Winter's Ghost

by Mary Stone

  The lawyer shot to his feet, but Winter went on.

  “There’s absolutely no doubt that he was there, but we aren’t here to argue over who pulled the trigger or why. Your son was there, and so was Tyler Haldane. The event was planned, meticulously planned, and we want to know if your son is aware of anyone else who might’ve known about it. Anyone who might’ve wanted to make sure Haldane didn’t say anything to the authorities.”

  “He wouldn’t,” Tyler’s mother said, her face growing pale as death. “He couldn’t. He—”

  Winter lifted a hand. “Before you go off on another tirade, Mrs. Strickland, let me just phrase it this way. If that’s the case, if the person who killed Tyler Haldane wanted him dead because he or she is worried that they might be implicated, then it stands to reason that they’ll be after Kent next. And from what we’ve been able to gather so far in our investigation, whoever this person is, if they want someone dead, there isn’t much that can stop them. So, Mrs. Strickland, you’ve got two options.”

  Winter paused, waiting to see if the woman was really listening to her. Several seconds passed before the older woman met her eye. And nodded.

  Winter raised a finger. “You and your son can help us, or…” she raised the second finger, “you can keep being obstinate and prevent us from doing our job. In this case, that means that you’ll just be making it easier for whoever killed Tyler to get to your son too. I’ll give you a few seconds to think it over, but honestly, we’re pressed for time, so you’d better make it snappy.”

  Hazel eyes wide, Strickland’s mother opened and closed her mouth before she finally glanced to her son and his lawyer. From the corner of her eye, Winter saw Noah flash her an appreciative glance. As much as she wanted to offer him a smile in response, she was on a roll, and she didn’t want to risk a crack in the steely veneer she had donned.

  As Strickland glanced back and forth between his mother and the lawyer, he started to shake his head, slow at first before gaining speed. The silence had grown so thick and pervasive that Winter felt like she would have to hack away at it with a machete if someone didn’t speak soon.

  Rather than answer her and Noah’s question, Strickland leaned to whisper in his lawyer’s ear. She doubted the softly spoken words were audible to Noah, but Winter heard him as clearly as if he’d addressed the entire room.

  “No, there wasn’t anyone else,” Strickland murmured to the man at his side.

  “Are you sure there wasn’t anyone else,” the lawyer asked, and Winter couldn’t blame him for needing to ask the question.

  “Have you received any death threats in the past few weeks?” Winter prodded.

  The lawyer was shaking his head before she finished the question. “Anything we’ve received, we send straight to the FBI.”

  Regardless of whether or not she had hit her stride, Winter knew they wouldn’t get any more useful information from the three people in the hospital room.

  “Keep doing that, then,” she said as she reached into a pocket for a business card. “Here’s my card. If you think of anything, call me or send me an email. Otherwise, we’ll be in touch if anything changes.”

  Without another word, Winter looked to Noah before they strode by an armed guard and into the quiet hallway. Two more black-clad men stood to either side of the doorway, and they nodded as Winter and Noah made their way past.

  Winter held in her resigned sigh until she had closed the passenger side door of the sedan.

  “Hey, you did a damn fine job,” Noah said as he turned the key over in the ignition. “Seriously, you were great. All I wanted to do was swear at those two idiots for thinking that kid’s some innocent fucking bystander.”

  “Isn’t it usually the other way around when we go to talk to people?” she asked. A grin spread over her face as she glanced to him.

  A faint smile on his lips, he nodded. “Maybe. Either way, I bet my ass they won’t be giving us anything useful. Even if they’ve got anything to begin with.”

  “Yeah, I got that feeling too.” She pushed a stray strand of long hair behind her ear. “What a waste of time.”

  “Honestly, darlin’, if it wasn’t for this other guy, this Stockley guy, I’d say this whole damn thing was a waste of time. We’re investigating the murder of a neo-Nazi mass shooter. I mean, for just Haldane, our line of suspects would look like the line waiting for a Six Flags rollercoaster on a Saturday in the middle of June.”

