Kyle hated to give up the warmth of the car but zipped up the unmarked blue aviator’s jacket he had brought from California, flipping up the fur collar around his ears. “Damn,” he muttered as he stepped out. “Colder than a witch’s tit.” So much time in the sun had made him soft.
“Man up, Marine,” Summers said, leading the way to another patrolman who stood at an opening in the tape. Again she showed the creds, this time asking for Detective Payton. The cop pointed to a boathouse about fifty feet from the back door.
“Quite a spread,” Kyle said as they crossed the broad lawn that sloped down to a long dock. “About an acre of prime waterfront property. Price must be more than a million bucks if it’s worth a dime.”
“This channel feeds directly into the southwest side of the Chesapeake Bay. With the calmer water, there’s a lot of sailboat racing here in the summer.”
Colorful small boats and kayaks were racked neatly in the boathouse, covered and safe from the weather, while the ropes, paddles, and other gear had been dumped outside to provide room for a police command center. Radios were popping, and video feeds were online, dumping information directly into computers in Annapolis. She asked, “Detective Payton?”
A solid man in his midforties zipped up tight in stained khaki canvas overalls and work boots turned from a computer screen. He had narrow, busy eyes and a badge on a chain around his neck. “That would be me. Who are you?”
They handed over the fake credentials once again, and he studied them, then gave them back. “What’s up? We’re kind of busy here with a homicide, you know.” The tone was not hostile but suspicious. Locals never liked federal officers showing up unexpectedly.
“Can we find somewhere private to talk?” Kyle nodded at all of the people jammed into the boathouse, which had grown warm with their combined body heat and the electronics.
“Sure. Come on. Let’s go up to the porch, and I’ll introduce my partner. There’s hot coffee up there, and I’m going to tell him whatever you tell me anyway.”
Kyle nodded, and soon they were under the roof of an enclosed deck jutting out from the house itself. Detective Allen Jones was sipping warm coffee. “Bitch of a night for murder,” said Payton. “The snow has fouled up any hope of tracks.”
Sybelle accepted a coffee cup from Jones. “We know some basic information on the victim.”
Jones, a thin man with light brown skin, frowned at that news. “How?”
Swanson stirred some creamer into his own coffee. “The reason we’re here is that we had an appointment to meet Mr. Haynes tonight.”
“Why would Homeland Security be meeting an accountant?” Payton asked.
“Let’s trade a little more information first. All will become clear,” Swanson promised.
Payton chewed his lip for a moment. “OK. A single large-caliber gunshot apparently was fired from the end of the dock, blew out a window, and nailed the vic right in the throat. Hell of a shot from a football field away.”
“Anybody else hurt?” Kyle did not mention that a hundred yards was almost rock-throwing distance for any trained shooter.
“No. The wife was right there in the room with him, and the kids were upstairs. The scumbag killer was apparently only interested in Mr. Haynes.”
“Neighbors and witnesses have anything?”
Payton finished his coffee and threw the paper cup in a trash can. “We’re not finished with the questioning, but some say they heard a loud gunshot, and then an outboard motor heading down the channel at high speed. Sometime between seven and nine o’clock for a preliminary time of death.” Payton paused. “Now it’s your turn. Until you tell us why we should be telling you anything at all, that’s as much as you’re going to get.”
“Fair enough,” Sybelle said, removing a sanitized version of the Lizard’s background file on Haynes from her jacket. “This will save you trouble on putting together his background, and I can bring you up to speed while Detective Jones walks my guy through a quick look-see around the site. Then we’ll be out of your hair. This is a homicide; your case, not ours. All we know is that he wanted to report some sort of international financial scam.”
“Hunh,” said Jones. It was not like Feds to give in so easily.
“We’re not detectives,” Swanson said.
“Exactly what are you, then?” Jones asked.
“Little fish in a big net, Detective Jones, just like you. We have other specialties.”
Jones examined Kyle. The smaller man had the build of one of those monsters who could run forever, then fight a dragon and not break a sweat. The gray-green eyes were colder than the weather, maybe colder than Antarctica. “I’ll just bet you do. Come on.”
Jones led him outside until they stood side by side with their backs toward the house, where four broad windows faced the water. The lot had been graded at a gentle slope and was anchored at the water’s edge by a big oak tree that was bare of leaves. A picnic table was layered with snow like thick frosting on a cake. “The killer probably coasted in down there with his engine off, tied up, got out and lay down prone on the dock, and waited to take his shot. Blowing snow has erased the pressure images.”
“But if it walks like a duck,” Kyle said.
“It’s probably a fucking duck,” Jones responded, his face hunched inside his collar. “Back during the drug wars in Miami, rival mobs would send hit men in boats on home invasion missions to reach their targets. That stopped with more police water patrols. Somebody may be trying to revive the idea. Once away from here, he could have escaped in a car, or met a bigger boat out in the bay. Or have chartered a plane.”
They turned around, and Jones said, “Here’s what’s left of the window.”
Kyle looked inside the house, where forensic people were still at work, bagging and tagging. Morgue attendants had the lifeless body in a bag, lashed to a gurney, waiting for permission to move it.
“Do you need to see the stiff?”
“No. Do you have a caliber on the bullet?”
“Not final. It looks military grade, probably a 7.62 millimeter round. The ghouls dug it out of the wall directly behind where it passed through Haynes. No brass has been found.”
Inside, the walls were painted a teal green, and a ceiling fan rotated slowly beneath the off-white ceiling. The room was well decorated, with a long dark green sofa and a matching chair at right angles around a dark coffee table that seemed to be made from old wood. A wet bar with bottles of liquor and empty glasses dominated one corner; a huge potted plant with broad leaves owned the other. Everything was laid out for enjoying the water view.
Jones pointed through the empty frame. “The kids were upstairs. Mrs. Haynes was in the chair, reading a magazine. The victim had poured a Scotch and was standing in front of the window, looking toward the water, when he was shot.”
“There was no light at the end of the little pier? You know, to warn off boaters?”
“Maybe that was what Haynes was looking at. He would have known there should be one shining out there but probably thought the bad weather may have knocked it out. We found that the wires had been cut, leaving the killer shielded by the dark.”
Kyle snapped on a pair of latex gloves and knelt in the snow to take a closer look at the windowsill. He touched a couple of points of jagged glass that still protruded along the edge like the teeth of a saw blade. A carpet of shards had spread inside. “OK. Thanks, Detective.”
By the time they were back on the porch, Summers had finished briefing Payton, telling him almost everything about the planned meeting. She was saying, “I’m not an accountant, so I don’t have any idea what Haynes wanted to tell us. We can’t rule out that this guy maybe had enemies on Wall Street, was about to drop the dime on a Ponzi scheme, or had pissed off a drug lord, discovered an international money-laundering racket, or whatever. I don’t even know enough to guess. We see no obvious evidence of a security threat, and that’s what I’ll pass back up my chain of command. The homicide part is all yours.” She looked at Swanson. “We done?”