The Husbands Page 8

  “I did.”

  “Yeah. It’s still a risk, though. It’s dark, there’s a chance she turns and sees him pull up, maybe even hears him chamber a round. Most .30-30s are lever-action, makes a noise when you cock the rifle. So it’s a risk. A minor one, but I peg the guy as cocky.”

  “I might agree with you.” She studied the grass, the trees, the creek below. “Something that interests me, though — there’s no intimacy with that sort of distance.”

  “Well, okay I hear that. But hunters will tell you there’s plenty of intimacy shooting a big buck from fifty yards. And it’s not an easy shot.”

  “Looking down a scope maybe, brings it closer.”

  “Could be a scope.”

  “And maybe he’s been hunting her for a while. The intimacy comes from that.”

  Orzo nodded, and poked at something in his mouth, grimaced like he was in pain. “Could be he gets a thrill being at a distance, too. Maybe the chance he misses, that’s part of the high. These guys get some sort of dopamine hit, isn’t that it? But he’s not gonna miss. He’s ex-military, that’s my gut. Targets women. Maybe the type doesn’t matter. Just finds them alone . . . he’s driving around, finds them, follows them a while. If they have children with them, that’s collateral, I think.”

  She tucked her hands in her pockets and gave it all one last look and said, “I’ve got a firearms expert on his way and I’d like to meet with you and your team and Severin and Broward when he gets here. Does that work for you?”

  “Yeah. Works for me.”

  “While we’re waiting, I’d like to look at the Haig interview and the gas station footage.”

  * * *

  She followed Orzo to the Auburn Police Department and waited while a deputy went to the records room and brought out case evidence in a box.

  Orzo took her into his office. “You can work here. I’ll be gone for about an hour.” He poked a finger in his mouth again and made a face. “Gotta get a tooth fixed. Been gettin’ bad.”

  He left and she booted up the video of Blake Haig’s interview.

  The camera was angled slightly down and the lights shined off the scalp beneath his prematurely thinning hair. Poor video made it tough to read his expressions or be sure exactly what he was looking at but she listened for a while and observed his body language: tight shoulders, everything protectively drawn in. He had on some kind of racing sweatshirt, dark color with red and black checkers down the arms. She made a note that he’d been asked to come in to give his statement but he hadn’t dressed smartly. Orzo gave his name and the date and time of day but not his badge number. The woman in the room introduced herself as Muriel Ingram, another detective.

  Orzo: “Mr. Haig, first I want to thank you for coming down.”

  Haig didn’t say anything.

  Orzo: “I can say that we’re all . . . None of us can imagine the grief you’ve been experiencing. But your being here is a great help to us. The more we can learn about you and Tammy the quicker we’re going to find out who killed her and bring them to justice.”

  Haig nodded, looking down. Kelly leaned toward the screen. She could just make out what looked like a blank stare of shock.

  “We have to ask you questions. Certain questions may be unpleasant.”

  “I understand.” Haig was barely audible.

  “Were you and Tammy getting along?”

  He nodded again. “Of course, absolutely.”

  “The stress of expecting a child, the money situation, everything okay there?”

  “Yes. I was . . . everything was . . .”

  “It’s okay, Mr. Haig. Take your time.”

  He lifted his face and looked at the people in the room, his gaze traveling from Orzo to Ingram and back to Orzo. “You need to do something.”

  “We’re doing everything we can. Like I said, we have to ask these questions. So — everything was good between you and Tammy?”

  “Everything was good.” He looked into a corner, said nothing for a moment and then hiccupped a laugh. “Tammy might get after me because I leave my towels on the floor. We pick on each other for the books we read. She’s reading Fifty Shades of Grey or something and I’m reading a book on bridges. But we liked a lot of the same movies . . .”

