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  “That’s what I hear.” Bethany looked from one of us to the other, studying each of our faces. “In lieu of statements, can I get a report from each of you as soon as possible? That way I’ll be able to better recreate what took place here just prior to the random shot being fired.”

  “We’ll get on them right away,” I promised. “But this was no random shot. Someone deliberately took out Captain Landry.”

  Bethany’s eyebrows furrowed. “What makes you say that?”

  “We had the place sewn up for a couple hundred yards in all directions,” I explained. “So whoever took him out had to take the shot from outside that perimeter, and they shot him directly in the left eye. From that distance, to make that shot, they knew what they were doing.”

  Bethany Riggs began jotting some things down in her notebook. “And no one saw anything at all?”

  “All eyes were on the hostage taker. No one saw a damn thing.” I pursed my lips as realization slowly set in and whistled. “No shit. That’s the perfect plan. The shooter knew we’d all be concentrating on the hostage taker and he took full advantage of it.”

  Bethany nodded her agreement and shut her notebook. “I’d appreciate those reports as soon as possible.” She then walked away and met with a group of detectives who were examining Captain Landry’s body.

  “Let’s go knock out those reports so we can get back to work.” I led the way to the mobile command center, and we each found a vacant computer station and started typing. I finished my report first and printed it on one of the nearby printers. I snatched a pen from the counter and signed it. I then made my way out into the sultry evening air. Captain Landry’s body was still on the ground, but it had been covered with a white sheet. A helicopter zipped by overhead. I’d heard on the police radio that the helicopter was a loaner from a neighboring department and two of our SWAT guys were onboard searching for the shooter.

  I made my way around Betty Jo’s until the front parking lot of the bank came into view, and it was only then that I remembered killing a guy. Two detectives were hunched over the hostage taker’s body, taking measurements. “Any idea who he is?” I asked.

  One of the detectives looked up. It was Lieutenant Corey Chiasson, second-in-command of the detective bureau. “According to the driver’s license in his back pocket, this piece of shit’s name is Pete Billiot.”

  “What happened in the bank?” I asked.

  Lieutenant Chiasson paused, rocking back on his heels. “The prick walked in there with a gun and demanded all the money. When the bank manager hesitated, he shot one of the tellers. That lit a fire under the manager’s ass and he gathered up as much money as he could and handed it over. One of the tellers hit the silent alarm during the ruckus.

  “As Billiot exited the bank, Deputy Lafont drove up. Billiot fired a shot at him and then ran back into the bank. He ushered all the people behind the counter and bedded down there.” Chiasson pointed at Pete Billiot’s clothes. “He swapped clothes with one of the bank managers. Lucky you realized it.”

  “We’re lucky the hostage made his move.” I squatted beside Chiasson and studied the right side of Billiot’s face, as though I were studying a paper target. My bullet had shaved the hairs off his ear canal—without hitting the rim—on its way to penetrating his skull and exploding out the other side, taking his brain with it. I was secretly pleased by the placement of the shot and oddly unmoved by the fact I had just taken a life for the first time. During my years of law enforcement and sniper training, a number of instructors had warned that taking a life could have severe emotional effects on a sniper. They’d told of officers turning to alcohol and drugs to cope with what they’d done and, for those who couldn’t cope, how some had taken their own lives. I shook my head before I straightened. “Weak bastards.”

  Lieutenant Chiasson glanced up, a curious look on his face.

  “Just thinking out loud.” I walked around the outer edges of the scene until I found Sheriff Burke. “Anything new, Sheriff?”

  He shook his head. “We’ve searched a mile in every direction, had the helicopter comb the entire area—nothing.”

  “What’s next?”

  “It’s too dark now to do much good. Besides, whoever shot him is long gone. We’ll have to rely on the investigation to solve this one, unless…”

  I waited. When he didn’t explain, I asked, “Unless what?”

  “Some of the detectives are saying this is an accidental discharge.”

