Police vehicles lined the street nose to bumper and took up the curb space over a two-block area, and the rest of us who weren’t on duty at the time of the shooting arrived at the crime scene in our personal vehicles. Hours had passed since we were given the “all clear” signal from SWAT to move in on the neighborhood. In four hours, the sun would break the horizon, and people would start their day and leave for work. With any luck, the barricades and police tape would be down by then, but I was sure we’d have a presence there until well into the afternoon.
With a dozen detectives between the combined shifts, we scoured every street in the area, and the twenty or more foot soldiers conducted knock and talks of every house and apartment building in a five-block radius. From what Forensics had told us upon their initial inspection of how the bodies fell, they were sure the shots came from the south. They combed the immediate area around the bodies for clues after the ME conducted his field exams, then they assured us there wasn’t evidence of a crime near the dead officers other than the victims themselves.
Mills and I joined Lutz as he asked Don Lawry, the medical examiner, what he’d thought was the weapon used by the assailant.
“My initial assessment would be a high-caliber rifle. It doesn’t sound like any of the 911 callers actually saw a shooter, only the officers as they fell to their deaths. That’s telling me the shooter was a distance away, hence the high-powered rifle. I’d venture to say the weapon was an easy-to-purchase AR-15 or something along those lines, but I’ll know more after I get the bodies on the tables. Two of the bullets were through-and-throughs, meaning the slugs are going to be difficult to find, but I can go off the other two that are lodged in the bodies. There’s no doubt that with the caller’s saying they heard rapid fire, that all four men were killed with the same weapon. I should be able to determine the trajectory for you too.”
With a chin scratch, I looked toward the multiple-story buildings surrounding us—there were plenty of them. “So he could have taken a sniper’s stance from above?”
“It’s a good possibility, Jesse, and maybe that’s why none of the callers saw anyone that looked suspicious leaving the area.”
Mills and I headed in a south-to-southeast direction and continued searching the ground with our flashlights.
“Did you know any of the guys that were killed?” Frank asked.
“Nah, I’m not familiar with the night shift crew, but no matter what, I’m wondering if tonight was a one-time event or a warning of what’s headed our way.”
Mills grunted as he kicked a rock toward the curb. “God only knows, but I sure as hell hope not. I don’t even want to think of how that could impact the city.”
I glanced sideways at him. “A situation like that could shut down law and order in Chicago completely. A free-for-all of criminals would take over if the men and women in blue were under siege, and the city would end up in a state of emergency with the National Guard in charge.”
“Let’s hope we catch the nutjob before anything remotely like that becomes a reality.”
Lutz caught up with us at daybreak. “Find anything out this way?”
“Nothing.” I pointed at the buildings where a sniper could fire from a window or a rooftop facing the yard where the officers were gunned down. “The higher the assailant was, the farther away he could have been. Interviewing every tenant in those buildings on the side that faces the crime scene could take days.”
Lutz cursed the fact that I was right. “You day shifters have been on the clock for nearly twenty hours. Go home, grab some sleep, and be back at the district at noon. Maybe we’ll have a break in the case, but if nothing else, by then, Don ought to know the weapon used, its range, and the trajectory the shots came from. With that information, we should be able to narrow down the search parameters somewhat.” He jerked his head back toward the ground zero location. “Go on. Get the hell out of here, but give me a heads-up on your way back in. We need to find where the shooter was stationed, and we’ll be working to discover that spot most of the day. That, if anyplace, is where evidence would be left behind.”
We ducked under the yellow tape that closed off the perimeter of the neighborhood and returned to our vehicles. Hours had passed since our arrival, and in that time a half dozen news vans with their masts raised had set up post just beyond the police-patrolled barricade. I had no idea if they knew anything at all except that something had happened a few blocks away, but because they were police scanner savvy, I was sure they had the information necessary to sensationalize the tragedy on their station’s news channels.
Mills lit a cigarette as we walked to our cars.
“Still can’t quit, huh?”
“I’m a work in progress, buddy. It’ll take time.”
I gave Frank a shoulder pat before opening my car door and climbing in behind the wheel. “Get some rest, partner. Noon is going to come a lot sooner than we want it to.”