Two firearm experts from the ATF were at the scene of the shooting.  By afternoon they completed their work.  They visited with Chief Barley. 

“Chief, thanks for taking the time to see us.  We looked over the scene, the reports of the wounds of the officers and the scene of the shootings.”
“I was hoping for some help.”

“We sent one of the bullet fragments from each of the injured officers to our lab for analysis.  Right now we have no idea what bullet is being used but we are checking some leads.”

“Are there bullets that have this explosive punch?”

“Yes.  Remember the shooting of President Regan?  The bullet was a homemade explosive round.  It failed to explode.  Regan nearly bled to death from the small wound, had that gone off he would almost certainly not have made it.  And that was a .22 pistol.”

“So what is this?”

“A 30-06 probably.  We looked at the curve on the fragments, it looks like a .30 caliber.  That bullet is more than one and one half times as large in each direction, so the volume is more than four times that of the .22.  That leaves a pretty big space and weight for an explosive charge.  And this slug looks like it may be even a little longer than the standard slug. That gives a whole lot of space to hollow out and insert a charge.”

“A 30-06 round?”

“And there are a lot of guns out there that fire them, good guns with good accuracy and with a high muzzle velocity.  It has a lot of energy when it hits without the explosion.”

“So we probably can’t trace the ammunition and the rifle?”

“Well, let’s not rule out things yet.  Wait till we get the information back.  The rifle will be hard to trace but the ammunition is either military or special made.”

“Special made ammunition?”
“It could have been hand made by some gunsmith.  If so it will probably be nearly impossible to trace.  He sure isn’t going to tell us he made the rounds.”

“Who could make something like this?”

“There are tens of thousands of hand loaders in the country.  Many are guys that load only a few hundred rounds a year for themselves and friends.  You don’t have to load a lot, the equipment is less than a hundred dollars.  Even the IRS doesn’t know about many of them because they either don’t sell any or they don’t file income tax on the money if they do.  The only handle we might have is the powder sales.  And there are hundreds of loaders that use less than a couple of pounds of powder a year.  They may only buy powder every three or four years.  And then we would need some reason to bust the guy.”

“What about the gun?”

“How many M-1’s are there in the county not to mention the Remington 30.06 hunting rifles and the 30.30’s?”

“There are probably a couple of thousands of them just in this county.  This is deer hunting country.”

“You understand the problem.  But we aren’t giving up.” 

The men left.

NIGHT TWENTY NINE

Jeff Duvall and Juanita Lopez were checking out a disturbance report in the 4th bock of East Princess Street.  As he got back to the car a rifle cracked and he fell.  Juanita ran around the car and tried to drag him to the “safe” side of the car.  As she stopped over him there was another crack.  She felt her the pain in her leg and grabbed the car door handle and lowered herself to the sidewalk.  Jeff pulled out his radio and called, “Unit 44, Shots fired, both officers down.”

By the time other officers arrived the two officers had helped each other put tourniquets on their stumps.  They were sitting on the pavement leaned up against the car with their guns on the pavement next to them.

Jack Farley and his rookie partner Ben Smith were on foot on the 400 Block of East King Street just one street from the shooting.  As they turned on Duke Jack spotted a person pull back into a walkway between houses about half way down the street. 

Jack motioned Ben to stay near the building and follow him. “We got the bastard, he is mine and he is dead.”

Jack started running toward the opening, his gun drawn.  At the opening he stopped and peeked around the corner.  In the shadows he saw an object move, it was a person carrying something that looked like a rifle.  He called to the person to come out.  He saw movement, it looked like someone pointing a rifle, he fired three times.  The person fell.  He called to Ben, “I’m going in, cover me.”  By now Ben was just behind him.

When he got to the person he learned that his accuracy was exceptional for the lighting and situation.  It was a young girl, possibly thirteen years old.  She was alive and would survive.  She as carrying nothing but a baton.  Her recovery from three bullets in the belly would be long and stormy.  It was obviously a questionable shoot.  Jack was disciplined, given a month off which was suspended because the force needed him.  He was broken one level in rank.

DAY THIRTY THREE

Jeff Duvall was on the way to therapy for his daily session.  He had never used crutches before.  The previous session was nearly totally dedicated to teaching him to use them.  He finished the therapy session and was in the wheelchair when they brought in Juanita Lopez.  He waved to her and asked her room number.  She replied 1337.  Jeff said thanks and the orderly took him back to his room.  On the way back he looked for room 1337.  It was four doors down the hall from his room.  Both were private rooms.  He looked at the clock, 9:38 AM.  If Juanita was there about an hour she would be back about 10:40.  He asked the nurse to allow him to sit in the wheelchair and keep his crutches.  She smiled and nodded.  He wheeled over and turned on the TV and watched it till about 10:35. 

Jeff turned off the TV and wheeled out into the hall.  As he wheeled toward Juanita’s door she came out of the room on a wheelchair.  Without any verbal communication they pulled the chairs right to right sides and kissed.  It was their first kiss.  He motioned toward her room.  She nodded, turned her chair and headed toward it with him behind her.  As they entered she turned toward him and they parked right to right again and held each other. 

Jeff was the first to talk, “I have been so stupid.  You have done everything that was proper to get my attention since we started riding together.  I ignored you as a woman until we were shot.  Sitting there on the pavement I realized that if you hadn’t come over to help me you would still have two legs.”

“Probably not.  I saw the muzzle flash. I know where he was and he could have hit me where I was.  He had a clear shot from either side of the car.  You don’t have to take any blame.  I just expected he would take off.”

“OK, but I want you to know this.  If you want a guy with two legs I will understand and walk away, well you know, I’ll leave.”

“I was going to tell you the same thing.”

“Well I want you, one legged, or whatever.”

“Me too.”

“Let’s try something.”

“What?”

He pulled out his crutches and got to a standing position.  “Can you stand up?”

“Sure, I sprained an ankle about 5 years ago.  I’m pretty good with these.”  She slid the crutches in front of her and pushed herself to a standing position.  “Just stand still, I’ll come to you.”  She made several short crutch steps, pivoted and then made two more steps to him.  She threw her arms around him and pressed her mouth to his.  They were still in that position when the nurse came in about 4 minutes later. 

“Ahem.”

They separated and nearly fell at the noise.  “We can have none of that.”  Then she laughed.  “If you have to do that again let me know.  I’ll make sure you have someone to help you in case you need them and we’ll shut the door for you.”

Both of them were very red.  Juanita got out the first response, “Sorry, we didn’t want to…”

“No problem.  But for now when you are out of bed we need to be with you so you don’t fall.  It looks like you two have both fallen, for each other.”

Jeff chimed in, “I assure you, we weren’t doing this in the police car.  This is the first time.”

“You two sure learn fast.  Just be careful and have us help you so you don’t fall. I don’t care what you do as long as both of you agree and you don’t get hurt.”

With that Jeff pulled her to himself and they kissed again. 

If you wish to read more of this novel click on the link below.  It is the first chapter and it contains links to the other chapters. 

The Night Sniper Chapter One: On the Beat

The Night Sniper: Ch. 018 The Shooting Aftermath

The Night Sniper: Ch. 020 Samantha Keys Rolls Snake Eyes