“I was taught to get in, get close, kill quickly, and get out, without ever being seen.”
—Gunnery Sergeant Jack Coughlin, USMC
Anne’s mouth was open with shock when she stood and said, “My God, Mike, are you telling me that she’s—”
“My ex-wife.”
Houston was so inwardly directed that he missed the fact that Anne was too surprised to know what to say. His face flushed with the heat of a blistering rage. Suddenly, his face cooled and he became worried. “Christ, how can I tell Susie?”
He couldn’t remember another time in his life when he had no idea of what he should do. How could he tell his only child that her mother was dead? There was only one thing he believed would be worse—burying one’s child.
“We haven’t talked in a couple of years,” Houston said. He faced Commonwealth Avenue and stared at something only he could see.
Anne ventured a response. “Well, you are divorced.”
Houston turned his head toward her, as if he had forgotten her presence. “Not Pam—Susie.” Houston turned back and seemed mesmerized by the crowd standing on the sidewalk across the street. “Now I have to find her and tell her this?” Houston’s face had lost its color and when he clenched his fists, he reminded her of a World War II poster her grandfather had framed over his mantle. It depicted an angry man pulling off his jacket, with fists clenched for a fight. The caption read: TELL THAT TO THE MARINES!
Anne stepped to his side and placed a hand on his arm. “I’ll help you. We’ll talk to her together.” She stepped in front of him, and he saw she was concerned for him. “Are you up to this, Mike? Maybe you should wait in the car.”
Houston held up his hand to prompt her to stop fretting. “I can do my job, Anne.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t. I know you, Mike. You hide your feelings better than anyone I’ve ever known and that’s fine in a poker game, but this is something else entirely. You’ve just looked at the body of someone who is important to you.”
“Pam stopped being important years ago.”
Houston heard Anne blow through her lips, a sound similar to a whale blowing water, and knew she was not buying his line.
“Who are you trying to convince—you or me?” she snapped. Anger elevated the volume of her words.
Houston inhaled sharply. His chest puffed out like a bird’s feathers on a freezing day. “Either way, no matter who the vic is, we got a job to do.” He walked back to the body.
Houston felt resistance as he squatted beside Pam’s body and realized it was not physical but emotional resistance. Their life together flashed through his mind like a slide presentation. He remembered their wedding. Neither family could afford a big ceremony, so they decided on a private service—Pam, two witnesses and him.
The priest asked, “Pamela, do you take Michael as your lawfully wedded husband?”
Pam lost her place in the prayer book and frantically flipped pages, trying to find the correct one.
The priest smiled and gently said, “Pamela?”
She looked at him. “Yes?”
“Do you take Michael for your husband?”
She looked at him and then at Mike. She turned back to the preacher and rolled her eyes in a manner that showed how absurd she found the question. “Of course, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
As he inspected her body, Houston’s hands brushed against Pam’s cheeks. It was the first time he had touched her familiar body since their separation and divorce. Since the breakup, he had harbored the hope that someday they might mend things and get back together. He felt a profound sadness, caused by the sudden realization that now there was no way they could ever do so. His hands shook and he clenched them into fists to control it. He felt a light touch on his shoulder.
Without looking, he knew it was Anne. He also knew that she felt the tremors that racked him and hoped she believed they were a result of the situation and not the return of the damned shakes that he had been hiding from everyone the past year. Truthfully, he too was unsure whether the trembling was the result of whatever was going on within him or if Pam’s murder rattled him more than he was willing to admit.
“Mike, let me do this.”
He rocked back, folded his arms and hid his unsteady hands in his underarms. He looked skyward and rested on his heels. “She was a good woman, Anne—a far better wife to me than I was a husband to her. She deserved someone who could place her first . . . ”
Anne gently guided him to his feet. “You sell yourself too cheap. It takes two to make a relationship and two to destroy it.”