  He gave the two detectives another look and then put his face in his hands and his shoulders jumped with a sob. It seemed to finally be hitting him now and Blake Haig fell apart. Kelly made a note about the books, recalling Fifty Shades of Grey on the shelf in his living room. From what she’d seen of the house it was the only remaining evidence the victim had ever lived there. There were stages of grief, and people handled it differently. It could be healthy to move on, but it was hard to say what it meant to remove nearly all traces of your departed wife from your home. When her own father had died, what remnants of his existence had her mother kept, and for how long? Kelly turned her mind there only to find a blur of memories. His dark rain jacket hanging on the coat rack in the foyer — how long before her mother had boxed it up?

  She returned her attention to the end of the interview, noting Orzo’s light touch and Haig’s behavior. There was no correct way to grieve, but Haig’s initial blankness, followed by his plaintive requests the police “do something” — then the drifting into memories and statements of incredulity — were consistent with bereavement. And either he’d withdrawn from there further into numbness to become the distant, unemotional man she’d met that morning as a natural part of the process, or because there was something else going on. Like the killer was talking to him, too.

  She watched the gas station footage next. People came and went. Everything had already been logged — the makes and models of the cars, the identity of the pixelated faces appearing on screen. One customer gave her pause when it looked like he was staring off in the direction of Island Park as he pumped gas. But the time stamp on the video placed the moment at eight minutes after the jogger who discovered Tammy’s body had placed the emergency call. The customer at the gas station was probably watching the police arrive on the scene.

  She scrutinized the faces of the three unidentified persons for a while, then reviewed the list of those identified. Twenty-six people in all recorded at the neighboring gas station around the time Tammy Haig was murdered.

  Her phone rang. Cal Wagner, the firearms expert, had arrived in Syracuse.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A close-up image of a bullet loomed as Wagner took out a wadded tissue from his pocket and blew his nose. Wagner was in his late fifties, mostly bald, fixed with a gray, brush mustache and wearing half-rimmed glasses. He’d worked serial killings in the past and had drafted a presentation on the flight in from Texas where he’d just gotten through analyzing the scene of a mass shooting. Kelly had met his wife, once, in Stafford, at a formal party on Memorial Day, who was lovely, and confessed, after two bourbon pomegranate cocktails, that he was the toughest man she ever met, even though he still cried over their children. After three drinks, she’d told Kelly that his bed farts were loud enough to get their two Foxhounds barking.

  “All right. Let’s start with some basics.” Wagner pointed a thick finger at the screen behind him. “The projectiles recovered from each of the victims are flat-nosed .30-30 bullets. A ‘30-30’ means a 30-caliber bullet using 30 grains of smokeless powder. It’s a jacketed or metal-patched lead bullet typically weighing between 150 and 170 grains.”

  Detective Epps sat at the back of the room with his arms crossed, looking bored. Severin was beside him, listening like he was waiting for just the right opportunity to break open Wagner’s analysis. The federal prosecutor named Denis Starkey had joined them with his assistant, Lauren Giovanetti. Broward, Orzo, and Detective Ingram filled out the rest of the law enforcement present in the conference room.

  Wagner said, “The conclusion on the make across all victims is Federal Premium .30-30 150 grain Centerfire Rifle Ammunition. The casings are molecular-fused jackets. Its effective range is limited to about 200 ya
rds. When fired, there is a relatively light recoil. The jacket ejected typically flies back and to the side, though it can bounce or behave unpredictably.”

  “There’s a laser pointer if you want it,” Broward said.

  Wagner shielded his eyes from the projector light to identify who was speaking.

  “Right there on the shelf in the podium,” Broward told him.

  Wagner fished around until he found it then used the laser to trace the shape of the bullet on the screen as he continued. “The projectile is also flat-nosed, which you can see here — you’re looking at the copper bullet, the flat lead tip on top. All right: this type of load stands in contrast to spire-point bullets, which can have a flatter bullet trajectory and retain greater velocity downrange. Why am I telling you this? Because a knowledgeable shooter might be forgoing the use of spire-points, confident he’d be at relatively close range to his targets. Or, perhaps like most people, he’s not aware of these discrepancies and purchases a conventional load. So at this point it’s still unclear whether we’re talking about an experienced marksman or an everyday Joe.”

