The van pulled up to the curb in front of the Vincent Ramp, and Mac, Lich, and Patrick piled out. It had taken them fifteen minutes to get back downtown from Knapp’s place in Hudson. Their fears had been put to rest on the way in, when it was confirmed that other than Knapp, nobody else had been hit. Rock and Riles were okay, which was what they were most concerned about. Riles had gone back to the station to get cleaned up from Knapp’s blood.
The three of them moved up the steps to the third level where they found Rock and two other detectives in the southeast corner of the ramp, looking back towards the courthouse. Rock saw them coming and walked over.
“Christ, what a mess.”
“What the hell happened?” Lich asked.
“We think a sniper hit Knapp from the corner area over there.”
“Why here?” Mac said, not seeing anything indicating otherwise.
“Somebody claims they saw a muzzle flash from up here.”
“Anybody hear the shot?” Lich asked.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Rock replied. “Probably had some sort of silencer.” Rock wiped his shaved head with his hand. “I gotta tell ya, we’re out of the car, walking Knapp in, and next thing I know he’s slumped down and Riles is coated in blood.”
Mac walked over to the corner between two mini-vans and looked out over the street towards the courthouse. It was a shot of maybe a hundred yards. The spot provided a good field of fire towards the front of the courthouse. If a person were going to take a shot, this was a pretty good place. Nonetheless, it took pretty good aim and a steady hand to make the shot, Mac thought.
Lich walked up behind him. “We got ourselves another Lee Harvey Oswald?”
“We got someone who was a pretty good shot,” Mac replied.
“Don’t look that far to me,” Lich said.
“Rock, how many shots?” Mac asked.
“Only one I think.” Rock replied.
“One shot from here, not bad,” Mac said. “Probably a scope, with a silencer, a pro job?”
“Who knows? Hell, you can get a scope and silencer for a hunting rifle,” Rock replied.
“Any of the victims of this guy… they got family members maybe who hunt or are good with a rifle?” Mac asked.
Rock shrugged, “Don’t know.”
“How long before you guys were up here?”
Rock grimaced. “Probably three or four minutes at best. It was pretty chaotic. The person who saw the muzzle flash didn’t get to us for a minute or two. Then we ran over, but whoever did it was long gone by then.”
“Where to? Where do you go from here?” Lich asked.
“There’s a stairway to the skyway, there’s another stairway down to the street. They might have jumped into a car in the ramp and left. Hell, they could have taken the elevator down, although I doubt it. We’re pulling the surveillance cameras. We’ll see what we find,” Rock replied.
“No rest for the weary,” Lich replied. “I thought we were going to get some days off.”
“We are,” Rock answered. “Chief’s already got a whole group down here looking at it. He says we’re off it. We’ve done enough. If they need to know anything about the families, they’ll ask us, but otherwise we’re done. We finish up some loose ends tomorrow, then we all get the rest of the week off.”
“Fine by me,” Lich said.
“Let’s go check on Riles,” Rock said.
Mac took one last look out over the street and to the front of the courthouse. A large blood spot marked where Knapp went down. Police tape marked the area off, and the crime scene guys were collecting what little evidence there was. He shook his head. Something didn’t seem right.
Viper pulled up to the front of the boss’s house, parked his car and walked up to the front door. The housekeeper opened the door, took his coat and escorted him to the dining room. The boss was sitting at the table, reading some papers, sipping a glass of wine.
“What would you like?” the boss asked, holding up his wine glass.
“One of those would be fine.” Viper sat down while the boss poured him a wine. He waited for the staff to leave.
“How’re we doing?”
“Good so far,” Viper replied. “I was six blocks away before the police even made it up to the ramp. I was out of downtown within ten minutes. We look clean.” Viper sipped his wine, a lovely red. “Did the police get anything out of Knapp before-”
“-his untimely demise?” the boss finished. “No. He immediately asked for a lawyer. That was that.”
“So, we should be good then,” Viper stated. “Although I have Kraft and a few others keeping an eye on things from my end, just to be sure.”
“Good. I’ll be doing the same,” the boss added. “Now we need to get back to looking for the Cross documents.”
“Yes, sir. Now that this is over, we’ll refocus our efforts in that direction.”