Houston allowed her to guide him away from the body. He walked a couple of steps to the side and stood there, feeling like a pressure cooker about to explode while Anne returned to the body. She squatted and brushed Pam’s long red hair to one side, exposing her torso. Even though he stood several feet from her body, Houston saw the bloody smear on her left breast. Experience with wounds of this nature told him that based on the location of the bloodstain; the bullet had probably punctured her heart. Nevertheless, it would be up to the medical examiner to determine the exact cause of death. Of one thing, he was certain; if Pam had not died instantaneously, she was most likely dead shortly after she hit the pavement. The knowledge gave him no solace.
The air around Pam’s body reeked of gasoline. Houston looked at the concrete beside the body bag and saw several places where gas had pooled. When Anne finished inspecting the body and stood up she motioned for the CSU people to bag the body. Unable to think of another way to assuage his anger and regain his objectivity, he stated the obvious. “It looks as if he hit her while she was gassing up.”
Anne turned to the car and bent over, staring through the driver side window. “Was she going to school?”
“Not that I know of, why?”
“Look in the back seat.” She stepped aside to allow him enough space.
Houston leaned in through the passenger-side window. He knew that touching the car was contaminating the crime scene, but he didn’t care. He placed his hands on the windowsill and scanned the car’s interior. Books and papers were scattered over the rear seat of the car and a Boston University T-shirt lay on the seat. Houston stepped back, stumbling as he did.
“What is it?” Anne asked.
As suddenly as the shaking had started, it stopped. Houston quickly recovered his composure. He avoided looking at the body bag when he spoke. “BU has buildings all along Comm Ave. and we’re only a short distance from Kenmore Square. Even though it’s August and the on-campus population is at its lowest, students take summer courses.”
“Mike, what are you getting at?”
Houston wiped at the perspiration that soaked his brow. “Pam hated driving in Boston—the traffic drove her nuts. There’s only one thing I can think of that would be important enough for her to drive here.”
Anne suddenly made the connection. “Your daughter attends school in the city.”
“Yeah, she’s a freshman at BU.”
Houston was unable to shake the feeling that the sniper was taunting him and would want to see his reaction to this personal attack. He stared at the crowded sidewalk across the street. Rage drilled a hole through his guts as he searched the faces of the gawkers, commuters, and baseball fans gathered there. He tried to concentrate on each face, hoping some supernatural power would suddenly take control and reveal the shooter to him.
He scrutinized the assembled throng, suspicious of every one of them. Until he had a specific suspect in mind, everyone he encountered would be considered a potential killer and he would trust few people, if any. Which one of the gathered crowd was his shooter? Which of them was thumbing a nose at him?
He didn’t see Anne walk around the car and was surprised when she stood beside him. She too stared across the street at the spectators. “Are you going to be able to maintain your objectivity?”
“Yeah, I’ll be okay.”
Anne said, “This shooter is either a lot smarter or a lot luckier than the average criminal. He couldn’t have chosen a better time of day.”
“I was thinking the same thing. This crowd is gathering for the game between the Sox and the Yankees. If he’d waited an hour later, the streets from here to Fenway Park and Kenmore Square would be impassable.” Houston turned to Anne. “I want this guy.”
“I know you do. We all do.”
“No, you don’t understand. I want this guy. I’m not going to mess with Miranda rights, courts or due process, just him and me and Old Testament eye-for-an-eye justice. I want him in my sights.”
He knew that she shared his anger—this case had taken on an entirely new dynamic. It had become personal.
They saw Barry Newton standing on the sidewalk across Comm Avenue, away from his crime scene team. He was talking with a couple of uniforms. Anne started walking to him and after a second, Houston followed.
“Anything?” she asked.
Newton looked at them and said, “Nothing . . . another crime scene devoid of any physical evidence. Which doesn’t surprise me. The perp never set foot outside his vehicle. According to what witnesses told the first officers on-scene, a single shot was fired from a white van . . . at the bus stop. It was one hell of a shot . . . we haven’t measured the distance yet, but I’d estimate it is over two hundred yards, through traffic.”