  Wagner put the pointer away and pressed a button on the laptop, flipped to a new slide showing a box of ammunition. “You cannot ship these in New York State, so no online sales. But you can pick up a box of twenty rounds at Walmart for twenty dollars.”

  The slide changed to a photograph of a Winchester rifle. Wagner sniffed. “The majority of rifles chambered in .30-30 are lever-action rifles with tubular magazines. What that means is that these rifles are typically very portable, light, with adequate trajectory and wounding at close range. And you can load six shots as fast as you can work the lever.”

  Severin raised his hand and spoke before Wagner could call on him. “I’m sorry, we’re aware of all this. What we’re looking for is—”

  “I’m getting there.” Wagner flipped through slides depicting the various rifles. “Of the lever-action rifles, the Winchester Model 94, the Marlin Model 396 are among the most popular choices for chambering the .30-30. Okay? The Savage Model 99 works with this bullet, though the Savage uses a rotary magazine and is the more likely choice for spire-point bullets, which we’re not seeing here in the recovered projectiles, so let’s eliminate that.” He tapped the keyboard and the first rifle was back on the screen. “My professional opinion is that the shooter is using a Winchester Model 1894.”

  Kelly watched the smug satisfaction slide over Severin’s features. He met her eyes and tilted his head as if to say, There you go. Ted Archer had a Winchester tucked up into his basement ceiling. Pretty much all the cops had already been saying Winchester all along, so this was vindication.

  Wagner took out a tissue and blew his nose. “Cold and rainy,” he said. “Second we touched down, my nose started going.”

  “At least it’s not snowing,” Broward said.

  “Y’all get some good snow up here,” Wagner said, leaning out of the light beam to see the chief.

  “Lake effect,” Broward said. “Comes down from Lake Ontario. We’ll get a couple big dumps this year, three, four feet of snow at a time. It’s coming.”

  “I never could understand living in all that white stuff.” Wagner went on for another ten minutes talking about what usually happened to a bullet when it hit a target. His slides showed projectiles in various conditions, misshapen, mushroomed and otherwise.

  “People talk about .22s bouncing around in a skull. Let me tell you: I’ve seen a .22 go clean through a man’s chest. We found the projectile on the floor a few feet away and the only marks on it were the rifling grooves. At the same time, I’ve seen a .38 go into one side of a man’s head, travel around his skull beneath the skin and pop out the other side unrecognizable.”

  Severin muttered and shifted in his seat, making a show.

  Wagner continued, “Point being, you hear stories about what this caliber does or what that one does, but bullets can behave unpredictably, and their shape can change. These next images are not for the faint of heart.”

  New slides alternated between close-ups of various recovered projectiles and the graphic gunshot wounds they’d caused. This up close and personal, victims were reduced to looking like meat. “You can see here, these GSWs are substantial, but the contortion of the projectile is nominal. Now these here, these are GSWs to the head. There’s a marked difference and that’s because the cranium has altered the shape of the round.”

  Kelly glanced at Broward. Wagner was confirming his concerns — the contortions to a bullet when it impacted bone. Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she saw a missed call from her brother Rick and a text: Hey sis. You in town??

  Wagner stepped away from the podium and addressed the group directly. “From what I’ve seen in these CSS reports, each of the projectiles has endured some contortion. But the ones in the Archer case should stand up to rifling tests, and we’re going to try to magnify the heck out of the rest, see what we can get.”

  She thought about responding to Rick but put her phone away and focused on Severin, who looked like he was getting bad news.

  “Finally,” Wagner said, “these are narrow wound channels we’re seeing here. That means two things. Hand-loaded cartridges have greater velocity and wider wound channels — what the trauma surgeons call ‘cavitation.’ But these narrower wound channels indicate factory-loaded cartridges, meaning they were purchased with powder loaded in at the factory, and might be easier to trace the sale. That’s the one thing. The other thing is when you put this all together, when you consider a shooter opting for flat-tipped, factory-loaded cartridges when he could shell out a few more bucks for the better brand for more secure penetration . . .” Wagner cleared out his throat again. “Well, I’ve been encouraged to share my opinion, and it is this: this is not an experienced, big game hunter. This is not ex-military.”

