excitedly in the air. “Yo! Yo!”
They started across the road toward him, crashing through the fallen leaves as they hiked over the rugged terrain. What they found when they reached the rock outcropping was Tommy and the two uniforms crouched in a semicircle around a spent cartridge. It lay on the ground underneath a mountain laurel.
“Looks like you figured right again, Soave,” Tommy said eagerly. At least Des knew what to get the kid for Christmas now-a nice set of knee pads. “Must be he couldn’t find it in the dark.”
“Didn’t want to risk hanging around,” Soave concurred.
“We’ve got shoe prints, too,” Tommy added. “Also a cigarette butt-the old-fashioned kind, without a filter.”
“Nice going, T-man,” Soave said to him warmly. Cookie time.
As for Des, she found herself puzzled. Because you did not leave a butt behind. Not if you were the least bit careful. She knelt down for a closer look at the cartridge. It was no ordinary one. It was a good six inches long. “Damn, I haven’t seen one of these puppies since Kuwait,” she said, Tommy’s eyes widening at her in surprise. Evidently Soave had neglected to mention that she had game. “This explains what Tim Keefe said to me.”
“Which was what?” Soave growled. Now he was irritated by her presence.
She should just go. So why didn’t she? “That it sounded like the mother of all shotguns,” she replied. “What he heard was a Fifty-Cal Pal.” Formally known as a Barrett. 50-caliber long-range semiautomatic sniper rifle. The Barrett had been designed by the military for taking out enemy tanks and bunkers. It only weighed about thirty pounds, but had staggering power and range-its armor-piercing bullet could go through a manhole cover from a half mile away. “Pretty much weapon of choice among your wackos,” she added, getting up out of her crouch. “Tim McVeigh owned him a pair.”
And someone in bucolic Dorset had one, too. Not that Soave would have an easy time finding out who. It was easier to buy a Barrett at a gun show than it was a handgun. All you had to prove was that you were eighteen and had no felony convictions. There was no waiting period, and nothing to stop you from passing it on to someone else. The ammunition was a bit harder to come by, but not much. All of which was crazy, in her opinion. But this was Soave’s crime scene, and she was not there to offer her opinions. So she kept them to herself as she stood there, inhaling the crisp morning air. It didn’t smell of grilled meat up here.
“He was waiting here for her, Tommy,” Soave said, gazing down at the road from their rocky perch. The view from up here was unobstructed. Also panoramic-the shooter could have seen the red Porsche coming from a mile away. “He planned this whole thing out in advance. Man knows how to shoot, too. What are we talking from here, two hundred yards?”
“Easy,” Tommy said.
“Des, you’d better set up that command center for me at town hall, okay?”
“Be happy to.”
“And I want you with us when we meet the family. Is there any kind of local angle you can give us? Any idea who might have wanted Moose Frye dead?”
“All I can tell you is how her sister Takai reads it,” Des replied. “That someone was after her and got Moose by mistake-just Moose’s bad luck that she picked last night to borrow her sister’s car. Takai’s afraid for her life, Rico. She thinks somebody still wants her dead.”
Soave stood there smoothing his see-through mustache. He did that a lot. Tawny must have told him it made him look serious. “Any idea who?”
“Offhand, I’d have to say just about anyone who’s ever met her.”
“Okay, now I’m not following you,” he said, scowling.
Des flashed a mega-wattage smile at him. “Not to worry, wow man. You will.”
Des thought Soave was going to flex himself right into a coma when he got his first look at Takai Frye.
The little man huffed and he puffed as he strutted around the Fryes’s living room, his chest stuck out and his muscles bulging. He was positively desperate to show Takai how in command he was. Takai was exactly the sort of tall, cool rich girl he was always trying to impress. She had put on a pale-green silk dress and high-heeled sandals. Her manner was subdued as she stood before the windows, her slender arms folded before her. She appeared to be in control of her emotions now. She also appeared to be oblivious to Soave and his preening.
The living room remained cold and gloomy, despite the fire roaring in the fireplace. Hangtown, who still wore his nightshirt and long johns, sat slumped in a leather wingback chair, staring with heavy sadness at the flames. The old man seemed to have aged five years in the hour since Des had been there. His eyes were hollow and bloodshot. His vital, madman’s energy seemed to have been snuffed out. Des could not be sure that he even knew they were there.
Jim Bolan sat in the other leather chair, chain-smoking Lucky Strikes and acting very much like someone who needed to find a drink. Or an AA meeting. His hands shook.
Soave had left Tommy behind at the crime scene. The uniformed trooper whom he’d brought along stood there in the living room doorway in stolid silence, hands on his hips, as the little man held forth.
Right now, it was the cartridge that Soave was talking about. “Somebody fired on that Porsche with a Barrett fifty-caliber rifle,” he declared, keeping his voice deep and authoritative. “That’s no Saturday Night Special, folks. Whoever used it knows his way around serious military hardware. If you know of anyone who fits that description-”
“You can pull over right there, boss.” Jim spoke up in a hoarse, quavering voice. “I do. I was a sniper in ’Nam.”
Soave stuck his chin out at him. “You own a gun like that, Jim?”
“I don’t have no use for guns anymore,” Jim replied, tossing his cigarette butt in the fire. “I already did enough killing to last me a lifetime.”
“I see that you’re a smoker, Jim.”
Jim shook another Lucky out of his crumpled pack and lit it. “You going to run me in for that?”
Soave flashed a quick look at Takai to see if she’d reacted to Jim’s crack. She hadn’t. “Smart-mouthing doesn’t go over so good with me, Jim,” he said, moving closer to him. “Somebody comes at me with an attitude, I immediately think he’s hiding something. If I ask you a question, I have a reason for it. Do we understand each other?”
“You’re the man,” Jim said sullenly. “Whatever you say.”
“You got that right,” Soave agreed. “And I say we found an unfiltered butt near that cartridge. Sure looked to me like it could have been a Lucky. What do you think, Des?”
“Could have been,” Des said evenly.
“That’s your brand, am I right, Jim?”
Jim ran a hand through his stringy gray hair. “So what?”
“So things suddenly don’t look so good for you, Jim. We test the saliva on that butt and the DNA matches yours, then I’ve got you at the scene.”
“You’ve got my cigarette, man. Not me.”
Soave went over to inspect one of the suits of armor in the middle of the room. Hangtown stirred slightly when he did that, glancing at the floor under Soave’s feet. Des didn’t know why.
“You’ve been taken down before, am I right, Jim?” Soave demanded gruffly. Des had told him about Jim’s record on the way over.
“I ain’t no drug trafficker,” Jim responded bitterly. “That was all a lie. But it cost me my family’s land, and I sure do regret that.” Jim was looking right at Takai when he said this, Des noticed. Now he turned his gaze back on Soave. “You want to polygraph me, go ahead. You want to test me for gun residue, go ahead. You’re looking at the wrong man. No way I’d do anything to hurt Moose. She was like a sister to me.”
“Are you sure that’s all she was to you?”
Jim started up out of his chair, seething with anger. “You got some nerve, mister, talking like that in front of the old man!”
“Now just relax, Jim,” Des cautioned, stepping between the two of them. Hangtown just continued to sit there, staring into the fire. “The lieutenant’s only trying to get answers.”
“You tell him to watch his mouth,” Jim warned her between gritted teeth.
“I hear she was visiting some guy, Jim,” Soave went on, undeterred. “Maybe you didn’t like her stepping out on you. Maybe you waited at the crossroads for her to come home, shot her and hightailed on foot back here
