Friday morning, Conklin and I were hunched over our computers, fleshing out backgrounds of the people on the Barons’ guest list from their recent movie premiere party, building a database of their friends and contacts.
As we worked, we texted notes of interest to each other, and there were tidbits aplenty: affairs, snubs, slights, and fistfights, parts in movies, book and record sales numbers. We found nothing criminal.
We took a break when Tina Hosier, head of Narcotics and Organized Crime, joined us. We showed her our list, and after a long couple of minutes she said, “I know some of these folks, of course. But I don’t see any wholesale drug honchos here.”
My phone rang. It was Brady.
“I’ve got something,” he said.
I turned toward the rear of the squad room and saw that Brady was down from his office on the fifth floor. He waved to us from his glassed-in cubicle.
I thanked Hosier for the consult. She said, “No problem. Keep the faith.”
A minute later my partner and I dropped into the chairs across the desk from Lieutenant Jackson Brady, friend and chief.
He got right into it.
“A Mr. Alan Newton lives right behind the Baron house. His property faces south. He was walking his dogs with his wife a few days ago and took some neighborhood pics to send to his daughter in Amarillo. Then when he looked at his photos, this shot raised his hackles.”
Brady opened a manila folder, took out a photo, and passed it over.
Conklin and I looked at the photo of a woman posing with two dachshunds.
“What are we looking at?”
Conklin stabbed the photo. Behind the dogs was a car pulled over to the curb and a man leaning on the frame of his open car door. He was wearing a camo jacket and a knit cap, and he was holding a short tube up to his eye.
I could hardly contain myself. “That’s a gun scope.”
“A little fuzzy,” said Conklin. “And his face is obscured by his hand, but I’m not throwing it back. When was this taken?”
“Two days before the shooting. Time-stamped, too. Eight thirty a.m.”
“Oh, my God. He was casing the target,” I said.
“Here’s another shot,” said Brady.
A second photo crossed his desk, this one of the same vehicle, a Ford, heading downhill. In this shot the vehicle’s plate number was clearly visible.
I wanted to kiss someone. I know I was beaming.
“Don’t get excited yet,” said Brady.
“Too late,” I said.
“I know, I know. But right now this is proof of nothing. It’s just a guy admiring Saint Francis Wood while looking suspicious. Check him out with our computer techs. See if facial recognition likes him. Report back.”
“Yes, sir.”