Lutz called out to me through his half-opened door as I passed his office that next morning.
“Jesse, we have news.”
His comment was music to my ears, and I popped my head in.
“Have a seat. I’m going to update everyone during roll call, anyway, but since you’re here…”
I sat on his guest chair, folded my hands on his desk, and leaned forward. I was excited to hear what he would say.
“I’ve already spoken to Abrams this morning and have a list of vehicles that entered the park after midnight, and there weren’t many.”
“Good to hear, and I imagine the fact that the park is patrolled every few hours keeps the riffraff out.”
“Exactly.” He looked at his notes. “According to the surveillance cameras at the two entrances, his patrol officers caught nine vehicles that turned in. Some may have exited elsewhere, but the streets that enter the park off of Sixtieth are the closest to the peninsula where the body was dumped.”
“Sure. Were they able to make out any plate numbers?”
“No, too far away, but they did identify most of the makes and colors.”
“Nice. That should help out quite a bit, but most of the work still lies ahead of us.”
“Reviewing footage on fifty or more cameras?”
I raised my brows. “It is a lot of legwork, but since the witness was dead set on it being around four thirty a.m., that should reduce the amount of time we’re at each location. I’d suggest starting with the cameras nearest the park and then backtracking since we have no idea where they came from other than the man saying they turned left off East Fifty-Seventh Street and went north on South Dorchester. What we need to do is map out each camera location and see if a route emerges.”
Lutz pushed back his chair, grabbed his coffee cup, and tipped his head toward the door. “Let’s get roll call out of the way and put that map together. I either want to see the building those two individuals came out of or what kind of vehicle they were driving.” He shook his head. “What I really want to know is why nobody has reported those men missing.”
As we walked side by side, we discussed what we had up to that point. A breakthrough could very well be on the horizon.
Roll call was the same as always. Names were yelled out, and the corresponding officer or detective responded. The normal updates followed, but that day was different—we finally had something to work with.
After reading off the makes and colors of the nine vehicles spotted in Washington Park, Lutz gave everyone an assignment. The cars needed to be plugged into our database to see how many of those particular vehicles were registered in Chicago and to whom. That job was handed off to the officers in our precinct. Henry, Shawn, and Kip were to head to the Bixler Park neighborhood and start going through footage that might show the two people walking or any of those nine cars driving by. Every task that day would be time consuming. I reminded Lutz that the detectives needed to visualize how the cameras along that ten-block radius lined up before they headed in that direction.
“Okay, everyone get busy and find out who owns those types of cars. Narrow it down to the most logical suspects and make sure you’re going by color as well. That’ll help lessen the number you’re looking at.” He jerked his head toward Henry, Kip, Tony, and Shawn. “You four join us in the conference room in five.”
I arrived before the rest of the team and hooked my finger through the ring at the bottom of the roller map of our district. I pulled it down and, in the cabinet to my right, found a plastic box filled with red and yellow pushpins. With the box of pins and the sheet of camera locations in the ten-block radius, I used the red pushpins and began mapping out each spot where a camera was located. With the yellow pins, I marked the streets where our witness briefly saw the two people with the wagon.
Minutes later, the rest of the group arrived and funneled into the conference room. Lutz, with a handful of papers, took up the rear. I stopped what I was doing and found an empty seat so the commander could lead the meeting.
As he made his way to the head of the table, Lutz passed out the sheets of paper. “Okay, guys, what you have in front of you are the makes, models—to the best of our knowledge—and color of the vehicles that entered Washington Park after midnight. There aren’t a lot, so if any are seen on the footage from the Bixler Park area, it better raise a bright-red flag with you.” He turned to me and tipped his chin. That was my cue to go ahead with what I was doing. I rose and went back to the map.
“I’ve started marking every location where a camera faces the street or sidewalk in that ten-block area we searched.” I pointed. “Those are the red pins. The yellow ones mark where our witness saw the people with the wagon.”
Kip spoke up. “So they were walking east on Fifty-Seventh Street, turned north near the east edge of the park, and then went north on South Dorchester?”
“That’s right, but our witness continued east on East Fifty-Seventh toward his home. He only saw them for a few seconds before they were out of eyeshot. We don’t know where they entered Fifty-Seventh Street from, so I’d suggest checking cameras in that area first and then backtracking their route if they’re seen on the footage. It’ll be the fastest way to locate them since they had to have passed a camera along East Fifty-Seventh somewhere.” I turned to the map and tapped three spots. “These cameras should be checked first, and then follow a logical route in that general area before spreading out.” I finished adding all the pins to the map, took a picture of it, and sent the image to Kip, Henry, and Shawn’s phones. “There, now you have all the cameras mapped out. Look for the two people, or one of those cars on your list, and then work in reverse.”
“Any questions?” Lutz asked.
“Nope.” Henry looked at his teammates. “I think we’re ready to roll.”
We exited the conference room and headed to the bull pen, where Frank and I would pitch in with the database search for those nine vehicles.