He typed: MAGGIE COLEMAN. ENEMIES, ASSOCIATES, OPEN QUESTIONS.
Below it he typed: WHAT STORIES DIDN'T YOU TELL?
He stared at the question for a long time. Right now he only had one.
And it was the only one that mattered.
4
Aaron Pike didn't look like a sniper.
He looked like a man who spent too much time shouting into a camera in his basement.
The Sheriff's Office interview room amplified every movement he made. Pike shifted in the metal chair, elbows on the table, hands moving constantly as he talked. He hadn't stopped since the deputy brought him in.
"You people are missing the whole point," Pike said. "The media lies. That's the problem. They lie and nobody holds them accountable."
Callie sat across from him, calm, hands folded on the table. She let him talk.
Noah took the empty chair beside her and watched.
Pike didn't stop talking.
He was mid-forties, heavyset, wearing a faded camouflage jacket over a black T-shirt with a coiled snake logo. His beard was patchy and needed trimming. His fingernails were bitten to the quick. He was convinced the world was conspiring against him and couldn't understand why nobody else could see it.
His name had surfaced that morning through the federal threat assessment database. Declan had run the search Savannah requested and Pike's file came back flagged. Two years ago, when the Adirondack Daily Enterprise published a piece about militia activity in the tri-county region, Pike had posted a series of videos on his online channel calling for "direct action" against the paper. He never specified what direct action meant. The videos were rambling, poorly lit, and averaged about forty views each. But the language had been enough to generate a file.
Pike owned firearms, six registered in the state database. He lived alone in a house outside Keene on three acres of scrubby land. No criminal record, but a history of noise complaints from neighbors and one trespassing charge that was dropped.
On paper, he fit Savannah's profile. Anti-media. Armed. Angry. In the room, he fit something else entirely.
"I know my rights," Pike said, jabbing a finger at the table. "I know why I'm here. You think I killed that woman. That's what this is about. Maggie Coleman." He said the name like it tasted bad. "I didn't kill her. I didn't even know she was dead until your guys showed up at my door this morning."
"Nobody said you killed anyone," Callie said evenly. "We're talking to a number of people who had public disagreements with the Daily Enterprise. You're one of them."
"Public disagreements." He laughed, a short, barking sound. "Is that what you call it when they slander you? When they print lies about people exercising their constitutional rights and then hide behind the First Amendment?"
"What lies specifically?"
"That article. Two years ago. They called us extremists. They called us a threat. We're not a threat. We're Americans who believe in the Constitution. But the media doesn't care about the truth. They care about clicks and ad revenue and keeping people scared."
Noah listened. Pike's voice was loud, his gestures wild, his grievances rehearsed. He had given this speech a hundred times on his channel, in bars, at town meetings. The words came out polished by repetition, not by thought. He wasn't thinking about what he was saying. He was performing.
Noah let the performance run for another five minutes, then leaned forward. "Mr. Pike, where were you on the night of August seventeenth?"
Pike blinked, thrown by the shift. "Home."
"Anyone with you?"
"No."
"Can anyone confirm you were there?"
"I live alone. So no." He folded his arms. "That's not a crime."
"What were you doing that evening?"
"Watching TV. Posting online. Same as every night."
