Unlucky Day

by J. R. McLeay

  Joe rolled the bullets around in his hand.

  “All eight point six millimeter?”

  Miles nodded.

  “Almost certainly fired from the same rifle. Your ballistics team can confirm.”

  “Can we conclude anything from the wounds?” Hannah asked.

  “I think so,” Miles said, “but I need to warn you in advance. The ferry victim is pretty messy. You might want to prepare yourself before I show you.”

  Miles walked to the middle of the room where three bodies lay cloaked on stainless-steel tables. He pulled the sheet back on the first victim. It was the equestrian cop. Joe flinched seeing a fellow police officer in this position. He knew the risks that came with the job, but there was something about the execution-style nature of the killing that unnerved him.

  Miles turned the body onto its side.

  “Like the first two, this wound is clean and straight through. But there's less exit wound damage because the bullet maintained its profile as it passed through. Another head shot, this time just above the hairline.”

  Joe nodded.

  “We know where the sniper fired from for this shot. He was closer and higher relative to the target, which explains the higher entrance wound position.”

  Miles pulled the sheet back from the second victim.

  “This is the cab driver. Similar to the first two victims. The wound position is in the center of the forehead, just above the brow. Assuming he was looking straight ahead at the time of the shot, the bullet has an eight-degree downward angle and a three-degree medial trajectory from the cabbie's left side.”

  “That matches the rooftop location of the building he fired from,” Joe said.

  “But the third victim,” Miles continued, “is a bit of an anomaly. This is pretty gruesome. Are you sure you're ready?”

  Joe swallowed hard and nodded. Miles pulled back the sheet, revealing a cadaver with half the side of his head blown off.

  “This definitely doesn't fit the pattern of the other shootings. As you can see, the wound is way off-center and higher. My guess is that the bullet grazed the top-left side of the victim's head, shearing off this part of his skull. Same thing happened in the Kennedy assassination. Except in this case, the deformation of the hollow-point bullet caused a lot more internal damage. The killer definitely didn't want to take any chances that this guy wouldn't be killed. Why he shot so far off-center, I have no idea. It's almost as if he was distracted, or meant to miss. All the other shots were laser-accurate.”

  Joe nodded as he reflected back to the ferry shooting crime scene.

  “We found sandbags beside gunpowder residue from the rifle at the location of this shooting," he said. "But the hotel video shows the sniper entering and exiting the hotel a full twelve hours before the shot was fired. Is it possible the weapon could have been fired remotely?”

  Miles’ brow furrowed as he considered the question.

  “That's interesting. I suppose it's possible with today's advanced electronics and robotics. But you'd have to buttress the rifle to minimize recoil if it weren't stabilized against your shoulder. That might explain the off-center shot. Maybe he fired into the crowd hoping to hit anything moving above shoulder height. But how did the rifle disappear if he didn't go anywhere near it after the time of firing?”

  “That's the mystery we're trying to figure out,” Joe said. “It just evaporated into thin air. We'd love to get our hands on the murder weapon. If you have any brilliant ideas, let us know.”

  Joe turned away from the examining table, eager to get outside for some fresh air. The image of the half-headed ferry passenger was making him queasy.

  “Will do,” Miles said. “I hope you find this guy soon so we can stop meeting this way. Let's schedule a celebratory lunch when you catch him.”

  “Thanks, Miles,” Joe said. “We'll talk again soon.”

  “Lycka till.”

  The medical examiner had a grim expression on his face as he watched the two detectives walk toward the exit door. He expected they'd be seeing a lot more of one another before any celebration could be arranged.

  22

  Garret A. Morgan Elementary School​, The Bronx

  July 9, 10:15 a.m.

  The streets of Manhattan were eerily silent on the sixth day of the sniper attacks. Few people dared to venture into the city for fear the mysterious killer would catch them in his sights. Previously, it was only the lunchtime crowd who hid under cover. But the rush hour ferry shooting had shifted everyone's mindset. Now it was open season, and anyone was fair game.

  Hotels were rapidly emptying of summertime tourists, and local airports were clogged with people trying to get out of the city. Downtown office workers had called in sick, not wanting to take any chances getting caught out in the open. Even the New York Stock Exchange was operating with a bare-bones staff who traveled to work exclusively underground via the MTA.

  But in the outer boroughs, things were still fairly normal. In spite of the commissioner's advisory, few people seemed concerned the sniper would strike their neighborhood. Even at noon, pedestrian and vehicular traffic hardly slowed, as local citizens went about their regular activities.

  Today would change all that.

  Todd Weir straddled a high-back chair with his rifle resting atop the backrest. Through the open window of the New York Housing Authority building at the corner of Park Avenue and East 169th Street, he watched the empty playground of PS 132. From his fifteenth-floor vantage point, he had a clear and commanding view of the entire courtyard.

  The building's security had been easy to breach. Few public housing residents paid much attention to who entered their building. Unlike most residential towers in Manhattan, there was no doorman. Residents rarely noticed if anyone followed them through the main entrance.

