by Mike Bogin
NYPD would not stand down until after midnight. Witness interviews, sight angles from the balconies, timing, all combined to suggest a single-shooter on the rooftop. The night doorman complained that he had already been over all this with the FBI. Yes, the guy signed in. No he did not have his sign-in board. Why? Because the FBI had it. “Don’t you guys even work together?”
NYPD reached the roof carrying 600-watt halogen stand lights and extension cords only to find the snaking tracks of prior extension cords from the FBI team ahead of them on the dusty rooftop. Teams on the ground had been so busy that nobody had followed up on the glow from the earlier FBI forensics team already conducting their gunshot residue tests across multiple radii of the sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrite that constitutes gunpowder.
The soot and grime carried in Manhattan’s dense air left behind the perfect medium to view a footprint signature. Every type of shoe has its own tread, and every person wearing shoes moves differently, which personalizes tread wear. NYPD’s SWAT snipers had booted right over most of the shoeprints, but the tighter patterns from an athletic shoe stood in stark contrast to the blocks of square treads left by the police boots.
NYPD Forensics was not new to the dance. Using a 400-watt rechargeable hand-held spotlight, investigators could clearly see the print outlines running from the corner of the roof, looking east toward the park and north to the target areas and west across the roof toward the fire escape ladder. More of the same treads showed at the steel doorway coming out from the elevator. The shooter had come up the elevator, shot from the roof corner, and left via the fire escape. The forensic lead could see that the right foot was leading coming out from the doorway and was consistently the heavier footfall. He took a photo of the print with his iPhone. His guess was confirmed in seconds. Nike. Big feet, size thirteen. Right-footed shooter. Every step displayed a clear, sharp edge. Deliberate, purposeful movements with no drag, no shuffle. Athletic. Most likely white. Even weight distribution. Good posture.
Ed Gonzalez walked the perimeter, craning his head for shining brass casings that were nowhere in sight. Gonzalez craned over the side of the building. Down angles, tight spacings, variable lighting. Six hits in fast activity. Gonzalez lifted his empty arms into sighting position. One-two-three-four-five-six.
“This guy’s a grunt,” Gonzalez knew it in his gut. He’s military. Current or former, he didn’t know. But military. Major Eduardo Gonzalez was prepared to commit to that assessment.
With the crime scene results already laid out before them, NYPD forensics fired overhead lighting to laboratory-bright conditions that heated the humid surrounding air so that it smoked as it rose over the building. One-foot-square magnifying lenses mounted on three-inch risers were brought out from gray aluminum hard-shell carrying cases while lasers created an examination grid in square-foot increments as the team moved ahead on the laborious archaeology of searching out fiber samples. DNA from one hair tied to an identity within the database could lead to arrest and conviction. To the trained eye, the microscopic scratches of another scientist’s tweezers were like a signature. NYPD’s forensics team continued going over the area until morning without being surprised that there was nothing left. But NYPD wanted its own data. Officially-speaking, the FBI would share its data when results were conclusive. In real life, NYPD could expect to wait fourteen days, leaving the Chief and mayor mad as hell. It was always this way; per the Bureau, interdepartmental coordination was established under the authority of Congress by the Patriot Act. The Anti-Terrorism Task Force functioned according to Bureau protocol, leaving local law enforcement agencies to wait their turn. A bullet taken from one victim was already matched. By morning, July 14, FBI had confirmation that six .270 rounds were used, fired by the same rifle that had been used in Sag Harbor two days before. But NYPD could wait.
Sands Point, infiltration and near-invisibility. Sag Harbor, a barrel shoot. Central Park West, all about technical shooting. This was one shooter. Current or ex-military. Whose military, Gonzalez couldn’t say.
