by L T Vargus
The reporter was getting wound up now, his eyes wide, hands gesturing. This conspiracy thing really played to Spinks’ theatrical side.
A guy in a pickup held up the line of traffic and waved Loshak on. Loshak lifted a hand in thanks, then pulled into the flow, keeping one foot on the brake and ready for sudden stops.
“I still think the mass-shooter-cover-up theory is pretty far-fetched for a murder,” Loshak said.
The reporter deflated a little. He leaned back and stared down at the glove box, rubbing his chin.
“Yeah. I get that. There have got to be a lot simpler ways to take a guy out.” He looked over, brows raised. “Still. It’d have to be a hell of a coincidence for one of our names to end up on the list of victims here.”
“If he’s even our George Whitley.”
“Well, obviously. But how many George Whitleys can there possibly be in this country?”
Loshak blinked at him.
Spinks sighed.
“OK, OK, I know. Thousands. Tens of thousands. But our investigator did say this Whitley could potentially be the one we’re looking for. I’m just saying we keep an eye out. We don’t want to go in blind like we did in Kansas City.”
Chapter 6
A squad car was stationed at each entrance of the Woodfield Mall parking lot. Loshak pulled up to one, and he and Spinks showed their credentials to the uniformed officer stationed there. The kid had a wispy mustache and looked like he should still be in high school, but then Loshak could say that about pretty much anyone under thirty these days. At some point, he’d started seeing the world through old man eyes.
The kid had them pull around to Mall Entrance 4 while he radioed ahead to let the unit inside know they were coming. Loshak parked in the cluster of Forensic Services vehicles and unmarked cars, then he and Spinks waded through the quickly refreezing slush to the building.
Another more appropriately-aged uniform met them there, holding the door open.
“Up the escalator, then straight ahead,” she said, without waiting for them to ask. There weren’t too many other places in a deserted mall people would be headed. “You can’t miss it.”
“Thanks.” Loshak nodded at her, then took a few steps into the open first floor.
The hall stretched off in both directions, and farther down he could see more wings branching off. Lots of space, lots of entrances and exits.
Had their shooter come in through 4? The techs had picked up footage of his exit complete with ski mask, but they hadn’t found his entrance yet. They wouldn’t know for sure until they’d finished combing the grainy security camera files from the dozens of cameras around the mall. This entrance was the closest to the food court, but that was no guarantee at such a busy time of year. The file said the place was packed, and if their shooter here was the same guy from the freeway shooting, the lockdown of the parking lot hadn’t caught him. He’d gotten in and back out again quickly.
The snap and flash of a camera overhead brought Loshak back to the present. That would be the evidence techs documenting every inch of the food court. Normally, Loshak preferred to do his walkthroughs after the scene had been processed and everyone was gone, when he could observe without being observed. But with this guy at large, there wasn’t time to follow the usual protocol. A shooter who skipped out on the scene without confronting cops was a shooter who had plans to strike again. The sooner they caught him, the better.
Spinks caught Loshak’s eye.
“Any initial impressions?” the reporter asked. He’d been standing by silently, letting Loshak take it all in. “I mean, besides it being creepy as hell being in a mall this quiet?”
Loshak headed toward the escalator, Spinks following. Now that it’d been mentioned, Loshak couldn’t stop noticing the eerie silence. Even with the low murmur of the forensic work being done up in the food court, it was so quiet that he could hear the whir of the escalator’s track mechanism from what had to be at least fifty yards away.
“I haven’t been in a mall in forever,” Loshak said.
Once Shelly’s friend Randi had gotten old enough to drive, Loshak and Jan had been off the hook for taking their daughter to all the teenage hangout places. He remembered being almost giddy about that, an end to the non-stop shuttling to friend’s houses, musical rehearsals, track practice. Funny how he’d taken all that for granted, though he supposed everyone did. But it was the small things, the mundane things that he missed most, now that she was gone.
“Don’t they usually have some music playing or something?” he asked, finishing his thought.
“Like, every single one of the stores and then also the speaker system for the mall as a whole,” Spinks said. “And none of them are playing the same song.”
A fluorescent bulb flickered overhead as they rode to the Dining Pavilion on the mezzanine level, flashing weakly off the glass and metal of the escalator like a dying strobe light. Up here, yellow police tape cordoned off smaller sections of the food court, encasing tables, turned over trash cans, and potted plants strewn with Christmas lights. Spent shells still littered the floor, and pools of drying blood gleamed dully.
Techs swarmed the scene. Photographing. Logging. Bagging.
“This is surreal,” Spinks said in a low voice, his head swiveling. “I mean, there have got to be at least as many people here now as there were in those photos of the shooting. Except this time, they’re all law enforcement personnel.”
Loshak inhaled to say something, but settled for nodding instead. That nose-full had made him very aware of the smells of pizza, fries, and cinnamon rolls hanging in the air. Somehow, that was the worst part. Breathing in these mouthwatering scents while staring down at puddles of blood pocked with little flecks of what used to be human bone and flesh. It felt halfway to cannibalism.