“One shot, one kill,” Houston said.
“What was that?” Barry asked.
“Nothing, Barry, I’m rambling. Let me know if you get anything else.” Barry looked into Houston’s face. “You okay? You got the same look that was on my father’s face when someone poisoned his dog.”
“I know the vic. Her name is Pamela Houston. Or she may be using her maiden name. It’s hard to tell what Pam would use.”
Barry immediately made the connection. “Aw, hell, Mike, I had no idea—”
“No reason you would. We’ve been divorced for more than six years.”
Houston walked a few steps away and then paused, pointing to one of the uniforms. The officer puffed on a cigarette and smoke encircled his head. “Barry, you happen to notice that there’s a lot of gas on the ground?”
Barry looked up and saw the young cop and shouted, “Hey douse that damned thing! You want to blow us all to hell?”
Then he turned back to Houston. “Mike, as soon as I have something, you’ll know.”
Houston turned toward the unmarked police car and heard Barry say, “Jesus, I really screwed that up.”
“How could you have known?” Anne replied. “I’ve been his partner for five years and I wasn’t aware who she was until he told me a few minutes ago.”
“Yeah, but knowing me and how I handle things, I’d have still messed it up somehow—I never know what to say at weddings and funerals.”
“Don’t worry. You handled it the best you could.”
“I hope Mike understands.”
“He does. Right now though, I’m concerned that he seems unable to understand how he feels.”
“That’s always the problem with male cops, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“Men, especially male cops, can usually deal with anything but feelings. I guess we don’t want to be perceived as being soft . . . ” He walked to the CSU van.
When Newton departed, Anne took her cell phone and hit a speed dial. “Captain? Bouchard. We’re at the crime scene . . . there’s been a complication.”
Houston reached the car and realized that Anne was not with him. He turned and motioned for her to join him. She trotted across the parking lot.
“I need to locate Susie and tell her about her mother,” he said, his voice lacking emotion.
“I know. I already called Dysart. They’re calling BU.”
“Thanks.” Houston stared over the roof of the car as two EMTs picked up Pam’s body, now encased in a black body bag, and placed it on a gurney. Mentally, he left the present for a place where he and his pain were the sole occupants. After several moments, he rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ease the tension. Realizing that it was all for naught, he got in the car. Anne settled in behind the steering wheel.
“Shit,” Houston said, “this is going to be hard. There were some very bad feelings after the divorce and Susie blamed me for causing most of them.”
“Well, no kid wants to see her parents get divorced.”
Houston snapped his head around almost as if someone had doused him with cold water while he was asleep. “I know all that, but right now I wish I’d spent more time mending fences and less time burying myself in booze and this stinking job.”
“It’ll work out, Mike. It’s been six years and she’s older now.”
Houston shrugged. “Either way, there isn’t anything I can do about it now.” He paused and then changed the subject. “If I wasn’t sure before, now I’m beginning to believe that our shooter is military trained.”
“Oh, what leads you down that road?”
“In Vietnam, in the late sixties, the Marines wanted to put some fear into the Viet Cong so they set up a sniper school. A marine named Carlos Hathcock helped found it. He had ninety-three confirmed kills in Vietnam. The instructors always emphasized that if a sniper was to survive they had to live by one basic rule—one shot, one kill. They pounded that into every student: get in, make your kill, and get out before the enemy learns what hit them. As far as we know, our shooter has followed the book and hasn’t fired a second shot at any of the victims, if the sniper doesn’t get it done with a single shot, the target gets to live.”
“Do you think this Hathcock is our man? Lord, he’d be in his late sixties or early seventies now, not exactly a fit for the profile.”
“No, it isn’t Hathcock—he’s dead.”
“So where does this lead us?”
“At this point, I don’t know. But it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that this shooter has a military background.”
