We finished before noon and spent some time in the gun shop looking at weapons and accessories. Haley held up a beige shooting jacket with small loops on the chest to hold ammunition, which I guessed that she thought was cute. The owner asked if we had a good time and if I was still interested in lessons, which I was. He handed me a flyer. I said that Saturdays would work fine. I did not mention coming here during irregular hours or the name Richard Kostas again. The owner had already been suspicious enough of us. After looking around and talking to Ervin, I did not have a sense that he or Tyler had anything to do with Richard Kostas.
Hailey and I stepped outside onto the porch. The front door closed behind us.
“So, what did you notice, if anything?” I asked her.
Hailey said, “This place seems to be exactly what it is. A sporting clay course. Nothing unusual.”
“My thoughts, too. It’s pretty big.”
“They have to be, considering how far shot travels. Probably about forty acres here … and isolated.”
“No lights on the parking lot,” I said.
Her eyes scanned the four corners of the lot.
“No farmhouses nearby,” she said. “They’re all back a ways. The surrounding cornfields are high enough that no one could see cars on the road.”
“A good place for a meeting, if you didn't want anyone else to know you’re here.”
Hailey said, “Yeah, especially when this place is closed. Those hedges around the parking lot would conceal any cars.”
“What do you think about the owner, Ervin?”
“Nothing, really,” she replied. “He seemed normal and annoyed at your questions. I don’t think he or that Tyler kid had anything to do with Kostas.”
“Yeah, agreed.”
Hailey’s eyes looked toward the shooting stations of the sporting clay course. The first station was visible from the parking lot. She lowered her eyebrows and cocked her head to the side.
“What’s up?” I asked Hailey.
“Not sure.”
She seemed to concentrate on the box into which we had placed the spent shotgun shells after we finished shooting.
Hailey said, “There’s a small mark on that box. You can see it from here.”
We walked over to the first shooting station. A short, yellowish chalk mark started at the upper right corner, traveled toward the lower left corner, and ended midway on the box.
“It just caught my eye,” she continued. “Maybe they mark it when it’s time to empty it.”
I lifted the lid. The box was less than a quarter full. My hand fished around until it reached the bottom, but the box contained only spent shotgun shells.
“Possibly,” I said, “or maybe some kid with chalk drew on it.”
No one else was on the course, so we walked over to the second and third shooting stations to check out the shell boxes there. There were no chalk marks.
Hailey said, “I suppose it’s nothing. Guess we came up empty.”
“Well,” I said, “we’re pretty sure that Richard Kostas was here during off-hours, but that’s about it.”
The corner of Hailey’s mouth curled into a smile. “Your shoulder will be sore from the recoil in the morning. Put some ice on it.”
“I’ll remember that.”
Daniel returned in the red minivan and pulled up next to us. He waved at her and not so much at me. Her daughters were fidgeting in the back seats, munching on colorful cereal in clear plastic bags.
“I got to run,” Hailey said. “Sorry we didn’t find anything.”
“Yeah, me too. But it was fun.”
She climbed in the passenger seat, and Daniel drove away.
Because we had not uncovered why Richard Kostas had visited Turner Creek Sporting Clays, I knew where I had to go next. Except this time, I would investigate alone. The engine of my Barracuda growled as I fired up the ignition and drove toward the waterfront where the sheriff had found the body of Richard Kostas floating in the Chesapeake Bay.
11
So far, my investigation had turned up no concrete facts to help Marisa Dupree’s defense, and I was beginning to doubt it ever would. By looking into the death of Richard Kostas, I had hoped to find the stolen computer files and clear Marisa, but maybe my motives were more personal. I had been stretching myself too far and feeding my own ego. Marisa could not have expected this kind of investigation from me. I was out of my depth, especially with forensics. To be completely honest, I was also interested in clearing my own name with the sheriff, but that was not why Marisa had retained me as her lawyer. She was my client. My focus had to be on her.
The facts of this case haunted my thoughts. Winning seemed impossible. All I had promised Marisa was a competent defense. I could have prepared for the hearing based on what I already knew, argued every legal point, objected to each shred of evidence … and lost.
But Marisa had claimed she was innocent.
I pressed the accelerator of my Barracuda and headed down the backroads to the place where the sheriff had found the body of Richard Kostas. I would hang with this investigation a while longer and try to figure out what happened earlier this week.
Sometime between 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday and the time a fisherman spotted the corpse in the water, Kostas had traveled from Turner Creek Sporting Clays to the edge of the Chesapeake Bay. Kostas could have driven himself there or been just a lump of cold cargo in the trunk of his own car.
Several roads led to the mouth of Opossum Creek where the sheriff had dredged the body out of the dark water. If Kostas had died inland, the killers probably would have taken country lanes to avoid the glaring lights, security cameras, and stop-and-go traffic along Ocean Highway. My GPS system gave three possible routes to my destination. A deputy had found Kostas’s SUV near the scene. If the killers had snatched his keys and stolen his car, they probably would not have abandoned it close by. Only amateurs would