  Winter looked at him curiously. “What are you thinking?”

  “Stockley either narrows it down, or it just means that the rifle changed hands in those six months. It’s an expensive weapon, so I wouldn’t rule that out just yet. Could be that the first killer decided to sell it instead of scrap it after he offed Stockley.”

  Winter nodded. “You’re right. That’s a real possibility. But why would they sell it without at least trying to scrape the barrel and make the next round more difficult to trace?”

  “Good question.”

  “And based on that look on your face, you’ve got a good answer,” she quipped.

  The entire day had been strained and weird, but the air of discomfort slipped away when his slight smile brightened to a grin. From the creases at the corners of his eyes to the way the shadows played along his jaw, she loved everything about that smile.

  “It’s acceptable.” Attention fixed on the road, he shrugged. “But I think the reason they didn’t alter the barrel was because they wanted it capable of making the shot that killed Haldane. And when you get to distances like that, every little detail matters. A screwed-up barrel might knock your aim off by just enough for you to miss your target.”

  “Good point.”

  Truth be told, in that moment, her mind had wandered far away from the subject of the military-grade rifle used to kill Tyler Haldane. At just the sight of Noah’s smile, Winter was drawn back to the night she’d fallen asleep with her head on his chest. She could almost feel the warmth of his body, the faint beat of his heart, the slow cadence of his breathing.

  When she thought that she might never wake up like that again, her throat tightened.

  How did she even begin to broach the subject? Last time she had tried to express her feelings, she came within an inch of ruining their friendship.

  She didn’t want a hasty kiss in the middle of her kitchen, she reminded herself. She wanted dialogue, but she didn’t have the first idea of how to open that dialogue. What in the hell did she even want from him? A cuddle buddy? How old was she, thirteen?

  If she couldn’t form a coherent question or make a request that made sense, then she would be wise to keep her mouth shut. She could feel the yawning chasm open in her mind, could feel herself slipping down into the swirling void of what-ifs and anxiety.

  What if that had been it? What if that had been her last chance? What if he’d changed his mind?

  No, damn it, she told herself, clenching one hand until her nails bit into her palm.

  Noah wasn’t going anywhere, and now she could say without a doubt that she wasn’t going anywhere, either. Not as long as she could help it. There would be a time for her to bring up the new flurry of emotions that had begun to whisper through her mind when she looked at him, when she saw him smile or heard him laugh.

  But right now, at the start of a case that would likely devolve into a media free-for-all before the end of the week, wasn’t the time. On the trip back from a visit with a mass murderer wasn’t the place.

  Their workday wasn’t even half over, and neither of them needed the distraction if they wanted to make any headway in the venture to find the sniper who had shot and killed Tyler Haldane.

  Or was Haldane’s murder just a convenient excuse for her to remain silent?

  Damn it, she thought.

  If she didn’t find a new focus for her racing thoughts soon, she would undoubtedly succumb to the mounting panic attack.

  “So…” She didn’t know how long they’d been quiet, but she felt like she had j
ust interrupted a moment of prayer at a funeral. “What do you think about this whole thing? About investigating the murder of a neo-Nazi mass shooter?”

  Tapping a finger against the steering wheel, he blew out a long, slow breath. Though they’d known one another for well over a year, she had only recently noticed the tic. When Noah tapped his finger against something—the steering wheel, a glass of water, a tabletop—he was in the midst of contemplation.

  “I don’t know,” he finally replied. “It’s not really what I expected to be doing when I joined the bureau. I mean, don’t get me wrong. When I was in the Dallas PD, we’d investigate the murder of drug dealers and shit, but…”

  When he didn’t go on, she prompted, “But…?”

  He shrugged. “It’s different, you know. Most drug dealers, when you get right down to it, are just people who’d been dealt one shitty hand right after the other. They started down at the bottom, and they didn’t have any way out, so they did what they had to do.”

  “So…you sympathize a little?”

