Dead Even - Mariah Stewart [82]
She started to make a smart remark, but the look on his face assured her he wasn’t kidding.
“What’s your second choice?” she asked, hoping to take the tension down a notch.
“There is no second choice.”
“Will, I think—”
“Hey, there’s Mancini.” Will nodded in the direction of the drive, where a black car had just emptied of its passengers. “John and someone else—looks like Lucy Martinez and Colin Moss. I’m impressed. They’re bringing out the big guns for this one.”
“I’m not surprised. The Bureau has serious egg on its face right now. I’m sure they’re going to do everything possible to keep the story from the press.” Miranda watched John approach Plainsville’s chief of police. The two other agents stood by, surveying the scene.
“You think anyone will put it together?” Will asked.
“Not without help from the inside, and that won’t be coming from me.”
“I worry about the locals, though. Once the bullet is tested, if it comes back a match to the one that took out Unger, there will be some who are going to want to talk about it.”
“That’s why the boss is here. He’s going to schmooze the locals, look at him with the chief there. He’ll have him eating out of his hand in no time.”
“John’s pretty smooth,” she admitted, “but I don’t know if he’s smooth enough to keep this under wraps.”
“Well, he’s taking the chief off for a walk, just the two of them.” Will watched for another moment, then said, “My money’s on John. He is not going to want this all over the news.”
“Well, I guess we’ll see how good he is at keeping the lid on.” She stepped out of the drive to permit a crime scene lab van to pull past them. “Of course, the press has been all over Landry’s death since this morning. They are going to want some answers. Starting with cause of death and who pulled the trigger.”
“Josh Landry was pretty famous,” he reminded her. “And you’re right. The media is all over the story. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if John wasn’t helping the chief there to compose his official statement.”
“How long does it take to say ‘no comment’?”
A helicopter hovered overhead.
“See what I mean?” He looked skyward. “Network news is already in on it.”
“What do you suppose is going on out there?” She nodded to the tree line, where a number of officers had gathered.
“Let’s go find out.”
They trudged across the field to the edge of the woods.
“What do you have?” Will asked as they approached the small group.
“Looks like the killer had the house under watch for a few days. Lots of different prints out here in the field, but the ones around the trees there, they look like they might have been made with the same shoe, but on different days. See here.” The tech knelt down and pointed to the ground. “There are several prints, some are deeper than others, but they’re the same tread. It rained earlier in the week, the ground would have been soft, the impression would have been deeper than a print made yesterday would have been.”
“Because yesterday the ground was dry.” Miranda nodded.
“Right.” The tech stood up and pointed along the edge of the field. “We’re casting them just to make sure; could be some might have been made by kids, but I don’t think so. Then there are the prints from the police officers who checked the woods the other day. And there are a number of deer prints; most of them are pretty much in a steady line. Creatures of habits, deer are. But the footprints, they go all the way back to the road on the other side of the woods.”
“So someone might have parked a car over there and walked here?” Miranda thought aloud.
“Maybe. More likely he’d have left it down the road about a quarter mile. There’s a little side road; someone could have left a car there. If he’d left it here, out in the open, someone would have reported a car parked there for too long at a time. We don’t have any such reports.” The young man removed his hat, smoothed back his hair, and replaced the hat. “There are tracks along the side of the road. Not sure it’s worth casting them, too. There are cars