“Most enemy soldiers will camouflage themselves, their equipment and positions to break up their distinctive outlines, so the sniper, while observing, must be able to detect and identify an object by seeing only parts or bits of it, and from unusual angles.”
—US Marine Corps Scout/Sniper Training Manual
Included in Danny Drews’s list were the names of several reservists and Houston decided to check them out. He drove to the Marine Detachment in Charlestown, parked in one of the lots used by the tourists who visited the USS Constitution and walked into the naval yard. He paused for a few minutes and scrutinized Old Ironsides, the oldest commissioned naval vessel in the world. The vessel earned its nickname in a sea battle with the British warship, HMS Guerriere during the War of 1812. British sailors named the ship after they watched their cannonballs bounce off the hull and do little harm to the ship.
It dawned on Houston that he had lived in Boston most of his life and had yet to tour Old Ironsides. He determined he would do so as soon as this case was over. He turned away from the ship and walked across the parade ground toward the red brick rectangular buildings where the naval yard’s small contingent of US Marines and the local reserve detachment resided.
Being back on a Marine base, even if it was primarily a reserve outfit, made Houston nostalgic. It was as if he had stepped into a time warp. The buildings were in immaculate condition and the grounds impeccably clean, which didn’t surprise him. Like Parris Island, the Charlestown Naval Yard was as much a tourist attraction as it was a naval base and therefore the military made sure it was always pristine. Houston knew, however, that inside the quaint colonial buildings, the work of keeping a Marine detachment functional was still going on and their interior would probably be identical to the offices he’d frequented during his time in the Corps.
Houston had called before leaving the precinct to make an appointment to speak with the commanding officer and was surprised at how easily he got an approval to meet with Maj. Francis Estes. A female Marine officer stood in front of the headquarters building. He admired her as he walked toward her. She was nothing like the female Marine officers he recalled. Rather than rough and gruff, she looked like something you would see on a recruiting poster. She was close to six feet tall and had the bearing the Corps strived to have in all of its marines. She looked elegant in her Class A dress uniform, a look which very few women were capable of. Her green skirt and tan blouse were so squared away that she would pass inspection by even the most critical sergeant major. She wore her light brown hair fashionable, but within Corps’ regulations, down to her shoulders, without a single strand out of place.
As he neared her, Houston saw the golden oak cluster insignia of a major. “Major Estes?”
She offered her hand and Houston took it.
“I’m Michael Houston, Boston PD.”
Her grip was firm, yet did not make him feel as if she were trying to impress on him that she was strong enough to be a marine. “How can I help you, Detective Houston?”
Houston knew that many Marine officers loved protocol and were extremely rank conscious. Not knowing her attitude, he corrected her. “It’s Sergeant Detective Houston.”
She smiled. “After your call I did some research. You’re a former marine scout/sniper, served in Somalia, left our Corps and joined the Boston Police Department. Now, you’re investigating the sniper attacks of the past several days.”
Houston was impressed that she had taken the time and effort to do some rudimentary research into his background.
They walked inside the building, through a large open office. Several enlisted marines were busy typing and answering phones. They ignored Houston and Estes and went about their jobs with quiet efficiency.
“Would you care for some coffee?” she asked.
He nodded and she poured two cups of black coffee from the large metal coffeemaker that sat on a table outside a door, beside which hung a placard that read Major Francis K. Estes, Commanding Officer. She handed Houston one cup and didn’t ask if he wanted cream and sugar. A marine would drink it black.
Houston couldn’t speak for the other branches of the military, but he knew the Marine Corps ran on coffee. Marines would go a lot longer without food than they would without coffee. Even in a combat zone, they would come up with innovative ways to brew a cup. He sipped the steaming liquid and smiled. The coffee was as he always remembered it, strong and bitter. It was like coming home after a prolonged absence.
Estes stopped beside the door and beckoned him to enter first. Her office was laid out identical to every commanding officer’s he had seen in the Corps. Centered high on the wall behind her desk was an eleven-by-thirteen-inch photo of the president of the United States, while below it and equidistant to either side smaller eight-by-ten-inch photos of the secretary of the navy and the commandant of the Marine Corps hung. Flags of the United States and the Marine Corps flanked the pictures. The major walked to a functional, gray metal desk before which were two metal office chairs with gray vinyl seats and backs. A cursory glance revealed no personal items on either her desk or the office shelves. It gave him the impression that Estes, like the office, was all business and she motioned him toward one of the chairs. Rather than sit behind her desk, Estes sat in the other. She crossing her shapely legs and smiled. “Okay, now that we’ve observed all the necessary protocols, tell me why you’re here.”
