I left my post briefly to turn on the kitchen light. Tommy said he’d opened the gate and would be rounding the house any second. Hitting the wall switch, I accidentally caused the backyard to light up.
“Son of a bitch!”
I flipped off the light as fast as it went on then hit the switch next to it—the correct one. The kitchen lit up, and I opened the slider.
Tommy snickered as he stepped up to the patio and crossed through into the kitchen. “Good way to alert the neighborhood that somebody’s in here.”
“That was a mistake, damn it, and careless on my part. How much lit up?”
“The whole back and side yard.”
“Shit.” I left the kitchen and returned to my post in the living room, where I peered out between the slats and looked toward Terry’s house. Everything appeared as before—pitch-dark. “I wonder why he leaves his lights off. The sun went down an hour ago.”
“Maybe he has a family room at the back of the house. Nobody uses formal living rooms these days, and who knows? He might hunker down in only a few rooms now that he’s alone.”
I rubbed my brow and cracked open another bottle of iced coffee. “Yeah, maybe.” My cell phone rang in my pocket, and I fished it out then swiped the screen and answered. “McCord.”
“Jesse, it’s Ron. Todd is on his way back with a copy of the footage from the superstore. Terry was seen checking out in the sporting goods department.”
“Give me a sec. Okay, Tommy just arrived, and I’m putting you on Speakerphone.” I tapped the icon and continued. “Sporting goods, huh? But he had a small bag in his hands.”
“Yeah, with a box of .223 Remington ammo inside.”
“Shit! We never disclosed to the media or public what kind of guns or ammo was used at any of the shootings. Plus, he said he didn’t own a firearm. Now what?”
“He’s not going to be forthright about that. We need a little more since it isn’t illegal to buy ammo. We need to get our hands on his AR-15 and fire it, then we can compare the firing pin marks to the casing found at the first shooting. Deliberately leaving that casing behind was a big mistake on his part. Unfortunately, there isn’t a judge that will grant us a warrant to search his premises without a witness that puts him at one of the murders, the vehicle tag number of a car fleeing the scene, or his fingerprints or DNA left behind where the shooting took place. So far, we have none of that.”
“Damn it. How about Mrs. Pendleton or Adam Coceck?”
“Mrs. Pendleton didn’t get a good enough look at him from her angle, and Adam is still in Utah. When is he supposed to come back to Chicago?”
I ground my fists into my eyes, which felt like I had just scrubbed them with sandpaper. “I don’t know. Sometime next week, I think.”
“You have to catch Terry scoping out his next location, and then you need to follow him there when he’s planning to take action. The gun has to be with him.”
“Somebody else that he doesn’t recognize will have to do that. I couldn’t get close enough to him without the risk of being seen.”
“Okay, that’s something we’ll discuss tomorrow. Tommy, you keep your eyes peeled on Terry’s house, and Jesse, catch an hour or two of shut-eye.” Everly clicked off the call.
“Jesse, do you mind if I snatch one of your beers?”
I headed for my air mattress. “Nah, help yourself. Just don’t doze off.”