You Can’t Stop Me by Max Allan Collins; Matthew Clemens

Author:Max Allan Collins; Matthew Clemens
Format: mobi
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2010-03-09T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

For tonight’s show, Carmen Garcia—chicly businesslike in black slacks and a gray silk blouse, her dark hair pulled up in a tight bun—was about to do the live segment intro. This would be followed by a long walking shot sans teleprompter—she’d memorized a full page of script—and Carmen could not remember ever feeling more nervous. She prayed it didn’t show, or else her meteoric rise might be quickly followed by the same kind of fall….

As the assistant director counted down to the second, Carmen sent herself a mixed signal: Stay calm…and energy up!

“I’m Carmen Garcia. Welcome to Killer TV on the road with Crime Seen!”

Hathaway, on Steadicam this time, followed Carmen down the institutional hallway, as did Nancy Hughes with her boom.

“We’re on our way to a conference room at the Rolla, North Dakota, sheriff’s office, where our team’s set up shop. We are investigating the two-year-old murders of Nola and Katie Hanson—wife and daughter of then–county comptroller Burl Hanson, who later took his own life, becoming the killer’s third victim.”

Hathaway followed her in as she moved along and around the big table dominating the room. Behind her, easels held bulletin boards arrayed with crime scene photos from the Hanson house (the most explicit had come down for the broadcast).

Cameraman Phil Dingle was already in the room, capturing tighter one- and two-shots of the others at the table—Laurene Chase poring over more crime scene photos, Jenny Blake hunkered over her laptop, Billy Choi sitting before a computer as well. Both Hathaway and Dingle’s shots were being uploaded by the satellite truck for director Stu Phillips back in LA to work his (and his staff’s) magic.

Carmen stopped next to Choi. “Bullets from the Ferguson home in Placida, Florida, match bullets from the Hanson murders here in Rolla. Firearms and tool mark examiner Billy Choi has been working on this evidence…. Billy?”

The firearms expert with the perfect hair wore the now-familiar Crime Seen! lab coat over an open-collar blue shirt and navy slacks.

“Carmen, using NIBIN…” A pop-up defined NIBIN for new viewers. “…we’d already matched the bullets from the two crime scenes. But look at the slides of the two—the striations are a perfect match. These bullets were fired from a vintage Browning nine-millimeter automatic.”

“You can be certain of the make of the weapon?”

“Oh yes—the striations are made by the rifling in the barrel. Glocks, Sig Sauers, and the like have barrels struck on a mandrel, with no rifling. The Browning’s rifling gives us a way to identify it. The killer may have picked up the shell casings…but we can still get a match through the bullets themselves.”

“But this is a different gun than the one used in the murders at the Harrow home?”

“It is,” Choi admitted. “The Harrow murders and, we now know, at least one other set of murders were committed with a .357 revolver.”

“And what’s next?”

“Because of Jenny’s discovery, I’ll be looking for matches among several other gun attacks across the United States.”

“Thank you, Billy.”

Carmen turned to Jenny

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