by John McMahon
“The program got shut down,” the older Joan said. “I thought you knew that, P.T.”
“No, that’s what I thought,” I said. “I remember some privacy group found out how much personal information the system was compiling.”
This included pictures of citizens, and not just the guilty. The cameras were basically documenting a day in the life of our city. Seventy-five hundred photos every day.
“But the database still exists, right?” I asked. “I mean—it was running for over a year. You must have two or three million photographs burning a hole in your server.”
“Why do you ask?” Younger Joan said.
“I’ve got a person of interest who’s proving hard to find.”
“You know his name?” she asked. “We can put a BOLO out on him.”
“Well,” I said. “This is a unique case. I’ve got reasons I don’t want the search to be on official channels.”
For most cops, this might cause a room to go quiet. When you imply that you couldn’t trust other cops with information.
But after the school shooting and the incident in Atlanta, I was above reproach.
“What time period are we talking?” Younger Joan asked.
“Well, there’s an initial incident back in December of ’17,” I said, holding up a close-up of the Camaro with the license plate showing. “But I’ll take any locations you have on this car.”
Older Joan smiled, sliding her chair behind Younger Joan’s station. “I think we can make an exception for an exceptional police officer.”
They booted up the program then, and Younger Joan grabbed my phone and typed in the plate number from the picture.
Within a minute, seven hits came up.
These didn’t represent anything Steele Vankle had done wrong. Which is why the program had been so controversial. Vankle hadn’t committed any crimes related to the pictures taken. He hadn’t even gotten parking tickets. In fact, he’d just parked.
“Well,” the younger Joan said. “Four of the seven locations are on 31st. And all bunched pretty close together. Within four car lengths.”
The older Joan slid her chair sideways over to her computer and typed the longitude and latitude into Google Maps.
Under “Street View,” a picture came onto her screen. A nondescript tan building with a logo on it: Personal Best Fitness.
This was the same logo on the wall behind Vankle in the weight-lifting pictures on Instagram.
“Does that tell you time of day?” I asked.
“Yup,” the younger Joan said. “Those four pictures are all Saturdays. Between three and four p.m.”
So today was Vankle’s go-to workout day, at least a year ago. I checked my phone for the time now, and saw it was one p.m. I might find Vankle there soon.
“What’s the fifth location?” I asked.
“Fifth and sixth are an apartment or condo,” she said, squinting at map view. “Eight ninety-one Burke Street.”
Maybe Vankle’s apartment.
“And the last one?”
Joan brought it up on-screen, and we zoomed out.
It was a rural area, and it took Joan more time to page left and right to figure out where the hell we were.
“Georgia Wild and Free,” she said.
I knew the place. A gun range northeast of town, off SR-908.
I thought of the bullet hole in Christian Pelo’s skull. A .45 most likely.
Would I find that the folks who ran this range knew Vankle? And that he shot a .45?
I thanked the Joans and made my way out to my truck, driving fast toward the nearest entrance to 914.
49
I pulled into a gravel parking lot and got out at Georgia Wild and Free. Beyond the lot by about fifty yards was an outdoor range. I’d shot here with a buddy about four years ago.
These types of gun ranges are almost self-serve, and are usually manned with only one employee. I walked through the bushes and came out into a clearing.
In front of me was a series of wooden benches where folks could set up on either side under a slatted cedar pergola and shoot in the shade during summer.
Off to the left was a short range for handguns, and to the right was a long range for rifles. A sign directed patrons farther west for clays.
“Can I help you?” a man asked.
He was Black and slight of build with a face the shape of an upside-down balloon. The man looked to be in his midsixties and had a full beard. He told me his name was Will Jackson.
I flashed some tin and introduced myself. The place was nearly empty. “I’m looking for a guy named Steele Vankle,” I said. “I understand he shoots here.”
Jackson directed me over to a table behind the wooden benches and took a load off. I handed him my cell with a picture of Vankle on it.
I heard a cease-fire interval being called, and the three shooters lowered their guns and placed them onto the tables.
Folks took their ears and eyes off, heading down-range together. In this particular place, targets were strung between horizontal wires pulled taut down-range. Beyond them a sixty-foot-tall dirt embankment was located maybe a hundred feet past the target and on each side.
“I never forget a face,” Jackson said. “So yeah, I seen him. Comes here a lot actually. Shoots a Ruger Precision.”
“A rifle,” I said. “You remember the last time you saw him?”
“A week ago or thereabouts.”
I took back my phone. A horsefly circled us like a plane running low on fuel, its buzzing stopping only as it landed on Jackson’s arm for a moment before it took off again.
“He come alone?”
“No, he usually comes with a buddy.”
I found Hartley’s picture on my phone and held it up. “Him?”
“Nope,” Jackson said. “From their body language, the other guy works for him.”
I flicked through my phone again until I found a photo of John Adrian.
“That’s the fella,” Jackson said.
“And what’s he shoot?” I asked about John Adrian.
