The Silence (Columbia River #2)(25)

“He was just doing what was necessary,” Ava replied, ignoring the twitch in Zander’s cheek again.

“I ran into Mason this morning at the medical examiner’s office. He looked exhausted. You two holding up okay?”

“As well as can be expected,” said Ava. “This case is very personal.”

“It is for a lot of us,” answered Nora. “Ray is one of the good ones.” She sat back in her chair as the Clackamas County sheriff stepped behind the table at the front of the room. Everyone else immediately found a seat.

Ava watched the sheriff shuffle through some papers and wished Mason were also on the inside of this investigation. He had left an odd message on her phone earlier, essentially telling her to watch her back. It made no sense.

Is he worried there will be another shooting?

Ava briefly closed her eyes. So many unanswered questions.

There were five rows of chairs facing the front, and computer stations filled one side of the room. A few techs moved from computer to computer, checking wires and moving plugs. Four uniformed officers sat at a table answering phones, taking tips from the public. She’d heard the tips were coming in as fast as the officers could answer the phones. More were arriving via email and on social media. Sorting through the information would take most of their hours. Task forces weren’t glamorous; they meant long, dull hours spent wading through minutiae.

The walls of the room had a dozen whiteboards and bulletin boards. Currently only one bulletin board was in use, but Ava knew they would all be full in days. Photos were pinned to the first bulletin board, showing shots of the streets around the courthouse. Two of them had uniformed bodies lying in the street.

She looked away, her stomach tight. If Ray hadn’t been holding a ballistic vest, would he still have been targeted? The other victims had been in uniform. The crack of the shots she’d heard while watching the news video had echoed in her mind all night. Mason said Ray had been one of the first people shot. Had she heard one of the shots that hit him?

“Okay, folks, let’s get started.” The sheriff addressed the room and proceeded to introduce himself and a few other commanders from various agencies. As she listened, Ava appreciated his leadership skills. The sheriff didn’t waste words and made everyone feel like they were a part of a team. Not every commander could do that.

He tapped on a laptop, and a PowerPoint display popped up on the screen behind him. “Here’s what we’ve got so far. Twenty-two .300 AAC Blackout casings were found in this area at the top of the cliffs.” He used a red laser pointer to indicate an area under the trees in the huge photo.

“Heavy rounds,” Zander muttered under his breath.

“No other locations?” asked someone in the audience.

“Not that we’ve found.” The sheriff cleared his throat. “Based on interviews from people at the scene, it’s looking like one shooter, but we haven’t ruled out the possibility of two or more. We’re still reviewing all the camera footage we recovered in the surrounding area. A 7-Eleven turned over quite a bit of footage, and three churches in the area did the same. Data from traffic cameras has been pulled, and interviews with people at the scene are still in process.”

Ava sighed. It was easy to miss important details when they were buried under so much information.

“Channel 8 turned over the helicopter coverage. There were a couple video sweeps of the cliff area that are being analyzed second by second.” He paused. “Some bystanders filmed the shootings.”

A low mumble of disgust filled the room.

“Don’t complain. They might give us some answers.”

“They turn up on social media yet?” asked Nora in a sour tone.

“Yep. And we’ve got people hunting them down for removal. I haven’t heard of anything graphic being posted. Most of the social media platforms have algorithms in place to prevent that from happening now.”

“Most,” whispered Ava. The thought that Ray’s kids could find footage of his shooting enraged her.

“I’m hearing that police are nervous to respond to calls or gather in public,” said a man to Ava’s left. More mumbles rippled through the group.

Can you blame them?

“I’ve heard the same,” the sheriff said. “We’ll do what needs to be done. This threat isn’t new. It’s been a part of our lives from the moment we took the badge. Public safety is our priority. No one will ignore that.”

“Have they tracked the source of the bomb threat?” asked the same man.

Ava pressed her lips together and noticed the sheriff did the same as he pondered the question. Are they not sharing where the threat was discovered? Zander shifted in his chair as they waited for the sheriff’s answer.

The sheriff made eye contact with Ava and held it. She gave him a small nod. There was no point in hiding that her name was linked.

“You will all have access to copies of information that turned up at a murder investigation yesterday. Handwritten pages were found in the home of a fifty-two-year-old male victim, Reuben Braswell. These documents warned us of the bomb threat.”

“But there was no bomb,” a woman said from the back.

“Nope.”

“So the rumor that the threat was created to pull dozens of law enforcement officers to one location could be true,” she said faintly.