its path. If it wasn’t lodged in the cabin somewhere, there was a good chance they’d never find it.
“Tell me about what happened here this morning,” Metzer said, his voice dropping seriously. “If you’re up to it.”
Hennessey pursed his lips. Gave Throop a sympathetic nod. She was still rattled, obviously, but there was a job to do. A pro. She touched the back of her short dark hair and sucked in a breath.
“Ramirez got a call late last night. From a woman named Liz Farber. The editor of a financial magazine called Accounting, Agatha Dumont’s boss. Farber told Ramirez she was worried about Agatha. That Agatha had intimated to her that Riley was overstepping his bounds. That he was keeping her at his cabin for her own protection. Ms. Farber said Agatha had missed work. Said Riley had talked to her, and had given her a bad feeling. She also thought Riley might be involved with the disappearance of the other co-worker. Peter Saccarelli.”
“Wait a second,” Metzer said. “I thought the Saccarelli guy was just on vacation.”
“We’re not sure. Still haven’t heard from him.”
“All right. Continue.”
Throop turned, staring sadly at the winding road leading to the cabin.
“Farber was worried. Certainly sounded agitated on the phone. Asked if we could send someone over to Riley’s place and make sure Agatha was okay. Ramirez agreed to check it out first thing in the morning. I said I’d go with him.”
“No backup?” Metzer said. “Investigating a potentially dangerous guy like Riley?”
Throop shook her head.
“Ramirez didn’t think it was necessary. He wanted to go himself. To give Riley a piece of his mind. Maybe even to haul him in if the situation called for it. But he just thought Riley was overeager. One of those anti-authority types that thinks everyone’s out to get them, like Hennessey said. Misguided, but not crazy. John didn’t really think he was dangerous. I don’t know why, but he didn’t. He wouldn’t have brought me along with no backup if he did.”
“Guess he was wrong,” Hennessey said. Throop and Metzer stared at him, and his face reddened.
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I, uh, think it’s pretty clear what happened after that. Motion alarms go off as you and Ramirez are approaching. Riley sees who it is and panics. Realizes he’s in trouble, and grabs his rifle.”
“Ramirez is heading to the door,” Throop said. “I’m a few seconds behind, checking my phone. Then I hear the shot. John gets hit.”
“Did you actually see the shot?” Metzer asks. “Muzzle flash?”
Throop shook her head.
“No. I was fiddling with my phone, like I said. Like an idiot.” She pressed her face with her hands, shaking her head.
“No reason to beat yourself up. Not like you could have known. But you didn’t see the direction of the shot or where it came from.”
“By the time I realized, John was already on the ground. Half his goddamn head is missing. I rush back to the car to call for EMTs and backup. Two minutes later, Riley runs out front and gets into his SUV. Screaming that he’s innocent. That there’s a sniper in the woods. I tell him to freeze. Fire a few shots at the car, but he gets away.”
“We found Ms. Dumont’s purse inside,” Hennessey said. “Have her on video escaping the premises with Riley. Whether or not she’s under duress remains to be seen.”
Metzer looked up at the cabin. Thinking about windows, lines of sight, trajectories. Angles and motives and all the different reasons a person might have for shooting another person. Envisioning what detective Throop had told him and replaying it all out in his mind. But the story wasn’t making a whole lot of sense. There were pieces missing, parts of the puzzle that the MPD and the Charlemagne County police weren’t considering.
“What?” Throop asked, seeing the look on Metzer’s face. “What are you thinking?”
“Riley shoots Ramirez,” Metzer said. “But he doesn’t shoot you. Why?”
Throop shrugged.
“I don’t know. I’ll be asking myself that the rest of my life.”
“Personal grudge, maybe,” Hennessey said. “Or maybe he didn’t want to shoot a woman. These macho guys, they’ve got codes of honor. Who knows what’s going on inside his head?”
“Riley claimed it wasn’t him. That there was another shooter, out in the woods.”
Hennessey shook his head.
“Impossible. Riley himself gave us all we need to disprove it, with his cameras and the motion detectors. His system keeps detailed records of when each alarm was tripped. Closed circuit video of the surrounding woods. We’ve been checking that footage all morning. Riley would know where the cameras are. What they capture, and what they don’t. The car Ramirez was driving was the only thing we saw. Those motion detectors extend out to 900 yards away from Riley’s cabin. Unless someone shot Ramirez from a thousand yards out, then Riley’s the only one who could have done it.”
“But a different shooter is still a possibility,” Metzer said. “He’d just have to have been extremely far away.”
“Let me ask you something,” Hennessey said. “You ever do any kind of long range shooting? Distances greater than 500 yards?”
“Not really,” Metzer said. “No.”
“It’s hard as goddamn hell. And the further you go, it gets exponentially tougher.” Hennessey emphasized every syllable of the penultimate word. “You have to account for a million and one different things when preparing to fire. I used to be a pretty decent target shooter back in the day. I doubt I could even hit the cabin from a thousand yards. I’d say there’s maybe a couple hundred people in the world who could shoot accurately enough to take down a person at that distance.”