* * * * *
Evidence: Coroner’s Report, Abbreviated
Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, City of New York
DATE and HOUR AUTOPSY PERFORMED: 7/14; 9:40 a.m. by Manish Agrundalvedi, M.D. Assistant: Victoria Jensen, M.D. Limited Autopsy Performed
SUMMARY REPORT OF AUTOPSY
Name: PARRISH, Anthony Dixon Date of Birth: 1/19/1953
Race: White Sex: Male
Date of Death: 7/13 Body Identified by: Mark Parrish, brother of the deceased
Case# 000550-15C-2012 Investigative Agency: NYPD
EVIDENCE OF TREATMENT: N/A
EXTERNAL EXAMINATION:
The autopsy is begun at 9:40 a.m. on July 14. The body is presented in a black body bag. When first viewed, the deceased is clothed in a white silk dinner jacket (Lagerfeld) and black trousers, white shirt with French cuffs, silk socks to ankles, black leather shoes (reptile-skin in appearance). Jewelry included one matching set of cufflinks (2), gold in appearance with enamel and stone (diamond in appearance) insignia “P,” one ring with clear stone (diamond in appearance) on fifth digit of right hand, one earring with yellow stone setting (gold in appearance) in right earlobe. See case photos 5-9. Secured for collection to lock-up 4.4. The body is that of a normally-developed white male measuring 71 inches, weighing 174 pounds and appearing generally consistent with the stated age of 59 years.
The eyes are partially open. The irises are blue. The corneas are cloudy. The sclera are clear. The pupils measure 0.45 cm. The hair is black (colored), straight and approximately 1.5 inches in length. The hair is encrusted with what appears to be blood.
An entry wound measuring 4.78 cm is present on the parietal bone approximately 4 cm above the left ear. Significant fracturing of bone at the site of penetration.
INTERNAL EXAMINATION:
Initial probe of entry channel = 14.5 cm with descending angle of entry penetrating through the inferior parietal lobe, lateral sulcus, temporal lobe, and soft palate. Projectile was recovered loose within oral cavity. Stomach contents within oral cavity appear to be consistent with involuntary spasmodic response.
LABORATORY DATA: N/A
Drug Screen Results: N/A
EVIDENCE COLLECTED:
One (1) white jacket.
One (1) pair black trousers.
One (1) white shirt.
Shoes (2- 1 pair), black leather- reptile in appearance.
Jewelry- earrings (1), ring (1), cufflinks (2- I pair)
Manner of Death: Homicide
Immediate Cause of Death:
Severe brain trauma from projectile penetration into multiple lobes.
Time of Death: Body temperature, rigor and liver mortis approximate the time of death between 7:30 p.m.. 7/13 and 10:30 p.m. 7/13.
Gonzalez skimmed through the next four autopsy reports then shuffled the paperwork into a tight stack. These confirmed what he was looking for: this shooter was every bit as good as Gonzalez had observed. Kill shots on every target, primary shots straight for apricots, dead-center into the brain stem. The victims were dead instantly, now lifeless cold meat stacked four high on stainless steel racks inside metal lockers kept at thirty-eight degrees.
* * * * *
The anchorwoman on the lead news story skillfully relayed her script without any hint of the teleprompter:
“Law enforcement officials today confirmed that the weapon used in last night’s shootings in Midtown Manhattan is the same weapon used in the Independence Day Murders at Sag Harbor, some eighty miles northeast from the Central Park West shootings. According to NYPD spokespersons, police intelligence sources are reviewing cars and public transportation coming into Manhattan from Long Island for leads in the case. Transit Authority Officials tell this station that over three million individual trips were made f
rom Long Island into Manhattan since Thursday.”
Behind the newscaster a quick series of slides showed a tall brunette standing at a podium alongside the mayor and several other famous New Yorkers.
“One of the shooting victims,” she continued, “has been identified as Joyce DeSilvio, a prominent member of our city’s arts community and a regular contributor to arts media. She has undergone emergency surgery and is listed in critical condition at Mount Sinai Hospital. Services were held today for victims Edward Meier, the noted fashion designer, and Joshua Rothman, managing partner for litigation in the law firm of Kravitz, Merkow, and Shock. Meier’s ‘Me’ clothing lines were in high demand today as aficionados lined up to purchase everything from his fall collection. Bergdorf released a notice that its entire inventory, including popular handbag and accessory lines, have sold out pending shipment of additional supply.”
