Shutter Man (9 page)

Maintained by the AFTE, NIBIN – the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network – was a sophisticated database that automated ballistic evaluations, replacing the tedious and time-consuming task of side-by-side comparisons.

Byrne gestured to the printed images of the four bullets taped to the whiteboard, the bullets used to kill Angelo, Laura and Mark Rousseau, as well as Edwin Channing.

‘Same manufacture?’ Byrne asked.

‘Yes, sir. These are all Hornady.’

‘You’re sure?’

It was a routine question. Byrne knew that Conroy knew. He wouldn’t say so otherwise.

‘Of this I am a hundred percent sure.’

‘Same weapon?’ Bontrager asked.

‘Ninety-nine percent,’ Jake said. ‘Fired cartridge casings I can match in my sleep. Spent projectiles leave some room for doubt, unless you have the weapon.’

‘Same shooter?’ Byrne asked.

Jake smiled. ‘That’s your job, detective. If it’s metal, I can read it. People? Not so much. Ask my two ex-wives.’

Byrne considered everything they had. It was good. ‘Anything else you can tell us?’ he asked.

Conroy slipped each slug into its envelope.‘Get me the gun,’ he said. ‘All will be revealed.’

‘Hopefully we will,’ Byrne said. ‘With the guy still attached to it.’ He held up his phone. Jake nodded. He’d call immediately if there was a NIBIN match with a previous crime or a gun owner.

On the way out, Byrne noticed a poster of Clint Eastwood pinned to the wall next to the door. At the bottom it read:

I have a very strict gun control policy: if there’s a gun around,
I want to be in control of it.

‘So, we are moving forward with the belief that we are looking for the same person or persons who committed all four of these homicides,’ Bontrager said.

Josh Bontrager, when he was in the zone, got very formal. They were standing by their car in the large parking lot of the FSC.

‘I think we are,’ Byrne said. ‘It looks like the same bullet evidence and same gun; no reason to believe it’s not the same shooter.’

‘That is one sweet semi-auto, by the way,’ Bontrager said, referring to the Makarov.

‘It is.’

Byrne knew that Josh Bontrager knew his way around service weapons, and qualified with high marks every year at the range. He wasn’t so sure if the Amish used guns or not. He asked.

‘Oh my gosh, yes. We used to hunt all the time,’ Bontrager said. ‘Varmints, mostly. Deer causing trouble.’

‘What was your weapon of choice?’

‘Had a Remington 700, bolt action,’ Bontrager said. ‘30.06.’

‘Nice,’ Byrne said. ‘Were you any good with it?’

Bontrager smiled. ‘We ate.’

Byrne glanced at his watch. ‘I’ve got to do that interview with Angelo Rousseau’s sister.’

‘I’ll go with you if you like.’

‘You sure?’

Bontrager opened the passenger door. ‘We had a saying in the church, I think it’s from Proverbs:
Be with wise men and become wise.’

Byrne laughed. ‘If that’s the case, I’ll stop back at the shop and we’ll pick up John Shepherd.’

The Beaudry house was a stone ranch in Cheltenham. When Byrne and Bontrager arrived, there was no room in the driveway or, for that matter, a half-block in both directions. The extended Beaudry family, it seemed, was here in full force.

The front door was wide open, the screen door closed. Josh Bontrager took the lead, rang the bell. A few moments later, a man in his late forties came to the door.

‘Yes?’

Bontrager had his shield in his hand. He raised it, introducing himself and Byrne. The man looked over his shoulder, perhaps gauging whether or not now was the right time for this – whatever
this
was. He seemed to resign himself to the fact that the sooner it was done, the faster things would begin to come to a close. Not to mention the possibility of catching the person who did this unspeakable thing to Angelo, Laura and Mark Rousseau.

The man unlocked the screen door – a door that probably stood unlocked most of the spring and summer but now stood fortified. Byrne had seen it many, many times. The small points of security that had so casually lapsed were suddenly fastened in the wake of a tragedy. As the man held the door open, he introduced himself.

‘I’m Don Beaudry, Anne-Marie’s husband. Angelo was my brother-in-law.’

All three men shook hands.

Don Beaudry was just over six feet, broad-chested, with a full reddish beard, speckled with gray.

The living room was cluttered but comfortable.

