Winter's Ghost

by Mary Stone

  A mass shooting in the United States didn’t always make international news, but the deliberate, premeditated murder of a mass shooter did.

  For the time being, Winter had done all she could with the suspicious email from Justin. She wasn’t equipped to track the origins of an electronic message, but the cyber division was. If anyone could locate more information about the source, it was the men and women in cyber. Like Autumn had become fond of saying, Winter “didn’t have to do everything by herself.”

  Right now, she had a job to do.

  Despite their host of personal misgivings with Tyler Haldane and his extremist ideology, Max wanted the threat of a media circus off their doorstep. According to the SAC, sensationalized cases like the murder of Haldane brought out nutjobs from all walks of life, journalists and civilians alike.

  With or without Max’s unique brand of encouragement, Winter had no desire to be at the center of a media frenzy. She liked her privacy, and the fewer eyes on her, the lower the likelihood of anyone stumbling upon her sixth sense.

  As she ducked down beneath the ribbon of yellow crime scene tape, she nodded a greeting to a familiar forensic ballistics examiner.

  “Agent Black,” the man greeted, reaching out for a handshake.

  She accepted the gesture. “Ted. Where is everyone?”

  “Pretty sparse here, yeah. Once we figured out which building the shot was fired from, most of the crime scene people headed that way. Jo and I are still here trying to find the damn bullet, though.”

  With a shrug, he produced a clipboard from beneath one arm and held it up for her to see.

  From a distance, the marks on the lined paper looked like they might have been Chinese, but even when she squinted and leaned closer, she was unable to decipher the rows of numbers and equations.

  Knitting her brows together, she looked back up to him. “None of that makes any sense to me. Even if I could read your handwriting, I doubt I’d understand it any better.”

  The harsh glow of a nearby work light glinted off the plastic as he pulled the clipboard away to glance back down to the page.

  “Shit,” he muttered. “Right. My bad. Well, here’s what I’ve got so far.” As he moved to stand at her side, he pointed to a tall building in the distance. “That’s where the shot was fired from. Based on where the bullet hit and what we saw from the video, there’s no doubt about that. It’s the only structure around here that’s tall enough for the right angle.”

  She looked around. “How can you tell?”

  “The bullet came from the north, and aside from that building, everything else in a two-mile radius is three stories at the max. That apartment building is six stories. I based my calculations on Haldane’s height, factored in how much the bullet would have dropped over that distance, determined wind speed and such. That put our shooter in the sixth floor.”

  Winter squinted. “Isn’t that building something like a mile away?” She had enough knowledge about firearms to know that such a shot was difficult but possible. For an expert, which would narrow their suspect list considerably.

  “It’s close to a mile, yeah. A little over three-fourths of a mile and the wind was blowing about seven miles per hour from the west.” Clipboard in hand, he gestured to the dark shape of blood spatter on the concrete. “We know the shot was through and through, but I’ll be damned if I can find that bullet.”

  When Winter looked up from the splotch of burgundy, she noticed the predicament. Based on the trajectory of the blood spatter, there was a good chance the wayward bullet had continued unimpeded past the corner of the psychiatric building. It could be blocks away, embedded in the asphalt of a parking lot, the side of a car, or even in the trunk of a tree.

  Just as she was about to return her attention to Ted, she caught a faint glimpse of red. The glimmer was no larger than a pinprick in the concrete edge of the building, and she figured it was the glow of a security camera or another electronic device.

  No, it wouldn’t be a camera. The glow was level with the middle of her stomach.

  Pushing the sudden rush of excitement down, she cleared her throat before turning back to Ted. In an effort to feign nonchalance, she shrugged. “What if it hit the side of the building?”

  He heaved a sigh as his blue eyes flicked down to the paper and then back to her. “There’s a slight possibility, if the bullet glanced off the skull in an unexpected way. Guess it’s worth checking out before we start creeping through the neighborhood, huh?”

  With a slight smile, she nodded. “Definitely. Rule out the easy stuff first.”

