8
The FBI behavioral profile had arrived.
By the time Noah got to BCI the next morning, the room was already full.
The briefing room at Troop B headquarters was built for twelve. There were eighteen people in it. Chairs had been pulled from the break room and the hallway. Two additional investigators stood against the back wall with their arms folded. A State Police captain Noah had met once at a conference sat near the projector. Declan was at the table with his laptop open and his legal pad already half full. Callie and McKenzie had driven from Lewis and were seated near the front. Ray was on the phone in the hallway, pacing.
The room smelled like burned coffee and tension. It had the charged atmosphere of a case that had outgrown its original team and was now pulling in resources from every direction. Two murders. Same rifle. National press. The governor's office had called the superintendent that morning to ask for a progress update. The superintendent had called Savannah. Savannah had called the briefing.
She stood at the head of the room with a remote in one hand and a thin folder in the other. Behind her, a projector displayed a timeline of both murders on a white screen. Maggie Coleman on the left. Burt Halvorsen on the right. Dates, locations, forensic details. Two columns that looked almost identical.
"Good morning. Thanks for coming in again," Savannah said. The room settled. "I know we briefed yesterday at Chief Sutherland's station, but a lot has moved overnight. The governor's office is asking for updates. The superintendent wants a progress report by end of week. And as of this morning, the FBI has provided us with a behavioral profile of our shooter."
She clicked to the next slide. The FBI seal appeared in the corner beside a summary labeled BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS UNIT — PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT.
"Based on the crime scenes, methodology, and communication, the Bureau's profile gives us the following. Our shooter is likely male, age range thirty to forty-five. He’s organized. Patient. Comfortable alone. This isn’t impulsive. This is planned. He is familiar with this terrain, either a long-term local resident or someone with deep knowledge of the area. He likely has military or law enforcement training, or extensive experience with long-range shooting. He is employed or self-employed in a role that allows flexible hours and independent movement. He is capable of extended surveillance prior to the attack. He is motivated by a specific grievance rather than generalized ideology. That grievance may present as ideological on the surface, but the underlying driver is personal. Based on the level of planning and escalation, additional attacks are likely if the perceived grievance remains unresolved."
She paused and looked around the room.
"He has not communicated publicly. He has not claimed responsibility through any recognized channel. Except once."
She clicked again. The letter appeared on the screen.
Maggie Coleman decided which stories mattered. Some truths never made the page.
Savannah let the room read it, then continued.
"Let me walk you through the framework we're building. Both victims were public-facing community figures. One was a journalist. The other was a county medical examiner. Both held positions of institutional trust. Both made decisions that affected public narratives—what stories got printed, what autopsies got signed, what information reached the public and what didn't."
She clicked to a new slide. A map of threat incidents nationally over the past three years. Red dots clustered around media organizations, government buildings, hospitals.
"Anti-institutional violence has been rising across the country. Threats against journalists alone are up forty percent since 2020. We've seen attacks on public health officials, election workers, school board members. The pattern is consistent: lone actors targeting people they perceive as gatekeepers of information. People who, in their view, control the narrative."
She gestured toward the letter on the screen. "This communication is consistent with that profile. The language targets Maggie's editorial authority. 'Which stories mattered.' 'Truths never made the page.' This is someone with a grievance about information suppression, about stories being buried or ignored."
Heads nodded around the room. The captain from Troop B was writing notes. Declan's pen was moving. The FBI liaison, joining by speakerphone from Albany, asked two pointed questions about the threat database and whether the letter's language had been cross-referenced with known extremist rhetoric. Savannah confirmed it had. No direct match, but the thematic overlap was significant.
It was a convincing presentation. Noah could see why. Savannah had assembled the available evidence into a framework that was logical, supported by national trends, and actionable. It gave the investigation a direction. It gave the room something to pursue. In the absence of a suspect, a theory was the next best thing, and Savannah's theory was the only one on the table.
Noah sat near the middle of the table and listened. He didn't take notes. He watched faces. He watched Savannah. He watched the way the room absorbed her certainty. One by one, the people around the table aligned with her framework because it made sense and because nobody had anything better.
He didn't object. He had no alternative to offer. He had a feeling in his gut and a letter in his jacket pocket and neither of those constituted a counter-theory.
Savannah moved to the next item.
"Aaron Pike." His photo appeared on screen. "Pike was our initial person of interest based on a threat assessment flag. He made public threats against the Daily Enterprise two years ago. He owns firearms. He lives alone in Keene."
She clicked. A cell tower map appeared.
"Cell tower data from the night of the Halvorsen murder places Pike's phone at his residence in Keene throughout the estimated time-of-death window. Keene is fifteen miles from the Halvorsen property. Combined with the fact that Pike has no known connection to Burt Halvorsen, no sniper training, and no capability consistent with the shooting profile, we are removing him as a suspect."
She paused. The room absorbed it. Pike's photo remained on the screen for a moment, then disappeared.
“So while Pike may not be our shooter," Savannah said. “The profile still fits. We're looking for someone like him. Anti-institution. Ideological. Someone who feels the system failedthem and is now targeting the people they hold responsible." She looked around the room. "I'm directing resources toward extremist group monitoring, online forum analysis, and expanded canvassing within a fifty-mile radius. We are also requesting additional State Police personnel and a dedicated FBI analyst."
The captain from Troop B spoke up. "What about the rifle? Any progress on identifying the weapon?"
"Ballistics confirms both rounds came from the same firearm," Callie said from her seat. ".30-caliber, consistent with a .308 Winchester or similar hunting rifle. Common enough that narrowing it through the weapon alone isn't viable. We've started canvassing gun shops and ranges in the tri-county area for recent purchases or unusual activity."
