Cross Fire

pond a ways, curved into the woods, and then came back out again. It stopped right behind where I’d parked.
    A uniformed officer, a blond woman, got out and waved as I came over.
    “Detective Cross?”
    “That’s me.”
    “I’m Officer Guadagno. Detective Cowen asked me to drive out here and bring you back as quickly as possible. There’s been a homicide in town, a woman by the name of Bernice Talley.”
    I assumed she just meant that Cowen had been pulled away from my case.
    “Do we need someone else to let us into the impoundment lot, or can you do that for me?” I asked Guadagno.
    “No,” she said. “I mean, you don’t understand. Cowen wants you to come to the scene. He thinks Mrs. Talley’s murder may be related.”
    “To the Suburban?” I said. “To my sniper case?”
    The cop fiddled with the brim of her hat. She seemed a little nervous. “Maybe both,” she said. “It’s nothing conclusive, but this same woman’s husband was found shot dead two years ago, right over there.” She pointed to a patch of woods about a hundred feet up the shore. “The ME called it a hunting accident at the time, but nobody ever came forward. Cowen figures whoever dumped that Suburban didn’t just stumble onto this place, and frankly we don’t get too many homicides around here. He’s naming the son, Mitchell Talley, as a person of interest in all of it, both deaths.”
    She stopped then, her hand on the open car door, and looked at me more directly than before.
    “Detective, this may be none of my business, but do you think this guy could be your shooter down in Washington? I’ve been following the case since it broke.”
    I demurred. “Let me go take a look at that scene before I say anything,” I told her.
    But, in fact, the answer to her question was yes.

Chapter 79

    THE POLICE VEHICLES in front of Bernice Talley’s home were two-deep when we got there. They had a tape line around the house, while the neighbors watched from the fringes. I had no doubt that all of them would be locking their doors and windows that night and for many nights to come.
    My escort officer walked me inside and introduced me to Detective Scott Cowen, who seemed to be running the show. He was a tall, barrel-chested guy, with a shiny bald head that caught the light as he talked — and talked.
    Just like on the phone, he briefed me with a long but mostly informative monologue.
    Mrs. Talley had been found dead on her kitchen floor by the boy who mowed her lawn every Sunday. She’d been shot once at close range through the temple, with what looked like a nine millimeter. They were still working on time of death, but it was sometime within the last seventy-two hours.
    The woman was believed to have been living alone, ever since the son, Mitchell, had moved out two years earlier — just a short while after the father was killed. Also, there was some word through the grapevine that the elder Mr. Talley had been known to knock his wife around over the years, and maybe to strike Mitchell, too.
    “That could go to motive, at least on the father’s death,” Cowen added. “As to why he’d want to come back here and kill his poor mother, I wish to hell I knew. And then, of course, there’s all of these.”
    He showed me a shelf in the living room, crowded with trophies and ribbons. They were all shooting awards, I saw — New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Club, Junior NRA, various fifty- and three-hundred-meter competitions, target skill awards. Most of them were first place, some second and third.
    “The kid is an ace,” Cowen said. “Some kind of prodigy or whatever. Maybe also a little… you know. Simple.”
    He pointed at a framed photo on one of the side tables. “This is him, maybe ten years ago. We’re looking for something more recent we can use.”
    The boy in the picture looked to be about sixteen. He had a round face, almost cherubic, except for the dull look in his eyes and the half-assed attempt at a mustache. It was hard to imagine anyone taking him too seriously at that age.
    The guns are his power,
I thought.
Always have been.
    I looked back over at all the trophies and awards. Maybe this was the one thing Mitchell Talley had ever been good at. The one thing in his life he’d ever known how to control. On the face of things, it seemed to make sense.
    “When was he last seen around here?” I asked. “Did he ever come to visit?”
    Cowen shrugged apologetically. “We’re still not sure. You’re catching