Page 50 of Crosshairs
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 youngofficer 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.”
Now I was more hesitant. This had seemed like a better idea when I left the FBI office. Finally I asked, “Do you know the last time Trilling shot a rifle? Specifically, a .308?”
“I can check. But I can tell you for a fact he hasn’t been on an NYPD rifle range since early summer. I don’t think there’s any way he would’ve fired a rifle since then. I’ll double-check our training records and confirm with you.”
“When can you confirm it?”
“God damn, this isn’t some minor policy violation, is it?”
“I’d rather not say yet.”
“I respect that. Like I said, he’s a good kid. He gave up a lot for the country. Cut him some slack if you can.”
“I hope I can.”
CHAPTER 61
I DROVE BACK to the Manhattan North Homicide office slowly. Just trying to give myself a few minutes of quiet to digest everything I’d learned today. My first thought was that it could all be explained. A crazy coincidence.
Somewhere in my brain, I wondered how a sniper who’d been so precise and careful could leave such an obvious piece of evidence for someone to find. The answer was simple: he made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes. Even the sharpest former military man. The only people who don’t make mistakes are in the movies. It didn’t make things any easier and I felt a little sick thinking about it, but at least I could wrap my head around it.
Before I even found a parking spot outside our building, Jeff Mabus texted me to confirm that Rob Trilling hadn’t officially fired a .308-caliber rifle in seven months. Well before the time he had the FBI car.Shit.
The squad bay was fairly empty. Trilling was out on an assignment. I noticed Harry Grissom sitting in his office. I walked in without fanfare, sat on the hard wooden chair he kept in front of his desk, and laid my entire concern out to him. Everything, including the comments Trilling made about Gus Querva, his absence on the night of Querva’s murder, my research on the drugs the VA had prescribed him, and, finally, the empty casing the FBI had found in his vehicle. I even told him about verifying Trilling’s training records to see when he last shot a .308 rifle.
Harry bit his lower lip. Something he only did when things had slipped from bad to horrible. He sucked in a deep breath and said, “You were right to come to me with this.”
“Harry, I looked at this a half a dozen ways. Tell me I missed something obvious. Something that might clear this whole thing up. I keep asking,Why Trilling?”
“Because life works out that way sometimes. But we gotta notify the right people. And we’ve got to do it right now. No delays.”
“But if it’s not true, the gossip will cripple Trilling’s career.”
“And the answer is to let a potential killer run around the city?”
Questions like that were hard to answer. No, we couldn’t let a potential killer go free. I sat there silently, considering everything that was about to happen. I knew the NYPD could move swiftly when they wanted to. They’d want to get in front of this before there were any accusations of a cover-up.