“Do you think we’ll get this guy?”
“Either I or someone will. Random killings are a bitch—there’s no motive directly tying the shooter to the victim, only the killer knows what his or her reasoning is. Hell, look how long Bundy got away with it before he screwed up and they caught him. Our guy will screw up too. Eventually, he’ll step on his own dick—they always do. When he does, I want to be there to shoot it off.”
“Mike, this is not a random kill. Whoever this shooter is seems to have an agenda and I think I know what that agenda is.”
“I do too. The voice calling me at the Common, the note on the car and now this, all tells me that I’m this asshole’s agenda.”
The radio came to life. There was a double shooting at Christopher Columbus Park. Anne said, “That’s a couple of blocks from the Marriott.”
“This shooter shows up every place we go. This guy is stalking us.”
Anne turned on the emergency lights and sped toward the waterfront.
Anne parked the car in front of the small park that bordered one side of the Old Custom House, but she and Houston knew what they were going to find before they got to the bodies. Houston paused for a second and looked at the yachts moored in the Boston Yacht Haven before turning to study the crowd that had gathered along the sidewalk. He knew he was grasping at straws, but maybe he would recognize a face from one of the other shooting scenes. Once again, Houston studied each person in the crowd, looking for anything that might give the shooter away. He realized it was an exercise in futility, shrugged and accepted the fact that this shooter was a pro and was long gone by now. Houston walked toward the cordoned-off scene of the latest shooting.
An ashen-faced uniformed officer met them. Houston was still reeling from the afternoon’s events, but he hid his exhaustion and anger behind a façade of professionalism. “What you got?”
“Two dead. Looks as if the shots came from across Atlantic Avenue.”
“Any ID on the vics?”
The officer opened his notebook. “Guy’s name is Blackman, Peter. The woman has a sheet—a hooker named Carolyn McGuire.”
Houston stared across Atlantic Avenue. “You said the shots came from over there.” He pointed.
“We haven’t had a chance to get anyone up there yet, but I would guess they were fired from the top of the parking garage.”
As he had done on the Common, Houston estimated the distance . . . it was at least five hundred yards.
The sniper stood at the edge of the top deck of the public parking garage, studying the scene across Atlantic Avenue through his range finder. He moved the instrument until the aiming box was centered on Houston and noted the distance—530 yards. I could do you right now, Mikey. He dropped the optical device into his pocket and kept his eyes on Houston.
Suddenly Houston seemed to look directly at him. When the detective began running toward his location, he waved and then made a hasty retreat from the building.
Houston began scanning the area around the park. When he looked at the top floor of the parking garage he spied a man who seemed to be observing them through some form of field glass. He froze, expecting to see the figure raise a rifle at any second. Fully aware of the futility of his action, he ran across the street hoping to get a better view of the perp.
He heard footsteps behind him and assumed it was Anne. His suspicions were confirmed when she called, “Mike, what are you doing?”
Houston raced inside the municipal parking garage and suddenly stopped. Anne halted beside him, panting for breath. “What . . . is . . . going . . . on?” she asked between gasps.
“You didn’t see the bastard?”
“Who?”
“I think the shooter was on the top level.” As he spoke Houston studied the building. In the center of each floor was the elevator, but when he saw the stairwells in each corner of the building, he realized the futility of his effort. The shooter could have taken any of them to make his escape. The loud bang of a door slamming in the northeast corner sent him racing. He opened the exit door to find an empty space with another door, this one leading outside. Stuck between the door and the jamb was another piece of paper.
He heard Anne say, “Mike, for crying out loud, it could have been someone getting their car—”
Houston snatched the paper from the door and handed it to her. “Still think so?”
Anne read the note and her complexion blanched.
“What’s it say?” Houston asked.
She read: “This is three times now . . . I can take you whenever I want.”
Houston tightened his hands into fists and cursed. “The son of a bitch is playing with us . . . ”