“A Colt .45.”
I sat up a little taller.
The two-year-old case was coming together. A .45 was the weapon that Christian Pelo was most likely shot with. Which made Adrian a good suspect for the murder like I thought.
I took out my card. “I need to speak with Mr. Vankle,” I said. “And I’d prefer not to spook him. Think you can give me a shout next time you see him?”
“Or the other guy?”
“The other guy is dead,” I said.
“Okay then.” The old-timer nodded. “I understand the urgency.”
I got up then and thanked him. I knew I had to hustle back to get to the gym by three p.m.
“Incidentally, where do you shoot?” Jackson asked.
In the distance, a volley of shots rang out. The range was clear, and folks were shooting again.
“The Georgia Safe, mostly,” I said.
“Ahh. Cooz’s place,” he said, referring to the retired patrolman who owned the Georgia Safe gun range. “He’s got the monopoly on all you cops, based on his background of course. But he ain’t got nothing outdoor there ’cept two clays. Maybe I help you out here, and you put in a good word with your chief. We could arrange a whole day out here. Just for po-lice.”
“Sure,” I said. “Send me an email and I’ll reco it to the chief. The address is on my card.”
“Appreciate that.” He nodded. “By the way, I recognized you from the newspaper. Congrats on that award.”
“Thanks.”
“That girl can shoot too,” he said. “The one on the front of the Register with you.”
“She saved my life,” I said, proud of Remy.
He beamed at me. And I headed through the turnstile.
I needed to be on the road.
If Vankle’s schedule held, I had about thirty minutes to get over to Personal Best Fitness.
50
When I got to the address for Personal Best, I saw Vankle’s Camaro parked two doors down.
But before I went in, I did a loop around the gym, seeing that it was just a storefront facing 30th Street with no back door.
I parked about eight cars down and pulled out my binocs.
Scanning through a propped-open front door, I saw Steele Vankle, talking to a woman at a tiny desk inside the door. His blondish-red hair was pulled back into a pony, and he held a duffel over one shoulder.
I got out of my truck. Crossed the street and entered the place. I wasn’t sure yet how I was going to play this.
Could I use what I knew about him and Pelo, and he’d sing about Hartley?
The door closed behind me, and I glanced straight ahead. Vankle stood with his back to me. Up close I could see he was about five-nine with a muscular body—a tank top and athletic shorts on. His hair was slightly redder than in his picture online.
“Mr. Vankle,” I said, and he turned. He’d put down his duffel already, and his blue eyes darted to the door behind me.
“I just want to—”
Vankle picked up a medicine ball. One of those heavy types about eighteen inches in diameter. He tossed it at me.
“Jesus,” I said, ducking out of the way. The ball hit me in the side, and Vankle charged at me, knocking me off balance.
The two of us landed messy, and I rolled him like I was trained. Reached back for my bracelets and cuffed him. Left hand first. Then as I reached to wrap up his right, he wriggled free and rolled away from me, the cuffs hanging off one wrist.
He brought himself to his feet and flew out the door that I’d just come in through.
“The fuck?” I said, chasing the guy out the door.
We ran down 30th toward Barston Street, with Vankle about twenty feet ahead. At the corner, he turned. He was in good shape, but I brought my arms to my sides, pumping them and keeping him close.
Around the next corner I saw him take to a ladder that ran up the side of a building.
The cuffs clanked off each rung, and he hustled, arm over arm.
I did the same, giving chase.
Up on the roof, Vankle stood about thirty feet ahead of me. The building was older, and he was cornered.
“I just want to talk, Mr. Vankle,” I said. Two dozen feet between us. “I promise.”
Vankle’s hair had fallen from the tie that once held it, and he looked a half bubble off plumb. His cool blue eyes were huge, and a mane of messy curls framed the perimeter of his oval face.
“No way, Marsh,” he said, using my name for the first time.
Had I told him my name?
The edge of the roof was ten feet behind him, and beyond it was another building. Lower by a floor, but with a break in between roofs. Had to be ten or twelve feet that separated the two structures.
Vankle took a handful of steps toward me and then turned the other way. Ran as fast as he could toward the edge of the roof and leapt through the air.
“Shit,” I said. Running to the edge in time to see Vankle’s shoulder land, and then his body hit too, right onto the concrete molding that encircled the edge of the next building over.
He stood up but was hurt, a gimpy gait as he moved his leg.
“C’mon, Marsh,” he said, taking a step backward. “Your turn.”
But there was no way I was making it over there.
We stared at each other. Vankle’s face was pocked with gravel and his hair was sweaty. My cuffs dangled from his left hand.
He limped over to a door and went inside.
I hustled down the ladder again, but by the time I got to the next building over, Vankle had disappeared.
Walking back to the gym, I saw that his Camaro was still there. I looked around. Didn’t realize that when Vankle had tackled me, we’d knocked over the water cooler in the waiting area.
The woman from the front was using the Mason Falls Register to blot up the water that had spilled, and she looked pissed when I stepped inside the place.
