The Edge of Normal (17 page)

When finished, he sets the bottle of solvent and the tin of gun oil next to the Dri-Lube on a shelf where he keeps turpentine and similar fluids. He returns the cleaned sniper rifle to its case, which he built himself, and slides the case into a concealed spot above a specially designed gun cabinet, which he also built himself. The rifle case fits snugly into its spot.

He returns the unused bullets to their box on the shelf where he keeps most of his ammo. He takes pride in calibrating and loading every round, and has perfected combinations for every need, such as extra grains of gunpowder for more firepower, or lighter slugs for greater distance. He buys his powder and ammo in bulk.

Besides the sniper rifle, he owns two shotguns and six other, more ordinary hunting rifles. Four pistols—a Colt 1911 and three Glocks—are kept at strategic spots throughout the house, with extra ammunition stored close by. He also has two handmade suppressors, plus a .44 Magnum with a scope for recreation.

Duke keeps all his guns loaded and ready, just in case. But he has a rule against practicing with any of these firearms on his own property. Even in this sparsely populated area on the outskirts of town, discharging a weapon is prohibited, and he would never recklessly draw attention to his stash of weapons. An air rifle, which he keeps by the side door, is sufficient for everyday shooting, like eliminating cats and other pests.

Sometimes, he stashes his kill in the freezer. “You never know when you’ll need some bait,” he recalls his father saying.

Duke sets about reloading the air gun with .22 caliber pellets. He then wipes up residual spills, tosses the latex gloves in the trash, and thoroughly washes his hands in the utility room sink. He strips off his clothes, crams them into the washer, adds detergent, starts the wash cycle, then walks nude through the length of the house.

After a hot shower, he dresses in workout gear, unlocks the control room door, and sits in his favorite chair, facing a bank of four computers. He resets the Sniffer program, flagging words like
sniper
and
shooter
and
assassination.

All day, he has wondered how Tilly Cavanaugh might react to her keeper’s death, but has had to focus on his role at work, helping the dimwitted IT guys with a computer glitch, managing surveillance of two local drug dealers, writing reports about the clichéd activities of mundane criminals, wrapping up loose ends before taking his vacation.

Now he can replenish himself.

He decided years ago that he would never allow desk work to turn him soft. For this evening’s workout, Duke selects the morning’s recording from Mr. C’s cell phone, then inserts earbuds, slips on lifting gloves, and settles onto the lifting bench.

As he begins a set of bench presses, he recognizes the unpleasant pitch of Jackie Burke’s voice. Burke the Bitch.

He exhales as he lifts. His muscles warm.

He has just begun his second set when he hears that Gordon Cavanaugh’s son is a suspect in Vanderholt’s shooting. He chortles. This is sweet news. Matt the brat conveniently decided to skip class just as the crosshairs were finding Randy Vanderholt’s ear.

Duke snickers, picturing the gawky teen forced into an embarrassing admission involving a moist and sticky cheerleader.

He has just begun his third set when he hears about the cops searching the Cavanaughs’ home. When he learns that Mr. C is a veteran who owns three high-precision rifles, he laughs so hard he nearly drops the two-hundred-pound bar.

THIRTY-TWO

Wednesday

Budget cuts are not the topic of this morning’s briefing, but Officer Kim Benioff can’t help but curse them as she takes her seat. The room is freezing. Benioff sits with arms crossed, uncomfortably aware that her thick, curly hair is still damp from the shower, resenting the bureaucrats who decided to save a few bucks by curtailing heating costs.

Benioff checks the empty seats and stifles a groan. The Joint Special Operations Task Force has shrunk to puny numbers. Originally a group of eight police officers and eight sheriff’s deputies, the JSOTF now totals only twelve. Staff cuts, disguised as “mandatory unpaid vacations,” mean another redoubling of her work load.

Lieutenant Paul Stephens bursts into the room, followed by a burly man in a suit, and claps his hands like a basketball coach. “Listen up, people!”

The uniformed men and women in the room snap to attention.

Lieutenant Stephens scowls at a stack of reports he arranges on the table before him, then stands tall at the front of the room and makes eye contact with each individual. “You all know that we’re under the microscope here, and the news is not good. Our primary suspect is dead, the shooter’s trail is going cold, and we haven’t got much in the way of evidence, so let’s get cracking.”

