“If I may suggest, since Ricky doesn’t know David, it might be good if he did the interview. He was there, so he can tell Ricky all the fiery details.”
“Yeah. Shit. Mark’s gonna be pissed.”
The line went dead, and Alex immediately started dialing again.
“Rick Price.”
“Rick, it’s Alex Reis. Why are you answering Ken’s phone?”
“Cause Ken’s mouth is full. We’re eating a late lunch. Anything I can do?”
“Maybe. Have you guys gone to see Brogan yet?”
“Not yet. Why?”
“Ask him where he was on the dates of the murders. Remember, there are at least two other reports of a blue sedan. And I just came across a note that said a witness in Atlanta thought there was a child’s seat in the car she saw.”
There was a pause.
“Rick?”
“Yeah, I’m here. I’m writing it down. Ask him about all the dates, or just the ones where the car was seen?”
“I’d ask him about all the dates. If he knows something, and we ask him about all of them, he’ll realize we’ve connected him somehow. With any luck, he’ll either go running scared, or talk.”
“Right. I’ll let Ken know. You still want to talk to him?”
“No, let him finish eating. Just tell him I haven’t had a chance to check on Gerlach and his friends. I should get to start on it today. I’m also going to look for computer records of Brogan traveling anywhere. If it was his car, that means he might have gone with them. If so, there could be gas receipts or something.”
“Hopefully.” There was a muffled voice. “Ken says hi, and thanks.”
“Tell him hi for me, and you two have fun. Play nice with Mr. Brogan.”
“Right. I have to. I’m the good cop.”
Alex laughed. “Bye, Rick.”
She hung up, and once more dialed again.
“Clarin.”
“Mikey, it’s Alex. Did you find that information on the Dremov?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And I haven’t had time to check it against the shells we have. I’m aiming for sometime late this afternoon.”
“That’s fine, Mikey, I just wanted to check.”
“Yeah, sure. You field agents get all the fun jobs and then you expect us hard working guys to have stuff done right when you want it.”
“Fun jobs? Mikey, I’m doing case notes for the entire task force.”
“Hm. Okay, so you have to do a day of grunt work. I gotta go. Talk to you later, Alex.”
“Thanks, Mike.”
Alex put the phone down, and left it there. She leaned back in her chair, rather proud of herself.
Mark came into the control center where she was working and dropped into a chair beside her.
“Okay, Alex, what did you do to my partner? He called me, hopping mad. Told me we’d missed something and I should see you. What’d you do?”
She handed him the list of employees, and pointed at the name.
Mark blinked for a moment. “Shit. Goddamn son-of-a-bitch was right there.”
“There’s no proof, Mark.”
“Were they related?”
“Brothers.”
“Shit.”
Mark stood up, letting the sheet of paper fall back to the desk. “And here I thought I was gonna be the one with all the hot tips today.”
“Oh? What did you find out?”
“Well, I was finishing my phone calls on Wilford’s background. I called his college; they’re sending his transcripts. But I thought I was missing something obvious. You know, how you know something is right in front of you, and you can’t see it?”
“I spent the last few days feeling like that.”
He looked at her. “Yeah, I guess you did, huh? Anyway, I was just looking over my notes, and then the notes on the gun, and thought, shit, if he’s a rifleman, he’s probably NGA. So I checked. He was.”
“That’s great.”
“No, that’s not great. What was great, was that the National Gun Association is so proud of him that they faxed me a copy of his profile. The guy wasn’t good with a rifle, he was great. They rated him an expert marksman. They also sent a copy of an article they did on him for an edition of their newsletter. I pulled the original out of our files. You’ll never guess who’s in the picture with him.”
Alex’s eyes went wide. “He isn’t.”
“Yes, he is. And they’re each holding a rifle.”
“God, Mark, you’re a genius.”
He shrugged. “Naw, I just got lucky.” He tilted his head and grinned. “Wanna know how lucky?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. In that picture? The rifles they’re holding?” Alex nodded. “Well, the caption identifies them both as Colt carbines. But you can tell that they’re not the same. I kind of wondered if the rifle in Mather’s hands could be a Dremov.”
Alex could feel her jaw hit the table in front of her. She jerked it back up, and cleared her throat.
“May I suggest you take that to ballistics today?”
“Actually, I scanned the picture, enlarged it, and emailed it to Mikey. He emailed back something about all field agents having too much time on their hands, and said, yes, it is.”
Alex whooped and jumped up from her chair.
“That’s great!” She gave him a grin and a hug. “If I had your luck, I’d head for Atlantic City.”
“Yeah, I might do that.”
“Did you tell Cliff?”
“No, he was in a meeting. I left a message with Jodi that he should come in here as soon as possible.”
“Cool. We can tell him our news at the same time.”
“Yep. Hey, wanna see the picture? I emailed it to everybody on the team.”
“Absolutely.”
Alex turned to the computer and brought up her email screen. After downloading the file, she switched over to a graphics program and opened the photo. There on her screen were George Mather, and Darryl Wilford, rifles in hand.
Cliff chose that moment to appear.
“All right, Mark, what’s so goddamn important —” He stopped in mid-sentence. “Where the fuck did that come from?”
“NRO newsletter. Mark got lucky.” Alex continued to look at the picture while Mark told Cliff about his idea, and then the information the organization gave him. He went over how he had learned about the article, and then the picture.
As Mark was talking, Cliff split his attention between him and the screen. Alex, however was looking at the screen intently, fixing on something in the background of the picture.
She framed the area that had caught her attention and magnified it. She had to do it twice more before the images began to stand out. Alex stared for a moment at what she’d found. It didn’t look like anything really interesting, but Alex could feel something trying to come through in her mind.
The image she’d enhanced was one of two men facing the left side of the screen while shaking hands. One man was holding a prize of some kind in his left hand while shaking with his right. Neither of their faces could be seen. Behind them was a banner of some kind, though it was unreadable.
“Alex? What are you looking at?”
Alex folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. She tilted her head, and stared at the screen.
“I know that picture.”
“What?”
She didn’t say anything, just tilted her head the other way. Then she glanced at Mark.
“Did the article say where this picture was taken?”
“All it said was a rifle tournament in Michigan. Wilford took first place.”
“Did it say who took second?”
“No.”
Alex sat still for a few more minutes, then shrugged.
“There’s something familiar about that scene. Like I’ve seen it somewhere, but I don’t know where or when.”
“You mean the whole picture, or just that little bit in the corner?”
“Just that little piece.” The scene kept nagging at her, but the memory wouldn’t come out.
She shrugged again. “I don’t know. I think I’ll just leave it on the screen for a while, and if I remember, great. If not, it must not have been important.”
“Sounds good,” Cliff said. “Now, want to tell me what you’ve been up to? Mark said you were stirring things up again.”