Chapter 33

   Nik was not usually the worrier. On this evening, however, he could not shake a bad feeling. After the meeting with Roman Wells, he sent Dwayne home to rest. After all, the kid was going to make the transaction, since it was the kid’s case. Nik had returned to headquarters, seeing the boss about the possibility of leaving sooner than expected. He had stayed in Reno much longer than he had intended to. Not that there had been much of a choice, but he wanted to get the hell out of Nevada. It wasn’t his kind of place.

   At 10:00, Ben Whitney, one of the forensic specialists, approached Nik at his desk. “Got a sec?”

  “I might. What’s up?”

  “We found two bullets in him.”

   Nik looked up from the newspaper, which he hadn’t read a word of. “Why wasn’t I told?”

  “You guys were busy with the apartment search.”

  “Find anything?”

  “Maybe. Whether it’ll do you any good is another story.”

  “Tell me.”

  “The bullets seem to have come from a high-powered sniper rifle. We won’t know for sure until we actually find the weapon, but it seemed a reasonable guess.”

  “You mean as opposed to a slug from a revolver?”

  “Of course.”

   Nik sat back in his chair. “Let’s say you have it right. Anything else?”

  “Nothing else so far.”

   Nik tapped his desk in thought. “At what angle did the bullets enter the body?”

  “Looked to be roughly four or five degrees below the horizontal, from what I remember of the notes.”

   Nik stood up slowly, a frown forming on his lips. “We had to have fuel brought to that yacht to get it back to the marina.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Meaning the boat was dry when it was found.”

  “You should be a detective.”

  “Shut up. I think we’ve been looking at the crime scene wrong.”

  “You haven’t been looking at it much at all, we have.”

  “What do you mean?”

   Whitney sighed. “Look, Friday, you guys have been doing what you’re supposed to do, track down suspects. You just need to check with us more often.”

  “Point made.”

  “Now, how should we be looking at the crime scene?”

  “You tell me.”

  “All right. Nothing is 100% yet, and that’s because it took too long for the body to be discovered. We do have a time of death, though.”

  “Which is?”

  “Exactly five days ago at around 5:00p.m.”

  “Okay, that in the file yet?”

  “A few hours ago.”

  “Good. Next?”

  “Given the type of ammunition we found, we think Tyler was shot from shore, and the boat just drifted. It’s also our theory that Tyler just kept going, like he expected it.”

   Nik slowly nodded. “I think you’re right. He just kept the motor going, and he was probably dead when it was on. When it ran out of fuel, well, it just ran out of fuel.”

  “But when the yacht was boarded by you, the engine was turned off.”

  “Then he found a nice, quiet place to die in the middle of the lake.”

  “Sure. Now, here’s what blows a hole in our guesswork: if he was shot from shore, a bullet couldn’t have gone through him from that distance.” A smile was on Whitney’s lips.

  “So think again.”

  “We have.”

  “And?”

  “Can you figure it out?”

   Nik sighed in exasperation. “Look, I chase em, I don’t analyze em.”

  “The bullets the divers found weren’t from this case.”

  “I see. So this entire conversation has been a waste of time.”

  “No, we still like the theory, and that’s why we need your help.”

  “How?”

  “What space was that yacht moored in prior to going into the lake?”

  “I don’t know….but Max Faraday does.”