  He looked thoughtful as he scratched his scruffy cheek. When his attention shifted back to her, he returned the nod. “Fair enough. Let’s go check it out. It was Jo’s turn to go get coffee, but she ought to be back pretty soon. Or at least I hope she will because I sure could use a second wind.”

  Winter stifled a yawn. “You and me both.”

  They made the short trek in silence, and as the distance to the edge of the building lessened, the air of anticipation became even more palpable.

  Though Winter could already see the red glow intensify, she bit down on her tongue to keep any potential exclamation to herself. Her pulse picked up, and she clenched and unclenched one hand against the cool touch of adrenaline.

  When she’d only been thirteen years old, a madman had broken into her childhood home, slaughtering her father and brutalizing her mother. Winter had only gotten a glimpse of the man before he hit her on the head, almost killing her too.

  After weeks in a coma, she’d awoken to learn that her baby brother was missing. She’d also learned that the blow to the head had given her special abilities she couldn’t understand.

  Abilities like knowing where a tiny bullet was hiding.

  Now, if only Ted had the same bit of intuitive wisdom.

  Pretending to search a farther off section of the brick, she was starting to grow annoyed that it was taking so long when Ted took in a sharp breath.

  “That looks like a bullet hole to me,” she said, giving him a congratulatory slap on the back when she walked over to investigate with him.

  Dropping down to crouch beside the drab concrete, he squinted and leaned in until his face was less than a foot from the pockmark.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Yeah, agent. That looks like a bullet hole.”

  “You’ve got it from here, right?” Winter asked after a moment of silence.

  Max had sent her to the site of Haldane’s death with the understanding that she would take statements from the sheriff’s deputies who still lingered at the scene. Discovery of the bullet or not, the SAC would be unimpressed if she returned to the office before she completed her task.

  “Hey!” a woman called, snapping her and Ted’s attention back to the sidewalk. A paper cup in each hand, the dark-haired woman approached them with a quizzical look on her face. “Did you find something?”

  “Sure did, Jo,” Ted said as he rose to his full height. “We found the damn bullet.”

  “Nice!” Although Jo’s word was full of enthusiasm, her face carried a hint of bemusement. “Not exactly where I’d have started the search, but I’m glad we didn’t have to scour every inch of the next few blocks.” She handed Ted his coffee. “I’ll go get our kits, and we’ll dig that thing out.”

  Winter realized that Ted was looking at her strangely, and a shiver ran down her back. Did he know of her special abilities? As hard as she’d tried to hide them from the world, she hadn’t always been successful. And people talked.

  Feeling a wave of embarrassment begin to spread up her neck, she stuck her hands in her pockets. “I’ll let you all get to work.”

  Hurrying away, she still felt Ted’s eyes boring into her back. Her unease didn’t waver as she made her way to the brown and gold clad deputies. Though engrossed in a conversation she couldn’t hear, both men trailed off before she came within earshot.

  “Deputies…” She reached into her black blazer, retrieved her
badge, and flashed it at the pair as she closed the remaining distance. “I’m Special Agent Black with the FBI. I’m sure you’re both aware that Tyler Haldane’s case was federal, so we’ll be handling the investigation.”

  The taller of the two crossed his muscular arms over his chest and shrugged. The nameplate on his uniform listed his name as Peterson. “Well, we sure as shit don’t want it, so go nuts.”

  That surprised her. Law enforcement teams were normally very territorial. “You don’t want it? Why’s that?”

  At his side, the second deputy, Ortiz, replied with a dry chuckle. “We’ve got more important work to do than investigate the murder of some shit bag like Tyler Haldane. No disrespect to the bureau. I mean, someone’s got to do it, right? But when you find whoever it was, tell him the sheriff’s department says thanks.”

  Deep inside, she couldn’t blame them for their attitude, but still, she kept a carefully neutral face. “I take it none of you were fans of Mr. Haldane.”

