Page 105 of Holmes, Margaret and Poe

Which is what happened the next morning when K. K. Rawlins called me as Sampson was driving us to work in his Jeep Grand Cherokee.

“Got him,” Rawlins said.

“You’re kidding me,” I said, putting the phone on speaker.

“I don’t kid. Well, rarely. It’s definitely him. Got hits out of Interpol, Scotland Yard, and IAFIS.”

“Interpol?” Sampson said.

“The earlobe thing gave him away. He’s a British national. Former Special Air Service commando and armorist. Interpol and FBI files on him say he appears to have become a contract hit man after leaving the armed forces, but he’s never been nailed for it.”

“No sheet on him?” I asked.

“No, there’s a sheet. He just did five years in federal prison in Colorado. He was suspected in the killing of a top bank executive in Denver with ties to the old Alejandro cartel. But they were able to convict him only on illegal weapons charges.

“He was evidently caught building and in possession of automatic ghost guns. The judge gave him ten years, but some legal nonprofit I’ve never heard of got him released for medical reasons last February.”

I was scribbling in my notebook as fast as I could. “Name?”

“The old guy or the legal group?”

“Both,” Sampson said.

“Padraig ‘Paddy’ Filson. And the legal group is the Exoneration Project.”

“Never heard of either of them,” I said. “But his release puts Filson on the streets a month before the Dead Hours murders began.”

Sampson said, “Any idea where Filson is now?”

“No,” Rawlins said. “But he’s got a federal parole officer.”

“Got a number?”

“And a name,” he said, and gave them to me.

John said, “Great work, KK. Any word on the DNA from the Henry Pelham site? The vomit with the blood clots? I know there’s a backlog.”

“Huge logjams upstairs, but now that we have a name to check, I’ll go up and get it to the front of the line ASAP. Promise.”

As soon as we ended the call, I punched in the number for Filson’s federal parole officer. Jeannie Michaels answered on the second ring.

I identified myself and inquired about Padraig Filson.

“Paddy?” Michaels said. “What’s he on the edge of now?”

“Edge of?”

“On the edge of something bad but not over the line, so he can’t be convicted of anything. It’s the story of his criminal career.”

“Repeat offender?”

“Did time in Scotland and France before his daughter moved here to Denver and he followed. Didn’t take long before a shady banker was executed, and ATF caught Paddy building untraceable machine guns. So, again, what’s he on the edge of now?”

I told her about the Dead Hours murders.

“Could be him,” she said after a pause. “I mean, the wholething with the sheet and shooting out the eyes seems wildly out of character, but it’s possible.”

“You know where he is?”

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