“I have a file, a listing of scout-sniper trained personnel compiled by one of the vics . . . ” It dawned on him that she might not be conversant in police slang and corrected himself. “ . . . victims, that is. Daniel Drews was a friend of mine and one of the sniper’s latest targets.”
“What does that have to do with me or my command?”
“The file contains the names of two members of your unit.”
“Really? I wasn’t aware we had any scout/snipers here. If you give me the names, I’ll see what I have.”
Houston paused. He found it hard to believe that she was unfamiliar with the military credentials of any marine in her command. Here it comes, he thought. Rally round the flag and preserve the sanctity of the Corps. He steeled himself to deal with resistance. It seemed as if the major were hinting she was not going to tell him anything. Then she smiled in a way that told him maybe he had made a hasty decision. He decided to ride it out. “I’m interested in a Sgt. Lawrence Grey and Cpl. Richard Billips. According to my information, they’re still members of your command.”
Estes stood. “Let me check with my admin chief. I’ll be right back.”
She walked into the outer office and he heard her speaking with one of the enlisted men. Within seconds, he heard the rumble of a metal file cabinet door opening and a few seconds later, closing. In less than a minute, Estes was back with two military service record books in her hands. She placed the SRBs on the desk and then glanced at her watch. “I’m sorry, Sergeant Houston, but I’ve got to see about something in the armory.”
Houston didn’t know what was going on and prepared to be escorted out of the building. He assumed she wouldn’t leave him alone in the office with the SRBs. He was wrong.
“I’ll only be a few minutes, so finish your coffee. If you want, we can talk when I get back.”
He stood up and unconsciously stood at attention. “Yes, ma’am.”
She smiled at his involuntary action. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
“Ma’am?”
It’s amazing how old habits and Marine training never die.” Estes picked up her cover, adjusted it so it sat on her head perfectly and paused at the door before leaving. “I don’t believe any of my marines would do anything to bring disgrace on this Corps of ours. I hope you find the people responsible for these killings and bring them to justice.” She smiled and left.
Once she was out of the office, Houston realized he was standing at attention and shook his head in disbelief. She’s right, he thought, the training never leaves you.
It only took him a couple of minutes to get what he needed from the files. Grey and Billips were still on active reserve status and both lived outside Boston, on the north shore. Houston was surprised at how much they had in common. Even the towns they lived in were close together—Ipswich and Gloucester. He would be able to check them out in a matter of hours. Houston jotted down the addresses in his notebook. He had just put it in his pocket when Estes returned.
“I’m sorry about leaving you alone,” she said with a smile.
“Not a problem,” he said. “But, I should be moving on, so you can get back to work.”
Estes held out her hand. Houston gripped it and she gave him a look that made him wonder if she was coming on to him. It was sort of a half-smile, half-invitation. He wondered if she had a hidden agenda. “Do you still shoot?”
“Only when my job requires that I do.”
“Well, you should give me a call. We have a place up north. For obvious reasons, we call it the Brigade. A bunch of us get together up there every few weeks for some fun and war games.”
“War games?” Houston was not sure he liked the sound of that.
“Sort of, more like paint ball wars. Have you ever tried it?”
“No, after Somalia and my years as a cop, I seem to have lost interest in running around the woods shooting at people.”
“I doubt that. I’m told that once you’ve experienced the hunt, you’re never satisfied with anything else.” Estes finally released his hand.
He let it drop to his side, refusing to acknowledge that he thought she had been flirting with him.
Estes, too, played it cool. “There are a lot of places to shoot up there. We do need to keep our skills current. You know how it is—if you don’t use it, you might lose it.”
Returning to her desk, the major jotted a number on a message pad, tore the page off the pad and handed it to him. “If you ever decide you want to join us for a weekend, call me.”
Houston swore there was a proposition in her eyes. If it had not been for the circumstances under which they met, he might have taken a chance. However, he didn’t. Instead, he said, “I just might do that.”
Back in his car, Houston was confused. Something about the whole scene with Estes did not ring true. She was too willing to help and should never have left anyone alone with the service record books. Then there was that little scene with the unsaid invitation—now that was bizarre. Houston glanced at the dash clock. He still had more than enough time to look up Grey and Billips. He drove out of Charlestown and onto the Mystic River Bridge, heading north on Route 1.
