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“I know,” O’Dare said flatly, then offered him a look of sympathy. “And I’m sorry.” She turned to Regan. “I didn’t know you were back in Virginia.”
Regan gave a brief nod. O’Dare hadn’t asked a question so Regan didn’t see the need to provide an explanation.
“But you’re not back with the Marshals?” O’Dare asked.
“No.”
Charlie said, “I emailed you a list of Tommy’s major cases. As you know, my office expects to be involved.”
“I told the deputy director yesterday, in person, I’ll be copying both your local office and headquarters into all my reports. We don’t have much to go on right now.”
“But you have the autopsy report—the coroner said he’d have it this morning.”
“Preliminary,” she said. “Nothing you don’t already know.”
“I’d like to see it.”
“I’ll send it over. It’ll be there before you get back to your office. But to summarize, Granger was shot first in the left thigh, then in the shoulder and neck. The neck wound was fatal. He bled out.”
“He was also shot in the head,” Charlie said before Regan could.
“Yes, and the coroner believes that the head shot was postmortem, close range, as you indicated at the scene yesterday. We confirmed that three shots missed completely, hit the house. Our crime scene technicians have retrieved the bullets, both from the brick and from his body, and we’re running full ballistics. We released the property to the next of kin last night. The shooter didn’t go inside, the house was locked, and his security system was on.” She paused. “The FBI knows how to investigate a homicide, Charlie. We have the best lab in the country at Quantico.”
Was she being deliberately antagonistic, or was Regan projecting her own dislike onto her?
The door opened, and a skinny young agent of about thirty walked in and handed O’Dare a file. “You wanted this?”
“Thanks, Don. Please sit, you’re more familiar with the crime scene analysis and I’m sure Deputy North and Ms. Merritt have more questions.” She said to them for introduction, “This is Don Portman, who’s assisting me in the investigation. Weareprioritizing Granger’s case. Anytime a federal cop is killed it takes its toll on everyone. We want answers as much as you do.”
A good line, but Regan didn’t buy it for a minute.
Maybe that wasn’t fair. O’Dare was a longtime agent, older than Regan, and had the respect of her superiors and subordinates, from what Regan had learned of her in the past. It could be just a matter of her style that rubbed Regan the wrong way, or their serious disagreement about the motive behind Adam Hannigan killing Chase. Regan could admit that she had tunnel vision with regard to that issue.
“Don, you supervised the canvass? Results?”
“We processed the crime scene,” Agent Portman said. “The shooter collected his brass. We have four bullets from Granger’s body, two in good to excellent condition—we sent them directly to our lab for processing. The one that went through his neck shattered on the wall behind him, and the one in his thigh was fractured. The three bullets that we extracted from the brick are unusable. .45 caliber.”
“.45? A handgun?”
“Possibly,” Portman said. “I don’t think we can make that determination, I’ll leave it to the lab and ballistics analysis. There are some rifle hybrids that shoot a .45. It’s not my area of expertise. The tree has also been processed, but there is no trace evidence—no DNA, no hair or fiber. We know exactly where he was sitting—there were some broken and cracked branches, and gunpowder residue on one of the branches and some of the leaves.
“We talked to the neighbors. The neighbor to the east,” Portman glanced at his notes, “a Mr. Luna, fifty-four, was awake and he didn’t hear gunshots, but thought he heard a faint popping sound. Said it almost sounded like a champagne cork, but not quite. We suspect there was a suppressor on the rifle, which you know doesn’t completely silence the gun. He was geographically the closest neighbor. The family across the street was awake, but in the back of the house. Didn’t hear anything until sirens. One witness, a neighbor from the street to the west, stated that he was jogging at approximately five fifteen that morning and passed a dark-colored truck, either a Ford or a Chevy, small SUV like an Explorer, two houses down from Granger. He didn’t really make note of it, just that it wasn’t usually parked there. Tall hedges blocked the vehicle from the neighbors, though we asked everyone on the street about the vehicle—no one owns it, no one else had seen it. The owners of the house in question stated that they’d come in late the night before, at approximately one in the morning, and that there was no car or truck parked in front of their house. We deduced that this may be the killer’s vehicle, and that he arrived after one in the morning and left immediately after the shooting.
“Nine minutes passed from Granger’s 911 call and the arrival of the first unit to the scene. No SUV at that location. We fully processed the area where the car was parked and found nothing of use, but I’m going to have the lab review every piece of trace evidence in case our team missed anything. We assessed that there is no Ring or security camera in line of sight to the house or the car, but we’re broadening our canvass to include streets leading from the neighborhood to the highway.”
“It sounds like you’re on top of it,” Charlie said. “But we know the killer took his phone. Were you able to trace it?”
“Either off or the battery is dead,” O’Dare said. “We haven’t been able to ping it.”
“Have you attempted to track it since?” Regan asked.
“Yes, the lab is working on it. But criminals are getting smarter and there are programs that can prevent tracking.”
O’Dare glanced from Regan to Charlie. “I don’t mind keeping you in the loop,” she said in a tone that implied anything other than what she said, “but my time is valuable, and these impromptu meetings take away from what I should be doing. Thisisan FBI investigation, as you well know.”
“My office is at your disposal.”
“I already received your list of Tommy’s cases, which you helpfully prioritized, I don’t know how much more you can do.”
