Page 49 of Burning Justice

Chapter Thirteen

At ten o’clock, the sky looked peaceful, dotted only with stars and the occasional commercial jet headed for Denver International Airport. Piggly’s parking lot and Morrison Road heading in either direction were a different story.

There were enough red-and-blue strobes flashing and reflecting off the asphalt to light up Denver for a week. Patrol cars had blocked off the road for a hundred yards east and west of the restaurant. Brett had requested officers cordon off the area so Blaze could search for shell casings while the crime scene team did their thing. Even now, the CSU team was busy photographing the vehicles that had been strafed by gunfire, searching for embedded projectiles.

He gave Blaze his lead, following his dog as he processed scents, his nose to the ground, his tail whipping back and forth. They’d been searching for five minutes. The casings had to be here.

When it came to detecting accelerants, Blaze was a rock star, but he’d essentially flunked out of explosives detection school, which included imprinting on black powder. His dog had shown increased interest in finding spent shell casings but never seemed to exhibit an all-out alert. That didn’t mean he couldn’t find them.

The first shots had been fired from inside the white SUV. Those shell casings he didn’t expect to find. With the gun’s ejection port being on the right side of the weapon, those casings would have shot backward and to the right of the shooter, probably ricocheting off the inside of the roof and landing in the back seat.

But the shooter had gotten out of the vehicle. That explained why the second volley had sounded closer. The entire drive-by had lasted only seconds. It was doubtful the shooter had taken the time to stop and collect the casings. Those casings had to be here.

Granted, he’d been flinging himself to the ground at the time, but by his count, the shooter had gotten off at least eight rounds in his direction, plus another at the restaurant window. From the sound of the shots, he figured the weapon had been a 9mm. Depending on the make and model, the magazine could have held anywhere from seven to nineteen rounds.

Radios squawked. Distant sirens echoed, but Blaze didn’t care. All his senses were finely attuned to scent at the moment, and Brett was hopeful that his dog wouldn’t let him down.

Blaze led him back to the road, sniffing and circling on the asphalt before heading back to the gravel-covered lot. It was entirely possible the first patrol cars on scene had crunched the casings down in between the loose stone, but that wouldn’t be nearly enough to conceal the scent of a freshly spent shell casing.

His dog’s body language changed. His sniffing grew louder. His tail whipped back and forth so quickly he could probably take out a window. Blaze pulled on the leash, leading Brett to the tall grass bordering the edge of the lot near the road. There was no doubting it now. Blaze was on a hot track.

Only five more seconds passed before his dog sat, a definitive alert. Brett tugged out his flashlight, aiming it at the ground in front of Blaze’s paws. Gently, he sifted his hand through the tall blades of grass, swinging the flashlight back and forth until the beam reflected off something.

Brett squatted. A shiny brass shell casing gleamed up at him. Being careful not to trample too heavily with his boots, he searched the area in the immediate vicinity, eventually finding seven more.

“Hey!” he called out to the CSU guys. “I need photos here.” The ATF would work with the Lakewood PD on the shooting, but for his own records, he snapped a few shots with his phone.

While a tech made her way over, Brett pulled a small dog treat from his cargo pants pocket and gave it to Blaze. “Good boy, Blaze. Good boy.”

Blaze chomped down the treat and wagged his tail enthusiastically, absorbing the verbal praise, which was as much a part of the reward as the food.

“Shell casings?” the tech asked.

“Eight of them.” Using his flashlight, Brett lit up the locations.

The tech stuck a numbered orange evidence marker on the ground next to each casing, then snapped multiple shots, each from a different direction and distance. “I’ll send over the evidence custodian.”

“No need.” Brett tugged out a pair of vinyl gloves from one pocket and a plastic evidence bag from another, then began collecting the shells. “I’ll send them directly to the ATF lab. It’ll speed things up.”

The slugs were a different matter entirely. They could be lodged in a tree trunk, embedded in the wall inside Piggly’s, or in one of the vehicles parked in the lot. It would take time for the CSU team to find them.

Judging by where Blaze had discovered the casings, Brett could extrapolate the approximate location where the shooter had been standing. The one errant shot that took out the restaurant window probably had, as Brett had suspected, been fired when the shooter was running back to the SUV.

That still didn’t tell him whether this was a random drive-by shooting intended to take out anyone…or whether those bullets were specifically meant for him. Whether the shooter knew Brett was a federal agent was irrelevant. He could still be charged with attempted murder of a federal officer. In the event he was the intended target, the ATF would take point on the investigation, and Brett wanted the quickest ballistic comparison possible. That could only happen at the ATF’s National Tracing Center.

Every firearm had unique characteristics. The barrel always left a distinct marking on the projectiles, and the breech mechanism did the same on the cartridge cases. Images of the casings would be entered directly into IBIS—the ATF’s Integrated Ballistic Identification System. If this gun had been used in another crime anywhere in the country, and investigators had uploaded images into IBIS, Brett hoped a firearms examiner could make a match. Since one of their own had been shot at, the agency would make this a priority.

“Brett!” a voice called out. His boss, Lori Olyawule, and Tom Willard, the ATF agent who’d investigated the Torrance Lane fire, walked up.

After getting off the phone with the 911 operator, he’d called his boss, notifying her of the shooting. It hadn’t taken her long to get here.

“Are you all right?” Lori rested a hand on his shoulder. “And Blaze?”

At hearing his name, Blaze went to Lori and nuzzled her hand until she obliged with a head scratch.

“Got any holes in you?” Tom asked. His question held humor, but his tone held a note of genuine concern.

“We’re both fine,” Brett assured them. Although things could easily have gone down differently. He and Blaze could have been peppered with lead.