Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(85)

“Did Dyer’s dogs start baying when you knocked at his door?”

Russo turned his head away from me to face the hill. “You know, they did, and I thought it was strange. Logan never goes anywhere without his Plotts.”

His face began to glow, and I realized it was from the lights of another vehicle coming down the hill, its beams shining inside his SUV. I turned to see who it was, and it was Clegg. Instead of moving his Explorer aside, Russo unbuckled his lap belt and stepped down into the snow beside me.

Detective Clegg kept his engine running as he emerged from his cruiser. He walked toward us with his hands deep in the pockets of his brown uniform parka. His nose and cheeks were rosy from a long day spent outdoors. His chalk white hair was standing up, as if he’d just removed a hat.

“Lieutenant,” said Russo, greeting Clegg by his official rank.

“Russo. Who’s that with you?”

“Mike Bowditch,” I said.

“Just the man I was looking for.”

“Why is that?” asked Russo, as if it was any of his business.

“I spoke with Amber Langstrom yesterday and she mentioned that you came to her apartment.”

“I apologize. I’d been meaning to talk with you about it.”

Clegg shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now. But she told me you found a box of her son’s guns there.”

“That’s right,” I said. “He took a Glock with him. His mom sensed he was afraid of someone in particular and wanted it for self-defense. Did you find any nine-millimeter shells up there?”

“Not yet.” He removed his bare hands from his pockets and rubbed them together for warmth. “Is it possible Langstrom also had an AR-15 rifle?”

“Possible, I guess. I found a Ruger American in a .30-06 and a Winchester 76 in .30-30. Both with boxes of ammo. I didn’t see signs of an AR-15, and Amber didn’t mention his having any other rifles.”

Clegg raised his face to the falling snow. I could tell he was trying to work through a puzzle in his head.

“I heard that you found .300 Blackout rounds up there,” I said.

Clegg lowered his eyes. “That’s right.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing except some casings from Foss’s revolver.”

I got a look at Russo in my peripheral vision. He was standing stock-still. “Detective, I’d like to talk with you about Logan Dyer,” I said.

“We don’t know where he is,” said Clegg.

“Dyer didn’t show up at work today,” interjected Russo. “Usually he calls if he’s sick, but he didn’t this morning. I just knocked at his door, and his dogs are inside. That’s very unusual for Logan, to leave his dogs alone.”

My jaw nearly dropped. Russo had just laid out all of my suspicions as if they were his own.

“We did a check on his house,” said Clegg. “Made a sweep around the exterior, looked in the windows, but we didn’t have cause or authorization to go inside. We saw the dogs. They look mean as hell. What breed are they?”

“Plott hounds,” I said before Russo could jump in. “Detective, when Gary Pulsifer and I last talked with Dyer, he mentioned going coyote hunting with a Smith & Wesson AR-15.”

“What caliber?” asked Clegg.

“He didn’t say.”

“Do you remember the model?”

I tried to transport myself back to that conversation. Tried to visualize Dyer standing outside the window of Pulsifer’s idling truck.

“Smith & Wesson M&P 15 Whisper,” I said.

For the first time since we’d met, Russo showed a real expression. He was astonished, whether at the specificity of my memory or about the implications of what I had just said, I couldn’t be certain. But his mask had finally fallen.

“I know that gun,” he said. “Dyer showed it to me. It’s chambered in only one caliber: .300 AAC Blackout.”

Clegg removed his phone from his pocket and began tapping in numbers. I didn’t have to guess who he was calling or why. The detective was going to ask a judge to sign off immediately on a no-knock warrant. Russo had just provided a cause for the police to break down Logan Dyer’s door.





33

In real life, suspicious deaths are rarely mysteries. A wife dies in what looks like a botched robbery; her husband probably did it. A child falls down the stairs and breaks her spine; look first to the baby-sitter. Most criminals are morons. They don’t have the mental capacity to plan elaborate schemes worthy of Professor Moriarty or Hannibal Lecter. With few exceptions, the simplest explanation for a crime is the correct explanation. The butler almost always did it.

Police officers are human. Sometimes, because we want our work to be more exciting, or because we have a need to demonstrate our brilliance to the public and colleagues (and especially our superiors), we reach too far in our theories. Catching the guy who robbed the bank without a mask probably won’t get you promoted. Catching the Night Stalker or the Green River Killer will turn you into a living legend.

Dyer was a loner who loved guns. He had recently been showing signs of instability, according to Russo. He had a legitimate grievance against his neighbor, Foss, for making it impossible to sell his family house and begin life anew somewhere else, where people didn’t associate his name with a fatal chairlift accident. Motive, means, and opportunity—what more did you need? Nothing, in the eyes of the law.