Jack Daniels Six Pack (126 page)

The butt plate is snug against his armpit, his face is tight against the cheek pad, the safety is off. The aluminum gun chassis is on the
concrete planter behind the dogwood, a hard surface that ensures the gun will stay steady. Munchel takes a deep breath, lets it out through his teeth. His ears tell him there is no traffic coming, which is essential because he’s shooting across the street—it would be bad if a car entered his line of fire at the moment of truth.

The target stands up, walks toward the window, seems to look right at him. Impossible, of course. He’s much too far away, too well hidden. But it’s still unnerving. Munchel chews his lower lip, begins the countdown.

The target turns. Munchel completely empties his lungs and waits…waits…waits…then squeezes the trigger with the ball of his finger, trying to time it between heartbeats like he’s read about online.

There’s a loud
CRACK.
The target’s head explodes, and he pitches forward.

Munchel sucks in some air and lets it out as a laugh.
How ridiculously easy.
He checks to see if anyone around him noticed the gunfire. The sidewalks are clear. No one opens a door and sticks their head out. Everything is completely normal, just an average fall day in the city.

He reaches for his canteen—also an army/navy store purchase—and slurps down some purple Gatorade. His untraceable prepaid cell phone vibrates, and he stares at the number. It’s Swanson. Anxious to see how it went, to meet at the rendezvous point and brag over beer and chicken wings.

Munchel ignores the call. He has other ideas of how to celebrate.

A streetlight comes on, its sensor activated by a timer. Munchel loads a round, aims, and takes it out. That’s two shots now. Still, no one seems to notice. How disappointing.

He takes out his phone and dials 911.

“I was walking down Leavitt and heard someone shooting. I think my neighbor has been killed.”

“What is your name, sir?”

“He’s at forty-six fifty-two. I think someone shot him.”

“Can you give me your name?”

Munchel hangs up, sips more Gatorade, and hunkers down to wait for the police to arrive.

5:32 P.M.
JACK

M
Y PARTNER
, Sergeant Herb Benedict, crams the last mini chocolate donut into his mouth, wipes a hand across his gray mustache, and then tries to heave his bulk out of the less-than-comfortable confines of my 1984 Chevy Nova. He has to rock, twice, before he gets enough momentum to break the tug of gravity between his ass and the seat.

“Thanks for not judging me,” he says as we approach the yellow police tape.

“Because you ate two packages of donuts even though your doctor put you on a high-fiber diet?”

Herb nods. “Man cannot live on bran alone, Jack. Every day, as a snack, my wife mixes me a high-fiber sugar-free weight loss shake. Then she adds even more fiber.”

“Sounds healthy.”

“You want some? I got a zipper bag in my pocket full of the stuff. It’s like drinking a stalk of wheat.”

Dried leaves in shades of gold, red, and brown blanket the sidewalks. The cool air carries a crisp, woodsy scent. Spring and summer smell like garbage and sewage. Winter, like car exhaust. Fall is the only time of year Chicago smells nice.

The setting sun casts long shadows on the street, and ours walk ahead of us. I like September because the climate is moderate, and because I have brown hair and brown eyes, and 85 percent of my clothing matches this particular season.

“Does your wife know you’re snacking between nutritious meals?” I ask.

Herb’s basset hound jowls are turned down: his serious face. “She suspects. Last night she found some powdered sugar on my tie. I spent twenty minutes trying to convince her it was heroin.”

A rookie guards the crime scene, keeping away reporters and gawkers. Young, curly hair, eyes intent. I don’t recognize him, and he doesn’t recognize us, asking for ID. This is perfectly acceptable. I’m wearing a pumpkin-colored Anne Klein jacket with a red chevron pattern, taupe Armani pants, and rust Gucci pumps. He probably thinks I’m a waif runway model looking for my photo shoot. Well, a retired one, maybe. There aren’t too many fashionistas in their late forties.

I open my clutch—a Wal-Mart purchase, but hey, it matches the outfit—and remove my star, flashing it at the noob.

“Lieutenant Jack Daniels, Homicide. This is Sergeant Benedict.”

