Cross the Line (Alex Cross #24)(5)

As McGrath and Kravic left, the checker said, she started moving empty produce boxes by the front window. She was looking outside when a dark blue sedan rolled up with the windows down and bullets started flying. Winters dived to the floor and stayed there until the gunfire stopped and the car squealed away.

“How many people in the car?” Sampson said.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just saw these flashes and heard the shots.”

“Where were the flashes?” I said. “Front seat or back or both?”

She winced. “I’m not sure.”

Lucas Phelps, a senior at Georgetown, had been outside, about half a block south of the store. Phelps had been listening to a podcast over his Beats headphones when the shooting started. The student thought it was part of the program he was listening to until he saw McGrath and Kravic fall.

“What kind of car?” Sampson said.

“I’m not good at that,” Phelps said. “A four-door car? Like, dark-colored?”

“How many people in the car?” I asked.

“Two, I think,” Phelps said. “From my angle, it was kind of hard to say.”

“You see flashes from the shots?”

“Sure, now that you mention it.”

“Where were the flashes coming from? Front seat, back, or both?”

“Front,” he said. “I think. It all happened so fast.”

The third witness, Craig Brooks, proved once again that triangulation is often the best way to the truth. The seventy-two-year-old retired U.S. Treasury agent had been coming down the sidewalk from the north, heading to Whole Foods to get some “gluten-free crap” his wife wanted, when the shooting started.

“There were three people in that car, and one shooting out the window from the front seat, a Remington 1911 S, forty-five caliber.”

“How do you know that?” Sampson asked.

“I saw the gun, and there’s a fresh forty-five casing out there by the curb.”

I followed his gesture and nodded. “You touch it?”

“Not stupid.”

“Appreciate it. Make of the car? Model? License plate?”

“It was a GM of some sort, four-door, dark-colored but flat, no finish, like primer. They’d stripped it of any identifiers and covered the license plate too.”

“Male? Female?”

“They were all wearing ball caps and black masks,” Brooks said. “I got a clear look at the shooter’s cap, though, as they went by me. Red with the Redskins logo on it.”

We took phone numbers for possible follow-up, and I walked back outside. By then a team of criminalists had arrived and were documenting the scene.

I stopped to look at it all again now that we’d been given three versions of how the shooting had gone down. I could see it unfold in my mind.

“The shooter was more than good—he was trained,” I said.

“Gimme that again,” Sampson said.

“He’d have to be a pro to be able to shoot from a vehicle going fifteen to twenty miles an hour and still hit moving targets five out of five times.”

“The difficulty depends on the angle, doesn’t it?” Sampson said. “Where he started shooting and when, but I agree—he practiced for this scenario.”

“And McGrath was the primary target. The shooter put three rounds in him before turning the gun on Edita Kravic.”

One of the crime scene guys was taking photos, a dull aluminum lamp throwing light on the victims. I’d looked at McGrath in death at least six times now. Every time it got a little easier. Every time we grew apart.





CHAPTER


5


WORD GETS OUT fast when a cop is killed. Wisconsin Avenue was a media circus by the time Sampson and I slipped out through an alleyway behind Whole Foods. We didn’t want to talk to reporters until we had something to report.

The second we were back in the squad car and Sampson had us moving, I called Chief Michaels and filled him in.

“How many men do you need?” he asked when I’d finished.

I thought about that, said, “Four, sir, including Detective Stone. She and McGrath were friends. She’ll want in.”

“Done. I’ll have them assembled ASAP.”

“Give us an hour,” I said. “We’re swinging by McGrath’s before we head in to the office.”

“No stone unturned, Alex,” Michaels said.

“No, sir.”

“You’ll have to look at Terry Howard.”

“I heard Terry’s in rough shape.”

“Just the same. It will come up, and we have to say we’ve looked at him.”

“I’ll do it myself.”

Michaels hung up. I knew the pressure on him to find the killer was already building. When a fellow cop is murdered, you want swift justice. You want to show solidarity, solve the case quick, and put someone in cuffs and on trial.

Then again, you don’t want to leap to conclusions before you’ve collected all the evidence. With six detectives now assigned to the case, we’d be gathering facts fast and furious for the next few days. We’d be working around the clock.

I closed my eyes and took several deep, long breaths, preparing for the hard road that lay ahead and for the separation from my family.