Annie had finished the scotch in one go, and now her cheeks were flushed. “Look at that trajectory, Cam,” she said, her voice trembling. “They knew where the desk was.”
“They certainly knew where the study was,” he said, nodding. “But those drapes had been drawn since-”
“I work after dinner every night except Friday and Saturday,” she said. “Guess who absolutely would know that?”
Cam just looked at her. “Every cop who’s been on duty here?”
She nodded. “These guys seem so friendly, courteous. Concerned, even. I can’t imagine…”
“They do a log every night. The log says where you are at all times. ‘Had dinner in the kitchen. Went for a swim. Went to the library to work. Went to bed at ten.’ Anyone who saw the log would know the pattern.”
“But the house plan? Who would know the house layout well enough to put a shot through closed drapes, right over my head? I felt that thing, Cam.”
Cam could hear the inside deputy coming back down the hall, so he stood up.
“Lieutenant?” the cop said, indicating he had something to show him. Annie, unwilling to be left alone in the library, went with them. They walked to the kitchen and then to the pantry area. Cam had his own tape recorder out now, ready to make notes. The round had blown the sheetrock off the interior pantry wall, gone through a box of dry cereal, which was now all over the floor, and then punched through the opposite wall and right through the outside brickwork. Cam remembered that solid whacking sound in the tree. He took the deputy to the back door and pointed at the tree. “Tell CSI to climb that tree-the round’s in there,” he said. The deputy stared at him. “I heard it hit, okay?” Cam said. “About twelve, fifteen feet up the trunk.”
They looked around for a few more minutes, trying to spot any other damage, and then finally heard more voices out front as Kenny brought in some crime-scene people. Cam told Annie that one of them would take her statement. She gave him a worried look but then reassembled her brave face and went with the growing crowd of cops back to the study area, her judicial aura reestablishing itself. Cam wished he could hold her for a moment, just to reassure her, but they both had to act their parts right now. Cam thought it was a good time to get out of there, let the techs do their work. He also badly needed some time to think.
22
Cam met with Bobby Lee Baggett at 7:30 the next morning.
“Our ballistics lab identified the bullet,” the sheriff said. “Would you believe point-four-six-five-caliber? Basically, a big-game rifle. Maybe an H and H,” he added.
“If it’s an H and H, it’s a very expensive rifle,” Cam added. He’d seen one of the Holland amp; Holland Company’s express rifles get appraised for sixty thousand dollars on the Antiques Roadshow, and it hadn’t been in mint condition.
“That’s right,” the sheriff said.” So we’re probably not talking some local asshole just out of the joint with a grudge against the judge, not if he’s using a big-game rifle.”
“Unless he stole it,” Cam pointed out.
“Well, that gives us a starting point, then, doesn’t it?” the sheriff said, looking at Cam, who guessed the MCAT was going to own this one, too. “Dealers, people who sell that caliber ammo, and, of course, anyone who’s reported one stolen in the past five years.”
“And we should talk to the ATF,” Cam said, making some notes.
They kicked it around for another ten minutes and then gave it up. While the sheriff took a phone call, Cam determined from Bobby Lee’s desk calendar that he was free for lunch. When the sheriff saw Cam standing behind his desk, he looked pointedly at his watch and raised his eyebrows. Cam peeled off the Post-it he’d written on and handed it to him. The note said “Meet me in the Marriott Hotel parking garage at 12:30.” The sheriff started to say something, but Cam pointed to the ceiling and shook his head. The sheriff blinked, frowned, but then nodded.
They met on the top deck of the parking garage, the sheriff in his personal cruiser, which was parked next to Cam’s antique Merc. Cam got out and climbed into the cruiser.
“WTF, Lieutenant?” Bobby Lee asked without preamble.
“I have reasons to believe three things,” Cam said. “First, that this electric chair thing is real; second, that it’s not James Marlor doing it; and, third, I think it’s possible that we have us a vigilante squad going right here in the Manceford County Sheriff’s Office.”
“Great God!” the sheriff said, visibly shocked.
Cam took him through it. He told him about his meeting with Jaspreet and her take on the difficulty of getting access to the judicial network from outside the system. He mentioned how odd it was that someone would go down into one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Triboro at midnight with a submachine gun full of blanks, which, by the way, were pretty hard to come by except in a police or military organization, which used them all the time for training. Cam told him even Judge Bellamy was wondering how someone would know precisely where she would be at that time of night-which room, where her desk was-especially since the drapes were drawn. He said there was a bunch of cops pissed off at her about those two mopes walking away like that. Then he explained how Jaspreet had alluded to suspicions at the Charlotte field office that Manceford County cops might be the real faces behind the chair. Finally, he said he thought it unlikely that Marlor had been able to enlist an accomplice to go shoot at the judge’s house if he was indeed in deep hiding.
The sheriff closed his eyes and hung his head when Cam had finished. A big shiny SUV came grinding up the ramp. They were both in uniform, and the driver gave them a curious glance as he went past.
“Evidence?” the sheriff asked finally.
“Very damned little,” Cam said. “We might get some evidence if we try to track the network intrusion from the inside instead of from the outside.”
“But we’d have to use cops to do it,” he said. “Our cops.”
“Then let’s get some federal help. Just say that our people have drawn a blank, and let the outsiders look from the inside.”
“If there is a vigilante group, they’d rumble that in a heartbeat.”
“Then they might back the hell off and quit. Maybe we can’t do anything about the first two, but I’d sure like to prevent a third.”
Bobby Lee looked Cam right in the eye. “Whom do you suspect?”
Cam shook his head. He had some thoughts, but he wasn’t willing to name them yet.
Bobby Lee swore. “I’ve worked for nearly ten years to build the most professional, the most competent sheriff’s office in the state. We were the first in the state to be accredited. We’ve won every major award in law enforcement. We have the best toys, the best lab, the best command and control systems. And now you want me to believe we’ve got cops killing suspects?”
His voice never rose, which meant that he was truly furious. Bobby Lee had never been a screamer. The angrier he was about something, the quieter he usually got. “You don’t believe it,” Cam said.
“No, I do not,” he said. “I don’t want to, and I don’t anyway. There has to be another explanation. And I have to tell you, Lieutenant, that at this point, my instincts are to get someone else to handle this case. Except that you are, or ought to be, the best guy I’ve got for this.” He paused to take a deep breath and exhale. “You never heard me say this, but for once in my career as sheriff of Manceford County, I don’t know what the hell to do.”
Back-off time, Cam thought. “We’ll keep working it, then,” he said. “We’ll keep looking for Marlor and the two stooges. We’ll keep a guard on the judge until I don’t know when.”
The sheriff stared out the window and started to drum his fingers on the window frame.
“I think you should call McLain,” Cam said. “I want to get straight with him about what Jaspreet was saying. I want to hear it from him if he thinks we’re involved.”