The newscaster followed the cues coming from her teleprompter by slowing her speech and dropping her voice as the photo of a distinguished, silver-haired gentleman appeared behind her. “Eyewitnesses report that Fredric Custer Ellis was killed while heroically directing guests to safety within his Central Park West apartment. A graduate of Yale University and MIT’s Sloan School of Business where he earned his master’s in Business Administration, Ellis held senior economic advisory roles during the terms of three presidents. Ellis held positions on the boards of AIG, Liberty Media, and other Fortune 100 firms. More recently, Ellis had participated in philanthropic pursuits.”
The next slide showed the familiar face of one of New York’s best-known and most bombastic citizen. “Anthony Parrish, the real estate developer, had extended the family holdings of his Parrish Property Trust to include more than four-hundred thousand acres of pristine tracts in New Mexico and West Texas, which he devoted to the second-largest free-ranging bison herd in existence. Parrish, always controversial, simultaneously leased vast numbers of mineral rights to natural gas exploration and extraction on his grazing lands, where he has been a staunch advocate for ‘fracking’ or mining using deep-earth hydraulic rock-fracturing methods to release natural gas for collection. Parrish was reputed to have a net worth of more than 3.1 billion dollars, placing him in a tie for the 101st position on last year’s Forbes list of America’s four hundred wealthiest people. Sadly, it may have been this success that lead to his becoming a victim.”
The final slide displayed a carefully posed and air-brushed portrait taken during a magazine photo shoot. “Elise Dubois, wife of Charles Dubois, was the longtime associate chairperson for The Metropolitan Society for Historical Preservation. Dubois, a regular amongst the most fashionable set and who may have received mention by pseudonym in novels by New Yorkers Tom Wolfe and Jay McInerney, was the subject of profiles in numerous architectural journals. Their Central Park West apartment, where she was tragically shot by the unknown sniper, has been called ‘one of New York’s most inspired homes,’ with art and antiques of international renown.”
The anchorwoman waited a double-pause before shifting to her transition tone. “Thank you for choosing WABC as your news resource. For more information about these victims and to learn more about the police investigation,” she noted, “find us online at NYPrimeStoryNews.com and follow us on Twitter at hashtag #sniperattacks.”
* * * * *
“The rich are circling their wagons,” Emerson Elliot announced gleefully. Dozens of charity events were being postponed or canceled altogether. New York’s prominent citizens were laying low or leaving town by the thousands. Nobody was eager to put a target on his back, not even the armies of sycophants wanted to be around anyone rich enough to be a target.
Is the killer acting alone? The London Times asked. Chechnyan snipers had aligned with Al Qaida in Russian terrorist events, but these had played out on a massive scale. None were the actions of single perpetrators.
Emerson Elliot spent much of his programming endlessly reading through a turgid list of the personal holdings of each of the victims and painting images of excess that raised the froth on his listener’s anger. “Being rich is now a capital crime!” he hollered.
Conservative commentators fumed in response. It was like shouting “Fire!” inside a crowded theater they claimed. Should freedom of speech allow the media to become a forum for promoting murder?
“America used to celebrate our success stories, not tear them down,” was the conservative mantra. If anything should be debated, they were determined that the debate should be about permissiveness spawning deviancy.
FT Deutschland observed that “certainly, the city’s wealthy are terrified. But is this terrorism? Is it appropriate that wealth, or the privileged wealthy class, be considered a specific category?”