“So it’s unlikely,” Metzer said. “But not impossible.”
Hennessey shook his head, spitting through a gap in his front teeth.
“Wouldn’t bet the farm on it. Right now, I would put one hundred ten percent of our resources into locating Riley and the Dumont woman.”
“Not saying otherwise. Just trying to assess all the scenarios.”
“We’ve got an APB on Riley’s truck, obviously,” Throop said. “But he’s not dumb. He’ll ditch it, if he can. I think he’ll be hard pressed to get far. We’re plastering his picture all over the media.”
“So where was Riley shooting from?” Metzer asked.
“Huh?”
“If he was shooting from a window--say the cabin’s second floor--then the bullet would have impacted with the ground. Based on the trajectory, right? But there’s no sign of the bullet. Riley would have had to have fired either level with Ramirez or prone on the ground. So the arc of the bullet is drawing upwards.”
“Right,” Hennessey said. “There’s a small makeshift shooting range around the side of the cabin,” he pointed. “Near the shed back there. Sandbags set up. No cameras in that vicinity. It would have given a clear line of sight to Ramirez. We think Riley heard the alarm, grabbed the rifle
, and retreated back there to take the shot.”
“And the weapon?”
“Take your pick,” Throop said, motioning toward the techs, who were still carrying guns out of the cabin. “Could be any one of those. Need to run the tests.”
“Okay,” Metzer said. “We’ll have the bureau get coordinated with everyone else. Get Riley and Dumont’s credit cards, bank cards, phone records, email records, social media accounts, you name it. The woman’s blog gets updated, we’ll know where and when. They make a cell phone call, we’ll have them pinned down by nightfall.
“I don’t think you understand,” Throop said. “Like I said before, Riley isn’t stupid. He isn’t going to make a cell phone call. We’re not going to catch him buying gum with his Visa card at a gas station.”
“He’s stupid enough to kill a cop,” Metzer said. “And he’s desperate. We’ll get him. Not a matter of if, but when.”
An older guy with a white beard wearing an MPD uniform came over. Put a reassuring arm around Throop, leading her away to a squad car. The DC police captain, Metzer guessed. The guy didn’t introduce himself. Just worked quickly to get Throop away and debriefed, where she probably belonged. Hennessey remained, standing with his hands at his sides rocking back and forth on his feet, his girth overhanging his waistband and swaying in time. Metzer was sure he was an expert at nailing speeding motorists and busting grow houses out in the mountains. Coordinating a hunt for a dangerous fugitive however? He wasn’t so sure.
Metzer watched Throop get into the passenger’s seat of a squad car. It pulled away, weaving slowly through the crowds of personnel. Unfortunate for the MPD that she wasn’t running the show. She seemed capable, certainly more so than Hennessey. Metzer turned back to the chief.
“I’m going to take a look around the cabin,” he said. Hennessey shrugged. Motioned him along. Be my guest.
Metzer nodded. Strode forward, grabbing a pair of latex gloves from the back of an open ambulance. Irritated that Hennessey didn’t seem to be worried about his possible contamination of a crime scene. Amateur hour.
He crawled his fingers into the gloves and snapped the latex back against his wrist. They were a size too small, but good enough. Elbowed past a crime tech emerging from the cabin. Saw a small garden off to the side of the house, fenced off with wire, containing all manner of leafy things. It had been trampled over people coming and going. Metzer went inside. A medium sized den that entered into the kitchen, somewhat tacky wooden paneling and hotel-quality landscapes adorning the walls. A modest brick fireplace which hadn’t been lit since the winter. Hung above was an empty wooden board, a light-colored space between two hooks where Metzer assumed a shotgun or rifle had been hanging. Taken down by one of the techs. A mahogany liquor cabinet sat next to a worn out Lay-Z-Boy. Metzer slid open the cabinet door and examined the contents. Wild Turkey and Stoli vodka. A quarter bottle of J&B scotch. Better than the plastic jug liquor they sold at the supermarket, but not high-end stuff. Utilitarian alcohol. No dust on the bottles, the labels bright, not peeling or faded. Clear that the contents of the cabinet were restocked frequently. Metzer flexed his hands against the tight gloves. Made a mental note that Riley liked his booze.
There wasn’t much else of interest in the den, so Metzer entered the kitchen. Crime scene personnel in here, taking photographs. Agatha Dumont’s purse sat on the table, expensive-looking leather. A Burberry logo written in neat font across the side. The contents of the purse inventoried on the table in plastic bags. A white iPhone beside lipstick, wallet, feminine products. Metzer had no desire to disturb evidence that had already been bagged, and so he moved forward into an open doorway and looked at the stairs leading downward. More techs below, photographing. He descended. Walked in between the white-coated guys and looked around.
