“But if Weber wanted to cover up his wife’s murder,” John Barber said, “why the hell did he leave his wife out there in the open for my brother to find?”
“There must have been a lag between when Weber killed her and when the cover-up started,” Kit said. “Maybe it was a spur-of-the-moment thing and after it happened, Weber got scared and left back for the hotel and didn’t go into cover-up mode until he calmed down and got his bearings.
“And in that lag is when Owen finds the wife. Thinking quite rightly that he’s looking at some sick psycho ritual murder, Owen remembers our FBI bulletin about serial killing in the parks and calls it in. And thinking it’s our NATPARK killer, Dennis and I flew straight to Wyoming.”
“And as you were on the way,” Gannon said, “word of your imminent arrival somehow got back to government-connected Team Weber, who had just started the cover-up.”
“Exactly,” Kit said. “Once they realized we were on the way from DC to see a NATPARK victim body, they knew they needed to get one and quick.”
“Which is why they snatched Tracy Sandhurst in Cheyenne,” Gannon said, snapping a finger.
“Right,” Kit said. “They grabbed her and they killed her and then they flew her up to Grand Teton from the Warren Air Force Base.”
“From a covert nuke missile base?” John Barber said. “Isn’t that a little too far of a stretch?”
“Is it?” Kit said. “Not only does Weber obviously have Dawn Warner in his back pocket, Sonexum, like all the rest of these big tech companies, has multiple joint R & D projects with the military. I read that Sonexum is actually in the lead now in terms of the global artificial intelligence race, and they just bumped out Google to score a top secret contract for the NSA and NASA and the Pentagon.
“You think getting IDs and clearance at that level is a problem? Or dropping bribes to make people look the other way? These losers have literally unlimited amounts of money. How much money would a base guard take to switch off a camera and go get a cup of coffee for fifteen minutes? A hundred grand? That’s too low. How about two? Don’t like that? How about seven? No stretch is too far.”
“Good point,” Barber said.
“So some hired mercenary killers go to Dynamite Dolls,” Gannon said, “and snatch the first stripper they can get their hands on. Then they race from the air force base up to Grand Teton, hoping to beat the FBI profilers. But they must have been a little too late.”
“Then what?” Barber said.
“As Kit headed in from DC,” Gannon said, “one of Weber’s security guys—the sniper—must have snuck past Owen somehow and waited for the rest of his team to arrive with the body. But Kit and her partner and the sheriff got there first. Knowing that Weber’s wife being identified is a no-go, the sniper goes to plan B. He shoots Kit and everybody else and then they do the switcheroo to blame all of it on this crazy NATPARK killer.”
“And then they all flew the hell out of there with Weber’s wife?” Barber said, shaking his head.
“Yes, but not before they meticulously prepared Tracy Sandhurst’s body,” Kit said. “They knew all the details about the NATPARK killer’s victims through Warner, is my guess. She has top-echelon data access. She must have snatched up our NATPARK file for the deets on the killer’s modus operandi and given it to Weber’s goons in order to snow us.”
“I get it now,” John Barber said. “Talk about the cover-up being worse than the crime. But it fits. All of it fits. This computer geek, Weber, and his crew actually killed my brother.”
“They might have even gotten away with it, too,” Gannon said, “except they missed something. They didn’t count on Owen already having filmed Weber’s dead wife on his personal phone.”
“Or the fact that our NATPARK suspect—the real killer, Ketchum—was already in jail,” Kit said.
“Okay, so now we probably know what happened,” Barber said. “What now?”
“Now I start making some phone calls,” Kit said.
“Are you sure about that?” Gannon said. “When you went into work there in Denver, it didn’t turn out so hot.”
“Warner’s obviously insanely compromised, but not everybody in the government is on the take, Mike,” Kit said. “At Dennis’s funeral, I met some of his old partners and old students who begged me to tap them for help. Some of Dennis’s old friends are super connected people high up in the Bureau who are chomping at the bit to find out who gunned him down.
“With Owen’s video and all the rest of it, we’ve got Weber by the short hairs. Not just him either. I hope Dawn Warner has her stylist on speed dial for the cameras that are going to be camping out in front of her house. Because it’s nailing corrupt murderous assholes to the floorboards time.”