They broke to catch up on emails and to see if anything new had come in from Chicago or DC. Cole also checked up on the other cases his office was working. The FBI handled terrorism, white-collar crime, organized crime, public corruption, cybercrime, violent crime, and civil rights issues. Wisconsin had seen a fair amount of each in Cole’s time in the Milwaukee office and he’d had the opportunity to work them all. The murder of the abortion physicians was seen as a violent crime, domestic terrorism, and a civil rights issue. No other branches of law enforcement were questioning their jurisdiction, first because it was clear, but mostly because of all the non-stop, unwanted attention the case was getting from politicians and the media.
Nobody had taken time for breakfast or lunch, so they grabbed what they could and brought it back to Cole’s table as the clock ticked past two-thirty p.m. Cole looked up at the clock and thought the hands were moving even more erratically than normal. “Someone tell me how the purchase of the rifle in La Crosse went down,” he said.
Lane swallowed a mouthful of sub and answered. “This was about five hours after the purchase at the gun show in Waukesha. An old vet had a 30/30 Marlin he’d used to hunt deer since he was twelve. He had to give up hunting because his hearing was bad and the bark of the rifle, even with muffs, wasn’t helping any. The gun held good memories and he didn’t want to give it up, but he finally realized that someone else might be able to create new memories with it so he put it up for sale. His son helped him post an online ad and a daughter made up some flyers with the old vet’s number printed a bunch of times on the bottom where someone could tear one off if they were interested. Those flyers were posted at the VFW Post and at a couple grocery stores in the area. A guy called the vet and they agreed to meet at the VFW Post to make the transaction.
“The buyer came in, stooped over and shuffling, said he wanted the rifle for his nephew. He wore an old army jacket like our buyer in Waukesha, but no wheelchair. He had a bushy beard like some of the professional baseball players have today…or like the guys have on the Smith Bros. cough drop boxes.”
“The guys? You mean, the Smith brothers?” Cole teased.
“Exactly,” Lane continued. “Anyway, the buyer wore big, black plastic glasses that hid most of his face and he had a hoodie up over a battered Menards baseball cap. The seller didn’t even ask for ID.”
“Wait, back up,” Cole said. “The guy was wearing a Menards hat?”
“Yeah. It’s a home improvement store.” He flipped through his notes.
“I know it’s a home improvement store, but if the killer’s not jerking us around, then this reinforces the decision to keep the focus of our investigation on the Midwest.”
“That’s right,” Lane said, referring to the sheet in front of him. “Menards started in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and operates three hundred stores out of fourteen states, all in the midwest. It competes well against Home Depot and Lowe’s.
“Anyway, our seller at the VFW took two hundred and fifty in cash from the buyer and offered to buy the guy a cold one. But the buyer said he couldn’t stay and left. The only thing the seller thought was odd about the whole transaction is that a guy would turn down a free beer.”
“It is un-American,” Cole said, rolling his eyes. He had a corner office and the largest expanse of windows faced mostly east toward Lake Michigan. Ty shielded his eyes from the sunlight that now flooded the room from the northwest. Cole got up from the table and closed the blinds. It protected Ty’s eyes from the harsh light, but the room suddenly lost a little of its warmth. “Let’s keep pushing,” he said.
“Tell him about the boot prints outside Martin’s house,” Ty suggested.
Li took over. “The killer walked through a lot of snow to get from his vehicle to the house and back. The boots must have been new or close to it because there was no wear on the rubber tread.” She passed around photos taken at the scene of some of the crispest indentations. You could clearly see the mirror image of ‘L.L. Bean’ where the heel joined the instep.
“Our guys matched the tread to L.L. Bean’s Snow Boots,” Li continued. “They’ve got thick felt liners and they’re rated down to minus forty-five degrees Fahrenheit with moderate activity and to plus ten degrees with light activity.”
“I won’t ever forget the night of the Martin murder and it was right around zero. Not much wind,” Cole said. “With those boots, the killer would’ve only needed to do some simple isometrics. Hell, just wiggling his toes every so often would keep him reasonably comfy. What size were the boots?”
Li pursed her lips as she reviewed her notes. “Size seven…in a women’s.”
“Women’s? Size seven? No way,” Cole said, shaking his head.
“Yes, way. The width is typically the same, but there’s about a size and a half difference between women’s sizes and men’s in terms of length, so if the shooter is a man it would be more like a size five and one half in a men’s size.”
Cole kept shaking his head and slumped in his chair a bit. “You’re telling me our killer is a tiny woman?”
“Doubtful. Serial killers don’t usually have vaginas,” Li said. “The men’s and women’s boots in this line are identical in appearance, like a lot of higher-end Pac boots. They’ve got heavy rubber soles and nice leather uppers. The killer must have small feet and bought the women’s because they fit better. The average man’s shoe size is between nine and a half and eleven. A man’s five and a half would be pretty small. There’s not a perfect correlation between shoe size and height, but our D.C. guys estimate the shooter is somewhere between five foot and five four.”
“Weight?” Cole asked.
“On the way in, he weighed roughly one sixty-five,” Li said. “Keep in mind he was carrying his rifle and likely wearing a lot of heavy clothes. His rifle alone weighed eight pounds. On the way out he weighed closer to a hundred and fifty-seven pounds. The math works.”
“So, we have a guy who stands a little over five feet and weighs one fifty or so in street clothes and without clunky boots,” Cole said. “That narrows the field. We’ve got a short guy who’s either chubby or a powerlifter. Let’s hope chubby. Anything on the cigarette butts ?”
“No. And that’s odd, too,” Ty said. “On a case this big we should have had the results back within twenty-four hours. It reminds me a lot of the deer blood at first, where they didn’t believe what they were seeing and so they double and triple checked before sharing the results. It’s got that feel to it. They know as well as we do that a positive DNA match could potentially solve this thing, and yet they’re being cautious. You know Jeffers and DC are both leaning on the lab to turn around those results.”
“Please tell me we have something else?” Cole asked.
Before the others could answer Cole’s phone vibrated. He held up a finger, asking for a moment. He looked at his screen and didn’t recognize the number, but he answered anyway. “Cole Huebsch, here.”
“Cole, this is Michele. You might want to turn on channel twelve, or channels four, five, or six for that matter. All the local stations are covering a protest at the Women’s Health Clinic. I’m here, too. Things look like they could get out of hand.”