The rookie—his name tag reads
Sakey
—doesn’t seem impressed with either my rank or my outfit, but he lets us pass. We walk into the first floor of a two-flat vintage brownstone, the space already crawling with cops: uniforms, plainclothes, and techies taking pictures and video. I feel my stomach go sour, something that has been happening more and more whenever I visit a crime scene. Without letting Herb see, I remove a roll of antacids out of my jacket pocket and pop three. Not that I fear showing weakness in front of my partner. My concern centers around the fact that my antacids are mint flavored, and Herb likes mint. I haven’t discovered a flavor that Herb doesn’t like, even though I’ve looked. I only have a few tablets left, and I don’t want to share.

“She’s just trying to look out for you, Herb,” I say.

“I know. But I have a feeling that the extra years this high-fiber diet may allow me to live will get cancelled out by the amount of time I spend on the john.”

Herb and I each take some plastic booties out of the box by the door and slip them over our shoes. There are gloves as well, and I snap one on.

The house isn’t very well lit, one thrift shop floor lamp and a living room chandelier with two bulbs not working. The CSU has brought in a portable halogen light, which illuminates the space to operating room brightness. There’s a computer desk, empty pop cans, fast-food wrappers, and CDs randomly strewn over the top. The monitor is a flat screen, and there are speakers screwed into the walls. A red beanbag chair which doesn’t match the red shade of the sofa which doesn’t match the red shade of the drapes. The TV is an older model, sitting on a cheap pressboard cabinet. The walls are bare except for a poster of a topless Jenna Jameson.

The victim is a male Caucasian, average build, sprawled out facedown on the floor. He’s wearing jeans and nothing else. His blond hair is matted with blood, and a halo of red has soaked the beige carpeting around his head. I’ve seen enough gunshot wounds in my day to recognize the cause of death.

I crouch down, squint at his right hand. In the webbing between his thumb and index finger there is a black tattoo of a tombstone. Written on its face is a number five with angel wings on it.

A bulge in the back of the vic’s pocket appears wallet shaped, and I tug it out with a gloved hand. Driver’s license shows me a picture of a man named Robert Siders who resides at this address. The hair seems the same. I pass the wallet to Herb, bend down, and gently turn the deceased’s head to the side. No one looks like their driver’s license picture, but in this case I can’t even make a comparison—the victim’s face has been blown off.

The wallet holds thirty-three dollars, a check stub from a local oil and lube place, and a wrinkled time card signed by the manager of same garage. No credit cards.

Without prompting, Herb yanks out his cell, calling Dispatch. I stand up, take a few steps away from the body, and let my eyes sweep the room while Herb speaks into the phone.

Sakey—the curly-haired rookie who carded me earlier—walks up next to me and peers down at the body.

“Roommate got angry,” he ventures.

“One-bedroom apartment,” I say. “No roommate.”

“Girlfriend, then.”

“No girlfriend. The house is messy, badly furnished, and there’s a poster of a porn star on the wall. No woman would live here.”

Sakey folds his arms and puts a hand on his chin. I watch the wheels spin. “Okay, drug deal gone bad. Dealer shot him in the face.”

“No drugs. He’s got ink on his hand. Prison tattoo. Did five years, got paroled. There’s a signed time card in his wallet—he needs to turn it in to his PO, which means he’s getting random drug tests. If he’s holding down a job, he’s keeping clean.”

He nods. “Fine, we check for former associates. One of them must have came in and—”

“No one came in,” I say.

Sakey raises an eyebrow. “Then who shot him in the face?”

“No one shot him in the face. They shot him in the back of the head.”

“I’ve seen GSWs. He clearly was shot—”

“By a high-velocity rifle in the back of the head,” Herb finishes for him, snapping his cell phone closed. “Higher velocity causes a shock wave in tissue, which makes big exit wounds.”

“Record?” I ask Herb.

“In for ten and out in five. One count unlawful restraint. One count deviate sexual assault. One count aggravated criminal sexual abuse.”

“Our vic is a rapist,” I say, staring down at the body. “Herb, get the information on the woman he assaulted, and her family.”

“You think they hired a hitter?” Sakey asks.

It’s the first assumption he may have gotten right, but he says it to my back—I’m already at the window facing the street, letting my eyes roam back and forth, up and down. I find it at nose level.

