Crosshairs, p.14
Crosshairs, page 14
I knew Lincoln said that just to stir the shit. Contrary to public opinion, the FBI couldn’t just step in on any case. It would cause too many problems with a major department like the NYPD. I let it slide.
I said, “I was told that the supervisor of the fugitive squad has been out for several months with some sort of medical issue. They said you’re overseeing the group.”
Lincoln nodded. “Yeah, the supervisory special agent has serious back problems. He might go out on a medical. Is there something specific you want to know?”
“Just doing an evaluation on Trilling. Did he do a good job for you?”
“Surprisingly, yes. I don’t usually expect much from local law enforcement. But he seemed to be sharp and determined, even if he’s awfully young.”
“Anything negative?”
“You understand, supervising a single squad is a sideline for me. I have the entire division to look after. I didn’t see or hear about anything that Trilling screwed up, if that’s what you’re asking. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have actual work to do. Not that I would expect someone from the NYPD to understand that.”
Robert Lincoln would never know how much it took for me not to respond to a snotty comment like that.
CHAPTER 56
YESTERDAY, ROB TRILLING had found the sniper’s perch one block south of the building where Gus Querva had been shot. Trilling had talked to the crime-scene tech who’d taken the most photographs. The photos were detailed and showed the wound just above Querva’s right temple. Trilling admired the shot from a professional perspective.
After looking at the photos, Trilling determined where the body had been found, then stood in that spot and looked down the street in each direction. That’s when he knew exactly where the shot had come from. A nice recessed doorway to a small office building was perfect. Trilling got crime-scene techs to photograph it. He didn’t ask for any DNA swabs of the area.
Trilling liked working alone and consulting with the crime-scene people as needed. He didn’t feel like he was just tagging along behind someone as he usually did with Michael Bennett. Not that that was a bad place to be. He appreciated how the seasoned detective had gone out of his way to explain how investigations worked and how everything came down to details. There were no shortcuts in a homicide investigation.
Today, Trilling checked security footage from the shops and buildings around the crime scene. He’d just finished looking at the fifth security recording. He was able to find a short clip of a man carrying a long case right after the shooting. The man walked past a camera in an electronics store. The image wasn’t clear enough to identify the man, but Trilling could see that he was around six feet with short, dark hair. He didn’t appear overweight or really skinny. Pretty similar to the description given by the coffee shop employee.
Trilling wanted to prove to Michael Bennett that he could conduct a professional investigation even if he wasn’t sorry that the victim was dead. Gus Querva and his buddies had run roughshod over parts of the Bronx. The media focused on Querva’s PR moves, especially the money he’d shelled out for community centers. The irony was, he had taken the money from the community before he’d put it back into the community. Not one major media outlet seemed to ever question how he’d made his money.
Just thinking about the situation made Trilling angry.
As he was going over his assignment notes, Trilling got a text. He looked down at it immediately. He was surprised to see it was from Michael Bennett’s daughter, Juliana, asking if he had time to call her.
Trilling sighed and made the call right then.
Juliana’s cheerful voice immediately made him perk up. She wanted to go to lunch. When he said he didn’t have time, she settled for ice cream. She gave him a place on the Upper West Side that was on his route back to the office.
As Trilling walked down the block toward the ice cream shop about twenty minutes later, he wondered why he was doing it. No question Juliana was a beautiful, intelligent girl. But the hassles this could cause in his already strained relationship with Michael Bennett outweighed the benefits.
Just as he considered turning around and texting Juliana that he couldn’t make it, she spotted him and waved from a table in front of the shop. She wore a simple jacket over jeans and a colorful blouse. Her brown hair bounced on her shoulders as she waved. He couldn’t turn around now even if he wanted to.
Trilling ordered two chocolate sundaes. As they sat in the cool autumn air, Juliana peppered him with questions about his personal life. She sort of sounded like his mother.
No, he wasn’t dating anyone. Yes, he was eating enough. Yes, he was taking a break from work when he needed to. At least that’s what he told her.
Then Juliana asked, “How is it, working with my dad?”
“Educational. He’d be a good teacher.”
“I guess he would be. I never thought of it like that. But he does handle ten kids pretty well. That’s not something everyone can do.”
“It looks like he’s done a great job with your family. I can barely keep my own schedule straight let alone keeping track of ten other people’s schedules too.”
“Mary Catherine gives him a lot of help. She’s been part of our lives for a long time now. My youngest sister, Chrissy, even developed her own little Irish accent for a while, not long after Mary Catherine joined the family.” Juliana paused and turned serious as she said, “How’s the case going?”
Trilling just shrugged. He was tired of telling people they had no leads.
A giant smile spread on Juliana’s face. She was almost bouncing in the seat when she said, “Do you want to surprise him and come to our apartment for dinner again tonight?”
Looking into Juliana’s warm brown eyes, it was hard for him to make a rational decision. After a full ten seconds, Trilling said, “I don’t think that would be a good idea right now.”