In a high-backed chair next to the fireplace sat Anne-Marie Beaudry. For some reason Byrne had thought she would be older. She appeared to be in her early thirties, with short chesnut hair, deep green eyes. She looked better, more rested, than he had expected. Byrne knew the toll of grief, and Anne-Marie Beaudry seemed to be holding her own.

They all sat down, each perched uncomfortably on the edge of his chair. It was common. The families of murder victims rarely sat back in a chair or on a couch in those first few days and weeks. It was as if they felt that at any moment they might need to jump to their feet, to put out some fire, to throw themselves into the breach to protect a remaining member of their now dwindling family. Investigators often matched the posture.

Coffee was offered, declined.

The two detectives had decided on the way over that Byrne would conduct the interview and Josh Bontrager would take the notes.

‘What can you tell us about your brother?’ Byrne asked.

Anne-Marie took a few moments. ‘He was a saint,’ she said. ‘Always willing to pitch in, always there when you needed advice, or a shoulder.’ She grabbed a tissue from the box on the coffee table, dabbed at her eyes. Maybe she wasn’t coping all that well, Byrne thought.

Anne-Marie Beaudry went on to give Byrne a brief history of Angelo Rousseau’s life: high school valedictorian, a stint in the Marines, the birth of his son, Mark, the opening of his company, his work with the Boys and Girls Club. By her account, the victim was an outgoing, gregarious man. Byrne didn’t hear a single thing that would lead him to potentially solve the man’s brutally violent murder.

‘Do you know if they had a safety deposit box?’ he asked.

Anne-Marie looked at her husband, back. ‘I don’t think so. Laura never mentioned it.’

‘What about Laura?’ Byrne asked. ‘Did she have any enemies?’

‘Oh my goodness,
no
. Laura? Laura was quiet. The exact opposite of my brother. Maybe that’s why they got along so well. What they say about opposites attracting, right?’

‘When was the last time you saw her?’

Anne-Marie thought for a moment. ‘We belong to a knitting circle. Our most recent meeting was this past Thursday. Over in Haverford.’

‘And that’s when you last saw her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did anything happen there that might have seemed out of the ordinary?’ Byrne asked.

‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

‘Were there any rivalries? Any harsh words? Any unpaid debts?’

Anne-Marie Beaudry looked at Byrne as if he had just touched down to earth from another planet. ‘This is a
knitting
circle, detective. There were no harsh words. We’re all very close friends.’

Byrne nodded, took this in his stride. Sometimes you had to ask the question, no matter how trivial or ridiculous or unkind it sounded. More than one case had broken because of a question like that.

To make her point further, Anne-Marie took out an iPad, launched the photo app, swiped back a few recent pictures, turned the tablet so that Byrne and Bontrager could see the screen. It was a photo of a half-dozen women sitting around a cozy-looking living room, each with a knitting project at some stage of completion in her lap, balls of brightly colored yarn emerging from straw sewing baskets.

The second photo was of the same women in the dark parking lot of an Applebee’s, each holding up a sweater or a shawl or a scarf. The picture was more than a little out of focus.

Byrne pointed to the woman in front on the left. ‘This is your sister-in-law?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you all went to Applebee’s after the knitting circle?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. The one on City Line.’

Byrne held out his hand. ‘May I?’

She handed him the iPad. Byrne swiped back and forth between the two photos. Something was different. In addition to the seven women photographed in the knitting circle, there was someone else in the picture taken in the parking lot. It looked to be a very petite older woman with long white hair, but she was standing a good bit behind the group, and far out of focus. Only the right side of her face, which was mostly obscured by hair, and her pencil-thin right arm was visible.

Byrne went back to the photograph in the living room. He counted seven women, none over the age of sixty. Certainly none with long white hair. He swiped over to the photograph taken in the Applebee’s parking lot. There was no question. There were eight women. The eldest stood behind a woman who appeared to be the tallest of the group. She was mostly obscured or in shadow.

Byrne turned the tablet momentarily to Bontrager, who nodded. He knew where this might be going. He’d seen it too. Byrne handed the iPad back to Anne-Marie.

‘The woman at the back, the older woman, is she part of the group?’

Anne-Marie looked closely. ‘Oh my.’

‘What?’

‘I didn’t realize she was in the photograph until just now.’

‘Do you know her?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘No. What I mean is, I just saw her that night outside Applebee’s.’

