"John Wilson, aged thirty four, married with one kid; shot dead in the chest with .308 caliber. He was boarding the bus for the inner City."
"Mick O'Brien, aged twenty five, not married, shot dead with a neck shot with a .308 caliber. Same caliber. He was walking near his apartment."
"Nancy Darling, aged sixty five, widowed, shot dead with a chest shot with a .308 caliber, sitting on her porch."
"Guys. Those are victims number twelve to fourteen. We have fourteen kills in four days. So tell me, why are all of you still sitting here?" We loved the Captain when he's got his p**** in the pickled jar. He was feeling the heat on it and it was time to shout 'b*****d at everybody.
I got out and walked to my desk with the handout from the briefing. It was 0912hrs, and we have got our a**** kicked. I looked at the five unsolved cases on my table. It tells me I missed the 48 hours deadline; which means the trails of clues are all cold. I was to get up to visit Di Angelo, when the Captain stopped at my desk.
"Jimmy, I need you to covered for me today again." That was the fourth time he done it this month. The Captain was having to fetched his other love for some errands and since he was busy, someone had to fetch his daughter from the school. Guess it was my duty this time around. Frank took the last one and I knew Dusty did the other time. We don't know why but he was distracted by his new lover for some time now.
"Maybe he needed to rut with her. Its understandable; they just started the courtship three months ago and the fire peaking at this stage. So the daughter could be grim reminder of his ex-wife. He does not want to have her on his mind when he's raising the flag." I loved Di Angelo with his brash assessment of every situation.
"Hey, raising a kid is tough. I raised mine and they are all tougher than leather." Frank cut in as he boasted of his fatherhood and children care. "Never once I discarded them for anybody else to take care of them. There are always the time to f*** and time not to f***."
Dan who was sat on the other side looked at me. We both smiled, as we have hardly any f***; Dan' wife was semi-comatose while mine was on a celibacy trial. I left the Sargeant to enjoyed his meal, and made my way to the car. Since my conflict with the bookies, I have always checked my car before I drive. I was more concerned on unwanted attachment beneath the car.
The Captain' girl studied in a public school and was no due off for another an hour. I reckoned I could make it there in time, so I drove leisurely through the late morning traffic. It was then I got the 10-71 ( shooting ) at about three blocks from my location. I sped there and saw the people are at cover opposite the park. There was a body lying on the ground by the bus stand. I drove over with my siren blaring and stopped by the stand. I got out and hid behind my door while looking for any signs of a person with a gun.
There was none to be seen and then the patrol car arrived. I motioned to the newly arrived officers to hold their position while I checked the victim. I looked at the lady laid on her back with her chest heaving for breath. She was shot at the upper right of her chest near to the armpit. She may lived as it looked like the shooter missed the vital parts.
"Call 11-41 ( ambulance needed )." I shouted to the officer. I rushed over to her and tried to administer whatever first aid I knew. Thankfully another officer arrived and was better trained than myself. I walked back to my car and sat down to catch my breath. It was then the second shot came. It hit the lady at the head and was dead by then.
All of us jumped for cover and looked around. Based on the bullet trajectory, I was assuming the building across the road. It was a row of ten levels block with many of them offices. It could be anyone of the three exactly opposite and scanned the windows. There was one window opened on the fifth floor on the left one. I got up and ran while calling the uniformed to assist.
"That building. Fifth floor. Window open." I shouted out as I ran across the road. I made it the front door and it was one of those glass doors with electronic locks. There was a lady sitting at the reception looking at me; partially covered with blood and holding a gun. Who in the right mind would opened the door? She did eventually when she saw the two uniformed officers.
"Guard the entrance." I told the officer while the other followed me. We took the lift as it was there and because it was opened then. We got out at the fifth floor and noticed that it was under renovation but there was no workers. We carefully made our way to the front and then to the opened window. There was no one there and no signs of any bullets or rifle. I looked at the flooring and the window sill; nothing to indicate someone was there. I looked back and saw the three box stacked there on the side. It was moved from another position; one feet from the window where it was earlier. I looked at the height of the boxes. It could had been used as leverage, but why. Then I saw the ladder behind. I can visualize the shooter had propped the rifle onto the box away from the window and then raised himself on the ladder to get a more narrow angle shot towards the bus stand.
But why the elaborate setup?
By then more officers arrived and we searched the floor but no clues. It was then I remembered I had a young lady to picked up. I rushed over and saw the Captain there picking up his daughter. He was seen apologizing to her for being late. I was relieved and went back home to change.
As I was dressing then, I remembered something told to me once by an old friend who joined the army and became a sniper. He once told me that nowadays they are trained in urban shooting as the battlefields are changed. Snipers now don't just hold all the tools they needed, so they improvised. He told me they even used the rope to steadied the rifle or even placed it over stacks of boxes to get better elevation. He once said; 'if we have to get near an opening to shoot, we would be targeted by others. We sometimes shoot from behind the walls at three or four feet away from it as long as we can see the target'.
Another thing he told me; 'I trained many snipers. They take the shot and I evaluate. If its a hopeless one, I would re-do the shot to teach him. That is the most effective way; live shooting'.