Signaling a hefty man with black-rimmed glasses, he says, “Howard, tell us what you’ve got.”

Officer Howard stands. “Yes, sir. We’ve figured the trajectory.” The ballistics expert clicks keys on a computer that projects a topographical map onto the screen at the front of the room. “It puts the shooter somewhere about here, at this elevation, probably in this wooded area,” he says, using a laser pointer to indicate a hill overlooking the jail. “The problem is, this hillside is dense with brush and trees, and the area is approached from a blind curve. Also, it’s adjacent to this semi-industrial strip. Cars come and go, but so far no one remembers anything significant.”

Benioff studies the image. “What about those rooftops?”

He gives a shrug. “Could be. But that’s some range.”

“What is it, about a thousand yards?”

“A thousand thirty.”

Someone whistles.

“Exactly. Sniper rifle, no doubt about that. Our shooter’s an expert marksman.”

“Well, that clears the Cavanaugh kid,” someone snorts.

“That and the ballistics,” Howard agrees, taking off his glasses.

Lieutenant Stephens points at a tall, slope-shouldered woman. “Myla, tell us about the crime scene.”

“I’m afraid it’s not great,” Myla Perkins says, rising. She goes to the front of the room and frowns at the screen. “We found no shell casings, no footprints, no tire tracks, nothing.”

“But somebody must have heard the shots,” a deputy grumbles.

“Two problems with that. First, there’s an auto body shop here, and another one here,” Myla Perkins says, indicating two corners of the industrial area on the map. “Grinders, power wrenches, you name it. So you’ve got all that ambient noise.”

“Okay, so we’re talking major decibel levels,” Stephens says.

“That’s right. Plus the noise of the bulldozer working at the jail. But we do have reports—from individuals more remote from the scene—who say they heard two shots. Unfortunately, we haven’t found a second slug.” Perkins gives a shrug of apology, adding, “At least not yet.”

Howard frowns. “Our shooter isn’t just some cowboy with a truck and a gun.”

“Ex-military?” Benioff wonders aloud.

Howard grunts. “That’s a theory. Or could be law enforcement.”

The room goes uncomfortably still as this sinks in.

Stephens puts his fists on the table and leans forward. “Listen, people. I know some of you were happy to hear about Vanderholt’s death. I’ll be glad to dance on his grave myself. But if our shooter’s a vigilante, he’s something unusual. This was an expert hit. And we can’t let down our guards just because we approve of his target. We don’t know his motivation. We’re lucky he didn’t take out one of the guards. Any one of us could be next.”

He gestures toward the man in the suit. “You all remember Agent Coulter, from the Sacramento field office. Barry, you want to fill us in?”

The brawny FBI agent stands, clearing his throat. “You’re right that this shooter is rare.” Coulter’s voice has a guttural quality that makes new acquaintances think he’s getting over a cold. He clears his throat again, looks down at his notes, and begins laying out the scenario. “We need to start with Vanderholt. Why was he killed? Our profilers think it’s because the kidnappings of Creighton, Cavanaugh, and Hill are connected.”

He looks around the room. Heads are nodding.

“Our thinking is, the perp is a serial kidnapper. Note the timing, the approach: All at dusk, all unobserved. No sign of struggle. No ransom demand.” The FBI agent coughs and goes on, detailing similarities between the kidnappings: that all three occurred on or around Labor Day weekend, that all three girls were active in outdoor sports, similar in stature, etc., etc.

How many times have they been over this? The police officer to Benioff’s right is drumming his fingers. The deputy on her left is jiggling his foot. Everyone is anxious to get on to something new.

They know they got lucky with Tilly Cavanaugh. They know that kidnapped kids are usually killed in the first few hours and dumped at the first opportunity. The fact that Tilly was the second girl taken but was found alive has stumped them. Some have speculated that the kidnapper liked to keep the girls around, that maybe Abby and Hannah still had a chance, but with Vanderholt shot dead, that seems a faint hope.

Stephens raps the tabletop with his knuckles. “Could you get to the new theory, Barry?”

“Right.” The FBI agent shuffles some papers. “The thinking now is that Vanderholt killed Hannah Creighton somehow. Maybe it was an accident. Or maybe she fought too much, or proved unsatisfactory for some reason. So he disposed of her body, and then he took Tilly Cavanaugh as his second victim. She was different in some essential way, so he kept her alive. Or perhaps he had perfected his technique enough so that he didn’t need to kill her.”

