Second Chance

Chapter 54

NINE THE NEXT MORNING, Morris Ruddy the FBI senior agent, scribbled a point on a yellow legal pad. “Okay, Lieutenant, when did you first determine the chimera symbol pointed toward the white supremacist movement?”

My head was still whirring from the events of the night before. The last place I wanted to he was cooped up in a task force meeting, talking to the Feebies.

“Your office clued us in,” I replied, “in Quantico.”

It was a bit of a lie, of course. Stu Kirkwood had only confirmed what I had already learned from Cindy.

“Subsequently since you had that knowledge,” the FBI man bored in, “how many of these groups have you checked out?”

I gave him a frustrated look that read, We might actually start making some progress if we could get out of this goddamn room.

“You read the files I gave you. We looked into two or three.”

“You looked into one.” He raised an eyebrow.

“Look,” I explained, “we don't have a history of these groups operating in this area. The method used in these killings seemed consistent with other cases I had worked. I made a determination that we were dealing with a serial killer. I'll admit, it's a gut call.” “From these four distinct acts,” Ruddy said, “you narrowed it down that this was the act of a single UNSUB, right?”

“Yeah. From that and seven years working Homicide.” I didn't like his tone.

“Look, Agent Ruddy this isn't a hearing,” Sam Ryan, my chief of detectives, finally said.

“I'm merely trying to determine how much of an effort we still have to coordinate in this area,” the FBI man replied.

“Look,” I insisted, “these chimera clues weren't exactly popping out at us in press releases. The white van was sighted by a six-year-old kid. The second was on a wall of graffiti at the crime scene. Our M.E. suggested that the Catchings shooting might not have been a random bullet.” “But even now,” Ruddy said, “after your own chief of police has been murdered, you still believe these killings aren't politically motivated?”

“The killings might be politically motivated. I don't know the killer's total agenda. But it's one guy and he's a nutcase. Where the hell is this going?”

“Where it's going is murder number three,” the other agent, Hull, cut in. “The Davidson shooting.” He hoisted his solid frame out of his seat and stepped over to a flip chart on which each separate murder and the pertinent details were listed in neat columns.

“Murders one, two, and four,” he explained, “all had ties to this Chimera. Davidson's murder doesn't tie in at all. We want to know what makes you so sure we're dealing with the same guy.” “You didn't see the shot,” I said.

“According to what I have” Hull leafed through his notes - “Davidson was killed with a bullet from a totally different weapon.”

“I didn't say ballistics, Hull, I said the shot. It was precision, marksman caliber. Just like the one that killed Tasha Catchings.”

“I guess my point,” Hull continued, “is that we have no tangible evidence linking the Davidson murder with the other three. If we stick to simply the facts, not Inspector Boxer's hunch, there's nothing to suggest we're not dealing with a politically motivated series of events. Nothing.”

At that moment, there was a knock at the conference room door, and Charlie Clapper stuck his head in. Sort of like a shy groundhog peeking out of his burrow.

Clapper nodded toward the FBI guys, then winked at me.

“I thought you'd be able to use this.”

He put on the table a black-and-white rendering of a large sneaker tread.

“You remember that shoe print we pulled off of the tar at the shooter's position of Art Davidson's killing?” “Of course,” I said.

He placed a second rendering beside the first. “This is one we were able to take from a patch of wet soil at the Mercer scene.”

The imprints were identical.

A hush filled the room. I looked at Agent Ruddy first, then Agent Hull.

“Course, they're just a standard pair of Reebok cross trainers,” Charlie explained.

From a pocket in his white lab coat, he removed a slide.

On it were tiny grains of powder. "We picked this up at the chief's crime scene.

I leaned over and stared at traces of the same white chalk.

“One killer,” I said. “One shooter.”