Ipswich and Gloucester were on the coast north of Boston. While Gloucester was a thriving seaport, home to one of the largest fishing fleets in the northeast, Ipswich was inland, nestled on the banks of the Ipswich River. The easiest way there was US Route 1 to 128, then 1A into Ipswich. From there it was a quick shot down Route 133 into Gloucester. Since Ipswich was the closer of the two, Houston decided to look up Sgt. Lawrence Grey first.
Grey lived on the outskirts of town in a white cape with black trim. When Houston slowed in front of the house, he saw a man wearing camouflage shorts and a green sleeveless T-shirt sitting on the front steps, drinking from a takeout cup of iced coffee. When he turned into the drive, the man stood and eyed the car with no small amount of suspicion.
Houston got out of his car and removed his badge wallet. He ignored Grey’s visible hostility and studied him as he walked across the freshly mowed grass. Grey was tall, at least six feet five inches, and his hair was cut in a buzz cut with silver scattered through his dark brown hair. He was lean and muscular, with lines from too many hours staring into the sun reaching from the corners of his eyes like a cartoonist’s depiction of sunrays.
“Lawrence Grey?”
“Yeah, you the cop Major Estes called me about?”
Houston knew Estes had been too eager to help. No doubt she’d called her men as soon as he had left her office. “I guess so. I’m Mike Houston, Boston PD.”
Grey’s eyes turned hard. “Estes said you’re investigating that sniper that’s been in the news.”
“That’s right,” Houston said.
“So what brings you here?”
“Your name has come up in the course of the investigation.”
He tensed. “You ain’t pinning that on me.”
His reaction intrigued Houston. Rather than show fear like most innocent people, Grey showed hostility and anger. “No one has even hinted about you being involved. But let’s face facts, scout/snipers are members of a small elite society. Not many make it through the training.”
“I heard you was one, in the Gulf.”
“Nope, I did my time in Somalia. Seems like a lifetime ago.”
Houston noticed Grey had some ugly round purple and yellow bruises on his arms and on his chest where the neck of his T-shirt dipped down. “Those are some nasty bruises you got there.”
“Yeah, I play paintball. You give some and you get some.”
“Mr. Grey—”
“Larry.”
“Larry, let’s cut to the chase, okay?”
“Hey, you’re the one came to me.”
“Do you have any idea who this shooter might be?”
“Nope.” He drained his coffee and stood up. “If that’s what you came to ask, you got your answer. Seems you made a long drive for nothing. You should have called first. It would have saved you some time.”
He was right, but then Houston would have lost the opportunity to look him in the eye to see if he was lying and Houston was certain that if Grey wasn’t lying, he was at least hiding something.
“No sweat,” he said. “I wanted to see the country anyhow.” And, he thought, meet a certified flaming asshole.
Gloucester had always been one of Houston’s favorite towns. Over the years, it had maintained its old-time seaport feeling. As soon as they entered the city, visitors knew without doubt, how the residents made a living. One way or the other, if you lived in Gloucester, you owed your livelihood to the sea. Even the air smelled of the ocean; depending on what part of town you were in, the scent would come from either the hundreds of commercial fishing boats or the fish processing plants. Fishing was Gloucester; without it, the place would have dried up and blown away two hundred years ago.
Richie Billips lived in a small house not far from the waterfront. The door was answered by a frail white-headed woman who looked old enough to be Gloucester’s first resident. She couldn’t had been much more than five feet tall, possibly shorter, and craned her neck when she peered up at Houston. She squinted as she tried to determine if she knew him. At least two generations of your family had to live in small New England towns before they considered you a local and not from away. Houston knew she was trying to determine where he belonged on Gloucester’s social ladder. “You ain’t one of them Moonies are you?”
Houston knew she just placed him below the lowest rung on the social ladder. The followers of Reverend Sung Yung Moon had bought up quite a bit of real estate in Gloucester back in the 1980s and the locals had been more than a little upset over it—to be suspected of being a Moonie was not a compliment in Gloucester.
“No, ma’am. I’m neither. I’m here to see Richie Billips. Is he in?”
Inside the house, a talk show blasted from a television and for a second Houston wasn’t sure if she’d heard him over the cacophony. However, she stepped aside. “Well, if you ain’t a Moonie, come in. I’ll get Richard. He’s out back.” The old woman elevated her voice so she could be heard over the blaring television.
Turning and walking, she didn’t look back, talking as she went and taking it on faith that he followed. They entered a sitting room with a couple of armchairs, a couch and the television that polluted the air with talk show garbage. “Have a seat. You’re lucky you came today.”
“Oh, how’s that?”