‘Under what circumstances?’ Bontrager asked.

‘Hang on. I took more pictures.’ She swiped her finger across the screen a few more times. ‘Huh.’

‘What is it?’

‘She’s not in any of the pictures. Just that one.’

‘And you’re saying she’s not part of your group, and that you’d never seen her before?’ Bontrager asked.

‘No she isn’t, and no I hadn’t,’ she said.

‘How did she come to end up in this photograph?’

‘I’m not sure.’ She put down the iPad, thought for a few moments. ‘We were in the restaurant, getting ready to leave, and I remembered that I left my purse in the car. I excused myself from the table. I walked out of the restaurant and over to my car, which was parked at the far end. Near the high hedges that separate the lot from the lot at Costco.’

‘What happened then?’ Byrne asked.

‘I heard singing.’

Byrne felt a cold hand close around his heart.

‘Singing?’ he asked.

‘Yes. Someone was singing. A beautiful melody. Haunting. Definitely in another language.’

‘You don’t know what language?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’

‘And you’re saying that it was this woman who was singing?’

‘Yes. It was the oddest thing.’

‘Was she in a car?’ Byrne asked. ‘On a bench?’

‘Neither. She was just standing there in the shadow cast by that tall hedge.’

‘Can you describe her?’

‘Not really. She was pretty much hidden. But I can tell you she was old.’

‘How old?’

‘I’m not really good at this. Eighty, maybe. Perhaps older. Long white hair, a white dress.’

‘Anything in her hands?’

‘Not that I saw.’

‘What can you tell us about the song?’ Byrne asked.

‘Nothing really. It seemed kind of… I don’t know. You’ll think I’m crazy.’

‘Not at all. Just tell us what you remember. What your impressions were.’

‘It sounded kind of sad. Like a requiem of some sort.’

Another glance passed between the detectives.

‘A requiem,’ Byrne said. It wasn’t a question.

Anne-Marie Beaudry just nodded.

They stopped at a diner on Frankford Avenue. The two detectives ate in silence, their notebooks propped against their water glasses.

‘Who is this mysterious singing woman?’ Bontrager asked, not expecting an answer.

As they finished their coffee, Byrne’s phone rang. He wanted to let it go, but those days were over. He had four homicide victims on his desk now. And he was on point for all four.

‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘Is this Detective Byrne?’

Byrne didn’t recognize the voice. ‘It is. What can I do for you?’

‘My name is Joe Quindlen. I’m a patrol officer in the 17th.’

‘What’s going on, officer?’

‘I got flagged by a guy on the 2600 block of Montrose. Said he found an object of interest in this house he’s working on. Looked a little pale when he waved me down.’

The address was in the heart of Devil’s Pocket. ‘Who is the guy who flagged you?’

‘He’s a painter, plasterer, like that. He’s doing some rehabbing on this block,’ Quindlen said. ‘I was about to bring it down to the station, but this old guy stops me on the street, said I should call you.’

‘What old guy is this?’

Byrne heard the sound of a notebook page being flipped. ‘Name of Eddie Shaughnessy.’

The name pulled Byrne down a long hall of memory. The only time in the past twenty years that Eddie Shaughnessy had crossed his mind was when he found himself wondering if the old man was still alive.

‘You’re sure his name was Eddie Shaughnessy?’

‘Older gentleman, built like a fireplug, unlit cigar in his mouth?’

‘That would be him.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And he said you should talk to me?’ Byrne asked. ‘Why did he say that?’

‘No idea,’ Quindlen said. ‘But I got the feeling that this is a neighborhood thing, and he wants to keep it in the neighborhood.’

‘We’re not talking a box full of body parts here, are we, officer?’

‘No, sir. If that were the case, no matter what the old man said, I would have called dispatch first.
Then
I would have called you.’

Byrne understood. He had been there many times as a patrol officer. The network was one thing. Your job – and maybe your liberty, if something went to trial – was another. Sometimes the blue line was thick. Sometimes it was gossamer thin.

‘What’s the address?’

The officer told him. Byrne wrote it down. ‘I’m on my way.’

Out in the parking lot, Josh Bontrager leaned against the car, tried to look uninterested in the call. Byrne appreciated the respect.

‘Want to take a ride?’ Byrne asked.

‘Sure, boss,’ Bontrager replied with a smile.

‘What did I tell you about that “boss” business?’