Colin Merrill had two yachts, but Fredric Custer Ellis had the biggest one, just a hair shy of the 200-foot demarcation that meant international yachting stardom. In twenty years’ time, the mark of the mega-yacht had doubled. None of them would catch Anthony Parrish for land holdings, not with hundreds of thousands of acres within his trust, but the single most opulent home had to be Hielo, the Dubois family’s private island estate off the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. In constant development for ninety years, without an end in sight, Hielo’s structures included excavated caverns deep into its volcanic cliffs. Hielo had been conceived as a wholly-independent, self-sufficient world: two-hundred and sixty-five acres of varied vegetation, stone structures, deep cisterns, and now both wind and solar power installations powering banks of deep-cell batteries that could run the island for a decade or more while the world outside could be left to go mad. The Dubois’ were often asked how they might hold onto their little island if the world beyond collapsed. But these questions were left unanswered while the Dubois’ amassed forty thousand bottles of the world’s finest wines, every one inventoried by personal staff flown in to survey every facet of Hielo’s grandeur.
* * * * *
The ratings followed a hockey stick trendline. “You Can’t Take It With You” Dead Billionaires Club quickly became a daily feature on EE’s radio show. Twelve dead. Six, possibly seven billionaires of the sixty-seven billionaires in New York City. Ten percent of them. Eighteen billion between them, only two billion shy of Michael Bloomberg’s fortune.
Anthony Parrish was bona fide. Big bucks. Eddie Meier, not so much, no real dough there. Most of the boutiques were investor-owned. Fredric “Custer’s Last Stand” Ellis was about nine figures. Net worth around one-hundred-million. Joshua Rothman about the same league. Rich as hell, but not “buy an election” rich.
“Why is it that politicians have to be rich lawyers?” Elliot asked his audience, his stream of consciousness offering no transition. “Shouldn’t a democratic government look like the people and not like a legal convention? Where are the firefighters and the school teachers and the engineers and the accountants? Wouldn’t we like to see some accountants in Congress, people who actually know how things are supposed to add up? Whatever happened to term limits? Weren’t we going to elect people who swore never to become professional politicians, people who could speak the truth because they weren’t on a permanent campaign trail between re-elections?”
For Elliot, Bullets was the perfect lead-in to a dozen related critiques of everything he felt was getting so fucked up in his country. “Let me ask you, New York and the whole country. What do you think about watching politicians out campaigning for a year and a half before elections? Don’t they have jobs? How the hell do you take your job seriously and never show up for work? How long would you all keep your jobs if you never showed up?”
Along Central Park West, squads from multiple precincts worked deep into the night while the feds were in and out and done without so much as an official mention of their presence. From the mayor’s office through the Commissioners of Police and down to the rank-and-file, rumors had moved fast that NYPD was being screwed by the feds.
&n
bsp; Emerson Elliot was only the tip of the iceberg. Owen angrily switched off the radio. Homeland Security, shared data, cooperative efficiencies? Just a steaming load of horseshit.
Al met Owen in the outer foyer and brought him back into the break room.
“Our guys were out the whole goddamned night while yours got a night’s sleep,” Owen griped. “What the fuck is that?”
Al raised his glasses and blew the steam off from his coffee mug before responding. “Can we agree, you and me, that I’m not responsible for what the Bureau does any more than you need to be answering for NYPD?”
Inter-agency cooperation was fluid running against gravity. Those from below had to push information up. Those on top would always decide what passed back down. Never a satisfying truth to explain, especially to local police at the bottom of the pecking order. All the coordination and cooperation that the politicians touted as Dick Cheney pushed through the Patriot Act and created a whole new federal Department of Homeland Security hadn’t moved the dial to free-flowing interface, no sir. Newer tools, yes. Mountains of new data, yes. But every fiefdom still remained. Matthew Turner’s Regional was never going to chase NYPD to offer the police department Bureau-driven data any more than NSA would offer up satellite imagery to the FBI. Systemic cooperation… not going to happen. The kid was misplacing his anger.
“Only eyes in the skies could have pinpointed the shooter’s location that fast,” Al told Owen. “That means NSA.”
