The Innocent

  “Yeah. And we’ve already run ballistics. The Glock we found matches a slug we took from the floor of the apartment the deceased lived in. So in my mind, the two cases are definitely connected. Now we just have to find out how.”

  “The killer might have just thrown the gun away during his escape. Might just be a coincidence it was found near the bus explosion.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences. At least not ones like that.”

  As they stepped off the elevator and headed to the condo where two people had been murdered right in front of him, Robie, despite the cool air, wicked a drop of sweat off his forehead.

  He would take a hundred megalomaniacal Saudi princes and bloodthirsty cartel chieftains over this.

  CHAPTER

  26

  THE APARTMENT HAD changed since Robie had last been there. The cops were doing a thorough forensics search and fingerprint powder residue, evidence markers, and thirty-five-mil cameras flashing off were evident throughout the small space.

  Robie eyed a sealed evidence box on the particleboard table.

  “Is that Agent Wind’s work papers? Laptop?”

  Vance nodded. “It is. We’ve sealed it pending your agency’s review. I’m cleared all the way on things like that, but I didn’t want to step on your toes.”

  “Appreciate that.”

  “But we will need to be read in. If there’s something in those docs and files that got her killed, the Bureau needs to know it.”

  “Understood. I can have the review done today and you can be read in directly after.”

  Vance’s smile was guarded. “I never met a more cooperative agency liaison. You’re going to spoil me.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Robie said.

  Until I stop being cooperative, he thought.

  “There were pick marks on the front door lock,” Vance said. “They were subtle, so the person knew what he was doing. Follow me.”

  They walked into the bedroom.

  Robie looked around. The bodies had been removed, but in his mind he still saw them on the bed, their heads pulverized.

  “Wind and her son Jacob were found on the bed. She was holding him. One shot killed them both.” She pointed to the shattered window. “We’ve run a trajectory. Shot came from that high-rise building, well over three hundred meters away. We’re pinpointing the exact room. The building is abandoned, so it’s doubtful anyone saw anything. But we’re still following up. If we’re lucky, the shooter left something behind.”

  You won’t be that lucky, thought Robie.

  “But you said you found a Glock round in the floor. How does that tie into a shot at that distance? It wasn’t a pistol round that killed them. Had to be a rifle round.”

  “I know. That’s what’s so puzzling. If I have to speculate, there were two people involved. The person in this room last night fired a shot into the bed. It went through and lodged in the floor. That slug matched the gun we found underneath a car next to the bus explosion. But the kill shot came through the window, hit Jacob, passed through his head, and impacted his mother. Death was instantaneous for both. Or so the ME said.”

  Robie remembered the look on Jane Wind’s face and wondered how truly “instantaneous” her death had been.

  “So two shooters? Doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he said.

  “It makes no sense,” replied Vance. “But that’s because we don’t have enough facts. We collect enough of those it will make sense.”

  “I appreciate your optimism.” Robie stood in front of the bed, in nearly the exact spot from which he’d fired his weapon the night before. “So the shooter who presumably broke into the apartment fired into the bed. Where was the slug found?”

  Vance motioned for one of her techs to move aside the bed. Robie saw the evidence marker next to a hole in the wooden floor.

  Robie held up an imaginary pistol. He aimed and clicked his finger while Vance watched.

  “He would have been standing about here,” said Robie, who of course knew this for a fact. “The mattress and box springs seem really thin. I doubt they would have diverted the flight path of the round much, not at this close range.”

  “That’s what I figured too,” said Vance.

  “No other wounds on the bodies? The round fired into the mattress didn’t hit them?”

  “Negative. No human residue on it and no other wounds on the victims.”

  “So he fired a shot into the mattress why? To get their attention?”

  “Maybe,” said Vance.

  “Were they awake when they were shot?”

  “Looked to be. The position where they fell on the bed leads me to believe they were awake when they were killed.”

  “So he fires, but doesn’t hit them. He did it to get their attention, or maybe to get them to be quiet. Anyone report hearing any screams?”

