Payback (Angie Bartoni Case Files Book 13)

by Marshall Huffman

  Obviously there was no word on Anderson yet so we went off to find Cain. He was one floor up and I thought I was going to have to arm wrestle the Nazi Nurse to get his room number.

  There were two guards stationed outside the door. Good. That is exactly what I wanted to see. We went in. Cain was sitting up and a cute nurse was evidently doing nurse stuff. She had a chart and was getting his vital signs it looked like to me. I have to say he looked like hell.

  “Hey Cain, how’s it going?” I asked.

  “Can you wait a minute?” the nurse asked snippily.

  Whoa. Give a person a little power and it goes to their head. When she was done, and I swear she took her time, she pranced on out of the room.

  “Anyway, how are you doing?” I was finally able to ask.

  He shook his head slightly.

  “I’m Bartoni and this is Detective Roberts. We caught the case.”

  He nodded that he understood.

  “Can you shed any light at all on what happened?”

  He shook his head no. I could see that he was still pretty well drugged up and probably didn’t even understand half of what I was saying. He pointed to a pad of paper and pen on the nightstand and I handed it to him. I held the pad of paper and put the pen in his hand.

  He scribbled out;partner?

  I looked over at Dan before answering.

  “I’m sorry to tell you this but he didn’t make it,” I said.

  I could see the pain in his face. It looked like the light in his eyes dimed. For a cop, losing a partner is like losing a close family member, closer in some cases. I knew they had been partners for twelve years so a lot of water had gone under that bridge.

  He laid his head back on the pillow and I saw a tear run down his cheek. I nodded to Dan. Obviously he wasn’t going to be able to shed any light on the shooting.

  “Sorry for you loss Cain,” I said squeezing his arm.

  He just nodded.

  We made our way out of the room.

  “That was a total bummer,” Dan said when we got outside.

  “Totally,” I agreed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  We went back down to surgery and found the waiting room somewhat cleared out.

  “Any news yet?”

  “He didn’t make it.”

  “Geez,” I muttered

  “Crap,” Dan said.

  “Tell me about it,” the guy we were talking to replied.

  “Well that doesn’t give us much to go on. We have three dead officers, one seriously wounded and not one single lead. We had better hope that Eric can come up with something,” Dan said.

  “Then let’s go see what he has come up with.”

  When we walked out of the hospital, it was a zoo. Reporters with microphones, cameramen, and uplink trucks were crowded everywhere.

  “No comment,” I whispered to Dan.

  “Got it.”

  As we tried to wade our way through, a hundred questions were shouted. I kept saying ‘no comment’ over and over. You would think by the hundredth time they would get it. Suddenly I turned around as I heard Dan speaking to one of the reporters.

  “All I will say is that we will get them. You can take that to the bank,” he said and then pushed through to where I stood.

  I wasn’t sure what I thought about that. By itself it wasn’t much, but I could just see the headlines in tomorrow’s paper and the lead on every news station.

  When we got in the car and had the doors closed, I turned to look at him. He was looking straight ahead.

  “You know you opened the door, right?”

  “They got to me.”

  “That is their job. That is what they do. You should have kept your mouth shut. Now the headlines will scream that we have threatened to get him. It will seem like a personal vendetta. If he gets killed by the cops they will make a big deal out of it, Dan. They will make us look like the bad guys.”

  “Angie…”

  “No. Don’t. It wasn’t the brightest thing you could have done. I told you to say ‘no comment’ and nothing else.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Let’s just hope this blows over and we don’t end up killing the guy,” I said, still slightly angry.

  When we got back to the station, the captain called us in. He wanted to know everything that we knew. That took all of thirty seconds.

  “Cain couldn’t help at all?”

  “He only saw his partner get hit. He was hit immediately after that and doesn’t remember anything else. He didn’t even know his partner was dead.”

  “And no one has claimed responsibility?”

  “Not so far. We were just going to see if Eric has come up with anything.”

  “Alright. Let me know if he finds out anything at all. The Commissioner has called three times already.”

  “Is he for a task force to be formed?”

  “I don’t know but I would imagine that won’t be far down the road if we don’t come up with something pretty darn soon,” McGregor told us.

  ***

  “Anything?” I asked Eric.

  “Not much. The shots definitely came from that location but you already knew that. I’ve tried everything to enhance it but I came up with nothing.”

  “Okay, thanks for trying.”

  “Wait, I’m not finished. Once I knew where the building was located, I did a search for traffic cameras and other security cameras in the area. It isn’t much, but check this out,” he said pulling up a picture of the alley running between the buildings.

  It looked to be about a block away. We could see a case of some kind placed on the ground outside of the window. A few seconds later a person climbed out and looked around before grabbing the case and quickly walking toward the camera. It was difficult to tell his height but Eric thought that he appeared to be around six foot tall. When he got to the end of the block, he turned right and then he walked out of the camera’s range.

