Lisa Gardner - The Survivors Club

Waters did the honors of holding up the evidence bag. “Better. We have video footage of the sniper, courtesy of News Team Ten. Shows everything down to the nervous tic on the shooter's face.”

“Outstanding. Let's deliver this to the crime lab ASAP. Get the tape developed, and print out a visual of the shooter's face to be distributed to all uniforms, Detective.” The major looked at Waters expectantly.

“Yes, sir,” Waters said crisply, already turning away. Waters was no dummy. A uniform could just as easily serve as evidence courier to the crime lab. The powers-that-be obviously wanted to speak with Griffin alone.

The minute Waters was out of earshot, the major, captain and lieutenant turned their attention to Griffin.

“Sergeant,” the major said.

“Yes, sir,” Griffin said. In spite of himself, he could feel his stomach tense, as if steeling for a blow.

“You look good,” the major said.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Assessment?”

“What?” For a moment, he was confused. My anxiety is operating within normal parameters. No. Wait. Ah, shit.

“The situation, Sergeant. Tell me what you think.”

Griffin 's shoulders came down. His stomach unclenched. Talking about the job, he could finally relax. “Professional hit. Shooter camps out on the courthouse roof. Nails his target, Eddie Como, aka the College Hill Rapist, as he exits the ACI van shortly after eight-thirty this morning. Shooter then returns to his car to make a quick getaway, except his client left him one last payment in the form of a bomb.”

“Confirmation from the state fire marshal?”

“No, sir. My understanding is that the scene is too hot to approach. It will probably be another hour or so.”

“But you're sure the shooter is DOA?”

Griffin shrugged. “We know we have one DOA in the RISD parking lot. Given that the parking lot explosion happened within ten minutes of the shooting, I think it's a safe bet that the two incidents are related. Now, one possibility is that our shooter actually performed two hits-the first being Eddie Como, the second being some unidentified person in the parking lot. But in my opinion, that's a low probability scenario. For one thing, it's uncommon to change MO's-going from sniper to explosives expert. For another, we know the shooter left his assault rifle and a full magazine of two-twenty-threes up on the roof. Why leave the gun if he still had work to do? No, I think it's more probable that the sniper felt he'd completed his task, abandoned his tools in order to make a clean getaway, then ran into an unexpected complication when he got into his car. Ergo, the shooter is now one extracrispy DOA.”

The major grunted. Lieutenant Morelli suppressed a smile.

“Next steps?” Captain Dodge spoke up. Griffin turned his attention toward him, forcing himself to remain patient even though he was being grilled like an FNG, a fucking new guy.

“Assuming it's a professional,” Griffin said briskly, “we need to identify the shooter, establish that he did kill Eddie Como-which will be pretty easy thanks to the videotape-then find a connection between the shooter and his client. Identifying the shooter shouldn't be too hard. We have a visual of his face. The state fire marshal will retrieve the VIN of his car. The ME will get prints. Bada-bing, bada-boom.”

“But that could take days,” the captain said pointedly. His gaze swept toward the park, where the media churned up the grass and strained against the police barricades.

“Well then, consider this. The RISD parking lot. It's permit only, right? And we know the shooter must have been parked there for a while, because he was camped out on the roof. Assuming he didn't want to call attention to himself by getting a parking ticket, or worse, lose his getaway by being towed, that means he probably had a parking pass. We contact RISD, obtain a list of names, run the names through the system and get a big head start on names to go with the face.”

“Not bad,” the captain said.

“Cross-reference the names of people with RISD parking passes, with the rape victims and families,” Griffin added.

“Even better,” the major concurred.

Griffin, however, had started to frown.

“Uh-oh,” Lieutenant Morelli said. “I know that look.”

“Ah, I don't know…”

“Humor us, Sergeant. At the rate things are going, we could use a good laugh today.”

Griffin had to think it through. “We're getting a long list of assumptions here. Assumption one is that we have a sniper hired to kill alleged College Hill Rapist, Eddie Como. Assumption two is that the obvious motive for hiring the shooter is revenge, meaning the obvious suspects are the rape vics and/or their families. The only good rapist is a dead rapist, etc., etc. But how many vengeance cases do you know that involve a hired gun? Your typical distraught father, irate husband, shattered victim, they show up at the courthouse, pull out the family pistol and take care of business up close and personal. They're not concerned with getting caught or covering their tracks. They're obsessed with revenge. They're angry, mad, sad. It's an emotional act. A hired assassin on the other hand… That's pretty cold.”

“It's been a while,” the lieutenant said. “Maybe the person's had time to calm down.”

“Which would be my second problem,” Griffin said immediately. “It's been what, a year since the attacks? Sounds to me like the vics have been doing pretty well. They formed some sort of survivors club, took their mission to the press, became activists. By all accounts, Eddie Como's arrest was a victory for them. And now they're in the homestretch. The actual trial's about to start. Two weeks from now it would end, and most likely Como would be sentenced to life behind bars once and for all. The women, their Survivors Club, whatever, would have justice. Now, it would be one thing if there was doubt about the outcome of the trial, but from what I've heard they had Como dead to rights-DNA evidence.”

“They had DNA on O.J., too,” the captain spoke up dryly.

“But Como isn't packing the legal dream team. We're talking public defender. In other words, this kid was toast and we're a mere two weeks from his public toasting. So why shoot him now? If you're really angry, and you want to spare yourself or your loved one the agony of the criminal justice system, shouldn't you have shot Eddie Como when he was collared one year ago?”

“Better late than never?”

“Yeah, I suppose.” Griffin was still frowning. “I don't know. A rooftop sniper is cold. Calculated. It feels wrong.”

“How much do you know about the Como case?” the major asked.

“Not much,” Griffin answered honestly. He looked the major in the eye. “I took a break from watching TV.”

“And now?”

“I can watch a little telly. I doubt I'll have the time in the foreseeable future, but I can watch.”

“Good,” the major said brusquely. He cleared his throat. “So, Providence wants in on the case.”

“No kidding.”

“ Como 's their catch. They know him, the rape case, and the victims the best.”

“Yeah, well, if they know everyone so well, how did ‘their catch' just wind up dead?”

Lieutenant Morelli was biting back another smile. She stopped looking at Griffin, and made a big show of examining her shoes.

“We're going to need their cooperation,” the major was saying, “to get information on the explosion. Specifically, Providence would like the lead investigator of the College Hill Rapist case to join our case team looking into the shooting.”

“Who was the lead investigator on the rape case?” Griffin narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

“Detective Joseph Fitzpatrick from Sex Crimes.”