Page 72 of Identity Unknown
Faye blasts away, ejected cartridge cases clinking. She shoots the target from varying distances with Ryder Briley’s gun, firing the same hollow-point ammunition that killed his daughter. Then my “smart” ring vibrates, alerting me that Marino is calling.
“How long are Luna Briley’s arms,” he asks right off.
“About fourteen inches. As I’ve mentioned, she was small for her age,” I reply, and Benton is off his phone. He sits down on the bed next to me.
“And assuming her arm was bent while she was pointing the pistol at her head, the distance would be even less than ten inches. Half that, maybe,” Marino calculates.
“Very possibly.”
“No way she shot herself,” he says. “Hold on, I’m putting us on speakerphone so Faye can tell you herself.”
“I’m not surprised. It’s what we thought,” she says. “Based on my test fires and absence of GSR on the victim, I’d estimate the shooter was three to five feet away from her. Luna Briley couldn’t have been holding the gun, end of story.”
I tell Marino to let Blaise Fruge know immediately that I’m finalizing the manner of death as a homicide.
“The Brileys will go ballistic,” he says, unaware of the pun. “You’d better be looking over your shoulder, Doc.”
“I make a habit of it anyway,” I reply.
It’s after eleven as Benton and I drive away from the Langley Inn, the morning bright and warm, the blue sky scrubbed by yesterday’s storms. We follow Sweeney Boulevard around the north end of the Air Force runway as F-22s tear up the sky.
In the past several years I’ve noticed stepped-up activity around Virginia military bases, more fighter jets doing maneuvers day and night. When I visit my Tidewater office, I see more battleships and nuclear submarines in and out of the Norfolk Naval Station, the largest in the world.
The constant roaring and screaming overhead sounds like an invasion as we take Commander Shepard Boulevard past a sprawling mobile home park. Nearby is a run-down bar with a purple film covering the windows, a place to be avoided, I’ve been told in the past. Across from a motor speedway is NASA Langley Research Center, its large-scale wind tunnel stretching along the roadside like a giant white Slinky.
A blue globe sculpture of the NASA “meatball” logo rises from a circle of grass in front of the entrance. Over the main gate a digital sign welcomes visitors, which strikes me as ironic when protective services officers are armed with submachine guns. Several of them have pulled over a truck, searching it with a dog. A driver in a Prius is being questioned while his backseat is gone through.
Benton rolls down his window, and it’s obvious that we’re expected, no visit to the Badge & Pass office needed. A quick look at our IDs and we’re given directions for where we’re going.
“As you get closer to the gantry, you’ll see the hangars. Have a nice day.” The officer steps back from our car.
We drive through the middle of the campus, passing through a cluster of white vacuum spheres with steam billowing around them. Numbered buildings are brick and modern, others dreary precast dating back to the beginning of the space administration. Names describe the work that goes on. The Hypersonic Facilities. The Autonomous Incubator. The Sonic Boom Lab.
The farther we go from the center of the campus, the more isolated and mysterious the facilities. We wind through acres ofopen fields and woods, antennas of all shapes and sizes standing sentry. As we near the gantry looming above the trees, we begin to see a series of silvery hangars of varying sizes. There’s no signage, only numbers, and I notice NASA protective services black Tahoe SUVs patrolling the area.
Beyond a drone test range enclosed in netting is hangar 1112, concrete and windowless with a flat roof and a metal retractable door that’s closed. Benton parks near other SUVs and several crime scene vans. I text Lucy that we’re here, and in seconds she emerges from a side pedestrian door. Covered in white Tyvek, she hands us folded PPE. Her eyes are tired, and I wonder if she got any sleep last night.
“How’s it going?” I balance on one foot at a time, pulling on booties. “Any updates?”
“The team’s been at it for hours, and we’ve found a few curiosities. Impressions left on glass that don’t make any sense,” she says as Benton and I cover up with protective gowns. “They look sort of like handprints. But not normal hands. A combination of mitten and clawlike is the best I can describe it.”
As she tells us this I can imagine Marino’s reaction if he were here, and I’m glad he’s not. He’d resume harping about the crop circle and so-called alien abductions. The older he gets, the stronger his convictions, and I don’t look forward to telling him about the simulated moon dust. He’ll put two and two together and come up with the wrong number.
CHAPTER 26
Lucy opens the side door and we step inside a concrete space not so different from my offices’ vehicle bays. But this is brightly lit and spotless with workbenches, tool cabinets, a hydraulic lift and multiple utility carts. Shadows of tire tracks crisscross the shiny concrete flooring, not a speck of dirt, the hangar more like a laboratory cleanroom than a large garage.
Crime scene investigators in white are taking down the translucent plastic tent shrouding Sal’s blue Chevy truck. I detect the sharp odor of superglue used to fume for latent prints left on nonporous surfaces such as glass and metal. The cyanoacrylate vapors react to amino acids secreted by skin surfaces such as finger pads. The prints turn whitish and hard, the ridge detail permanently set in glue and readily visible.
“Before we fumed the truck, we went over it inside and out, making sure we didn’t glue something we shouldn’t.” Lucy continues, explaining what’s been done. “We found the odd impressions on the front door windows, most of them partials. We lifted them with magnetic powder, and a picture’s worth a thousand words.”
We follow her to a workbench where evidence has been bagged and labeled. Mostly, what’s been collected is from the seats and carpet.
“Under UV, there’s glittery stuff all over the driver’s seat, the steering wheel and other areas, including inside the covered truck bed.” She’s typing a password on a laptop computer that’s open on the workbench. “I’m not saying it’s the same thing that fluoresced on Sal Giordano’s body. But it certainly looks the same.”
Lucy shows us photographs taken with an orange-tinted filter, clicking through images of the residue sparkling cobalt blue in the fabric of the truck’s front seats. The inside of the covered truck bed sparkles like a galaxy.
“Why in both seats?” I ask. “As if two people were sitting up front and had this residue on their clothing?”