  “Can we enhance his face any? It is not great, but it’s certainly more than we had before,” I told him.

  “I can’t do anything more here. I don’t have the equipment. I’ve sent the original off to the FBI to see if they could work some mojo on it.”

  “That’s great my man,” I said bumping knuckles with him.

  I stopped by and filled the captain in on what Eric had done. He wasn’t exactly ecstatic but at least it was something.

  “We need to hold a news conference this afternoon. Everyone is screaming to know what is going on,” McGregor said.

  “But we don’t have anything to tell them.”

  “Then you had better think of something. It’s set for three o’clock.”

  “Ah, captain.”

  “Don’t ‘ah’ me. Just be ready,” he said tensely.

  Obviously he was getting more pressure that he was letting on. I decided to retreat to my desk.

  “What did the captain say?” Dan asked.

  “News conference.”

  “Oh give me a break. What are we going to tell them?”

  “Hey, no use killing the messenger. That’s what I said.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “What did he say?”

  “Find something to say.”

  “How original.”

  “You are welcome to go talk to him,” I said heading off to get a Diet Coke.

  ***

  We have held hundreds of news conferences but this one was unusual. This was national news and it looked like every station that had a feed was there. Reporters were twenty deep and I have never seen so many microphones stuck to a podium. I could see trucks from every major news station and others that I didn’t even know existed parked in every available space.

  “Yikes,” I heard Dan say.

  I was feeling pretty much the same way. It’s one thing to get sharp with a reporter when it is local news but this was much bigger so I was going to have to put a sock in my mouth if I didn’t like the question.

/>   “I’m Detective Bartoni and this is my partner, Detective Roberts,” I said starting out.

  The murmur settled down as I waited.

  “We are the ones currently leading the investigation into the death of the three officers and the wounding of another. My partner was also the first wounded when all of this started. I will tell you what we know but I will warn you that I will not answer questions that jeopardize the case in any way. Having said that, I will also tell you that at this point we have just started the investigation and have more questions than answers.

  We were the first ones to be shot at. We were just driving along when the windshield was shot out and my partner was hit above the ear. It was not a scheduled patrol so there was no way the shooter could have known we were going to be at that particular place at that point in time. It would have to be considered a moment of opportunity for the shooter.

  The second attack came when patrolmen Tomlinson and Cain were shot while on routine patrol. Tomlinson was killed and Officer Cain is still in critical condition with gunshot wounds to his shoulder and back. Three days later the third attack occurred. Again it happened on a routine patrol. Officers Riley and Anderson were ambushed. They have both succumbed to their gunshot wounds. We have no indication of a motive for the shootings at this time and no one has claimed responsibility.

  We have learned that the rifle used fires a 7.62 x 54r round. For those of you who don’t know, that is a World War II round from a Russian rifle, possibly a Mosin Nagant.”

  I could see the reporters looking around. Probably trying to figure out what I just said. It was a foreign language to them I’m sure.

  “At this time, that is all we know. We have no strong leads but are following up on evidence collected at the three shooting sites. Now I will take your questions but there is only one of me and a lot of you so keep in mind that I can only answer a question if I can hear it.”

  It started immediately. Any suspects? Geez, didn’t I just say that we have no leads?

  Any motive? Duh, they don’t like cop?

  Is a task force being formed? Oops, an intelligent question.

  “I am not sure at this point. It may well be a possibility. You would have to ask my superiors that question.”

  Has anyone claimed responsibility? I answered that in the briefing, dumb butt.

  Is this a trained sniper? Radar alert. Pretty good question but what made him ask it? Not many people think that way just because someone is shooting people with a rifle. They didn’t know the yardage or angle and yet they wanted to know if it was a trained sniper. I definitely wanted to talk to that reporter when this was over.

  The questions kept coming for another fifteen minutes or so. I answered a few pretty good ones and a lot of really stupid ones. Once they all started just repeating questions I called an end to the conference.

  “Dan, grab that reporter who asked about the trained sniper. I want to talk to him.”

  “Yeah. I figured as much. I have been keeping an eye on him,” he said and bound off through the crowd.

  I saw him catch up with the guy and after a short conversation he followed Dan back to where I stood.

  “What’s this all about?”

  “The question you asked about a trained sniper. Why did you ask that?”

  “I wanted to know.”

  “Give me a break. Why that specific question? Why the trained part?” I said.

  Now don’t get me wrong, I like people…sort of…but this guy had one of those faces that made you want to smack him into next week. It was the smirk more than anything. He seemed to like pissing people off. Maybe he felt that made him superior but all it did was raise my blood pressure.

  “If you can hit people in a moving car you must be pretty good. Ergo, they were probably trained.”

  “Well, ergo, they were hit coming head on. That does not take a trained professional. The cars were on patrol and moving pretty slowly so the shot wasn’t that difficult,” I said.