“Richard is going out tomorrow. He could be gone a couple of weeks or longer.”
Houston agreed. He was lucky Billips was at home. When deep-water fishing trawlers went to sea they stayed out until one of two things occur: either, they filled their holds or their provisions and/or fuel dipped so low that they had to come back—a successful trip was one where you drifted into the dock with empty fuel tanks and a full hold.
A door slammed in the rear of the house and Houston heard a rough male voice say, “What is it, Grandma?”
The old woman answered, “You got a guest. Now before you go in the front room clean yourself up a bit. You don’t want people to think you’re a bum.”
He grumbled something in a voice too low for Houston to make out what he said, but she must have won. Another door slammed and he heard water running through the house’s ancient plumbing. The grandmother returned and asked if he wanted something to drink. Houston knew how these old women could be. The easiest way to deal with them was to say yes, even if all you asked for was a glass of water, which is what he did.
Houston got the water and a plate stacked three layers high with cookies and cake. He couldn’t help but like Richie’s grandmother—she was a food pusher par excellence, right up there with his own mother and grandmother.
When Richie Billips finally made his appearance, Houston was on his second glass of water, third cookie and was exasperated from trying to make the old girl understand he was not a descendant of General Sam Houston.
Grandma saw Richie and gave him a quick inspection to determine whether he was sufficiently presentable to receive visitors. Houston wouldn’t have been surprised to see her spit shine her grandson’s face and slick his hair into place. However, Richie passed the inspection and she excused herself so they could talk in private. She turned off the television and disappeared. After a couple of minutes, the talk show host’s voice returned—this time from the interior of the house.
Houston turned his attention to Billips. Like Grey, he was big and obviously strong. He was a tall, wiry man, standing six-two, maybe six-three. But his muscular physique was that of a man who made his living doing grueling physical labor rather than that of an overdeveloped gym rat. His arms were sinewy and it was easy to see he possessed incredible strength. The physically weak don’t cut it on deep-water fishing trawlers.
“Do I know you?”
“I don’t think so. My name is Mike Houston. I’m a cop from Boston.”
“How can I help you, Mike Houston?”
Houston tried a different approach with Billips. “I got your name from a friend of mine, Danny Drews.”
Richie’s eyes narrowed. “Danny’s dead. I heard it on the news.”
“Yeah.”
Richie glanced over his shoulder to see where his grandmother was. “That shooter has to be one psychotic fuck, man—crazy as a rabid harbor seal.”
“Be that as it may, we’ll get him yet.”
“Yeah, but you and I know that the only score that counts in the game those sick bastards like to play is who walks away.”
“You talk as if you know this guy. Do you?”
Billips became suspicious. “Who knows you’re here?”
“I got your address from Major Estes and I just talked with Larry Grey. Didn’t she call and let you know I was coming?”
His face became pasty white. “I’m screwed.”
“Why?”
“Grey is in it up to his neck—maybe Estes too. She has this not-so-hidden agenda . . . she’s always trying to prove she’s the greatest fucking marine since Chesty Puller. If they sent you to me then the shooter won’t be far behind.”
“Maybe you better tell me what you know.”
“I don’t know who’s doing the shooting, but I heard there’s this guy in town with a major league hard-on for someone. Rumor has it this is about some old garbage from years ago. All I know is he looks like a crispy critter.”
Houston stared at him. He wasn’t sure if he’d heard him right. “Say that again.”
“I heard the guy is scarred worse than a patient at the Shriner’s burn center. I’ve never laid eyes on him but some of the guys have told me that compared to this guy, burnt bacon looks good.”
Houston’s head snapped up. Disfigurement? Burn scars? He immediately thought of the smoldering ruins of the building in which he’d last seen Edwin Rosa. “You heard? From whom?”
“It’s common scuttlebutt throughout the battalion. I heard some of the guys talkin’ over coffee.”
“I need a name or names.”
“Look, I don’t want to get anyone in hot water . . . ”
“I understand that, but I need to know where you heard this.”
“You already talked to him—Larry Grey.”
“You ever hear anyone mention the name Edwin Rosa?”
“No.”
“I sure as hell did.” Houston wondered, why would Estes and Grey get involved with a psychotic killer?
“Estes has this hang-up about being a woman and not getting a combat command.”
“Women have been in combat for several years now.”
“As pilots and grunts, but no woman marine has ever commanded a combat unit. Estes wants to prove that she’s as good as any male officer.”
“What about Grey?”
“He’s an asshole . . . he’d do it for kicks.”