With our flashlights illuminating the way and our guns drawn, Mills and I cleared the first floor of the building room by room. Even though it was still daylight, the dirt-coated windows, which hadn’t been opened in years, made it nearly impossible to see farther than ten feet ahead without our flashlights.
I called out in case homeless people had taken up residence in the structure. The building was dead silent other than the skittering of animals that had taken shelter there and birds that had found their way in, flying from rafter to rafter. We continued to the second and third floors and repeated the same sweeping search.
“See anything?” I asked.
Frank laughed. “I can barely see at all let alone notice something that could be a clue.”
“Yeah, same here. Let’s check the roof.”
I squinted when we finally saw rays of sunshine again. We still had an hour and a half of daylight, and we had to put it to good use. We walked to the roof’s edge and looked toward the north. Maria’s building and the crime scene were both clearly visible and in a direct line of fire.
“We might be on the right track,” Mills said. “At least this place makes sense, and everything lines up. No risk from tenants seeing somebody heading to the roof with a rifle case in their hand either.”
I looked to the far end of the roof and pointed, then stepped up my pace. “No way in hell. Check that out!”
A lone soda can sat below the ledge. We both stared as if we were looking at an alien.
Mills shook his head and pulled an evidence bag from the soft-sided case slung over his shoulder. “That can has no reason to be here.”
“Yeah, no shit. Take pictures first and then put on gloves before you bag it.”
We were excited and confident that we’d found the sniper’s nest, and our search there intensified.
“Right here.” I knelt along the two-foot-tall ledge. “Look at these scuff marks on the concrete. Could be from the rifle or a bipod.”
“Damn right they could be. I’ll snap off a few pics of that too.”
I looked around, and the neighborhood didn’t seem threatening. “Maybe we should get Forensics out here, anyway. They’re the pros, and if this really is where the sniper shot from, they need to check it out. I’ll call Lutz and get his take on it.” I waved to get Frank’s attention as I stepped away to make the call. “Have the rest of the gang head this way. This entire building needs to be gone through again.”
Our forensic team arrived in less than twenty minutes, and we had just under an hour of daylight left. With Lutz’s okay to continue looking for evidence but to stay out of the forensic team’s way, we had all hands on deck, going through the abandoned factory one more time. Eight detectives painstakingly scoured every square foot of space while Forensics focused on the roof.
Roberts yelled out from the stairwell between the first and second floors. “I’ve got something! Get Forensics down here.”
I called out to Murray, who was on the third floor, and told him to let Danny and Mike know they were needed downstairs. It took only a few seconds for me to reach Tom. “What did you find, Roberts?”
“Be careful on the steps. I accidentally kicked it with my shoe, and there might be something else right in this area.” He pointed straight down with his flashlight.
“Holy shit!” I dropped to my hands and knees and gave it a closer inspection. “That looks like a .223 shell casing from an AR-15.”
The boys from the crime lab got there a minute after me.
Danny Bradshaw spoke up. “Did I hear somebody say they found a shell casing?”
“I damn near fell down the stairs because of it. My foot hit it, and I went sliding.”
“Let’s take a look.” Mike Nordgren, the senior forensic specialist, picked it up with his gloved hand. “Sure as shit, it’s a .223 Remington casing. Bag it. This is looking more and more like where the shooting originated from. We need to print that soda can and this casing right away. We’ll head back now, and you can place markers by anything else you see. We’re losing daylight, anyway, so we’ll pick up here tomorrow.”
“Good enough. We’ll button this place down before we leave, and Patrol might have to sit on it overnight, but that’s a decision better made by Lutz and Abrams.”
We worked until dark and placed several markers next to questionable things we saw. With police tape wrapping the building and two second-shift patrol units sent by Abrams to watch the factory, we returned to the station.
Inside the roll call room, Lutz conducted a short update meeting with the officers and detectives that were in the building.
“Okay, folks, quiet down. We have new evidence that might put the shooter behind bars. Thanks to the hard work this afternoon, our detectives were informed of an abandoned factory only two blocks from the first crime scene. During their search, a soda can was found on the roof, and a Remington .223 shell casing was discovered. Quite a mistake made by the shooter, but I imagine he hadn’t figured on us finding those items.”
Mills piped in. “Or the chicken shit was so nervous he made a crucial mistake and left the soda can behind and dropped the casing as he was running from the scene.”
“And that’s a good possibility too, Frank. Patrol units have been stationed inside the building and out of sight for their own safety. SWAT has been covering the neighborhood at the second scene and still are as we speak.”
“How long before we hear back from Forensics?” I asked.
Lutz checked the time. “Mike said they forwarded the prints to the FBI headquarters on Roosevelt. They’ll run them through IAFIS and see what pops, so we should know something very soon.”