  “But here you are asking me why I asked that. It means you have considered the possibility so there is something more. What didn’t you tell us,” he asked.

  Did I mention that I don’t like this guy? Smirk aside, he has a way of challenging you like he knows a lot more than you do.

  “What you don’t get,” I said, “Is that the shots were not that difficult. They were from less than a hundred yards and there are thousands of shooters who could have made that shot. It was nothing extraordinary.”

  “But with a World War II gun?” he countered.

  “You may not know it but the M1 Garand, a World War II gun, is still one of the most accurate guns ever made.”

  “Yeah, but this was a Russian gun. They’re not exactly known for their accuracy.”

  “Really? You will find that they had some damn good snipers if you check your history,” I shot back.

  “Look, it was just a question. It he was trained that is one thing. If it is just some nut job he will make a mistake quicker. That is what I was trying to get at. A trained shooter knows how to cover his tracks. Some whack job will just keep shooting but eventually will screw up and leave some vital evidence. I’ve been covering stories like this for twenty years. I know what happens when it is a professional or a trained assassin versus a person with a grudge,” he said.

  “Alright. I get your drift. I just wanted to know where you were going with this,” I said.

  “Just asking. Now can I go?”

  “Yep.”

  “We’re good?”

  “We’re good,” I replied.

  We watched him leave and Dan said, “Boy, you didn’t like him much.”

  “What makes you say that?” I asked.

  “Your fists were balled up.”

  “Oh, that.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Lance wants you to come over to the lab,” McGregor said when the conference was over.

  I was somewhat concerned that he didn’t say anything one way or the other about how the news conference had gone. Usually he debriefs us, yells at us, or offers criticism. This time he just sent us packing.

  Our lab is nothing like you see on television. All those CSI shows have really given people a false perception. We don’t have half the equipment they show and the results do not fit into the hour time slot so they can catch the bad guys before the last commercials.

  I think a great deal of Lance. He is the best crime technician I have ever known. He is a lot like our ME, extremely competent, but without the ME’s crustiness. In fact, if he weren’t on the force, I would have a serious interest in him but my rule of never dating a cop stands in the way. While technically, I guess he isn’t a cop but we still interact closely and that can be a problem. It could also cause problems in court cases. Some attorney would try to point out a conflict of interest at some point. No, it was just better to leave it at a professional relationship.

  Yeah, I know. I’m a dweeb.

  “Hey Lance.”

  “Angie, Dan, I want to show you the bullet we pulled from the back seat of your car. It was pretty much intact.”

  “You mean the 7.62 x 54?”

  “Yes, but I want to show you something kind of strange,” he said leading us over to a microscope.

  Two monitors were displaying a close-up of the bullet. You could see the groves and markings clearly.

  “Here is the odd part. We fired a 7.62 from a Mosin Nagant and compared it to our bullet. What we found was that while they were both Russian bullets, the one our shooter used had the twist going the opposite direction and the grooves were different.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It is highly modified. Someone has put a considerable amount of work into replacing the stock barrel with a much better one. It has been reworked to be a very accurate rifle.”

  “So the breach is still from a Mosin Nagant but the barrel has been retrofitted,” Dan said.

  “Exactly. I would imagine the cartridges are reloads to get the maximum perf
ormance out of them.”

  “A professional,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  I squeezed my eyes with my thumb and forefinger. Why? What would cause a professional assassin to go on a mission to kill cops?

  “Any way to trace where the shells came from?” Dan asked.

  “You’re kidding, right? You can get them online dirt cheap. They are sold by almost every ammunition dealer. We are talking about literally thousands of potential sources for purchasing them. My guess is that he buys them and either fires them once and reloads them or just pulls the bullets and reloads them to his specifications. Neither is very difficult.”

  “So there’s no way to trace either the bullets or the gun.”

  “Correct.”

  ***

  When we got back to the station the Commissioner was in talking to the captain. That is never a good sign. Even worse, the door to his office opened and he motioned Dan and I over.

  “This looks bad,” Dan whispered.

  “You got that right,” I replied.

  “Bartoni, Roberts,” the Commissioner said when we entered.

  Frankly, I was surprised he remembered our names.

  “Commissioner Martin, nice to see you again,” I said.

  He looked at me to see if I was being a smart aleck but I guess I kept a straight enough face that he bought it.

  “Always good to see some of our finest. Roberts, how is your ear doing?”

  “It’s fine sir, just a scratch.”

  “Darn close call,” he said.

  “To what do we owe this honor?” I asked.

  “I saw the news conference. I thought it was well done. You handled the questions very professionally,” he said.

  Okay, here is where I wait for the other shoe to fall. The ‘but’, part. He never just gives out a compliment.

  “I appreciate that.”

  “You were asked about a task force. I don’t want to force one down your throat but I would like to know what you think about that?” he said.