  Another little shrug. “In a way, I think I understand what they did, why they did it. For most of them, it was all they’d ever known. They didn’t grow up with parents who made their money working in real estate or managing a grocery store. Their parents dealt drugs, did drugs, and they just followed suit. Not calling it an excuse, but it’s an explanation. And when you think about it, it makes sense.”

  Winter worried her lower lip. “And now?”

  “Now, no matter how I spin it in my head, Tyler Haldane and Kent Strickland don’t make a damn bit of sense. They came from middle-class backgrounds, they were college students. So, I don’t know. I’m not trying to focus on who the victim was, I’m just trying to keep myself focused on the idea that there’s a lunatic out there with a Barrett M98B sniper rifle taking out civilians from close to a mile away.”

  With a half-snort, half-laugh, she nodded. “When you put it that way, this case actually makes a lot more sense.”

  7

  Though Bree Stafford and Levi Brandt had done the heavy lifting to sift through the list of Tyler Haldane and Kent Strickland’s victims to rule out suspects, Noah and Winter had been tasked with verifying the various alibis.

  Noah didn’t envy Bree and Levi, but reaching out to confirm whether or not a person was where they said they were on the eve of Haldane’s death was tedious. By the time he took a seat in the briefing room for their evening meeting, he felt more like a telemarketer than an FBI agent.

  Max looked over the gathering—the same as earlier in the afternoon, minus Stella from ballistics—before he eased the door closed behind himself.

  “Everyone’s here, so what’ve we got?” the man said as he made his way to the front of the room.

  Bree and Agent Brandt exchanged resigned looks before Bree shook her head. “Nothing, sir. We made it through everyone on the list, and we ruled them all out. If they had a reliable alibi, then they weren’t capable of making the shot that killed Haldane.”

  “Well, that seems like par for the course for today,” Max muttered. “Agent Dalton, Agent Black, what about you?”

  Now, it was Noah’s turn to shake his head. “Nothing. Strickland said there wasn’t anyone else in on it.”

  “And you believe him?” Max’s query wasn’t accusatory but hovered closer to a deep weariness.

  Noah spread his hands and leaned back in his chair. “I trust that little shit as far as I can throw him, but I don’t think he knew anything useful. Until we got there, it looked like he didn’t even know that his buddy was dead, much less that he was taken out by a professional sniper.”

  To his side, Winter nodded. “Yeah, he didn’t know anything.”

  “Ming, Vasquez.” Max’s gray eyes shifted over to the two agents. “Please tell me you’ve got something other than nothing.”

  Sun coughed into her hand to clear her throat. “We do, sir, but it’s not…I don’t know if it’s good news.”

  “Of course it’s not. Let’s hear it.” The SAC leaned against the whiteboard and crossed his arms.

  “We looked into Mitch Stockley.” Miguel Vasquez shook his head. “Mitch Stockley was a real estate broker in Norfolk. He lived in the ‘burbs, divorced, two kids both living with their mother. As far as we can tell, the custody battle was vicious, but…” He glanced over to Sun.

  “I think we know why,” she finished for him. “Aside from a DUI from ten years ago, Stockley’s record was clean, but that didn’t mean he was clean. He’d had his fair share of run-ins with the cops in Norfolk, but they never had enough to press charges. He was suspected in the disappearance of a few girls from Old Dominion, but none of their bodies were ever found.”

  As if they’d practiced their speech, Miguel picked up the story, “About eight years ago, there was a college girl who claimed she escaped while Stockley was trying to knock her out and kidnap her. But Stockley denied it, and there wasn’t anything to corroborate the victim’s statement, so they couldn’t do anything with it. Or, at least, that’s what they said. She’d been drinking that night, and honestly, I think the cops over there might’ve rushed to judgment.”

  Sun nodded vigorously. “But when a girl went missing a few months later, and then another one about a year after her, they started to think that the first victim might’ve been onto something.”

