One Perfect Shot

Chapter Thirty-two

“That rifle was thoroughly cleaned after my last match,” Arnett said, but he sounded distant.

“When was that?”

He glanced across the room at the large wall calendar over the bench. “July eighteenth.”

I tipped the gun toward him. “That smell fresh to you?” I pushed the rifle away when he reached for it. “No touch. Just smell.”

He did so, and stepped back. “It’s been fired.” He reached around to put the bore light in place and examined the bore for himself.

“You recall doing that? Firing it a few times? Maybe to try out a new load?”

“No.” He hesitated for a moment. “I’ve been shooting the same load in that rifle for years. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I gotta tell you, I don’t like the way this is goin’. You’re telling me that somebody used this rifle to shoot Larry Zipoli?”

“I’m telling you that I have questions, Mark. We all have questions. Look, what do you think would happen if you fired a.30–30 round in this rifle?”

I decided at that moment, watching Mark Arnett’s face, that he was a pretty sharp fellow, even though flooded with emotions he didn’t know how to deal with. My question out of left field drew him up short, and his eyes narrowed. It was obvious to me that he wasn’t just pondering an interesting question-he was putting two and two together now. I held up the plastic evidence bag containing the fired slug. “What do you think?”

“I think it wouldn’t shoot for shit,” he said flatly.

“Might not even leave rifling marks on the bullet, would it.”

“There’s about fifteen thou difference in bore diameter,” Arnett said. “So no. The rifling wouldn’t have much to grab on to.” He opened the box of new.30–30 slugs, selected one, and motioned for Torrez to change his grip on the gun. I took the pen out of the muzzle, and he dropped the shiny new bullet down the bore of the.32. With a little clink at the end as it hit the bolt face, it dropped through slick as can be.

“And the bullet’s most likely going to keyhole, besides,” Arnett added.

The room fell silent. Arnett looked as if he wanted to say something, then thought better of it. Maybe he was mulling the warrant/attorney suggestion.

“So now you know where we’re at,” I said. “Are you going to let us take this rifle for a little while, or do you want us to get a warrant?”

“Shit, take it,” he said without hesitation. He reached into the corner and hefted a plastic rifle case. “Do what you got to do. You got a shell casing for comparison? I mean, what good, otherwise?” I finished putting the Winchester in the case without upholstering the smooth surface with my fingerprints.

I would be quickly paddling out of my depth if I tried to answer his questions, and I nodded at Bob Torrez. Anything I said would be bullshit, and Mark Arnett would know it. A shrewd guy himself, Deputy Torrez could figure out for himself how much we wanted to reveal.

“There’ll be burned powder residue imbedded in the base of the bullet.” The deputy’s voice was almost a whisper. “That can be chemically matched to the residue in the rifle’s chamber.”

“Horseshit,” Arnett scowled.

“When you crimp the cartridge casing around the brass bullet,” Torrez added, “there are characteristic scuff marks…nothing like rifling cuts, but microscopic marks that we can compare.”

“Do you think this is what happened with all this shit? A.30–30 fired from a.32?”

Torrez nodded. “I tried it.”

Arnett gazed at the young man in disbelief. “You got to be shittin’ me.”

“Nope.”

“Why would anybody do that?”

“Don’t know, Mark.”

“And if you think Mo is involved somehow, you’ve been smokin’ that funny tobacco,” Arnett said.

“We didn’t say that he was involved, Mark,” I said.

“You don’t got to. Look, the last time that rifle was out of this safe…the last time…was when I shot it in a match. You think any other way, it’s bullshit. Look.”

He opened one of the cabinets above the bench. “Look. Here’s a box of.32’s,” he said, and pulled out a large plastic ammo box that hit the counter with an authoritative thud. He fumbled the latch and opened it, revealing a hundred bright cartridges, nose down, the fresh primers facing us. “I got four of these boxes. You want to check all four hundred rounds?”

“We might.”

“Well, then,” and he hauled all the storage boxes out. When he was finished, he said, “Satisfied? And I got five boxes of thirty-thirty.” He hauled one out and opened it. “This one ain’t full, but the others are.” Sure enough, there were forty-nine loaded cartridges, their headstamps bright, announcing the caliber and the manufacturer. In additon, there were thirty-seven fired rounds, with fourteen unoccupied slots. The empties were inserted in the box mouth up, the powder residue obvious around the necks and case mouth.

With bifocals, my vision was pretty good, but not as good as Bob Torrez’s. He could see that the mouth of one fired case was larger than it should be. Arnett, intimately familiar with the reloading process, familiar with measurements and quality control, familiar with what it took to win shooting matches, moved faster than the deputy…perhaps because Mark wasn’t thinking about latent finger prints. Before we could react, he snatched the last empty round out of the box.

