As if on command, Olivia hid her face in Sean’s down vest, then peeked at Brad and smiled.
“Cooww go moo,” she said, pointing at the deer.
“Cow,” Rush said, laughing.
“What’s going on in Tunica County?” Winter asked.
“I’d like to have your input on a case I have.”
“What kind of case?” Winter asked.
“Homicide,” Brad replied.
Sean Massey’s smile remained in place, but her eyes changed.
“Cool,” Rush said.
“I was a deputy U.S. marshal,” Winter said. “If you need my opinion on how to locate a fugitive, or how to best serve a warrant, I’m your man. Other than that…” He shrugged.
“I understand all that. Just a quick look. Three hours, tops.”
“I wouldn’t be any help with it,” Winter said.
“This one looks like a professional killing. It’s the first one like it I’ve run across, and I think I’m in over my head.”
“The Mississippi Bureau investigators are your best bet,” Winter said.
“I have a nineteen-year-old victim who was shot from almost half a mile away with a high-powered rifle. It will be treated as an accidental shooting because it’s hunting season. Other than a polished casing, I’ve got nothing but some boot prints and tire treads. She’s a local girl who finished high school last year. She was a young black girl from a good, hard-working family.”
“Maybe she was a target of opportunity.”
“It’s possible, but the place I’m talking about isn’t one anybody would just happen upon.”
Sean Massey was silent, thinking. “Rush, Faith Ann,” she said. “Come in and wash your hands. Lunch is ready. Sheriff Barnett, will you join us?”
“I’d love to, but I’m sort of in a hurry.”
Winter watched the family until the door closed, then turned his now-serious eyes on Brad. “What’s the real deal here, Brad?” Winter said. “I know my reputation better than anybody. You have a killing with a rifle, and I’m close by hunting with a rifle? I haven’t left this land in two days. And half the people on earth can shoot a rifle better than I do.”
“Well, I don’t think you were involved, but somebody wanted me to,” Brad said, reaching into his pocket and taking out a plastic bag containing a business card. Winter took it and did a double take as he recognized the card.
It read WINTER JAMES MASSEY, DEPUTY U.S. MARSHAL. It was definitely his, with the Charlotte, North Carolina, address and phone numbers.
“That was left at the scene where the shooter set up. Best I can come up with is that he wanted me to think you were there. Anybody else might have believed that was the case, but I know better.”
Winter had a hard time forming his thoughts, his eyes locked on the card.
“I can make time,” Winter said firmly, handing back the card. Somebody was calling him out.
6
Back inside the Motor Home, Winter was washing his hands at the bathroom sink when Sean appeared in the doorway behind him. “Your buddy is still sitting in his truck outside,” Sean said.
“He’s waiting for me,” Winter said. He dried his hands and passed by her. Taking off his shirt, he went into the bedroom to change clothes. Sean followed him and eased the door closed. “Wants me to go with him to look at a crime scene.”
“So you’re going to take a quick trip to Tunica to look at this crime scene.”
“Two, three hours. I’ll put the head in the Jeep, if you don’t mind taking it to Calvin. There’s a map in the bedroom. Don’t leave the gate unlocked and keep an eye open. Keep the Walther close.”
“I always keep the Walther close. So why the concern?” she asked.
“The killer left one of my old marshal cards at the crime scene. That’s why Brad’s here.”
“He doesn’t think you…?”
“No, he doesn’t think I left it. At least he says he doesn’t,” Winter told her. “I have to check this out. Best to be very careful until I know what’s going on. And get ready to pull out. We’re done hunting.”
He pulled on a pair of jeans, ran his belt through the loops and slipped it under the magazine pouch and his holster. He stuffed his wallet into his back pocket and put on his chukkas. Sean led him from the room and picked up his jacket.
“Kids, I have to go out for a while with Sheriff Barnett,” he said to their inquisitive faces.
He was at the door when Sean said, “Mr. Massey?”
“Yeah?”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” She put her hands on her hips and frowned.
He made a show of patting his pockets while he suppressed a smile. “Wallet. Weapon. I don’t think so.”
“Winter Massey!” she said, shaking her head. “Think about it.”
“She wants her good-bye kissy kiss,” Rush said.
“Kiss her good, Winter!” Faith Ann called out.
“Do it, Daddy!” Rush said, puckering clownishly. “Plant one on her she’ll remember.”
Winter pushed his hair back dramatically, gathered Sean into his arms, leaned her back, and gave her a kiss that drew applause from Faith Ann and Rush. Olivia joined in, clapping and laughing, unaware of what the celebration was all about.
“Cowboy love!” Faith Ann squealed.
7
The Mississippi delta is an alluvial plain shaped like a spear point, seventy-five miles across at its widest and stretching two hundred and twenty-five miles north from Vicksburg to just south of Memphis, Tennessee. Winter often joked that if it weren’t for the trees, you could stand on a kitchen chair and see the levee from the other side of the Delta.
The murder had occurred on Six Oaks, a cotton plantation eight miles from downtown Tunica. There was nothing obvious to distinguish it from most of the working plantations Winter was personally familiar with. Vast fields with the occasional narrow, dead-looking stream, thin ribbons of woodland serving as windbreaks. The cotton had been harvested, and the left-behind wisps of white cotton fiber gave the landscape the appearance of an oceanic thorn field after the stampede of a vast herd of terrified sheep.
The farmhouse was set back a quarter mile from a collection of equipment and storage sheds, on a spacious green meadow surrounded by bleak cotton fields. Six large white oak trees lined the driveway, which curved before a two-story white wooden house with a high-peaked roof covered with slate shingles. The wraparound porch had cypress lattice on the sides, which supported climbing ivy. To the right of the house, separated by an expanse of cobblestone, stood a four-car garage, whose white clapboard exterior mirrored that of the house. The grounds were dotted with mature magnolias and oaks, flowerbeds, azaleas, rosebushes, and boxwoods.
“First, I’ll show you the shooter’s position,” Brad said. He drove past the driveway leading to the house. Fifty yards farther on, he turned down a thinly graveled road that led into the fields toward a tree line.
“We haven’t had a hard freeze yet, and I didn’t see any fresh deer tracks in the field between the tree and the house that could point to a hunting accident.”
Winter nodded. After seeing his business card he had immediately ruled out an accidental shooting.
Brad parked near a downed tree accented with yellow crime-scene tape. “It’s difficult to imagine that anybody could make a shot at this distance that wasn’t an accident,” Winter said.
“The right man could do it, given the conditions we had this morning,” Brad said.
“You know much about long-range shooting?” Winter asked.
“I know as much as other Marine snipers.”
“How accurate is a sniper rifle at this kind of range?”
“Match-grade.308 ammo is accurate at eight hundred to a thousand meters. The brass this guy left was from a.338 Lapua Magnum. Its trajectory is a whole lot flatter and longer than the.308 and can deliver what the shooter can see.” Winter saw Brad’s eyes lose their focus as he remembered. “It was like an alligator grabbed her head and tore most of it off. I’ve seen my share of bad death, but this is one I’ll remember forever.”