Page 32 of Pied Sniper

Lily had the car and I still needed rides.

Before we set off, I called Garrett.

“Hey,” he said. “How are you and Lily?”

“I’m fine,” yelled Lily.

“She’s fine. I am too. Thanks for asking. How’s the case? Any developments?”

“What about a ransom?” yelled Lily.

“Lily would like to know…”

“I heard. Why does she keep yelling? We’re not using tin cans and wire anymore. And no, no ransom yet but I hope that’s what we’re looking at.”

“I can’t imagine what else it could be.”

“Could be straight-up murder, but lacking a body and considering Tiffany’s fame and wealth, we’re leaning towards ransom too. It’s not unusual that we haven’t heard yet. I figure things didn’t go according to plan last night and they’re holed up somewhere, plotting their next move.”

“You think they didn’t plan to shoot Tiffany?” I asked.

“No. No one wants to damage their payday reward unless they really have to.”

“Aha!” I pounced on that. “So it was Tiffany’s blood! And she was shot!”

“Yes, the lab report confirmed that this morning. I would have told you anyway so there’s no need to get so smug about it.”

I planned on remaining smug whatever he said, but there was little advantage gained by rubbing it in until I solved the crime. If I didn’t solve it, and he did, it would, no doubt, be used against me at every family dinner for the next year. On the plus side, I was confident one of us would solve it and that invigorated my spirits. “I’m on my way to Tiffany’s apartment. Abigail Swanson, her manager, said forensics officially released the scene.”

“She’s correct. I told her that when Maddox and I spoke with her earlier. We’re running the few prints we got but I don’t expect we’ll find anything more. The blood, as you know, is Tiffany’s, but we only found one bullet in the kitchen cabinet. We found a casing under the couch, which seems an odd trajectory. Ballistics are running it now.”

“She was shot at more than once?”

“I think that much is clear from the video she made. Three shots. One, if not all, definitely hit the target. There’s a lot of screaming and noise from what appears to be a fight.”

So thepoppingnoises I heard were gunfire. “It was very quiet.”

“Some kind of silencer I think. Contrary to what most people think, silencers are not actually silent.”

I made a mental note of that. “They were very quick. The whole thing lasted only minutes.”

“That surprised me too. They were very quick to leave once the shots were fired so they could be professionals.”

“That isn’t good news,” I decided. Professionals knew how to eliminate their presence from the scene of their crimes, making them much harder to track. Even worse, professionals were practiced; they did this kind of thing before. They knew how to keep things in their advantage, including a swift clean-up before their escape. Yet that still didn’t explain why they were so stupid as to commit the crime on camera.

“I agree. I’d prefer that these guys were amateur hour. They left us with few leads, so now we’re digging into Tiffany Rose’s background. It would help if you could come in and brief us on everything you know about her. You won ‘t be surprised to know Maddox and Farid have also set up shop at MPD for now. There’s a lot of heat from above about this case.”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. Not because the Feds had officially joined the case, but that I was being welcomed in. “I can do that,” I agreed. “I’ll come by after I’ve been to Tiffany’s apartment. I’m meeting her manager. She says she reached out to you.”

“She has, and she told me she hired you, and thanks, I appreciate it.”

“Wait!” It was so unlike Garrett to invite me into the middle of a busy investigation. What was he up to? Suddenly, like a light bulb pinging on, it became clear. “Do you think this is an inside job?” I asked.

“I’m not ruling it out, but it depends on what you call ‘an inside job.’ Tiffany lived to broadcast her life online and that widens the net considerably. There are more people in her inner circle than she considers family or friends. Hell, most of them she couldn’t even recognize on the street.”

“We reviewed the video again and for a moment, it looked as though Tiffany knew her attacker. She wasn’t scared until a moment later.”

“We felt the same, hence the deep dive into her life, although we’re not ruling out her being confused as hell first.” Garrett paused. “Wait… who, exactly, are we?”

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