Juliana didn’t ask for any explanation. Trilling had a hard time reading the look on her beautiful face. He couldn’t tell if she was angry, hurt, or okay with his answer. Trilling’s experience with women was limited. This was another puzzle he’d have to learn how to solve.
CHAPTER 57
I HEADED OUT of the FBI building, still smarting from Robert Lincoln’s comments about the NYPD. I passed a squad bay marked INTELLIGENCE ANALYSTS and decided to take a risk. I remembered the analyst at One Police Plaza, Joe Tavarez, telling me that his wife, Cindy, worked a similar job here at the FBI. I slipped into the room, and a woman at the first desk looked up and saw my law enforcement visitor’s badge. She asked if she could help me.
“I was hoping to see Cindy Tavarez. I don’t have an appointment. I just wanted to say hello.” The woman led me to an inner office that held six more analysts.
Cindy stood up and greeted me as I approached her desk. She said, “Detective Bennett? I thought I recognized you from all the newspaper articles over the years. Glad to meet you in person.” She had a warm smile.
“Just wanted to make sure no one was upset we were verifying Joe’s alibi. I told him we were just trying to eliminate anyone with his kind of skills.” Cindy seemed okay with my explanation and invited me to sit for a minute.
As we were chatting, a younger man walked by, and Cindy said, “Darnell, this is Michael Bennett with the NYPD. He knows Joe.” She looked at me and said, “Detective Bennett, this is Darnell Nash. He was Joe’s spotter in the service.”
I shook the young man’s hand. “Joe said he had a friend who worked over here.”
Nash said, “I would’ve followed him on to the NYPD if I hadn’t gotten a little careless and stepped on an IED.” He lifted his left pant leg to display a titanium prosthetic. Then he said, “If it wasn’t for Joe and Cindy, I never would’ve landed this job. I thank God every day for them.”
“You got a lot more analysts in one place than us. The NYPD tends to scatter them among the squads.”
“The FBI does too. I’m still new to this, and they thought it would be best if I worked down here in intake until I was up to speed on everything. Cindy makes sure I don’t get in too much trouble. Plus, I like the 4/10 schedule. Do you ever work joint cases with the FBI?”
I hesitated, then said, “Occasionally. I used to work with an agent named Emily Parker.”
Nash said, “I’m sorry. I heard about her murder. It’s shocked all of us to the core. I didn’t know her personally, but I’ve heard great things about her.”
“She was great. She made working with the feds easy. Sometimes it feels like a lot of your agents didn’t get that memo.”
Nash handed me his business card. “I’d like to work with other agencies. Especially the NYPD. I met one of your guys working on a task force. Rob something.”
“Trilling. He’s working with me for the time being.”
“We vets tend to stick together. I hope he’s doing well.”
I just nodded.
Cindy Tavarez excused herself.
When she was gone, Nash asked me in a quiet voice, “Working anything interesting right now?”
“That depends on how you define ‘interesting.’ I met a man with a pet rat named Nigel. That was interesting.”
“I meant case-wise.”
I shook my head. “I never think of people being murdered as interesting. Just a job that needs to be done.” A job I needed to get back to right now.
CHAPTER 58
THE NEXT MORNING at nine o’clock, I was surprised when Rob Trilling still hadn’t come through the office door. I had a lot I wanted to discuss with him. Some of it was professional, some was personal. All of it was starting to eat at me badly. I couldn’t be around anyone else. I pretended to be going over reports at my desk so I didn’t have to hear any of Walter Jackson’s corny puns. Even if they usually made me smile. On rare occasions, I don’t want to smile. I want to be grumpy. I think that’s in the Bill of Rights for fathers. Certainly for fathers of more than three children.
Trilling rolled into the office about 9:30, carrying a stuffed equipment bag and an armful of notebooks. He dropped it all at the desk he’d been using next to mine.
He didn’t wait for the question. Trilling said, “Sorry I’m late. The FBI’s rotating cars and I had to return my Ford.”
“Did they give you a replacement?”
“They said I get a new one when I come back to the task force. I only had about five minutes to clean out the car. I don’t like to turn in equipment that’s not spotless.”
That was definitely a military attitude. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen it as a police attitude. Sometimes it felt like the goal of some detectives was to see how much garbage they could leave in a car they had to turn in.
Trilling looked at me and asked, “Something wrong?”
I looked in every direction to make sure no one had wandered into the squad bay. It was empty, aside from us. Trilling took the chair next to my desk.
I said, “Were you going to tell me about your date with Juliana?”
“It wasn’t really a date. It was ice cream in the afternoon. And it was over before four o’clock. There was really nothing to it. I swear to God.”
There wasn’t a lot to argue about in that reply. I dropped the subject and instead asked, “Did you come up with anything interesting yesterday?”
Trilling said, “Here’s a still taken from security video of a potential suspect. I think this is the same guy the coffee shop worker saw after Gus Querva was shot.” He laid a four-by-six-inch photo on my desk.
I picked the photo up and studied the grainy image. It wasn’t something we could use in court to identify an individual, but at least it gave us a general description. What immediately struck me was that the man with the case looked like Trilling. I felt a ball of ice in my stomach.