  The distaste on Sun’s face was as plain to see as the color of her shirt. Normally, Noah thought she was too harsh when it came to her interactions with other law enforcement departments. But this time, he was inclined to agree with her. He could only hope she’d given them an earful when they handed her the files on Mitch Stockley.

  “Fortunately for us,” Miguel went on, “the Norfolk PD kept their records nice and pristine. I think they were hoping that they’d nail him one of these days, but then he turned up dead. The guy was heavy into coke, so for the past six months, they’ve just assumed he crossed the wrong dealer, maybe a cartel, and got his head blown off.”

  “We could be looking for two people,” Noah put in. “Ballistics said the weapon was a Barrett M98B, and those things aren’t cheap. Instead of scrapping it, whoever killed Stockley might’ve decided to sell it instead. The M98B is made for precision, so they wouldn’t have tried to alter the barrel. If they’d altered the barrel, it would have thrown off the aim and defeated the purpose of the entire rifle.”

  “Great,” Max muttered. “Got any thoughts, Parrish? Any idea what type of person, or people, we’re looking for?”

  “That depends.” Aiden’s pale eyes flicked to Noah. “Agent Dalton makes a good point. If Stockley and Haldane were each killed by a different person, then it’s hard to say what their motives might have been. Could be a cartel that took out Stockley and a pissed off bystander that took out Haldane.”

  “What if we’re only looking for one killer?” Winter asked.

  When she looked over at Parrish, Noah thought he saw a different glint in her eyes. The fleeting look wasn’t the same reverence, the same attraction, with which she had regarded him during the hunt for Douglas Kilroy.

  Though she and Aiden had a pointed conversation several days earlier, Noah hadn’t prodded her for the details. He knew the topic had involved Autumn, but he knew little else.

  “If we’re only looking for one person,” Aiden said. “Then we have to look at what Stockley and Haldane had in common.”

  “We looked into that too,” Sun jumped in. “They aren’t related, and from what we could tell, they’ve never even met. Tyler Haldane hadn’t ever even been to Norfolk. He and Kent went to Virginia Tech, not Old Dominion. So, as far as similarities go, they—”

  “They’re both pieces of shit,” Bree suggested.

  In the silence that followed her casual observation, every set of eyes in the room shifted to her. She was either unperturbed by the sudden spotlight, or she didn’t care.

  Why should she care? She was right.

  “Agent Stafford,” Max said, breaking the spe
ll of quiet. “You’re suggesting that we’re dealing with a vigilante, right?”

  In response, Bree nodded.

  “It makes sense,” Aiden put in. “If there’s nothing else that the two of them have in common, then it makes sense. Stockley was a real estate broker, late forties, lived in the suburbs. Haldane was a college kid from a middle-class household, young enough to be Stockley’s kid. Neither of them look anything alike, and they didn’t even live in the same geographic area.”

  Max nodded. “And what do we know about the killer so far?”

  “We know that there’s a good chance they’ve got military or law enforcement training,” Aiden said. “No one fits the profile of vigilante quite like a pissed off, disillusioned cop.”

  “You know what?” Max glanced back and forth between Bree and Aiden. “I’ve been with the bureau for almost thirty years, and I never thought I’d say this…”

  “Say what?” Bree prodded when he didn’t immediately elaborate.

  With a mirthless chuckle, Max grabbed a blue dry-erase marker. “I hope we’re dealing with a cartel.”

  “Me too,” Noah muttered.

  “Based on what we’ve got so far,” Max pulled the cap off the marker, “we’ve got a few different angles we can work. First,” he raised his arm and started to write, “we’ve got the vigilante theory for both victims. That Haldane and Stockley were killed by someone because they’re both killers. Second, we’ve got the idea that there were two different killers.”

  He scrawled out Haldane, then Stockley, and drew a line beneath each. “For this, there are two likely possibilities for Haldane, and only one for Stockley. If Stockley and Haldane were each killed by someone else, then right now, we’re thinking that Stockley was deep into the drug scene and he pissed off the wrong dealer. Does anyone have any other theories on who might’ve wanted to kill him?”