Poulton’s forehead was crisscrossed with lines. “Where are you going with this, Camden?”
“Do you remember,” I asked him, “how our initial C.I., Freddie Pecos, said he saw an invoice? A two-thousand-quantity gun order. Pre-built striker-fired pistols?”
“Of course.”
“We never found those in D.C.,” I said. “And our second C.I., he didn’t know anything about them. So I assumed the same as everyone else. That it was dark, and Jo or I got the serial number wrong.”
“What changed?” Poulton asked.
“We found a gun in the house in Lucas Beach,” I said. I turned to Kemp, unsure as to how much he knew of our other case. “Donnie Dom had it, the man with the cut-up face. It was a Venera. I just called about the serial numbers.”
“They don’t match up?” Kemp asked.
“They’re nonsense,” I said.
“And it’s a real Venera?” Kemp followed up. “Or some hobbyist’s ghost gun?”
I thought about this. We hadn’t contacted the manufacturer yet, but it would be a massive risk for them: one that would put them out of business in this country.
So my gut was that it was a mix of the two. Legal gun components from Venera were being purchased and boxed up, along with eighty-percent lowers, all milled out and ready. All someone had to do was assemble the pieces. No additional machining necessary. Ghost gun at the ready.
“I think Pecos hadtwoguns,” I said. “Two Veneras. Both privately made weapons that he put together from a kit. Donnie Dom stole one of them the night he shot Pecos. The dirty cops removed the other—the one Shooter saw the serial number on that night in Freddie’s trailer.”
“And you think these gun were, what?” Poulton asked. “Some advance on this two-thousand-quantity order of buy-build-shoot kits? Samples?”
“If itwerea sample,” I pointed out, “Sandoval would’ve been the one to get that, not Pecos.Sandoval’sthe gun dealer. Or in the least, one of the men we captured in D.C. would’ve talked about the buy-build-shoot kits. But no one has, right?”
“Right,” Kemp said.
“That’s been bothering me,” I said. “Why wouldn’t they know? Only one possibility.”
“Freddie had a side gig, all his own,” Poulton said.
I nodded. “And right before his death, Freddie missed a money drop to the gang. It was in their text chain when we came upon him that night in the trailer. Our assumption was that whoever shot Freddie took the cash.”
“Except we didn’t find any money with Donnie Dom,” Cassie said. “So maybe Donniedidn’ttake the money. Maybe it was Freddie’s seed money for the gun buy.”
“For the two thousand kits?” Kemp asked.
“Exactly,” Cassie said. “And it’d already been spent.”
“Freddie was covering his bases,” I said. “Blaming the gun kits on Sandoval when he talked to us. That’s why no one else in Sandoval’s organization knew about the buy-build-shoot kits. It wasn’t part of Sandoval’s operation.”
Kemp had been listening carefully, but now he sat back. “One thing doesn’t make sense, though, Camden,” he said. “Why go to the trouble of putting serial numbers on a weapon at all, if they’re the wrong serial numbers?”
“And that’s the other thing that’s been bothering me.” I pointed at Kemp. “It’s why I never brought it up before.”
“Now you have an answer?” Poulton asked.
“We were just eating ice cream with my daughter. Who is trying to win chocolate for life in this silly sweepstakes.”
Barry Kemp squinted, and I focused.
“International sales of American-made weapons have been skyrocketing,” I said. “Correct?”
“Correct,” Kemp said, nodding.
“And there’s confidence between you and Canada and Mexico that you’ll trace guns, even amid shooting incidents. Because foreign countries are using ATF’s eTrace system.”
