Page 49 of Crosshairs
“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 thatIwasn’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 thinkI’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.