  “I don’t think so, Sheriff. That shot was too precise and it was fired from a high-powered rifle.”

  Sheriff Burke nodded. “That’s what they’re saying. They think either a sniper or an entry team member touched off a round—accidentally, of course—because y’all were the only ones with rifles at the scene.”

  I bristled. “That’s bullshit.”

  “I know, I know, but they have to attack this at every angle. You know that.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Look, don’t worry about it. They’ll get to the bottom of this.” Sheriff Burke started to walk away, then stopped and turned. “By the way, you did real good today. Go home and get some rest. I have to put a press release together. I have a feeling we’ll need the public’s help on this one.”

  “What about putting me on the case?”

  “I’ll need to name a replacement for Captain Landry.” Sheriff Burke rubbed his face. “Would you consider taking the job?”

  I blushed. “Sheriff, I’m flattered, but I’m not captain material. Too administrative for my blood. I’d get bored and probably kill myself.”

  The sheriff sighed. “Well, get out of here and let me get back to trying to figure out what the hell I’m going to do.”

  I glanced down at my report. “This is for Lieutenant Riggs.”

  “Leave it in the command center. I’ll let her know it’s there.”

  I walked off and met up with the rest of the sniper team. They had finished their reports and stood talking in hushed tones by the doorway to the command center. They shut up when I approached.

  “What’re y’all whispering about?” I wanted to know.

  Jerry looked down and studied his shoes, as though he had to take a test and wanted to make an A on it.

  “Well?” I asked again.

  “We were just talking about Kenneth and how it’s messed up that he didn’t show.”

  I nodded. “I’ll take care of that tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Wednesday, August 17, 2011

  I was the first to arrive at the rifle range the next morning. I set up six cardboards at the two-hundred-yard mark and stapled a face target on each. The other snipers began arriving a few minutes later and, as usual, Kenneth Lewis was the last to drive up. A narcotics agent, he drove a four-wheel drive the department had seized from some drug dealer. He jumped out the truck and rushed over to where we stood waiting near the shooting benches.

  “Daddy, what the hell happened yesterday?” he asked. Kenneth had been calling me Daddy ever since I recruited him onto the team.

  “Get your shit and let’s do some shooting. We’ll talk about yesterday in a minute.”

  Sensing he was in trouble, Kenneth only nodded and retrieved his rifle from the truck. When he had gathered his gear and was ready, I signaled Gina Pellegrin. In addition to recording our activities at the scene of our call-outs, Gina also issued the commands for the shooting drills I prepared for training. This enabled me to participate in the training and was a huge help to me.

  After explaining what the first drill would entail, Gina cleared her throat. After a brief pause, she called out in a slow cadence, “Ready, ready, ready…fire!”

  We burst off the shooting line with our rifles in hand, sprinted the two hundred yards to the targets, turned and sprinted back to the shooting position. We then dropped to the ground and each fired five rounds at our respective face targets. My rifle bucked repeatedly against my shoulder as I worked the bolt without thought. When
I was done, I jumped to my feet and called time. Jerry was a few seconds behind me. I smiled. “You’re getting faster.”

  “But I still can’t catch your machine-gun ass.” He shook his head. “I can’t wait ’til you get old and slow.”

  When the others were done, we walked down to check the targets, and I nodded my approval. In order to be considered ready for duty, the first five rounds of every training session had to fall within the one-inch circle that covered the bridge of the target’s nose…and every sniper had once again passed the bi-monthly test.

  We tore down the targets, and I walked to my rifle to pick up my brass. I made a notation in my sniper log and then summoned the snipers to one of the tables. “Make sure everyone signs the training log.” I waved to Kenneth. “Walk with me.”

  I took Kenneth to the far side of the overhang, away from the other snipers. Trying to keep my cool, I asked, “Where the hell were you yesterday?”