  To blend in, Weir had applied brown makeup to his face and hands, and wore a goatee along with his customary sunglasses and baseball cap. Wearing blue-collar work clothes, he fit right in with the mostly Hispanic community of south-central Bronx. He had no trouble slipping through the front door during the morning rush hour. After taking the elevator to the top floor, he waited in the stairwell until he saw a young couple leave their apartment facing the school playground. It took him only seconds to pick their front door lock and slip inside unnoticed.

  At 10:30, he heard the bell signaling morning recess ringing in the schoolyard. Hundreds of grade-school children poured out the doors into the bright sunshine. Most of the kids ran happily around the courtyard playing tag or swinging on the playground equipment. But Weir noticed a different dynamic taking shape in a secluded corner of the courtyard behind a thick stand of trees. A big kid had cornered a much smaller boy, who was desperately trying to escape the bully's clutches. Whenever the little boy tried to run away, the bigger kid stepped in front of him.

  Weir could see the fear in the young boy's eyes. It was obvious he'd been tormented by the large boy before. As the child made a desperate lunge to get past the big kid, the bully grabbed him by the collar and threw him to the ground. Then he sat on the younger boy's chest and placed his hand over the lad's mouth to stifle his screams. The youngster struggled to push the bully off him, but the larger boy grabbed his throat until he stopped moving.

  Although the bully's back was turned, Weir could see him talking to the small boy. He flashed back fifteen years to his own youth, when he was teased and bullied. As he watched the bully's lips move, he recalled the taunts of his tormentors.

  What's the matter, Weir-do? Can't move your tight lips? In his memories, Weir vividly heard the laughs and taunts of the other kids watching. I bet that lip is useful for other things. Stay still while I stick you like the little toad you are…

  Weir's finger pressed against the rifle trigger. Today he would end the little boy's torment and rid him of his bully forever. He just needed the big kid to shift position a little. The back of his head was directly in line with the head of the smaller boy. If he fired now, the b
ullet would go right through the bully and strike the innocent boy in the face.

  Keep fighting, little guy, the sniper said to himself. I just need one clear shot.

  The youngster suddenly thrust his hips up, and the bully almost toppled over. Then he quickly repositioned himself on the boy's chest and slapped him hard in the face.

  Weir saw his opening.

  I've got you now, you little fucker. Two can play this game. Lights out.

  Just as a Metro-North train roared past the playground along the Park Avenue rail line, Weir pulled the trigger. Nobody heard the sound of the rifle as blood suddenly spurted over the young boy's face, and the bully slumped to the ground beside him.

  23

  18th Precinct, Midtown Manhattan

  July 10, 8:00 a.m.

  Brady O'Neill slapped his coffee mug on his desk as he slumped into his chair. Black liquid spurted over the rim and spread onto his blotter. He grabbed a few sheets of loose paper to soak up the stains then crumpled and threw them into his waste basket.

  “Shit,” he exclaimed. “A twelve-year-old? On a school playground? How much lower can this guy get? And how much more incompetent can we possibly look?”

  He rubbed his hands together to remove the coffee stains then looked at Joe, Kate, and Hannah.

  “The mayor is outraged. He’s saying the sniper has free rein over the city. Please tell me you've got something—anything.”

  The three detectives looked at O’Neill blankly.

  “We've been sorting through the list of adoptees,” Joe finally volunteered. “Almost half of them have been interviewed.”

  “I assume our team's been working overtime on this?”

  “Twelve-hour days,” Joe said. “Other than responding to new shootings, this is all we've been working on. Our guys have processed a little over three hundred of the adoptees Kate identified. I understand the detective unit from the First Precinct has processed almost as many.”

  O’Neill strummed his fingers impatiently on his desk.

  “And?”

  “Everybody's alibi checks out so far.”

  “For every single shooting?”

  “To narrow the list,” Hannah said, “we've eliminated anyone with a solid alibi during any one of the shootings. Otherwise, it will take us six times as long to cross-reference everyone's whereabouts for every shooting.”

  O'Neill sat back and took a sip of his coffee.

  “I suppose that makes sense. Can we also rule out the ones who don't look like the shooter from the video? There can't be that many slim white adopted males in New York City.”

  Joe nodded.

  “The facial profile is helping.”

  “Even with the beard and glasses? I'd bet a month’s salary that beard was fake.”

  “I agree,” Joe said. “The Ritz-Carlton video gave us a bit more to work with since he was only wearing a mustache. The shape of the jaw, cheekbones, and mouth is helping eliminate the obvious nonstarters.”

  “Is there video surveillance from yesterday’s playground shooting? Does it reveal any new details?”

  “It took a bit of extra digging to find the firing location because no one actually heard the shot. We checked all the high-rises around the perimeter of the school. Fortunately, the city recently installed CCTV cameras in the entrances, elevators, and stairwells of all public housing projects. We discovered footage of a man matching the sniper's description carrying a suspicious bag into 450 East 169th Street around the time of the shooting.”

  Joe reached into his pocket and pulled out a thumb drive.

  “Do you want to see it?”

  O'Neill waved his hand.

  “Just give me the summary. Anything actionable?”

  “Not really. He was wearing a goatee and a baseball cap, and he kept his head down like usual. His skin was shaded, but we’re pretty sure it's the same guy.”