  Kelly glanced at Orzo next, who seemed to be taking Wagner’s contradiction of his theory rather well and continued to look on with interest. She figured an experienced detective knew not to rely on intuition, but let the clues and evidence lead.

  Wagner continued, “Your unknown subject might have done some target practice and developed a fairly good eye, but he’s not a firearms expert. He’s using a Winchester 94 with a scope and he’s semi-experienced.”

  Orzo raised his hand. “Either that or he’s going for maximum risk, part of the thrill.”

  Wagner acquired a thoughtful look. “From what I’ve seen, these are not fly-by-night killings. These are meant to look slipshod to some extent — pull up and pop somebody in a drive-by. But they’re very calculated and I don’t think he’s a risk-taker. He’s a good shot — not an expert, but maybe he thinks he is.”

  The killer is arrogant. Wagner made eye contact with her, signaling he was done. She walked to the front. “Thank you, Special Investigator Wagner. I know you didn’t have a lot of prep time but that was very informative and I look forward to the final results of your examination.”

  Broward clapped his hands and there was a smattering of applause. She thanked Wagner again, shook his hand, and smiled as he took a seat. Then she stepped behind the podium.

  “So there it is. We’re looking for a killer who’s using a Winchester 94 and a scope, who has some experience as a shooter. That could be as simple as someone who grew up hunting — maybe he still does — but could also mean target practice, so we’re going to want more focus on the regional gun ranges. And we’ve learned from the autopsies and crime scene reconstruction that a slightly upward penetration point indicates the shooter was possibly seated, perhaps in his vehicle, using the door as an aiming support.”

  Wagner gave a slight nod, indicating she had it right. She looked at the group. “We know that, with the exception of the juvenile victim, each of the projectiles remained inside the victim’s cranium. Like Wagner said, bullets can behave unpredictably inside a body. So, in an oblique way, we’ve gotten lucky. We have this evidence to examine.”

  She let that settle and finished up.
“Now the elephant in the room — with all of that said, we know the shooter left his casings, or jackets, at each scene. There’s no way with all of his other precision that this was accidental, or it’s at least a low probability that the casings became irretrievable to him in every circumstance. So this tells us some things. One, with no fingerprints found on the projectiles nor on the casings, the shooter likely uses gloves, and he even uses baby powder on his hands, as particulates were detected on two of the casings. Two, that he’s perhaps trying to lead us somewhere, maybe even distract us. What might be said to be a ‘calling card.’”

  She swept a look over the group and saw she had everyone’s attention — even Severin and Epps. “So I want to take a short break, and then I’ll offer my own presentation, my profile on the killer.”

  * * *

  During the break, she found Severin in the kitchenette outside the conference room, pouring himself a cup of coffee. Epps was standing with him and saw her coming and left. Kelly poured herself some coffee.

  “You’re getting Archer’s phone and notebook,” Severin said flatly. “Should be here within the hour.”

  “Thank you, Detective.”

  “Don’t thank me — thank your boss, I guess.” He showed her his back and left.

  * * *

  The conference room smelled sweaty and the blinds were drawn. Kelly had put up a large map of the region on the wall. A video camera was recording the presentation.

  She stood behind the podium and took a breath, clasping her hands at her waist.

  “My job is to look for patterns which form an MO. There’s plenty of variation among serial killer cases. Some killers get highly personal — victims are chosen for who they are, or who or what they might represent to the killer — a woman who rebuffed them, a mother who humiliated them, men who undermined them. In your random kill-thrill case, sexual assault or sexual emission is present upwards of ninety percent of the time. But there is no evidence of sexual contact across these cases. These are not random — these are calculated and yet precisely impersonal — the killing is done from a distance, with a common weapon.