Older Joan smiled, sliding her chair behind Younger Joan’s station. “I think we can make an exception for an exceptional police officer.”

They booted up the program then, and Younger Joan grabbed my phone and typed in the plate number from the picture.

Within a minute, seven hits came up.

These didn’t represent anything Steele Vankle had done wrong. Which is why the program had been so controversial. Vankle hadn’t committed any crimes related to the pictures taken. He hadn’t even gotten parking tickets. In fact, he’d just parked.

“Well,” the younger Joan said. “Four of the seven locations are on 31st. And all bunched pretty close together. Within four car lengths.”

The older Joan slid her chair sideways over to her computer and typed the longitude and latitude into Google Maps.

Under “Street View,” a picture came onto her screen. A nondescript tan building with a logo on it: Personal Best Fitness.

This was the same logo on the wall behind Vankle in the weight-lifting pictures on Instagram.

“Does that tell you time of day?” I asked.

“Yup,” the younger Joan said. “Those four pictures are all Saturdays. Between three and four p.m.”

So today was Vankle’s go-to workout day, at least a year ago. I checked my phone for the time now, and saw it was one p.m. I might find Vankle there soon.

“What’s the fifth location?” I asked.

“Fifth and sixth are an apartment or condo,” she said, squinting at map view. “Eight ninety-one Burke Street.”

Maybe Vankle’s apartment.

“And the last one?”

Joan brought it up on-screen, and we zoomed out.

It was a rural area, and it took Joan more time to page left and right to figure out where the hell we were.

“Georgia Wild and Free,” she said.

I knew the place. A gun range northeast of town, off SR-908.

I thought of the bullet hole in Christian Pelo’s skull. A .45 most likely.

Would I find that the folks who ran this range knew Vankle? And that he shot a .45?

I thanked the Joans and made my way out to my truck, driving fast toward the nearest entrance to 914.

49

I pulled into a gravel parking lot and got out at Georgia Wild and Free. Beyond the lot by about fifty yards was an outdoor range. I’d shot here with a buddy about four years ago.

These types of gun ranges are almost self-serve, and are usually manned with only one employee. I walked through the bushes and came out into a clearing.

In front of me was a series of wooden benches where folks could set up on either side under a slatted cedar pergola and shoot in the shade during summer.

Off to the left was a short range for handguns, and to the right was a long range for rifles. A sign directed patrons farther west for clays.

“Can I help you?” a man asked.

He was Black and slight of build with a face the shape of an upside-down balloon. The man looked to be in his midsixties and had a full beard. He told me his name was Will Jackson.