We watched the footage from every camera on the Blue Line that originated at the Loop terminal. Grand Avenue was the first westbound stop, but our hours of staring at the computer screen had resulted in nothing—the man wasn’t there.
Frank ground his fists into his eyes and sighed with obvious disappointment. “We’re getting nowhere. Of all days to avoid the subways, he chose yesterday?”
I had to agree as I tipped my wrist and checked the time. Three hours of staring at the computer had gone by, and we hadn’t seen him anywhere.
“He obviously put a great deal of thought into his plan.” I shook my head. “There’s no way he knew we were going to visit Gina.”
“Maybe not, but he may have been following you, and the only way to do that was with his car. Seeing you two arrive at Gina’s house gave him a new woman to go after. I’m guessing he improvised by saying he was a cop in order to get his foot in her proverbial and literal door.”
Frank waved off Henry’s theory. “That’s bullshit. Why change his MO? He kills everyone within seconds of getting them alone. It sounds like he had hours with Gina, and instead of slitting her throat, he kidnapped her. There’s got to be a reason he flipped the script.”
Henry shrugged. “I’d say he’s trying to draw you in.”
Franks stood and walked to the window. “Now he wants to kill cops instead of women? I’m not buying it.”
“Didn’t the downstairs neighbor say the man mentioned you two by name? How do you think he knew that?”
Frank shot me a concerned glance, and whatever he was thinking, it was likely I was thinking it too.
“So he knows that we’re aware of the subway connection and wants to eliminate us from getting too close so he can continue his murderous hobby?”
Tony weighed in with his opinion. “It’s possible and not that farfetched.”
Henry continued. “A few taps of the computer keys and the right software can easily tell him who you are, where you live, and which precinct you work at and in what capacity. Plus, the police department’s website is an open book.”
“Why Frank and me? There’s been plenty of officers and detectives working the case.”
Shawn leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling tiles. “Because the killer is stalking you.”
His comment sent chills up my spine. Even though we were seasoned detectives, there was always that one criminal who tried to turn the tables on us—and sometimes succeeded. I had to admit, Frank and I were extremely visible and at the forefront of every homicide case.
I turned at the sound of my name being called. It was Tory, and she’d just returned from working with Beth on the composite sketch.
“Sorry for the delay, guys. We had a lot of revisions to do.”
Her comment made my optimism disappear in seconds. “So Beth couldn’t get the image to look like she remembered?”
Tory shrugged. “Side views are really difficult since they still don’t give you the visual you need like a straight-on front image does.” She opened the folder and placed the drawing on my desk. “This is what Beth came up with.”
We crowded around the sketch, and I knew in my gut that airing that composite would only pile on the calls and confusion about thousands of men with dark hair and a large nose in the Chicagoland area. We still needed more.
“Okay, thanks, Tory. We sure appreciate your last-minute help.”
She gave all of us a smile. “I hope you catch your man.”
Frank groused. “Not as much as I do.”
After Tory left, I continued on. “Send those screen grabs to my in-box. I want to go through them with Todd and Billy. If anyone can confirm it’s the same man in the footage and possibly improve the quality and lighten up the photos, it’s our tech boys.”
Minutes later, I was downstairs showing the images to Todd.
“I’ll do my best to sharpen up the photos, and I’m nearly positive it’s the same man in each shot.”
“Good, and try to make them lighter if possible. We don’t have any direct face shots, only the side view sketch Tory drew up.”
Todd nodded. “Yeah, those really won’t give the right perspective of what the perp looks like.”
“So a mirror image connected to that side view won’t give us an accurate picture?”
Todd said it wouldn’t. “We don’t know the shape of his face, how far apart his eyes are, or if he has birthmarks or scars on the other side of his face.”
My shoulders slumped. We needed a real picture of the man. “Damn it. If only he hadn’t ripped the doorbell out of the wall. He took the adapter and Gina’s phone too.”
“She had a camera doorbell, and he rang it?”
“Yep, and spoke to her through it. The downstairs neighbor said he looked away several times like he was trying to hide his identity, but he had to be facing it when he walked up the sidewalk to the porch and then rang it.”
“Do you know what company it was from?”
“Nope, I didn’t pay much attention to it other than ringing it yesterday.”
“You find the company it’s billed to and get a warrant for the footage. If Leslie had a monitoring plan with the company, then the footage was stored in the cloud.”
I slapped Todd’s shoulder. “You’re a lifesaver, man, and I’ll get on that right now.”
Taking the steps two by two, I headed up the stairs and down the hallway to Lutz’s office. Since he was alone, I barged in with barely a knock. Lutz raised his brows as if he was startled and removed his reading glasses.
“What’s going on, Jesse?”
“Todd just gave me a great idea that we need to act on immediately.”
“Go on.”
“I doubt if the side view sketch will cut it on the news—too iffy. Leslie had a camera doorbell, and we know the perp rang it, meaning it caught his face up close and personal.”
“Right, but he ripped it out of the wall.”
“That’s true, but if Leslie subscribed to the company’s monitoring services, the footage would be stored in the cloud.”
“Damn. We might get lucky after all. Head back to the apartment and start searching through it for a statement.”
“I can do one better than that. We have her bank account number, so we can access the bills that she paid. If she did subscribe to the monitoring service, it would show up as a monthly payment.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then we’d be in the same boat we are now, but we’d go back to the apartment, anyway, and search for something that could tell us the company’s name. There’s a chance that they could still help us figure it out.”
Lutz nodded as I spoke. “Okay, then what do you need from me?”
“I’m going to go through Leslie’s bank records and hopefully find the company’s name. There’s a chance they’ll demand a warrant to access her doorbell camera footage.”
Lutz checked the time. “It’s after five. The courthouse is already closed for the day.”
“Damn it.” I raked my hair as I imagined Gina spending another night with that madman.
“It’s still worth a try. I’ll see what I can find and let you know. It should only take me fifteen minutes or so to go through her bank statements.”
Lutz shooed me out the door. “Then go, and do it in ten.”