toward Kate with her coffee in hand, she smiled and shook her head. “If you’d just go ahead and move to DC, you wouldn’t be rushing and borderline late all the time.”
“No can do,” Kate said as they joined together and starting hurrying for the gate. “It’s enough that this so-called part-time job is keeping me away from my family more than I’d like. If it was a requirement that I live in DC, I wouldn’t be doing it at all.”
“How are Melissa and little Michelle?” DeMarco asked.
“They’re doing well. I spoke with Melissa on my way here. She said she understood and wished me luck. And for the first time, I think she actually meant it.”
“Good. I told you she’d come around. I assume it would be cool as hell to have a bad-ass for a mother.”
“I’m far from a bad-ass,” Kate said as they reached the gate. Still, she thought of what she had been doing when she received the call and thought it might be okay to accept that moniker…at least a little.
“Last I heard,” Kate said, “you were working a triple murder case out in Maine.”
“Yeah, I was. We wrapped it about a week ago—about six agents in all on that thing. When I got the call from Duran about this case, he told me he planned to send you out and asked if I wanted to partner with you. I, of course, jumped at the chance. I told him I’d like to be partnered with you whenever possible in the future.”
“Thanks,” Kate said. She left it at that, though. It actually meant a lot to her but she didn’t want to get sappy on DeMarco.
They boarded the plane together and took their seats, right beside one another. When they were settled, DeMarco reached into her carry-on and pulled out a thick folder crammed with papers and documents.
“This is everything on the Nobilini file,” she said. “Based on your history with it, I assume you know it inside and out?”
“Probably,” Kate said.
“It’s a pretty quick flight,” DeMarco pointed out. “I’d much rather hear it from you instead of notes and files.”
Kate would have felt the same way. What surprised her was how eager she was to share the details of the case with DeMarco. The case had been like a nagging itch at the back of her mind over the years but she had always managed to push it away, not wanting to focus on the one true failure of her career.
So as the plane started to position itself toward the runway, Kate started to go back over the specifics of the case. As she did, stopping for the annoyance of the pre-flight announcements, she realized that it all felt new now. Maybe it was all the time that had passed since she had last truly dwelt on it, or the almost-retirement (or both), but the case now felt alive and active.
She told DeMarco the details of the case in a high-end suburb just out of New York City. Just one body, but the case had been pushed by someone in Congress, as the victim was closely linked. No prints, no clues. The body, one Frank Nobilini, was found in an alley in the Midtown district. The best guess was that he had been headed for work, walking the single block from the parking garage to his office. Just a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. Execution style.
“How could it be execution style if someone clearly abducted him and dragged him into the alleyway?” DeMarco asked.
“That’s another unanswered question to the case. It was assumed that Nobilini was roughed up a bit, forced to his knees, and then shot in the back of the head. Blood and bits of skull were all over the side of the wall of the building beside the body. His BMW keys were still in his hand.”
DeMarco nodded and allowed Kate to continue.
“The victim was from a small town, a well-to-do little suburb called Ashton,” Kate said. “It’s the sort of town that draws in visitors for its pretentious antique stores, overpriced dining, and immaculate real estate.”
“And that’s the thing I don’t get about it,” DeMarco said. “A place like that, people tend to gossip, right? You’d think someone would have known something or heard rumors about who the killer was. But there’s nothing in these files.” She said this last bit as she thumped her fingers against the folder.
“That always unnerved me,” Kate said. “Ashton is an upscale place. But outside of that, it’s also a very tight community. Everyone knows each other. For the most part, everyone was polite to one another. Neighbors helping neighbors, big turn-outs for school bake sales, the whole nine yards. The place is squeaky clean.”
“No motives for the killer?” DeMarco asked.
“None that I ever knew about. Ashton has a population of just over three thousand. And sure, while it does attract its fair amount of people from New York City and other outlying areas, it has an incredibly small crime rate. So even though the murder didn’t actually occur in Ashton, it’s why the Nobilini murder was such a big deal eight years ago.”
“And there were never any other murders like this one?”
“Nope. Not until today, apparently. My theory is that the killer noted the FBI presence and got spooked. In a town that size, it would be easy to notice the presence of the FBI.” Kate paused here and took the file folder from DeMarco. “How much did Duran tell you?”
“Not much. He said we were in a rush and asked that I read over the case files.”
“Did you see what sort of gun was used for the murder?” Kate asked.
“I did. A Ruger Hunter Mark IV. Seemed weird. Seemed professional. That’s an expensive gun for some random murder with no apparent motive.”
“I agree. The bullet and the casing we found made it an easy one to recognize. And despite the expensive and very nice gun that was used, the fact that it was used at all told us all we needed to know: it was someone that knew jack shit about killing people.”
“How’s that?”
“Anyone that knew what they were doing would know that the Ruger Hunter Mark IV would leave behind a casing. Which makes it a terrible choice.”
“I assume this latest man was killed by a similar weapon?” DeMarco asked.
“According to Duran, it’s the exact same weapon.”
“So this killer decided to do it again eight years later. Weird.”
“Well, we’ll have to wait and see about that,” Kate said. “All Duran told me was that the victim looked as if he had been set up like a prop. And that the weapon used to kill him was the same kind that killed Frank Nobilini.”
“Yeah, and this one is in Midtown in New York City. I wonder if this latest victim is also connected to Ashton.”
Kate only shrugged as the plane experienced a bit of turbulence. It had done her a great deal of good to go through the case details. It had essentially knocked the cobwebs off of the case and made it feel new again. And maybe, Kate figured, eight years of space between her and the original case might allow her to look at it with fresh eyes.
It had been a while since Kate had been to New York. She and Michael, her late husband, had come here for a weekend getaway not long before he died. The congestion and absolute busyness of the place never ceased to awe her. It made the gridlock of Washington,