This was Riley’s vaunted panic room that Hennessey had so eloquently described. Metzer had never seen one in person before. He had mixed feelings about it. The dual screens laid out to monitor the property were impressive, but the room itself was small. Hard for two people to remain inside for long without serious claustrophobia setting in. He tapped the walls. A solid clanking sound. Something weirdly quaint about the whole thing. Survivalism on a budget. Metzer had no doubt Riley had friends in the business who had given him a discount on some of the stuff. The building materials and camera system could not have come cheap. Metzer examined the monitors. The motion detectors had been disabled, but the camera still displayed the outside grounds; he could see the cars and cops directly out front, as well as Unis deeper out, combing the woods for clues. He’d had enough. Went back up the stairs and up to the second story. Many police were congregated in one of the rooms. He saw an empty rack, and a large metal safe that looked like it weighed a literal ton and was in the process of being chiseled open. Likely where Riley kept more of his guns. Metzer bypassed this room and went on to the next, which was empty. What appeared to be a guest room. A rumpled bed, a few shirts on the floor. He didn’t go in. Went instead to the last room, Riley’s bedroom. Another plainclothes detective was exiting, giving Metzer a shrug as he passed.
“Not much in there,” the detective said. “Feel free to take another whack at it.”
Metzer went inside. There was a bed, a bookcase, a nightstand, and a closet full of clothes. A few camouflage pants, a pair of dress shirts, and a lot of T-shirts. All the pockets had been turned out, probably by the detective. Boxes beneath the clothes. Metzer went through them. Just old pictures and personal effects. Riley standing beside a woman, smiling. His ex-wife, maybe. The two of them overlooking a gorge. Metzer put them back and moved on. Lifted the mattress and felt around the pillowcases, hoping to find something the previous guys had missed. Nothing beneath or inside. He walked to the window and looked out. A perfect vantage from which to shoot Ramirez. But it was impossible. No way to make that shot without the bullet embedding itself deep in the dirt. And Throop would have been right there to see it.
Metzer turned to the bookcase. Not exactly what he expected. Riley had hundreds of books. The case covering the entire far wall. An emphasis on history, ancient Rome, the Crusades, Plato and Socrates. More highbrow than he would have guessed. Scanning through the books, Metzer got the strange sense the tech guys had missed something. He plucked a book at random from the middle of the shelf. Flipped through it. Nothing. Took another one, did the same thing. A single white piece of paper came fluttering out.
Metzer examined it. A receipt. A purchase of some kind of expensive microphone. Metzer turned the receipt over. Saw what was written there. He put a gloved hand against his temple. Thinking that the situation might not have been as simple as it first appeared.
17.
Riley had things on his mind as he made his way back to Shady Pines motel, which is why he didn’t see the three men approach until the last possible second.
The lapse was his own fault--no doubt about that--but there were several factors working against him that a prouder man might have used to rationalize the situation. For one, the motel parking lot was poorly lit, full of shadows, with only two weak fluorescent bulbs granting barely enough illumination for Riley to make out the shape of the Oldsmobile, which he needed as a marker to find his room. Second, there was only one path in and out to the cabins, a well-trod avenue past the front desk kiosk and through the dark parking lot. No way around, unless Riley wanted to scale a barbed wire fence or hike all the way through a muddy creek and thick underbrush, neither of which he particularly wanted to do.
But the main reason was that Riley was on the lookout for law enforcement personnel, not three guys who looked barely old enough to shave. Men in the legal sense, maybe, but to Riley they were boys, and so he breathed an internal sigh of relief and realized his lack of caution hadn’t gotten him in serious trouble. Not this time, anyway.
They surrounded Riley in a rough triangle, not speaking, but staring him down with exaggerated, almost comic snarls. Like they hoped that if they mugged hard enough, Riley would dr
op his valuables and run off. Not an altogether foolproof plan, in his experience.
Two of them were tall and stout, broad-shouldered. The other was even taller but lankier, loose limbs on a wiry frame. He seemed to be the leader. All three had dirty blond hair, but the lanky guy’s was longer, falling almost to his shoulders. None of them looked over twenty.
Riley glanced over to his left, at the cabin. A flickering light through the window, otherwise quiet. Possible these guys had seen Agatha, and Riley was interrupting some ill-intentioned activity. Possible they were after money. People who stayed at motels for longer than a few days tended to have some cash on hand. Usually. Possible they were just drunk and looking for trouble. They all four regarded each other wordlessly until finally the leader spoke.
“What you got there?” he said. Emphasis on the drawl. Like he was playing it up. Riley looked down at his hands. He was carrying groceries for Agatha and himself in two plastic bags.
“Cup of soup,” Riley said. “Some chopped apples. Beef jerky. A Vitamin Water.”
“This is your room. I’ve seen you and the lady coming and going.”
“How nice for you.”
His eyes adjusted to the darkness, Riley pulled the brim of his baseball cap up a fraction. He could see beer cans littering the asphalt near an ancient pickup truck a few cars over. Maybe one of the guys lived here, getting drunk with his buddies. Or they were all passing through, drifters who got by robbing the unwary. Could all be brothers, by the looks of them.
“You better watch your mouth,” said one of the husky guys, from behind Riley. “Or it’s gonna get messed up.”
Riley had his Smith & Wesson under his belt, but he wasn’t about to draw it for these three clowns. No sense in escalating the situation further. Unless they somehow got the better of him, which wasn’t going to happen, not in this universe. There’d have to be about ten more of them before Riley started to worry.
