Zero Day (John Puller, #1)(48)

Kellerman had left his assistants to sew up the Y-incisions, changed his clothes, and gone home. Cole and Puller walked outside. Puller put the boxes into Cole’s car. He had also filled up his recorder with notes on the posts and Cole had taken extensive handwritten notes as well. Yet there was nothing too remarkable revealed by the process.

Shotgun wadding was taken from Reynolds’s head and would be compared to find the gauge of gun used. Some of the white material found embedded in his face had not been wadding. Kellerman had theorized it was a blindfold they had made the colonel wear.

“Probably why he didn’t try to defend himself or throw up his hands,” said Puller.

“He never saw it coming,” added Cole.

Stacey Reynolds’s torso had been filled with shotgun pellets. The two kids had died from strikes to their necks as they had speculated. Eric Treadwell and Molly Bitner had been killed by .22 caliber shots into their brains. The bullets had come out in reasonable shape and now all they needed was a gun to match them to.

Wellman had been struck on the head hard enough to cause unconsciousness. His life had not been ended by a broken neck. That required a considerable drop that the low ceiling in the basement could not provide. Instead, Wellman had suffered a slow asphyxiation.

Cole and Puller leaned against her car. She slid out a cigarette and lit up.

“Don’t look at me like that, Puller,” she said. “I just sat through seven bodies being cut up. It’s stressful.”

“They didn’t leave much behind,” he said.

“You have any ideas?”

“None that work all the way through right now.”

She checked her watch. “Dinner at my sister’s.”

“Why does she want me there?”

“I don’t know, other than you’re younger, taller, and fitter than her husband.”

“So you’re saying she cheats on him?”

“I’m not saying anything, because I don’t know. Roger’s gone a lot.”

“She didn’t seem overly concerned about the death threats.”

“Roger is not a popular guy. I guess you get desensitized to it.”

“She might be, but he clearly isn’t. He was both pissed and scared.”

“Well, he’s the target, not her.”

“True.”

“I can drop you off at your car and then pick you up at the motel. Give us both time to shower and change. I need to scrub hard to get the smell of death off me.”

“I don’t think anyone can scrub that hard.”

“I’m sure as hell going to try.”

CHAPTER

34


PULLER DROVE straight to the post office, which was a few minutes away from Annie’s Motel. He arrived right before it closed for the day. He mailed off the boxes via priority shipping to Atlanta and then focused on the young woman behind the counter, who gazed up at him expectantly.

He flashed his cred pack to her. “I’m with the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division.”

“I know you are,” she said back.

“How’s that?” he asked.

“Small town. And you’re too big to miss.”

“I need to find out about a delivery.”

“What delivery?”

He explained about the certified mail package Howard Reed had delivered on Monday to the Reynoldses but in care of the Halversons’ address.

She nodded. “Howard mentioned that to me this morning when he came in to get his delivery load.”

“It’s really important that we find out where the package came from.”

The young woman gazed behind her. “I really should get my supervisor involved with this.”

“Okay.”

“But he’s gone for the day.”

Puller put his big hands on the counter. “What’s your name?”

“Sandy. Sandy Dreidel.”

“Okay, Sandy, let me lay it out for you. This delivery might be very important in finding out who killed those people. The longer we wait the farther away they get. All I need is the name and address of who sent the package, that’s all.”

“I understand that. But we have policies and procedures.”

Puller suddenly grinned. “I understand that. I’m in the Army. For every policy the post office has, the Army has ten, guaranteed.”

Sandy smiled back. “Sure thing. I bet you’re right.”

“But there is a way to find out the information?”

“Well, yes. We have records.”

“Probably just a few clicks of that computer there will tell you.”

Sandy looked embarrassed. “Well, we don’t have everything in computers just yet. But we have log books in the back.”

Puller held out his notebook and a pen. “If you could take a couple of minutes and just write the name and address down here, that could really help us find whoever killed all those people.”

Sandy hesitated, glanced over Puller’s shoulder and through the window overlooking the street, and then took the items from him.

It took her five minutes, but she returned with the notebook and pen and handed them to Puller. He glanced down at what she’d written and then looked up.

“This is a big help, Sandy. I really appreciate it.”