The bullet punched through neatly, leaving a hole the size of a dime. No cracked pane or shattered glass—another indicator of a very fast round. I stand in front of it and face the apartment, looking from the window to the victim, and then down the hallway. I follow the path, scrutinizing the far wall, and locate the bullet’s final resting place; another small hole, this one ringed with specks of blood.

I scan the CSU officers in the room and see one that I know, Dan Rogers. I call him over.

“Bullet wound up over here,” I tell him. “But before you dig it out, I need to borrow your laser pointer.”

I have no idea if he actually has a laser pointer in his box full of stuff, but he does, one of those thin models the size of a AA battery. I jam it into the depression in the wall, have Herb stand next to the window, and spend a minute lining up the holes.

“Who was first on the scene?” I ask Sakey.

“Beat cop named Rory. Out in back losing his lunch.”

“Do you know when the call came?”

“A minute or two after five. Multiple 911s.”

I nod, then throw him a bone. “Want to help find the hide?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

I point to Jenna. “That poster still has the cardboard backing, so it should be stiff. Take it off the wall and meet us outside.”

He immediately hops to it. I leave the house, put my plastic booties and latex glove into a different box by the entrance, then organize three teams of uniforms to do door-to-doors, checking for wits. When that’s finished I take out a slim note pad from my clutch and jot
down:
911 tapes, PO, priors, family,
and
freelance assassins/ViCAT.
Much as I loathe to get the FBI involved, their database will give me access to similar murders.

Herb and I meet Sakey where we’d originally found him, near the police tape. He doesn’t seem pleased to be carrying a poster of a topless woman. Especially since there’s a crowd of onlookers, including a few members of the press.

“Why did I bring this?” he asks.

“Hold up the poster,” I say.

Sakey does as he’s told, and the TV cameras catch his frown. “They’re filming us.”

“No they’re not,” Herb says. “They’re filming you. You’re the one waving around the giant picture of the naked lady.”

Sakey’s unhappy face deepens, but he keeps the poster raised. “Now what?”

“Follow us,” I tell him.

We push past the crowd, ignoring the questions being shouted at us, and stand on the opposite side of the street. I hold Sakey’s shoulders, moving him left and right until the red dot from the laser pointer appears on Ms. Jameson’s stomach. The TV crews creep closer, capturing our every move.

“Man,” Sakey groans. “My mom watches the news.”

Herb waves at the cameras and says, “Hi, Mrs. Sakey.”

I tap Sakey on the back. “Just keep the dot on the poster and keep walking.”

Sakey marches on, though he doesn’t seem thrilled about it. Like many beat cops, he’s probably fantasized about getting into Detective Division, working a major homicide. I guess I’ve deglamorized it for him.

We continue walking, following the sidewalk about a hundred yards down, then hop over a waist-high wrought iron fence surrounding a duplex. A slight breeze with a pinch of winter chill tussles my
hair. Sakey’s blows around as well, then springs right back to his original curls. I wonder what conditioner he uses.

“What’s a hide?” Sakey asks. He holds the poster in front of his chest, the dot now on Jenna’s hip.

“Where a sniper shoots from,” Herb answers. “Now the problem is finding the catway.”

“What’s a catway?”

“About eight pounds.”

Sakey doesn’t laugh. Neither do I, having heard that joke several dozen times during the years Herb has been my partner. He also can’t pass a cemetery without quipping, “People are dying to get in there.” I never laugh at that one either.

We walk along the front of the building, up to a cluster of evergreen bushes. They’re thick enough to hide a man. My gun comes out, a .38 Colt Detective Special snubby, my sights locking on the plant. A quick peek inside finds the bush to be devoid of snipers.

“Found brass,” Herb says. He grunts, kneeling down on the lawn, teasing a spent cartridge into a clear plastic evidence bag with his fingernail. It’s gold, shiny, almost three inches long.

“Three oh eight?” Herb guesses.

“I don’t think so. Read the bottom.”

Herb squints at it, peering down the front of his nose and making a farsighted face.

“The writing is scratched out.”

Sakey nods his head and says, “Smart.”

I’ve corrected him enough today, and he spared me the indignity of walking down the block with a nude porn star, so I don’t give him a lecture. Instead I tell him to tape off the area and find out where the homeowners are so they can be informed their house is now part of a crime scene.