  “Did you find anything when you swept the building?”

  “The elevator cam tracked him to the fifteenth floor. We checked all the units facing the schoolyard and found powder residue by the window in unit 1513.”

  “No prints?”

  “No, same MO. He's probably wearing gloves, as before.”

  O'Neill exhaled deeply.

  “And he disappeared into thin air as before also?”

  “A convenience store cam across the street showed him walking north," Hannah said. “We lost the trail when he entered Crotona Park.”

  O'Neill got up and walked to a large street map of New York City hanging on his wall. He ran his finger to 169th Street and then up and to the right.

  “There's an MTA station at the edge of the park at 174th Street on the 5 line,” he said. “Check their cams. Maybe we can find where he exited the system and pick up his movement from there.”

  O'Neill turned to the FBI agent.

  “Kate, what do you make of this schoolyard killing? What could the shooter's motivation possibly be for shooting a twelve-year-old?”

  “Joe and Hannah said the cops on the scene indicated there'd been a fight in the yard. Apparently, a smaller kid was being bullied by a much larger kid.”

  O’Neill snorted.

  “Like that never happens in a schoolyard. Are you suggesting that's any justification for killing a child?”

  “Of course not. But it's possible this schoolyard bully personified the bullies the sniper may have encountered in his own youth.”

  “I grew up with three older brothers,” the lieutenant huffed. “Just about every kid gets bullied at some point growing up.”

  “Maybe the shooter's experience was particularly aggravated.”

  “What might account for that?”

  “Who knows? Maybe he had an unusual tic or speech impediment. Kids can be incredibly cruel to anyone who's a little different.”

  O’Neill crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

  “So we've established our shooter had a troubled youth and a possible deformity of indeterminate origin.” He looked at Joe and Hannah. “I suppose that's one more thing you can watch out for as you're vetting your list.”

  Joe suddenly looked away, lost in thought.

  “What?” O'Neill said. “Have you got something?”

  “Just a hunch,” Joe said. “One of the adoptees Hannah and I interviewed yesterday acted suspiciously.”

  “In what way?”

  “To begin with, he wasn't deferential or skittish like most people are when cops knock unexpectedly on their door. He was almost antagonistic, like it was some kind of game.”

  “That definitely fits the profile of most serial killers,” Kate said.

  “And he's a locksmith by trade,” Hannah said. “That could explain how the shooter breached the locked doors so easily at each of the known sniper sites.”

  O'Neill rubbed his two-day growth of beard.

  “What about his face and build? Did that match from the videos?”

  “His build, yes. Tall and slender. Hard to say about the face because of the facial hair the suspect had in the video footage. This guy was clean-shaven. But something Kate just said struck a chord. He had a slight facial deformation.” Joe placed his finger on his lip just under his nose. “He had a smooth upper lip here instead of the normal crease that everyone else has. And there was something about his eyes that was different—more close-set than most people. I noticed it immediately.”

  O'Neill sat up in his chair with renewed interest.

  “That might account for why the perp wears facial hair in the videos. Can he account for his whereabouts during the shootings?”

  “Only during the most recent ferry shooting,” Joe said. “But he has an air-tight alibi. We have video footage of him at a convenience store in Jersey City at 7:15 that morning. There's no way he could have gotten near enough to the ferry terminal from that location in time to take the shot.”

  O'Neill looked at the map on his wall.

  “But Jersey City is right across the river from the f
erry terminal. Couldn't he have taken the shot from there?”

  Joe shook his head.

  “The closest location from that side of the harbor is over three miles away. No rifle, not even the newest state-of-the-art military sniper rifles, can fire from that far away.”

  O'Neill got up and paced for a moment beside his window.

  “See if we can get a warrant to search his belongings. Maybe we'll get lucky and find a murder weapon in his apartment or a hair sample that matches those found at the sniper locations.”

  He pulled up the blinds and cracked open the window.

  “In the meantime, have our team keep working through the list of adoptees. We need to produce some real suspects to get the mayor off my back.”

  Joe and Hannah walked through the precinct parking lot toward their patrol car.

  “I knew there was something fishy about that Weir guy,” Joe said. “Nobody's that cool under police questioning.”

  Hannah shrugged.

  “Maybe he's got Asperger’s or autism or something like that. It could just be a product of parent-separation issues. I imagine a lot of adopted children have anti-social personality disorders.”

  Joe stopped and looked at Hannah.

  “You didn't feel it? He didn't seem at all suspicious to you?”

  “He was definitely antagonistic,” Hannah admitted. “But you were pushing his buttons. Mentioning his lack of friends, how his job was so convenient, and so on.”

  “Come on! A locksmith? How perfect is that? What are the odds? And what about the way he looked? Weren't you a little creeped out? If you and I reacted that quickly, can you imagine what he had to deal with growing up? Throw in the whole adoption thing, and that could easily produce one fucked-up individual.”

  “What about his alibi?” Hannah said. “How can we get past that? He can't be in two places at the same time.”

  “Yes, but as Miles said, that ferry shooting was very suspicious. He seems like a clever enough guy. With his locksmith skills, he could have fashioned some kind of mechanical device to fire it remotely.”