Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30)(76)

As they walked her across the site, Lucas could see a caravan of cars suddenly burst up the streets leading to the hill, all of the vehicles running their flashers.

“Exactly when did you call them?” he asked Chase.

“Two minutes ago,” she said. “When I got here.” She pointed to a tombstone. “That’s pretty beaten down, don’t you think, Bob? It looks like somebody was sitting there for quite a while.”

“Using the tombstone like an easy chair,” Bob said. “Maybe sat there all night. Saw the Secret Service guys going into the hospital. Shot over their heads. He’s a cold motherfucker.”

“It’s that Linc guy,” Chase said. “Lucas, we gotta run him down.”

“He’s next,” Lucas said.



* * *



—

THE FEDS SWARMED THE PLACE, agents in white environment suits pulling up grass and swabbing tombstones, looking for DNA, bagging the diminutive .223 shell. Another two guys, in full suits, coveralls, booties, and gloves, removed the brick at the bottom of the shed, bagged it, and peered under the shed with a LED light as powerful as the sun.

“We got a gun,” one said, laconically. “And we got a case.”

Chase looked at Lucas: “If the gun still has a serial number . . .”

Lucas glanced at Bob and Rae, who simultaneously shrugged. Bob said, “I wouldn’t get my hopes up, honey. This guy is not stupid. I doubt he’d go to a gun store and sign all the papers and then use the gun to shoot a kid. And then leave it behind.”

“But we’ll look, huh?” Chase said.

They did; and they found a serial number. Chase sat in her car on the telephone, then came jogging back: “The gun was sold to a guy named Lee Wilson. Lives near Richmond. He has a federal firearms license, but he’s in North Carolina, Charlotte, right now. Says he has been for three days. With witnesses—he’s at a wedding. We’ve got some people from the Charlotte office on the way to interview him.”



* * *



—

LUCAS SAID, “This changes everything. Listen, the guy who got caught with a rifle in the parking garage—you still have him in the federal lockup?”

“Sure.”

“Is he cooperating?”

“Not really. If he . . . thought he might even catch a tiny break, he might talk,” Chase said. “Like the letter, the content of it, he’ll talk about that, because we all agree it was sent anonymously. He won’t talk about much else.”

“I’d like to see him. Right now. Can we get his PD over there?”

“If I push,” Chase said. “Why do you need to talk to him?”

“I need to clarify my thinking. My thinking has been kind of clogged up on this. I haven’t been doing anything your feds couldn’t have done and probably better. I gotta get outside your box if I’m going to help.”

“You go talk to him—I’ll set it up. I’m going to stay here and I’ll monitor what happens with this Lee guy, the gun dealer.”

“Good. And listen, what I’m going to say to him . . . we’ll need a confidentiality agreement from the public defender. Is that possible?”

“Depends. If you let what you say be used in his defense, he’d probably sign one, maybe with some time limitations.”

“We want it timed to a court defense or a plea agreement, whichever comes first,” Lucas said. “He can use what I say in a trial or a plea. Not before then.”

“We can ask. But exactly what are you up to?”

“You really don’t want to know.”

“I was afraid of that.”



* * *



—

FROM THE SCHOOL TO ALEXANDRIA was twenty minutes in traffic. They were sitting at a traffic light, a minute away from the federal building, when Chase called to say that the would-be shooter, William Walton, had been conferring with his attorney when she called, and both were available at the federal lockup.

“They’re skeptical. We’re drafting an agreement but the Brick says he’s not signing anything until he hears what you have to say about it.”

“Brick?”

“The attorney, the PD. His name is Brett Abelman. We call him the Brick because . . . he’s like that. Former cop in Newark. He’s good.”



* * *



—

ABELMAN WAS A TALL, dark-haired, broad-shouldered man with a heavy brow ridge and a nose that had been broken more than once. He was not happy to see Lucas—and he told Bob and Rae that they’d have to wait outside the interview room. An assistant federal attorney was with him and she had an improvised confidentiality statement in her hand, ready to be signed.

Abelman was gruff. “What could you ask that hasn’t already been asked? Why should I let you speak to Mr. Walton?”

“Basically because what I’m going to ask him . . . actually, I’m going to tell him something he doesn’t know and that you don’t know, and I’m going to ask him what he thinks about it,” Lucas said. “You might be able to use it in your defense. I don’t see how any answer he gives could be used by the prosecution.”

“If you’re fucking with me, Marshal . . .”