Whitaker and Lucas were stopped at a light on the way back to the office. Pedestrians crossed in front of the hood, a herd of bundled-up Michelin Men looking for someplace warm.
Whitaker thrummed the wheel with her fingers. “This guy doesn’t even exist.”
“Sure he does.”
“He’s shot two law enforcement officers. That’s all I see.”
“We know a lot more about him; we just don’t know what any of it means.” As he watched the people move by, wrapped in their protective insulation, he wondered what this guy wanted. What he was trying to say. Would he start sending manifestos to the newspapers? Or would he be one of those silent types? Kehoe’s words at the tram scene came back to him: mission statement.
“Such as?” Whitaker didn’t sound convinced.
“He has a message—political, social, or economic—there’s just too many criteria in his selection of victims for him not to have a goal. There’s a core slogan in this. A reason.
“Both victims are New Yorkers. We can pull focus to a macro view and find that they’re both Americans, which is why Graves is sticking with the radicalized Frenchman idea. But go back to New Yorkers. Both were law enforcement officers; both were most likely killed with the same weapon and same type of ammunition; both were killed in extremely adverse winter conditions; both were shot through glass; both were murdered at rush hour; both were out of uniform. So we know the guy does his homework. He studies his victims. He works well under stress. And he’s put a lot of planning into this.
“Then what do we know about his weapons system? If he was using a semiauto platform, it’s easy to lose a shell with six feet of snow all around in poor lighting conditions and a lot of wind—a setting like that rooftop last night. So he’s probably using a bolt-action rifle. Remington 700 is a good guess. And he’s not using a noise suppressor, which says he’s not concerned about sound.
“But most importantly,” he added, nodding at the white world outside, “it’s his choice of shooting conditions—this weather. Those deer-hunting rounds are second. This isn’t some rich kid with a roomful of trophies next to his wine cellar. This is a guy who has spent a lot of time in the outdoors. In the winter. He didn’t learn to shoot like this in the desert. He’s comfortable in weather that scares Frosty the Snowman.”
The light changed, and Whitaker eased forward with the rest of the traffic. “You mean like Siberia?”
“Nope.” Lucas looked at the frozen world beyond the windshield and shook his head. “This guy’s homegrown.”