My ears perked as the frenzied sounds got louder with each step I took. I entered the war room just after at eight on Sunday morning. People buzzed around like bees and chattered nonstop. Keyboards clacked, and detectives had phones glued to their ears. Their behavior told me something had just occurred, but I didn’t know what. I hadn’t watched TV that morning and spent as much time as I could playing with Bandit before leaving the house. He wasn’t used to me being gone seven days a week, and talking to Frank on my drive to police headquarters had kept me from listening to the car radio.
“What the hell is going on?”
Tommy looked over his shoulder and waved me toward him. “An ambulance was just hit.”
“Hit how? A crash with another vehicle?” I had no idea what he meant.
Sergeant Everly and Commander Randall entered the room. “Everyone gather around. We’ve got a big problem.”
Twenty-two detectives filled the large table centered in the room, and just as many officers stood at our backs. The commander took charge.
“First off, the commanders from the other districts are on their way here. A 911 request for an ambulance came in ten minutes ago to the emergency call center. The woman on the line said her infant child had turned blue. EMTs were dispatched to the scene in the Ninth District, and all three paramedics were gunned down as soon as they exited the emergency vehicle. The 911 lines are jammed with calls pouring in, and every caller says the downed EMTs aren’t moving. They’re on the ground with pools of blood around each of them. A half dozen SWAT units are en route”—Commander Randall wiped his forehead and checked the analog wall clock—“and they should have arrived by now. This city is under siege, and they’re targeting not only police officers but now emergency response teams too.”
“Could there be a common thread between the individuals he hits?” I asked.
Everly shook his head. “He has no way of knowing which units will be dispatched. It’s impossible. At first, the only logical explanation was he had a vendetta against law enforcement. That could be for any number of reasons, but now—”
“He’s trying to shut down Chicago, and there aren’t enough SWAT teams or body armor to outfit every officer in the city. Now the EMTs won’t want to respond to emergency calls. What kind of person would do this?”
“We need that FBI profiler here to work with us. We have to get ahead of that killer. It’s the only way to stop him,” Tommy said.
Commander Randall jerked his head toward the door. “I’ve already called the FBI, and the profiler is on his way. We need a better understanding of what kind of crazy we’re dealing with. Meanwhile, get every original 911 transcript, listen to it, and have them queued up so the profiler can hear them too. Then I want the names and phone numbers of everyone that made a 911 call about the EMT shooting. I want a detailed account from every caller of what they saw and heard, and I want it now!”
We got to work and had the emergency operator who took the call send over the original transcript along with those of the other three calls. The main tech department was stationed at our precinct, and Todd Jacobsen, the lead analyst, and Billy Sorenson, his second in charge, were called in. They joined us at the conference table while we reviewed every transcript.
Todd shook his head after the second time they played. “You do know he’s using voice-altering software, right?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
“We’ll do our best to pick apart the messages, but background sounds won’t help us since the calls are made from different locations every time.”
Moments later, the commanders entered the war room with a man dressed in a dark-blue suit. He looked to be in his early forties and introduced himself as Len Andrews, FBI profiler. With a no-nonsense attitude—which I was sure we all appreciated—he offered a short bio then got down to business.
“Let’s listen in on those calls before anything else.”
I hit the play button on the computer, and we listened to each of the four calls again.
“Okay, voice-altering software, first and foremost. The guy is intelligent and wants to keep law enforcement guessing. He’s taking the lead—the bulls-by-the-horn approach, if you will—and the police have no choice but to be reactive instead of proactive.”
His words stung, but they were true. We didn’t know how to get ahead of the killer.
“Since he uses male and female voices and can change the pitch, nobody is aware that it’s the same person, especially the 911 operators. He’s obviously using burner phones, stays on the line for only a few seconds, and hangs up without giving the operator a name except when he uses the female voices. Anyone know why?”
I shrugged, and so did most of the detectives sitting alongside me.
“Because that’s what is expected. Women are nurturing, typically honest, and are expected to respond to questions by emergency and authority figures. When the operator asked for a name, they willingly gave one, even though it was made up. Men are expected to be stupid and mindless. They want to be in charge, so they give the address of the emergency and usually hang up. It’s a common problem.”
Although he basically told us we were Neanderthals, I appreciated the new understanding of human behavior.
“Anyone notice similarities between the calls, as in manner of speech or the actual message relayed to the operators?”
I thought about each call that I had listened to. “I don’t know about anyone else, but before now, I hadn’t listened to them back-to-back to hear if there was a particular word he used all the time or a regional phrase, if that’s what you mean.” I looked at each face. “Anyone else listen to the recordings back-to-back and make a comparison between them?” The response I got was that nobody had.
Todd repeated what he had mentioned earlier. “There wouldn’t be common background sounds, so we can rule that out because the shootings took place in different locations.”
“That’s exactly right. Okay, Detectives, here’s a condensed version of Profiling Suspects 101. First, I want someone to walk me through the gist of each call.”
I thought it was an odd request since he had just listened to the calls, but I volunteered the information, anyway. I had listened to them so many times, I almost had them memorized. “The first was at night and about a possible home invasion. The caller used a male voice.”
Len wrote that on the whiteboard.
“The second was a female voice, and she called in the morning about a junkie neighbor that abused his children.”
Len picked up the red marker and added that to the list. “Okay, and the third?”
“A man calling to say he was attacked on Michigan Avenue by a gun-wielding stranger that stole his wallet.”
“And then the call from this morning?”
That one, I had just listened to with the rest of the detectives. “A female voice, again saying she needed an ambulance because her infant was unresponsive and had turned blue.”
“Two female calls about children. Why? Because that’s what women do. They’re the nurturers, remember?”
Tommy spoke up. “And two calls from men. One saying there was a possible home invasion and the other saying he was attacked by somebody with a gun and his wallet was stolen.”
Len pointed at us. “See where I’m going with this? Now let’s put those important hints together to form a motive and a profile.” He held the marker to the board. “A home invasion, an attack, and a gun. A possibly dead infant, and a violent man, probably on drugs, screaming at somebody and tearing up the apartment next door.”
I had to interrupt since I didn’t know where he was going with it. “But we do know all that information was made up in order to lure the patrol officers and EMTs to him.”
Len smiled. “Not necessarily. Yes, it’s made up for the benefit of the 911 call, but what if he’s reliving something that happened to him or his family? His grudge may be very real and justified in his mind because of a life-and-death event he experienced. He’s targeted the Second, Seventh, Ninth, and Eighteenth districts. Now he can’t possibly have problems with every district, but there’s one in particular he does take issue with. The others are likely smoke screens. Let’s take fifteen minutes so I can review the lobby video from the hotel and the personality profile you’ve given the press. I also want to read the witness statements before we continue. Coffee on the table would be very much appreciated too.”