He read the headstamp, or tried to. His eyes were blurring. Even I could see the tears forming at the corners-rage, grief, frustration, all of the above. “Ah, come on,” he whispered, and shook his head. He clenched his eyes hard, and the veins on his neck bulged. With a hard snap, he hurled the empty shell casing across the bench. It struck the wall and skittered into a corner.

Without another word, he turned and headed for the door. This time, Bob Torrez was faster. He blocked the passage, but it didn’t appear that Mark had a clear idea where he wanted to go. He turned half a circle and pounded the table with his fist.

“Mark, use some judgment,” I said.

“You won’t even need to talk with that little fat bastard when I finish with him,” he said between clenched teeth. His vitriol took me by surprise.

“Not going to happen, Mark,” I said. “This isn’t about taking the belt to his butt and then grounding the kid for a couple weeks. The boy is scared out of his mind and on the run. That’s what it looks like to me. If he pulled that trigger on Larry Zipoli, then you’re going to need to help us, Mark.”

He made a strange gurgling noise, as if he was choking on his own spit. He sagged back against the safe, both hands on top of his head.

“Have you ever made that mistake?” I asked gently. He shook his head without moving his hands. “Ever reach for the wrong box? I mean, the guns are similar-the ammo is similar.” I reached across the bench and retrieved the empty casing by slipping my pen down its mouth. Sure enough, the head stamp in the brass base announced.30–30 Winchester.

“No.”

“Did you ever run short of.32 cases and blow out a few.30–30’s to get you by? I mean, you could do that.” I was no reloader, but knew enough folks who did, and knew that they were always experimenting with this and that, fashioning cases that couldn’t be purchased commercially. He shook his head again. “Ever loan these guns to someone who might do that?” There was that chance, of course-the chance that somehow, Mo Arnett was innocent as the driven snow.

I reached out a hand and rested it on Mark’s shoulder. “We need to talk with your son, Mark. We need to talk with Mo.”

“You better find that little shit before I do,” he threatened again, the only thing he knew how to do just then. He was of the old-fashioned beat-the-crap-out-of-the-kid school of child rearing-a school that sometimes had my sympathy. But sometimes that mentality just wasn’t enough.

“No, that’s not what’s going to happen, Mark.” My grip on his shoulder rocked him a little, ameliorating the sharpness of my words. “Let me tell you what is going to happen. One of the deputies will be back with a warrant. We’ll use that whether you think one is required or not-and let me tell you. We appreciate your cooperation. But we’ll have a warrant. Then, this room will be sealed off, inventoried, all that happy shit. The two rifles will be taken into evidence, along with all the ammo for them. We’ll have photos up the whazoo. Prints on everything. Interviews, depositions. You know the drill. Between now and the arrival of the warrant, that door,” and I turned and nodded at the entry that Deputy Torrez so effectively blocked, “will be sealed with a Sheriff’s Seal. You won’t come in here. None of your family will. Not until we’re finished.

“And if we’re wrong in all this, and Mo walks through the front door in five minutes with a hell of a perfect alibi, with a hell of a good reason for touching your rifles, I’ll be the first to show up and grovel with an apology, Mark.“ I smiled at him. “I’ll buy you a case of beer. Whatever the apology takes.” Safe promise, I thought. But it sounded good, and I saw Mark Arnett wilt a little.

“What do I do?” The stuffing had been knocked out of him, the umbrage diluted. We were making progress.

“First, we want Mo found, we want him safe. So go fetch your wife. Then decide what attorney you’re going to use, and get him over here to assist you, to assist Mo. Trust me on this…if he’s charged with anything, you’re going to need all the help you can get. So start early.”

“He’s just a kid, for Christ’s sake.”

“Yep, he is. Or was.” I opened the safe again, touching it gingerly by one corner of the massive door. “Are you missing any guns?”

Mark Arnett’s glance was perfunctory. “No. Everything’s there.”

“Small thanks for that, at least.”

“There was one in the center console of the Pontiac,” Arnett said. His face had drained of color. “He don’t know anything about that one.”

“You better hope he doesn’t,” I said, not the least bit optimistic. “What was it?”

“A.45 Springfield.”

“Loaded?” Why would it be there if it wasn’t?

“One loaded magazine. Nothing in the chamber.”

I groaned inwardly as Mo Arnett’s slippery slope clicked a few degrees steeper. Someone, most likely Mo, had used the not-so-thoughtfully hidden key to the gun room. Why he’d decided to take a shot at the grader-and maybe the operator in it, I certainly didn’t know. If the kids’ stories were to be believed, Mo was humiliated by Larry Zipoli. Most folks could take a little humiliation. But now, someone had managed to open the safe, unless dad was so careless that he left it unlocked. That someone was now fleeing in his mother’s car. And we could add the ‘A and D’ to the BOLO.