  Vance sighed. “If you can believe it, the only person who lives on this floor and was here last night is an old woman who’s both deaf and blind. She, of course, heard nothing. The only other floor resident was working in Maryland at the time. The apartments above and below this one are vacant.”

  Oh, I believe it, thought Robie.

  “But the round from outside killed them,” he said. He went over to the broken window and examined it. He looked outside beyond to the building he could not see last night. The alleyway was down below. The one he had been supposed to use to make his escape. There were other buildings separating the two high-rise structures, but they were all one-story. The shooter would have had a clean shot.

  “Okay, gunman inside. Shooter outside. Gunman fires into the bed. Shooter outside kills Agent Wind and her son.” He turned back to Vance. “Wind had two sons.”

  “That’s the other really puzzling piece. Her other son is less than a year old. His name is Tyler by the way. He was found by a woman on the third floor.”

  “Found how?”

  “It’s crazy, Robie. Someone knocked on her door shortly after the Winds were killed. At least according to the preliminary time of death the ME gave us. The woman opened the door and there was Tyler in his car carrier sound asleep. She recognized him as Wind’s son and tried phoning her, then went to her apartment. No one answered so she called the cops. That’s when the bodies were discovered.”

  “You have a theory for that?”

  She shook her head. “I know this sounds unbelievable, but it might be that whoever broke into Wind’s apartment took the kid down there.”

  “Why?”

  “Why kill an infant? He can’t testify against you.”

  “They had no problem killing the other son,” countered Robie.

  “Been thinking about that. Look at the hole in the window and then look at the bed. If Wind had grabbed up her other son, maybe to protect him against the intruder, he might have been on the left side—in other words, facing the window.”

  Robie finished this thought for her. “Shooter fires, really only aiming to hit Wind, but the shot hits the kid first and then her. Maybe he intended to kill them both, or at least wanted to kill Wind and if the kid was in the way, too bad.”

  “That’s how I see it,” agreed Vance. “So that sets up an interesting possibility.”

  “Such as?”

  “How’s this for a theory? Intruder comes in, just a standard burglary. He doesn’t mean to but somehow awakens Wind and her son. He fires a shot into the bed to keep them quiet. At the same time, unbeknownst to him or Wind, of course, a shooter is targeting her from that other building at the exact same time. He fires, killing her and her son. The intruder is stunned. He could have ducked down, thinking he might be shot next. He sees the other kid in the carrier, grabs it up, and during his escape drops him off at another apartment. Then he gets away.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in coincidences,” said Robie.

  She smiled weakly. “I know. It’s like the mother of all coincidences, isn’t it?”

  It’s also exactly what happened, thought Robie.
>
  CHAPTER

  27

  THEY WERE IN the other building, from where the kill shot had come. It was abandoned, filthy, full of junk, easy to get into and out of. In other words, it was perfect.

  Robie and Vance had looked through several rooms that could have served as the shooter’s sanctuary. When they entered the fifth one Robie said, “This is it.”

  Vance froze and, hands on hips, looked at him. “Why?”

  Robie walked over to one of the windows. “Window is open a notch. None of the others were. The sight line is dead on.” He pointed at the windowsill. “And the dust has been disturbed. Check the pattern. Muzzle mark.” He pointed at a dark stain the size of a dime farther along on the sill. “Residue from the discharge.” He looked down at the concrete floor. “Knee imprints in the dirt. He used the sill as his center of support, lined up his shot, and took it.”

  He knelt down, slipped out his gun, took aim through the window, lining up his iron sights with the window with the hole in it across the way. “There’s a rack of lights on that taller building on the opposite side of the street where Wind lived. At night those lights would be on. A shooter would be looking right at them and that would screw his shot into the fourth floor over there. Except not from this spot. The angle is perfect.” He rose, put his gun away. “This is it.”

  Vance looked impressed. “You have special forces in your background?”

  “If I did I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Come on. I know lots of former Delts and SEALs.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  She looked out the window. “I also know some people at DCIS. I texted them about you. None of them have heard of you.”

  “I just came back into the country,” said Robie, transitioning into his cover story. “If you really want to check me out, call DCIS. I can give you my direct superior’s contact info.”