“But what about Abby Hill?” asks the deputy beside Benioff. “Are we supposed to believe that she’s still alive somewhere?”

“We have no evidence of that,” Agent Coulter responds, wiping a palm across his crewcut.

“Because where would she be?” The deputy’s tone is acerbic.

“Our profilers think it’s more likely that he tried to keep the last two girls together, but something went wrong.”

“Meaning that he killed Hannah, kept Tilly, and then killed Abby?”

“Right.”

A detective scoffs. “Is that the best you guys can come up with?”

“Hold on,” Agent Coulter continues. “Let me clarify. The thinking is that Tilly may have been held captive with Abby. And that Tilly may have even seen Abby killed.”

The task force members grumble and shift in their seats.

“If that’s true, the kid must be terrified,” Benioff mutters. More loudly, she asks, “Has Tilly confirmed any of this?”

“That’s a negative, at least for now,” Coulter responds. “An unknown. But the thing is, we have consulted with that forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Ezra Lerner, and he believes the victim may be withholding information, that she’s not responding to Vanderholt’s death in the way you’d expect.”

“What does that mean?” asks Benioff, frowning.

“Dr. Lerner says the girl might be responding to Vanderholt’s shooting as some kind of threat.”

“Isn’t that consistent with a Stockholm Syndrome–type response?” someone asks.

“The doc says it goes beyond that. He says the girl’s behavior is atypical. And he’s the expert, so let’s assume for now his opinions are correct and work from there.”

The door opens and Deputy District Attorney Jackie Burke tips her head into the room. She arches an eyebrow, giving Lieutenant Stephens a questioning look.

“I asked Jackie to join us this morning,” he says, motioning for her to enter.

Burke finds an open seat by the door. She stands behind it but doesn’t sit.

“You haven’t missed anything that you and I haven’t already discussed,” he says to her. “This is a good time. Jump right in.”

“We have a problem,” she begins. She looks from face to face, just as Stephens did, before continuing. “We have a leak.”

The room goes still.

“Maybe we got lucky before, but now Vanderholt is gone, and so far we have no evidence linking him to our other missing girls. Okay, that’s all public knowledge. And by now everyone and their uncle knows that our search dogs found nothing. But from here on out, we need to tighten up. If anything else discussed in this room shows up on TV, or in the newspaper, or in Otis Poe’s blog, I’m going to skewer and grill every last one of you.”

Benioff glances around the room. Someone coughs. An officer shifts in his seat. A deputy squints at Burke and shakes his head.

“Listen up, people,” Stephens says. “That damn blog encourages every crackpot in orbit to vent. Since yesterday, the Internet has been flooded with all kinds of crap, mostly congratulations to Vanderholt’s killer.”

“You can imagine the shooter’s response to reading all that nonsense,” Burke says. “You can bet he’s gloating over his notoriety.”

Curses echo around the room.

Jackie Burke crosses her arms. “Poe claims that the public defender’s office found some kind of evidence regarding Vanderholt, that he had something proving him innocent regarding the two other abductions. Now, I don’t know how Poe came up with this little theory, because Clyde Pierson certainly didn’t turn over anything exculpatory.”

“No discovery?” Stephens asks. “No additional physical evidence?”

“I talked to Pierson, and whatever he got, it wasn’t much.” She blows out air.

“Maybe the leak is in the public defender’s office,” Myla Perkins suggests.

“Could be,” Burke says, “but we don’t think so.”

“The point is, people, it’s a good bet that Vanderholt knew something beyond what he confessed to,” Stephens says. “We need to work that theory. Whoever took him out needed to shut him up.”

“Pierson sure seems to think so,” Burke says. “And he sounds scared. He’s leaving town.”

Agent Coulter clears his throat. “Let’s move on. We don’t think the shooter was a vigilante. He could have been a partner of some kind, so assume he’s our link to the other girls.”

“That’s how it smells,” Burke mutters, frowning at the floor, “but we need something solid.”

“Excuse me,” says an officer in the back, raising a hand. “If you’re saying all the kidnappings are linked through the shooter, are you discounting the copycat theory?”