Cloutz broke in. “What kind of residues?”
“Mucus with a trace of blood in a tissue, a Band-Aid with a trace of blood on it, and several hairs with enough follicle material for analysis.”
“That all?”
“We even recovered the tripod used to steady the rifle. We found it in the river by the Grinton Bridge, and there are clear fingerprints on it. We also have videos of a vehicle approaching the sniper site, parking behind the building shortly before the shot was fired, and leaving immediately afterward. We have additional video of the same vehicle heading for the bridge and then returning from it. Although the street lighting was poor, we were able to sharpen and read the plate number.”
“You sayin’ we have an ID on the shooter?”
“We have an ID on the car, a black 2007 Toyota Corolla, and the name and address on the registration—Devalon Jones of Thirty-Four Simone Street in Grinton.”
Kline leaned forward. “Related to the Laxton Jones who was killed a year ago?”
“His brother. Devalon was one of the founding members of the BDA—along with Jordan, Tooker, and Blaze Lovely Jackson.”
Kline grinned. “That does move the situation in an encouraging direction. Do we have this Devalon person in custody?”
“That’s the problem, sir. He’s been in custody for over a month now—in Dannemora, starting a three-to-five sentence for aggravated assault. Fractured a security guard’s skull at an Indian casino up north.”
Kline’s grin faded. “So his car was being used by someone else. Maybe another BDA member? I assume you’re checking that out?”
“We’ve started that process.”
Beckert turned to the sheriff. “Goodson, if this Devalon Jones passed his car along, one of your more cooperative guests at the jail might know something about that. Meanwhile, I’ll call the warden at Dannemora and see if Jones can be persuaded to part with the information himself.”
Cloutz licked his lips again before speaking. “Someone could explain to Devalon that the registration bein’ in his name makes him the presumptive provider of the vehicle to the shooter and accessory to the murder of a police officer. So he has an opportunity to use the free will with which his creator endowed him and give us the name, or . . . we can fry his ass.” He began to move his fingers again, ever so slightly, to some imagined music.
Beckert turned to Torres, who was glaring at Cloutz. “You said we have street videos of the car approaching and leaving the sniper location. Can you show them now?” It was a directive, not a question.
Torres turned his attention back to his laptop, clicked a few icons, and the monitor on the wall showed a grungy, poorly lit street with garbage bags piled along the curbs. A car appeared, passed through the camera’s field of view, and turned out of sight at the next intersection.
“This is Girder Street,” said Torres. “The footage is from a security camera on the front of a check-cashing place. We’ve edited it down to a few key moments. Watch this next car.”
A small, dark sedan entered the frame. Just before reaching the intersection, it made a turn into what appeared to be a driveway or alley behind an apartment building.
“That’s the building where the shot came from. That alley leads to a back entrance. The time code embedded in the video shows that the car arrived twenty-two minutes before the shot was fired. Now we skip ahead twenty-six minutes, exactly four minutes after the shot, and . . . there . . . you see the car emerging . . . turning . . . proceeding to the intersection . . . and making a right onto Bridge Street.”
The screen showed a wider but equally dismal street with steel-shuttered storefronts on both sides. “This segment comes from a CPSP installation colocated with the intersection traffic light.” He glanced over at Gurney. “Crime Prevention Surveillance Program. That’s an initiative we—”
He broke off his explanation and pointed at the screen. “Look . . . there . . . that’s our target vehicle, driving west on Bridge Street. See . . . right there . . . it passes the Bridge Closed detour sign and keeps heading toward it.”
Kline asked if that road led anywhere except to the bridge.
“No, sir. Just the bridge.”
“Is it possible to drive onto it?”
“Yes, simply by moving the cones blocking it off. And they had, in fact, been moved.”
“How about the other side? Could the vehicle have driven over the bridge to some other destination?”
“The stage of demolition would have made that impossible. We figured the most likely reason for driving out onto the span at that time of night would be to dump something in the river. And it turned out we were right. That’s where we found the tripod used to steady the rifle.”
He pointed to the screen. “There . . . the same vehicle . . . returning from the bridge.”
Kline’s smile returned. “Nice work, Detective.”
Gurney cocked his head curiously. “Mark, how do you know what the tripod was used for?”
“The proof is in the photos we took at the apartment used by the shooter.” He tapped a few keys, and the scene switched to a still photo of an apartment door with a security peephole. The apartment number, 5C, was scratched and faded. The next photo appeared to have been taken from the same position, looking into the apartment with the door open.
“The photos I really want to show you are a little farther on,” said Torres, “but I didn’t have time to change the sequence.”
“Who let you in?” asked Gurney.
“The janitor.”
Gurney recalled his own aborted investigation at the Willard Park site and the trajectory indicated by the bullet’s penetration of the tree. That trajectory included multiple windows in three different buildings. “How did you zero in on one particular apartment?”
“We got a tip.”
“By phone?”
“Text.”
“Anonymous or from a known source?”
Beckert intervened. “We have a policy against discussing sources. Let’s move along.”
The next photo had been taken from inside the apartment door looking through a small foyer into a large unfurnished room. There was an open window on the far side of the room. In the next photo, taken from a position near the center of the room, the open window framed a view of the city. Beyond some low roofs, Gurney could see a grassy area bordered by tall pines. As he looked closer, he could just make out a yellow line—the police tape demarcating the area where he’d just had his confrontation with the local cop. It was clear that the apartment would offer a sniper an ideal perch from which to pick off anyone in the vicinity of the field where the demonstration had been held.
“Okay,” said Torres with some excitement, “now we’re getting to the key pieces of evidence.”
The next photo, taken in the same room at floor level, showed the lower half of a steam radiator and the cramped space under it. In the radiator’s shadow, back against the wall, Gurney noted the soft sheen of a brass cartridge casing.
“A thirty-aught-six,” said Torres. “Same as the recovered bullet.”
“With a clear print on it?” asked Kline.
“Two. Probably thumb and forefinger, the way you’d chamber it in a bolt-action rifle.”
“Do we know it was a bolt-action?”
“That’s the action in most thirty-aught-sixes manufactured in the past fifty years. We’ll know for sure when ballistics takes a closer look at the extractor and ejector marks.”
The next photo was of the wooden floor. Torres pointed out three faint marks on the dusty surface, each about the size of a dime, positioned about three feet from each other, the corners of an imaginary triangle.
“See those little impressions?” said Torres. “Their positions correspond exactly to the positions of the feet of the tripod we found in the river. The height of the tripod placed in that spot would have provided a direct line of fire to the impact location.”