“What the hell was that?” she asked.
“Sorry,” I said. “Let me help you.”
The place reeked of sweat, mixed in with some sort of vinyl cleaner.
Crouching over, I wiped at the water. That’s when I saw my face on the front of the Metro Section of the paper.
The picture showed me with Kelly Borland, standing at the opening of the banquet room at the event last night. A candid, taken by some photographer.
I blinked, staring at the wet version of myself.
“Is this today’s paper?” I asked.
“It was,” the receptionist said.
In my gut, a strange feeling was tingling.
I stood up, staring at the wet photo. Turned and headed out to my truck without finishing the cleanup job.
On the way there, I found the number for Georgia Wild and Free. Rang up Will Jackson, who I’d met an hour ago.
“Hey,” I said. “It’s Detective Marsh.”
“What’s up?”
“You mentioned the woman with me in the paper. You meant Remy Morgan, my partner, right? Not sure which paper you saw the picture in.”
“I don’t know her name, but—”
“Twenty-eight?” I said. “Black woman. Straightened hair to the shoulders. Pretty.”
“The one I saw was pretty all right,” he said. “But she was white. No bigger than a minute. Brunette. Figured when you said that gal saved your life, you were speakin’ more like an expression, since in the picture you two were dressed up. Looked like a couple who might be—”
“You said, ‘She can shoot,’” I interrupted him.
“Well,” he said. “She’s been out here. It’s been a bit, but I never forget a face, like I told you earlier. She had another boyfriend then.”
“What’d she shoot?”
“A .38,” he said. “Gun was his, I think.”
I swallowed, pacing by my truck.
“I’m gonna send you a picture,” I said to the old-timer, finding an image on my cell and sending it to Jackson.
I heard a ding on his end of the line.
“Yup,” Jackson said. “That’s the guy.”
I thanked him and hung up.
Stunned.
Stunned into silence.
51
September 11, 1:50 p.m.
Kelly Borland heard a rapping on the side door that let in from the courtyard, and she told Leaf Tanner to hold on for a second.
Leaf was in the middle of a story about a kid in his Life Sciences class. Kelly had been listening while filling an empty trash can with paintbrushes that were too stiff to be reused.
The storage room, which was normally tidy, had turned into a mess of boxes, art books, and supplies. Kelly had been cleaning up. Putting things into piles. Using empty boxes as trash cans. And once she was done today, the place would look just like it had the first day she’d arrived at Falls Magnet. A clean slate.
“Nervous energy?” Leaf had asked her when he first arrived ten minutes earlier.
“Something like that,” she’d said.
A loud banging came again at the side door. Kids, she thought. Screwing around.
The metal door opened inward, and Kelly unlocked it. Swung it toward herself.
She stared at the man framed in the entrance.
Jed Harrington wore a green flannel and jeans, and his hair was uncombed.
Kelly stepped backward, and Leaf poked his head around her.
“Can I help you, buddy?” Leaf Tanner said to Jed.
“I doubt it,” Jed replied. “And I’m not your buddy. Apparently, I’m not hers either.
”
52
I hung up the phone from talking to Will Jackson at the gun range and stared down at my phone.
The picture I’d sent him was of Jed Harrington.
Kelly Borland and Jed Harrington.
Together, at a gun range.
My mind was spinning to a specific thought. That I had always known something was wrong. That somehow that’s why I hesitated sleeping with Kelly.
But they’d dated? Shot together?
Which meant what? He was a crazy ex, infatuated with her? Then he unexpectedly showed up at Falls Magnet Middle School?
“Jesus,” I said aloud, thinking how I’d gotten involved with her.
Stay focused on Vankle, Purvis said. Purvis in my head again.
I took a knife from my utility box. Crossed the street and quietly slashed the back two tires of Vankle’s Camaro.
“That oughta slow you down,” I said.
I wandered back to my truck then. Called Kelly up, but got her voicemail.
“Hey,” I said. “I just had the oddest conversation with a guy at a place called Georgia Wild and Free.” I stopped. “It’s a gun range, Kelly. But I think you know that. Call me.”
A few minutes later I got a text from Kelly.
Had my phone off. Can we meet in person? Twist Coffee on Sunrise?
I texted back that I’d be there in five minutes.
As I drove, I thought about Beau. The way he had sidled up to her so naturally last night. And more than that—the way Kelly’s face had gone pale when she first saw the dog, outside my house.
Jed’s dog. She recognized Beau. And he recognized her.
I pulled to the curb and saw her, sitting by herself on the patio of the coffeehouse. Her body looked tiny in her chair, and I thought of the dresses we’d seen in Harrington’s place. We’d assumed they were his sister’s, but each was a small. Kelly’s size.
I got out of my truck and walked over. Her face was gray, and her cheeks were wet with tears.
“Hey,” I said.
My head was swimming with crazy thoughts. I mean, I’d shot a man at the school. A man we all thought that nobody knew.