Chapter 11
Savannah was already talking when Noah walked into her office.
She was on the phone, pacing behind her desk with a legal pad in her hand and the receiver pressed between her shoulder and ear. She held up a finger when she saw him, continued the conversation for another thirty seconds, then hung up.
"That was the DA's office," she said. "I've requested expedited processing on Aspen's rifles. If ballistics confirms a match, I want the arrest warrant drafted and ready to execute."
Noah sat in the chair across from her desk. “You seem in a rush.”
"Two people are dead and the town is terrified, Noah. The mayor is riding our ass. Fast is the only speed that matters right now." She set the legal pad down and leaned against the edge of the desk. "Aspen fits."
"You said that about Pike," Noah said.
“What, you don't agree? Military training.
Marksman qualification. Hunting guide who knows the terrain better than anyone.
Two .308 rifles that match the caliber profile.
A public grudge against one of the victims. No alibi for either night.
And he lives alone on a rural property with clear access to backcountry routes. "
She wasn't wrong. Every line of the profile they had built in the war room aligned with Todd Aspen. Motive, means, opportunity. The three pillars of any prosecution. Savannah had them stacked neatly and she was building the case with confidence. She had done this a hundred times.
"Okay, but he handed over the rifles voluntarily," Noah said.
"So?"
"A man who committed two murders, policed his brass, left zero forensic evidence, and disappeared into the forest doesn't open his gun safe and say 'take them.' That's not how guilt works."
Savannah folded her arms. "C'mon, Noah. You know better than anyone. Sometimes these fools want to get caught. Especially the ones who believe they were right to do it. They cooperate because they want the conversation. They want someone to hear their side."
“According to Callie, Aspen didn't want a conversation. He wanted McKenzie and Callie out of there.”
"Yes, and the best way to get us off his case was to give us what we asked for and let the ballistics clear him. If he's innocent, that's exactly what a smart man does. If he's guilty, it's exactly what a confident one does because maybe the gun isn't among them."
She had an answer for everything. That was Savannah's strength and it was also the thing that made Noah uneasy.
She built cases like an engineer built bridges.
Every support in place, every load calculated.
The structure looked solid from every angle.
But bridges built on the wrong foundation still fell.
"And his statement," Savannah continued. "What did he say about Halvorsen? 'I wouldn't waste the bullet.' That's not a denial. That's contempt."
"Or he’s been angry for three years and doesn't care who knows it.
That's the opposite of our shooter. The man on that ridge doesn't advertise. He doesn't confront. He doesn't sit in a cabin and let investigators walk through his life. He operates in silence, kills from a distance, and disappears. He’s thought about the ways people get caught. He’s being careful. Aspen told Burt Halvorsen to his face at a public meeting that the autopsy was wrong. Why not just kill him back then? That doesn’t fit. You don’t wait three years and then take a shot from four hundred yards. "
Savannah studied him. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying keep the aperture open. Loosen your grip. If we funnel everything into Aspen after the ballistics don't match, we've lost time we can't get back."
"The ballistics will tell us what we need to know on those guns, but not him.
Until then, Aspen is our primary lead and I'm allocating resources accordingly.
" She looked at him directly. "If I'm wrong, and ballistics clears him, we'll move on.
If I'm right, we stop a third murder. That's the math, Noah. "
He stood and walked to the door. Behind him, Savannah was already dialing.
Back at his desk, Noah closed the door to his cubicle and pulled the victim files from his drawer. He spread them flat and sat with them.
Savannah was chasing Aspen. The task force was chasing Aspen. The DA's office was preparing for Aspen. The entire weight of the investigation was leaning in one direction.
Noah leaned in another.
He looked at Maggie Coleman's file first. Her professional history at the Adirondack Daily Enterprise spanned three decades. Hundreds of stories. Thousands of columns. Every major case in the county had passed through her newsroom. He pulled a legal pad from the drawer and started writing.
Focus not on enemies. Not on threats. Look for the overlap.
It was too extensive. That was the problem.
He kept writing notes. An accidental drowning in Mirror Lake, 2016.
A domestic violence homicide in Keene, 2017.
A suspicious fire in Saranac Lake, 2018, where a man died and the arson investigation stalled.
The Hale murders. 2014. Rebecca and Jacob Hale, found in their home.
Travis Rudd became the primary suspect and then disappeared.
Maggie's paper covered the investigations. Burt performed the autopsies.
He set the pen down and leaned back. Through the window of his cubicle he could see Declan at his desk, working the Aspen file, pulling phone records and financial history.
Two cubicles down, another investigator was on a call with the Army records office, verifying Aspen's service dates and discharge status.
The machine was pointed at Todd Aspen and turning at full speed.
Noah looked back at his list. He thought about what McKenzie had said in the war room.
The shooter was acting out of belief, not impulse.
A man driven by something specific, something personal, something that had been building for a long time.
He kept the legal pad on his desk. He would work through the list when the office cleared out.
The afternoon passed in the rhythm of an active investigation.
Calls came in. Updates circulated. The ballistics lab confirmed they had received Aspen's rifles and would process them within seventy-two hours.
Seventy-two hours. Three days in which the investigation would hold its breath while a man who may or may not be a serial sniper lived freely.
Savannah sent a department-wide email reiterating the focus on Aspen and requesting all field teams coordinate through her office. The message was clear. This was her case and it was moving her way.
Noah spent an hour on the phone with a records clerk at the county courthouse, pulling case numbers for the twenty-three overlapping files.
Some were archived digitally. Others were in storage.
A few required formal requests. He wrote down the access details and planned to start pulling physical files the following day.
The physical copies often contained details that never made it into the digital version.
It was slow work, the kind of work that didn't make briefings and didn't generate updates. It was invisible work.
Callie called late in the afternoon. He could hear the Tahoe's engine in the background.
"Unearthed anything interesting beyond what we have?” he asked.
"A few things but Savannah is pushing hard on Aspen," she said.
"I know. I was in her office this morning. She's got Declan pulling Aspen's phone records, his bank statements, his hunting license renewals. She wants a complete financial and movement profile before the ballistics come back."
"I keep thinking about the rifles. The way he opened that safe. The way he stepped back and let us take them." She paused. "I've arrested men who hid weapons in attics, buried them in yards, threw them in lakes. I've never had one hand them over and tell me to test whatever I needed."
"Neither have I."
“Listen, I’ve got to go.” She hung up.
At four-fifteen his phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen.
Natalie Ashford.
He stared at the name. The phone vibrated twice more, then went still. She left no voicemail.
He set the phone on the desk and looked at it the way he might look at a letter he wasn't sure he should open. Natalie hadn't called since the breakup. Whatever this was, it wasn't personal. It was strategic. Luther's daughter didn't make calls without a reason.
He thought about Ethan. Someone was getting to his son. The new clothes. The closed door. The business card that had migrated from a jeans pocket to a wallet slot. The web was tightening, thread by thread.
Noah groaned. He should have answered. He should have found out what she wanted, because knowing what the Ashfords were doing was always better than guessing.
But answering meant engaging, and engaging meant being pulled back into a conversation he had ended for good reasons.
And right now he couldn't afford to split his attention any further.