  Kenneth dropped his head. “Daddy, I’m so sorry. I know I screwed up.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “Yvette’s mom’s not doing too good and she went stay with her for the week. She left Saturday.” Kenneth shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I…I was…”

  “Was what?”

  “Daddy, you gotta promise me this stays between us.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “I…I had a little sweetie come to the house. I can’t sleep by myself.”

  My eyes narrowed. “You chose a piece of ass over your job?”

  Kenneth quickly shook his head. “No, Daddy! I didn’t hear my phone. Yvette usually calls every couple of hours, and I didn’t want to have to sit there and talk to her while my girl was there, so I took the battery out of my phone. I put it back in this morning and got Gina’s messages.” He hung his head, and I saw tears form at the corners of his eyes. He brushed them away. “I feel like a piece of shit for not being there. I’ll understand if you want to kick me off the team.”

  I sighed. “No, I don’t want you off the team. I spent too much time training your ignorant ass.”

  He smiled. “Thank you, Daddy. I promise I won’t let you down again.”

  “Yeah, well you might think about not letting your wife down.”

  Kenneth frowned, hung his head again.

  I slapped his shoulder hard. “Let’s go do some shooting.”

  When we rejoined the rest of the team—Alvin and Ray were holding targets against the cardboard while Jerry worked the staple gun—Kenneth cleared his throat. “I’d like to say something to y’all.”

  Jerry paused with the staple gun in midair; they all turned their eyes to Kenneth.

  “I let y’all down yesterday,” Kenneth began in a shaky voice, “and I feel really bad about that. Daddy and I talked, and I apologized to him. I want to apologize to all of y’all, too. I promise it won’t happen again.”

  “If it does, I get to punch you in the balls,” Dean mumbled around a clump of chewing tobacco. He turned and spat in the grass at the edge of the cement.

  Gina pretended to gag. “You really need to stop that shit.”

  Dean just smiled, a sliver of brown saliva clinging to his swollen lip.

  “When you two are done French kissing,” I said, “we can get on with training.”

  One by one, the snipers walked over to Kenneth and either punched him in the shoulder or shoved him to show their forgiveness. We then each grabbed a cardboard target and began the long walk to put them up. As we walked, I moved beside Gina.

  “I didn’t expect you to be here,” I said. “I figured you’d be working the case.”

  She shook her head. “They only have half the detective division working on it. Since I was there with the sniper team and Lieutenant Chiasson didn’t want to interfere with anything you had me doing, he assigned someone else in my place.”

  We walked in silence until we reached the target stands. As we put up the cardboard that held multi-colored shapes with numbers in the middle, the sound of an approaching vehicle stopped us in our tracks. We all looked toward the shell parking lot, expecting to see Captain Landry’s unmarked black cruiser. My heart sank as I quickly remembered he would never again be dropping by the range to see how our training was going.

  “Who the hell is that?” Kenneth asked, as Bethany Riggs walked to where our rifles rested on the ground two hundred yards away. She stood with arms crossed, watching us. Kenneth shielded his eyes, squinted. “Damn, she looks hot.”

  “Watch your mouth. She’s Internal Affairs.”

  Kenneth’s face turned two shades whiter. “What is she doing here?”

  “Your wife sent her,” I joked. “Something about ‘conduct unbecoming an officer’ or some shit like that.”

  Kenneth’s head jerked around to face me. “You serious?”

  I laughed. “No, fool. She’s heading up the investigation on Captain Landry.”

  Kenneth let out a lungful of air. “Damn, Daddy, don’t scare me like that.”

  We finished setting up our targets and then walked back toward the firing line. Bethany moved past our rifles and met me at the five-yard line. She wore a low-cut, sleeveless shirt that exposed a bit of cleavage. I wasn’t intentionally looking, but it was hard to miss. She handed me a sheet of paper. “The sheriff wanted me to deliver this to you immediately.”

  I glanced down at the memorandum that was printed on official sheriff’s office letterhead and quickly read the message: Effective immediately, Sergeant London Carter will be transferred from the Patrol Division to the Detective Division, under the command of Captain Michael Theriot. His new radio number will be 210. He will retain his sergeant rank and command of the sniper team.