  “Look, agent,” Peterson replied. “We’ve both been doing this for a while, you know. The sheriff’s department is almost always in charge of prisoner transport, and we’ve both been part of that team for more than ten years now. We’ve escorted some seriously nasty dudes, but that little shit takes the cake.”

  Curious now, Winter took a step closer. “Is there any particular reason why?” She smiled and watched both men blush a little. “Aside from the obvious, of course.”

  Ortiz snorted and shook his head, turning his gaze until he was looking over her shoulder. “Couldn’t get the little bastard to shut up half the time. Going on about his mission and all the shit he thought was going to happen now that he and his buddy had killed all those people in Danville. I’ve seen paranoid schizophrenics and dudes high as a kite ramble on about weird shit before, but Haldane was no schizophrenic or meth head. Kid was stone cold sober, and you could tell he wasn’t saying all that shit because he was hallucinating.”

  “Plus,” Peterson added, “that’s the whole reason he was here today, anyway. He was here so some psychologist could ask him questions and see if he was even fit to stand trial.”

  “Was he?” Winter asked.

  Peterson nodded. “Sure was. Doc said the bastard knew exactly what he was doing. He and Kent Strickland had been planning it for almost a year.”

  “Did he ever say anything about anyone else? Anyone involved in it other than him and Strickland?”

  “No, nothing,” Ortiz answered. “If we’d heard anything like that, we would’ve let y’all know.”

  “Right.” Winter bit back a sigh.

  They had the bullet, she reminded herself. And if she was given the choice, she would take a piece of physical evidence over the ramblings of a mass murderer any day.

  4

  Aiden Parrish knew that Dan Nguyen had only been in possession of Tyler Haldane’s body for an hour or two, but he hadn’t wanted to sit on his hands in the formative hours of the investigation. And if anyone could give him a useful piece of information after such a short time, it would be the tenured ME.

  As Aiden pushed his way through a set of double doors, the medical examiner’s dark eyes snapped up from the clipboard he held in one hand. On top of the silver table in front of him, its head a mangled mess of shattered bone and ruined tissue, was the body of who Aiden assumed was Tyler Haldane. Though, with the damage done to the face, he couldn’t say with complete certainty who in the hell it was.

  “Parrish,” Dan said, drawing Aiden’s attention away from the gory sight. “Didn’t expect to see you here so soon.”

  “Yeah, well, the bureau’s trying to get a jump-start on this whole thing before it spirals into a full-blown media circus. Mass murderer shot in the head by a sniper is going to be one hell of a headline.” With one hand, he gestured to the body. “Anything you can tell me about him yet?”

  Sighing, Dan placed the clipboard on a metal table to his side. As he produced a pen from the pocket of his white lab coat, he stepped over to the body.

  The fluorescence overhead shone on his neatly styled hair, and beneath the jacket was a pastel blue button-down shirt complete with a shiny black and silver striped tie. No matter the time of day Aiden saw the man, he always looked like he was ready for a day at work on Wall Street, not a morgue.

  “I haven’t cut him open yet.” Dan waved the pen over the site of Haldane’s fatal wound. “But I think it’s safe to say that this is what killed him.”

  With a groan, Aiden rubbed his eyes. “Thanks, Dan. That’s informative.”

  “You’re welcome.” Dan chuckled as he pocketed the pen. “Anything else right now is mostly an educated guess, but from what I’m seeing here, I think your shooter was a trained sniper.”

  Although Aiden thought that was a pretty accurate guess, he still asked, “How do you figure?” He glanced back down to the remnants of the head. The face was gone, and only the bottom portion of the jaw remained intact.

  A sniper with a big damn bullet. The man was unrecognizable.

  “You see where he was shot, right?”

  “It’s hard to miss,” Aiden replied flatly.

  “No, but I’m not being a smartass this time.” Dan flashed him a quick grin. “Really, though. I might not be able to tell you the exact point of entry, but I think the shot hit him about right between the eyes, probably a little bit lower. That’s the shot they train SEAL snipers to make. With a weapon this caliber, you’ve just got to hit someone in this general region.” He paused to tap a finger against the tip of his nose. “And it blows their brainstem out the back of their head. Instantly ceases all nerve function, and there’s not even a twitch afterward.”

