BREE BUILT UP a quick rapport with the twenty-four-year-old, so we decided to let her and Muller run the questioning when we returned to DC.
I went back to the office I share with Sampson and found a GoPro camera in a sealed evidence bag along with a note from the medical examiner Nancy Barton.
From the Maserati, she’d written. You’ll find it interesting. Barton had included a cable to hook up the camera to my computer. I attached it and turned the camera on. I had to fiddle until I got it in playback mode, and then Sampson and I watched the most recent MPEG file.
We watched it again. We talked about what we’d seen, and then we watched it a third time.
“I think we need to tell Michaels sooner rather than later,” Sampson said.
“Agreed,” I replied.
Ten minutes later, we were in the office of DC police chief Bryan Michaels. A welterweight fighting a paunchy belly, Michaels took a sip from his coffee cup and made a sour face.
“Damn it, I’ll never get used to this,” he said, shuddering and setting the cup down on his desk. “Hot lemon water. Supposed to be good for me, change my alkalinity.”
“Add honey,” I said.
“But first call up that video we sent you,” Sampson said.
“I could use a latte.” Michaels sighed, put on reading glasses, and turned to his computer.
A few keystrokes later, the MPEG video appeared.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Film of the last minutes of Aaron Peters’s life,” I said. “He had a GoPro Hero mounted in a fireproof housing on his dashboard. He must have hooked it up to his speedometer somehow, because—well, you’ll see.”
The chief clicked on the video, blew it up to full screen.
The camera gave us a view from the center of the dash, looking over the sleek hood and down along the headlight beams of the Maserati. In the lower right corner of the video, there was a digital speedometer. Lower left, a timer set at 0.
“Here we go, epic run,” said Aaron Peters off camera as he left Beach Drive for Rock Creek Parkway.
The timer started running as the engine roared, and the Maserati accelerated from thirty to seventy-five in under four seconds.
Peters laughed and then said, “Sonofa—”
The sounds of downshifting and brakes squealing filled the chief ’s office.
“Watch for it, Chief,” Sampson said.
Coming out of a backward S curve, a single headlamp cut the pavement beside the Maserati.
“Motorcycle?” Michaels said.
“What the … hey, asshole!” Aaron Peters said.
The headlights slashed again to the right, and you could hear the powerful whine of the motorcycle over the Maserati’s engine. But then Peters began cutting back and forth, trying to keep the motorcyclist from passing. He braked poorly in the next curve and tried to accelerate.
“Catch me if you can,” Aaron Peters said, and his speed climbed to ninety.
It didn’t seem to matter. The single headlight swung, and the motorcycle’s engine sounded almost as loud as the Maserati’s before two shots rang out. The sports car went out of control, smacked a guardrail, and did a whip-fast 360-degree skid that almost lit up the escaping motorcyclist for a split second before the car vaulted into the woods, hit the trees, and exploded into flames.
“Jesus,” Michaels said. “The guy shot from a motorcycle as he was going ninety?”
“Exactly our reaction,” I said. “Now call up the pictures I sent you.”
A minute later, the screen split into two photographs. One showed the wounds on COD Tom McGrath as photographed during his autopsy earlier in the day. The other picture was a close-up of Peters’s two head wounds.
“Okay?” Michaels said.
“In both cases, the shooting was extraordinary,” I said. “And in both cases, every bullet fired was a forty-five, perhaps from a Remington model 1911.”
Chief Michaels squinted one eye. “You think it’s the same shooter?”
“We have two slugs from Peters’s Kevlar helmet. We should have solid comparisons to the bullets that killed McGrath, but in the meantime we have to consider the possibility of one shooter, and I thought you should know.”
The chief thought a moment, said, “I don’t want any of this getting out until we’ve got a confirm or no-confirm on the ballistics. Are we clear?”
“We are,” Sampson said, and I nodded.
“Any connection between Peters and McGrath?” the chief asked.
“Nothing yet,” Sampson said.
“Keep me posted.”
“Every few hours, sir,” I said.
When we turned to leave, Michaels said, “Alex, could I have a word with you?”
I glanced at Sampson, said, “Sure.”
When the door closed behind my partner, Michaels said, “I need a chief of detectives.”
“Who are you considering?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Who better?”
I felt all sorts of conflicting emotions roil through me.
“Well?” Michaels said.
“I’m flattered, Chief,” I said. “And humbled that you think highly enough of me to offer me the job. But I need some time to think, to talk to Bree and my family.”