  “Okay. And I will,” she said. “So my burglar theory and separate shooter theory looks sound. I can’t see how the guy in the apartment last night could have known about the shooter over here.”

  You’re right, I didn’t, thought Robie.

  Vance continued. “But now the question becomes, why kill Wind? What was she working on for your people? I’ll need to know that.”

  “I’ll check with my folks. But it could be something she stumbled onto,” said Robie.

  “Stumbled onto? How does that make sense?”

  “Not saying it does. Only saying it has to be considered. Just because she worked for DCIS doesn’t mean that was the reason she was killed.”

  “Okay, but forgive me if I take as my working hypothesis that her death was related to her work.”

  Robie said, “That’s your prerogative. Has her ex been notified?”

  “In the process. Her son is with Social Services for now.”

  “What’s her former husband do?”

  “You don’t know?” she said in surprise.

  “Not without looking at the file, no. I was just assigned to this case, Agent Vance. Cut me a little slack.”

  “Okay, sorry. Rick Wind. He’s retired military but he has another job. We’re in the process of tracking him down now.”

  “In the process of tracking him down? He’d have to have seen the news. He should’ve called you by now.”

  “Believe me, Robie, I thought of that.”

  “You have his home address?”

  “Maryland. My agents have already been there. It’s empty.”

  “You said he has a job. Where does he work?”

  “He owns a pawnshop in northeast D.C. Bladensburg Road. Place called the Premium Pawnshop. Not the greatest part of town, but then you don’t usually find pawnshops next to the Ritz, do you?”

  “Premium Pawnshop? Catchy. Anybody tried to reach him there?”

  “No one’s there either. All locked up.”

  “So where is the guy?”

  “If I knew that I would’ve told you.”

  “If he’s not at home, and he’s not at work, and he hasn’t called the police, then there are only a few possibilities.”

  “He either doesn’t watch TV, listen to the radio, or have any friends. Or he killed his soon-to-be ex-wife and kid and is on the run. Or else he’s dead too.”

  “That’s right. But you really think the guy killed his ex and kid using a sniper rifle? Domestic issues like that are usually face-to-face.”

  “Well, he was former military. And they were getting divorced.”

  “So it was not amicable?”

  “I don’t know. I’m making inquiries. Maybe you can help on that score. She’s with your agency after all.”

  He ignored this. “Jane Wind have any family in the area that you know of?”

  She looked at him quizzically. “Are you sure you two are from the same agency?”

  “It’s a big agency.”

  “Not that big. FBI dwarfs it.”

  “FBI dwarfs pretty much everybody. So, family in the area?”

  “None. Neither apparently does her hubby. At least that we can find. But I’ve been working this case for less than eight hours.”

  Robie said, “Have you searched his home and the pawnshop?”

  “Home, yes. Nothing that helped us. Pawnshop next. You care to tag along?”

  “Absolutely.”

  CHAPTER

  28

  THE BUCARS PULLED up in front of the Premium Pawnshop and Robie and Vance stepped from one, while two other FBI agents climbed out of their vehicle. There were bars across the front door and windows of the pawnshop. The door had three serious locks. The businesses next to it were gutted, with blackened plywood nailed against their fronts. Trash littered the streets and Robie spotted a couple of druggies stumbling along.

  Vance sent the other two agents to check the rear of the building while she and Robie approached the front. She shaded her eyes and peered inside. “Can’t see anything.”

  “Can you knock down the door or do you need a warrant?”

  “Rick Wind’s house was less problematic. We suspected he might be hurt. This place is obviously closed.”

  “He could be inside, hurt or dead,” said Robie, joining her at the front of the shop and peering between the bars into the darkened interior. “That should be enough.”

  “And if we find evidence he committed the crime and his defense lawyer gets it thrown out because our search was determined to be unlawful under the Fourth Amendment?”

  “I guess that’s why you FBI agents get the big bucks.”

  “And the big career derailment.”

  “How about I kick open the door and search the place?”

  “Still have the same evidentiary problem.”

  “Yeah, but it’ll be my career that’s derailed, not yours.”

  “I’m here with you.”

  “I’ll tell them I did it all on my own, against your express instructions.”