  “That sounds familiar, yeah. I’ve heard it before.” Aiden nodded. He left off from whom he’d most recently heard it. The last person he wanted to talk about right now was Douglas Kilroy. Just thinking the name of The Preacher made Aiden’s teeth want to grit together. “Any guesses on what he was shot with? Caliber, anything like that?”

  Dan shrugged. “Any caliber capable of distance like that will be reasonably high. I don’t think it was a .50 caliber round, though. If it was, there wouldn’t even be this much of his head left. Could be a .330 Winchester Mag or a .338 Lapua Magnum. We’ll find out on closer examination.”

  “You sound like an arms encyclopedia right now. What in the hell did you do when you were in the Navy?”

  “Intelligence,” Dan answered with a knowing smirk. “I was here when Haldane was shot, by the way. Just in case you were wondering.”

  “Why would I wonder that?” There was no accusatory tinge to Aiden’s question, only curiosity.

  “Because I’m pretty sure you’re looking for someone with military or law enforcement experience, my friend. Good training too. Not just someone who sat behind a desk. Whoever made this shot from that distance has done it before, probably more than once. And even though I know it’s taboo to speak ill of the dead, I’m glad someone wiped this shit stain off the face of the planet. This little fucker didn’t deserve the air he breathed.”

  “No argument here,” Aiden muttered. He was a little relieved to know he wasn’t the only person who shared Dan’s view of Tyler Haldane. “Any other Navy related knowledge you’ve got for me right now? Can your firearm spidey sense tell you what kind of weapon it was?”

  “Hey.” Dan held up both hands in feigned defensiveness. “Almost twenty years I’ve been doing this, all right? I haven’t seen very many people killed with a long-distance high caliber shot like this, and the ones I do recall are pretty memorable. Assassinations, I think that’s what we called them.”

  Aiden chuckled. “Fair enough. That everything for now, then?”

  “That’s all I’ve got, yeah.” Even as Dan nodded, Aiden could tell there was another question on the tip of his tongue.

  “But?” he prodded.

  Seconds ticked by as the ME clearly considered the wisdom of speaking up. Finally, he asked, “You mind if I ask you somethin
g? About that case you guys just wrapped up? You know, the one with the mad scientist brain surgeon who dumped her victims in fifty-five-gallon drums after she doused them with lye. That one?”

  “Do you even know how to not be sarcastic?” Despite the feigned admonishment, Aiden could feel a smirk tug at the corner of his mouth. In a basement room with a corpse that was virtually headless, he much preferred Dan’s off-color sarcasm to a grave tone and a deadpan expression.

  “I don’t think so, no. That’s another thing you can thank the military for.”

  “Right, the military. That’s who we’ll blame.” Aiden waved a hand like he was swatting away an invisible insect. “All right, the Schmidt case. What about it?”

  “How’s Autumn Trent doing? I mean, after Nico Culetti tried to kill her.” There was a glint of concern in Dan’s dark eyes that Aiden hadn’t expected.

  “She’s fine.” Aiden fought to keep the look of skepticism at bay. “Why? Do you know her?”

  Dan ignored the question and scratched at his temple. “No witness protection?”

  “No,” Aiden replied slowly, his curiosity growing. “She refused it. How do you know her, anyway?”

  Dan shrugged. “She was in a class I taught at VCU Law School years back. I don’t teach there anymore, got enough shit to deal with after the promotion here. She was a good student, and I still hear from her now and then. She’s up for her Ph.D. in a few days, defending her dissertation.”

  Though he was unconvinced of Dan’s dismissive explanation, Aiden nodded. “Yeah, she is. She’s friends with Noah Dalton and Winter.”

  “All right, well, that’s good to hear. They’re good people.”

  Aiden’s first inclination was to ask Dan what exactly drove his interest in Autumn Trent, but he bit back the query and merely nodded again. His curiosity would have to wait.