Could it be there was a master and apprentice out there? It could answer the pile up of victims, and also the random accuracy. I had to called Dan. Besides removing innards, he was a gun avid reader.
I shared with him my assumptions.
"Yup, seven of the victims are well placed shots; all vital parts and the others were off the marks but equally deadly. The .308 Winchester is a popular number for game shoot in the medium- to large-sized class. But it had slightly more drop at long range than the .30-06 Springfield, owing to its slightly lower (100 ft/s) muzzle velocity with most bullet weights. Hence the apprentice could be still learning that angling."
"More to it, he was no sniper. He's an amateur shooter; probably a huntsman. A game shooter. They liked to hit the animal below the neck and hardly the head. That's their trophy to mount up on the wall. So looked for a game hunter."
Damned! Dan was getting better at detective skills than me. I went back to the Precinct and ran a database search on hunters in the city. I got a list longer than my wedding reception invitees; I did not invite them, Jenny did as she needed the world to know she was marrying an a***h*** like me. I just paid the bill from my hard earned savings.
I narrowed the list to past sixty and with children following in their footsteps. The list came down to a few names. Most children never took up the sports or left for other places where they don't have to joined dad on those trips. Or maybe it was my personal assumption. I never got taken for my father' fishing trips; he said I am useless with the baits. I only followed my mother to the market place and learned the fishes there.
I asked the computer as what I named it; to give me a narrow search for hunters who used .308 and the reply was rude. The display showed me that I was stupid by their standard; "No record can be found." I re-word my search to 'father who may had been injured in shooting accidents'.
This time the machine gave me an affirmative. Guess they are right; the damn thing does not think. It only churned out what you give it. I must remember to tell the guys in this room to co-relate the data with the ammo they used.
Okay, I got five names, and that was a start.
I then keyed in my next questions.
"How many who still lived in the city with their son?"
Only one set of names came up.
I called in a 11-57 ( escort ) for Uniformed to go with me there. It was a large house on the Brighton side; large lawn and posh cars. I knocked on the door and asked for Mr.Freeman.
"I am and who are you?" Mr Freeman was a large man with a slight limp. He was obviously upset at being interrupted in his house, but I had a warrant. I showed him the warrant and told him I needed to checked if he still have his hunting rifle. He asked me to come in to his library. The man does not have a hunting rifle, he had the range; from double barreled to high powered. I noticed one of the rifles were missing.
"Its a Remington 700. My son could have taken it to practice with his younger brother. We are hunters; fourth generation in the running. I saw that as the wall was lined up with stuffed animal heads.
"Where is your son teaching his brother how to shoot, Sir?"
"Why? At the country side. Five miles off the 13rd Highway at Mile twenty." I passed by there, vast land with nothing there but never thought of it as a shooting range. "We have a hunting lodge there."
I took myself there with a patrol car in escort, and was greeted by a simple wooden house in the middle of the land. As I was stepping out of the car, I was treated to a close shot at my door. Immediately, I took cover behind the open door.
"He made me do it. I did not want to learned." The voice shouted from inside. "He made me do it."
This was not what I anticipated. I called in Code 11 ( SWAT call ). An hour later,we had the place surrounded and I left it to the experts. It did not take long for the SWAT team to get the suspect without a shot fired. That's professionalism for them; they are trained for such tasks. I saw them brought the suspect out in cuffs and one of the officers was holding a rifle. The suspect was five feet from me when the shot rang out.
The suspect fell onto the ground with half his head blown off. All of us went for cover and the SWAT team scanned the area. Then a second shot rang out and I saw the man falling from the tree at four hundred yards away. Officers were running towards the fallen man. Meanwhile, I was still holding onto the car door frame; with my nerves wrecked by the shot. The shot that killed the suspect came from behind me at that time. If the shooter was not that skillful, it could had been me on the ground.
The next day, I filed in my report.
"First suspect; Peter Freeman aged eighteen died of a head shot with a .308 fired by his elder brother Micheal Freeman, aged twenty nine who was shot by the SWAT officers. Micheal Freeman who was injured on the left shoulder confessed to the shootings. He wanted to teach Peter on the finer points of shooting big game wildlife but the younger Freeman feared the wildlife. Somehow, the elder one took his younger brother on an extended shooting program on human whom he said was more dangerous than wildlife but can be easily killed.
The rifles taken from Micheal and Peter matched those used on the victims. Micheal Freeman confessed to five shootings, while Peter Freeman, as claimed by Micheal shot seven. That left me with three more shooting unresolved.
"Captain, we have another killer in our city that was involved in the shooting, but still at large." I reported to the Captain.
"And do you expect me to do your job for you, Detective? You can't even fetched my daughter on time." The Captain was upset at me. I would had said we are not his f******g servants, but he was still the Captain. He may f*****d us as long as we wear this badge. I walked to Di Angelo and was given an offer I found hard to resist.
"Jimmy, I could called his ex-wife and she can fetch her back daily. Add some spice on his other love interest. Solved the issue, huh?"
I agreed. What this world needed was one more set of angry couple to make it more interesting.
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