Trilling stared at me with his usual silent intensity. He said, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
I admitted, “That this could be you. Same height, same hair, same build.”
“Maybe I should hang out with Juliana more often so she can provide me with an alibi.”
I looked up at Trilling’s face. I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. I knew that I wasn’t in a joking mood at the moment.
CHAPTER 59
ROB TRILLING AND I managed to work together during the morning. We searched through NYPD records and reports having to do with shootings over the last twelve years. The time period was dictated by how long the reports had been computerized. For anything older, we’d have to look at paper files. We were hoping to find a similarity to an earlier shooting. Anything that might help the case.
My mind wasn’t completely on the task at hand. I kept finding myself glancing up at Trilling, working at the desk next to mine. It seemed crazy to even think about an active police officer being a vigilante serial killer.
He didn’t act like a vigilante. He seemed to be working hard on the case. The fact that he’d so willingly handed me that photo of a potential suspect made me hesitate. If I’d committed a crime and there was a photo of me walking away from it, I don’t think I’d show it around the squad. The flip side was that he might’ve realized I would probably see it at some point anyway. Bringing it to my attention himself looked less suspicious.
This sort of circular reasoning tied my stomach into a knot. Why couldn’t life be simpler? The fact that my daughter had a crush on this young man only made things more confusing.
I thought back to the day I went to Trilling’s apartment. The day he’d explained to me about visiting the VA and the appointments he kept having to leave work for. He had been careful not to let me into his apartment. At the time, it had struck me as a little odd. Now it was just one more piece of the puzzle that made me anxious.
What was my next move? Go to Harry Grissom and explain my concerns? Wait till there was another killing? There were no good answers. Harry would be required to relieve Trilling of duty. If no more evidence came in, there was nothing else we could do on the case. And Trilling would be left in limbo, his career shattered. Even if he came back on duty, no one would trust him.
My phone rang. It was a switchboard number so I couldn’t see who was calling. I answered curtly, “Bennett.”
“Hello, Detective. Robert Lincoln here.”
As if I needed to hear his name once I heard his baritone voice. “What can I do for you?”
“You might want to come over to the office. One of our agents was cleaning out the car your man Trilling turned in today.”
“And why should I care?”
“The agent found an empty .308 bullet casing. Could that be the same caliber your sniper keeps using?”
I was shocked into silence. That never happens. Then I blurted out, “Where did they find it?”
“Stuck in a gap in the carpet in the trunk.”
“Maybe it’s just the casing from when he was at the range.”
“That’s for you to decide. I was just giving you a courtesy call, in case you wanted to place the casing into evidence and have forensics performed on it. Seems like an odd coincidence that an officer working on a case like yours would have a casing like that.”
“I’ll leave right now and be at your office in the next thirty minutes.”
Lincoln chuckled. “Somehow I thought that’s what you’d say.”
CHAPTER 60
MY TRIP TO the FBI proved to be anticlimactic. Maybe I was reading more into ASAC Robert Lincoln’s comments. He was busy and couldn’t see me. At least that’s what the flunky he sent to meet me said. The agent just handed me a .308 rifle casing in a clear plastic bag. He told me there’d be a report on where it was found and recovered coming to me in the next few days.
I still wasn’t ready to just run Rob Trilling into the ground. I called a sergeant on the NYPD Emergency Service Unit. His name was Jeff Mabus. I’d met him at training over the years. He was also one of our defensive tactics instructors. He had a reputation for brutal honesty, exactly what I needed right now.
He agreed to meet me in the back lot of One Police Plaza. My request for the location had as much to do with my tight schedule as my hoping to avoid the command staff so I didn’t have to update them on the sniper case. What would I say? The young officer you sent to help me might be the sniper. I doubted that would go over well with anyone.
Mabus was about my age and dressed in 5.11 cargo pants and a tight NYPD T-shirt. I guess if I looked like him, that’s all I’d ever wear too. Even in cool weather like this. He wore a ball cap over his bald head. A scar from some fight years ago ran across his neck and chin.
We greeted each other and Mabus said, “I slipped out of a training class. Figured if a guy like you from Homicide needs to talk to me, it’s more important than learning how to fall properly when someone shoves you.” He looked around the parking lot, then at me and said, “What can I do for you?”
“The first thing is that you tell me this conversation is private and unofficial.”
Mabus took a moment, then said, “Hard to say okay to that without knowing what you need.”
That was the veteran, intelligent answer.
I said, “It’s about Rob Trilling.”
Mabus was quick to say, “He’s not on ESU right now. Last I heard he was over at the FBI on some task force.”
I paused, then looked at the lean ESU sergeant and said, “It’s about Rob Trilling. But it needs to be off the record.”
Reluctantly, Mabus said, “Okay, I won’t say a word to anyone. I like Trilling. Is he in trouble?”
“Truthfully, I’m not sure.”
“He was a good ESU member. At first, I was annoyed they waived some of the rules to get him on the team so quickly after he signed on with the PD. But he turned out to be a good team member and a pretty good sniper. Never complained. Worked hard. Paid attention in training. His military background was a real positive.”