  It was more than I’d asked for, but I was suddenly unsure if it was what I really wanted. I had worked patrol for so long that it was a part of my life. It was in my blood.

  “You’ll be working with me,” Bethany said. “Because of your sniper expertise, Sheriff Burke wants you onboard as a consultant. That’s it.”

  “When do I start?”

  “As soon as you’re done here. I’ll wait for you, and you can follow me to CID.”

  The criminal investigations division was in Payneville, ten minutes from the rifle range. “Do you want me to just meet you there?”

  “No, I’ll wait.” She nodded toward the row of rifles on the ground. “I’ll need your rifle for evidence.”

  “Evidence?”

  “Standard protocol.” She fixed me with a stern look. “I’ll also need the shell casing you took from the scene.”

  “My shell casing? Why?”

  “In case you’ve forgotten, you shot a man last night. Although you’ve been cleared through our investigation, there’ll most likely be a grand jury hearing to formally clear you. We’ll need to present the rifle and casing as evidence to close out the case. Do you have another rifle to use while this one’s being processed?”

  I nodded, started to gather my gear. “I’ll follow you to CID now. They can finish training without me.”

  We walked back to the firing line where I collected my spent casings and rifle and loaded them in the trunk of my squad car. Bethany stood waiting for me at her car. She was talking on her phone, but was too far away for me to make out what she was saying. I joined Jerry Allemand at one of the shooting tables.

  “You got this?” I asked him.

  “I guess I have to, since you’re going play footsies with your new girlfriend.”

  I shook my head, thanked him and got in my squad car.

  CHAPTER 5

  I followed Bethany the nearly ten miles to CID, and we parked at the outermost edge of the overfilled lot.

  “Why’s it so crowded?” I asked when we stepped out of our cars.

  “Everyone who responded has to meet today with a detailed report of what they did.” She tapped a manila folder tucked under her left arm and walked briskly toward the front door to CID. “I have all of the sniper reports here. You guys
did a good job. Your reports help paint a clear picture of what you all saw and it helped dispel the assumption this was an accidental discharge.”

  “Who came up with that bullshit theory?”

  “I did,” she said without slowing down.

  I smiled sheepishly and pulled the door open for her. We made our way through a maze of hallways and finally arrived at the crowded conference room. Detectives bustled about the room gathering files and documents and taking seats around the large table at the center of the room. A giant poster board was plastered on one of the walls, and it contained a detailed sketch of the Food-N-Stuff parking lot and the surrounding roads and buildings. There were two human figures drawn on the sketch—on opposite sides of Betty Jo’s—to indicate the bodies of Pete Billiot and Captain Anthony Landry.

  “Sergeant Carter…” It was Bethany. She summoned me to a chair beside her at the crowded table. She then called out to the cops in the room, “Okay, let’s get started.”

  The loud chattering dropped to a low buzz and everyone took seats. One by one, Bethany called on the detectives to provide a briefing of their activities. Photographs had been taken, neighborhoods canvassed, video surveillance from the surrounding stores confiscated.

  Bethany shoved her pen toward Detective Melvin Ford. “Melvin, I need you to run background checks on every name on those canvass sheets. I want to know if any of them have criminal records, if they’ve had military or police training and if they’re avid hunters.” She turned to Detective Rachael Bowler. “Rachael, review the surveillance videos and see if anything suspicious turns up. The shootings had to have been caught on tape.”

  Melvin and Rachael abruptly jumped to their feet and hurried out of the room.

  Bethany looked down at her notes and then scanned the table. “Show of hands…who was part of the search team trying to locate Captain Landry’s shooter?”

  Eight SWAT members—three from the detective division, four from patrol and one from the detention center—raised their hands.

  “Did you locate any evidence or witnesses that can help us identify who this cop killer is?”