Without warning, little flashes of images from the file reared up in Loshak’s brain. Imagined video clips of the shooting, some in grainy security cam footage, others in full HD. He could see it from a victim’s point of view, just one more person grabbing a bite to eat while waiting for someone downstairs to finish up their shopping.
The killer in his dark ski mask standing, pulling the gun. The disbelief, the automatic justifications that came at a time like this. It was a toy, it was a joke, he was seeing it wrong. Even when the shooter opened fire, the victims might not have realized what was going on immediately. Almost a full hundred percent of people who survived mass shooter situations said the same things — “I thought it was fireworks,” or “I thought it was a car backfiring.”
When people started to fall, that was when the screaming would start. Loshak’s breathing got ragged around the edges as he imagined the muzzle of the Uzi swinging around toward him. Sound filtered down to nothing but the pumping of his heart in his ears. And in spite of Spinks being right beside him and all the detectives, techs, and officers bustling around, Loshak felt completely alone.
That was when the scene in his mind’s eye switched. The victim’s feeling of lonely terror staring down the bore of the gun, that helplessness of knowing something as small as a bullet could end you forever and there was nothing you could do about it, the killer would have seen that. The Uzi gave him power, but it was more than that. His willingness to use the Uzi — something few others would do — gave him power over them. The people at this food court were nothing more than his prey. Weak and worthless.
Loshak searched the tables for the spot the killer had been sitting, then strode over to it. A two-top with only one chair, pushed up against a column on one side and a potted tree hung with Christmas lights on the other. A secluded little corner, almost removed from the rest of the food court.
Loshak squatted next to the chair and stared out across the tables, imagining the place filled with diners and shoppers instead of law enforcement. Their killer had sat here watching for seventeen minutes and forty-seven seconds, laptop bag containing the Uzi at his feet.
Why such a long pause between entering the food
court and opening fire? Insecurity? Fear? He had barely checked his phone in all that time, only checking it once at about the six-minute mark, so it didn’t seem like he’d been waiting for a signal from someone else.
Movement in the corner of his eye reminded him Spinks was there. Loshak frowned. Had the shooter been waiting for George Whitley to arrive?
He would have to go through the footage leading up to the first shot to be sure, but right now his gut didn’t believe that.
Loshak stood up and turned to Spinks. Blood rushed to his head, turning the food court momentarily dark around the edges. Loshak blinked it away, breathing deeply. At this point in his career, it’d be pretty damn embarrassing to pass out at a crime scene from something as stupid as a head rush.
“You alright, partner?” the reporter asked in a low voice.
“Fine,” Loshak nodded. “Let’s walk through our shooter’s exit route, then head over to the task force meeting.”
“You got it.”
Loshak turned and headed to the hall leading into the back of the food court, behind the restaurant counters, following the flashes of grainy motion captured by the cameras.
This section of the file had reminded Loshak of a comic book, each panel depicting the shooter getting farther and farther away from the scene. They passed a pair of Authorized Personnel Only doors marked with the names of the restaurants they led to, then ran into a door leading to employee stairs.
“So this is where you got your theory that he’s a disgruntled retail worker,” Spinks said, pushing through the stair door and holding it so Loshak could follow him.
“It’s on the list of possibilities, anyway.” Though the more he saw of the scene, the less Loshak believed in the employee angle.
They started down the stairs, shoes clopping on the veneered concrete. Spinks ran his hand along the rail as they went. The contact made a hissing, ringing sound against the metal.
“He could also have a friend or family member who worked here and told him about the stairs,” Spinks suggested. “Or he could’ve gotten up to some mischief as a teen and snuck through this way.”
Loshak nodded. “Those are on my list, too.”
They hit the bottom floor, and Loshak stiff-armed the door there open, letting Spinks through.
“So, he shoots up the food court, cheeses it down the employee hall, down the stairs, comes out here,” the reporter said. “Then what?”
Loshak glanced around. Fluttering yellow caught his eye.
“Then this way,” he said, leading Spinks to the trash can mentioned in the file. The lid was gone, and its contents had been taken away by techs to comb through, but the police tape remained. “They recovered his coat, sunglasses, and tear-away windbreaker pants from the trash here.”
He turned and pointed. “Then he takes off that way. This is the last point where the security cameras could see him, but it’s most likely that he or his getaway driver was parked in one of the lots over there.”
Spinks squinted his eyes against the wind and scanned the strip of stores, hair salons, restaurants, and a pawn shop that made up the shopping center next door to the mall.
“Any of those places have cameras that picked him up?”
“When CPD sent me the file, they had already checked the feeds from the pawn shop and sushi place, but they didn’t have any activity that might have matched our guy, and the Subway’s cameras only showed the first few feet in front of the door, no parking lot footage. They were still sifting through the Game Stop and Great Clips footage to see if they caught anything.”
“So, we’re going to have to make that task force meeting to find out whether they’ve got anything,” Spinks said.
“Yep.” Loshak pulled out his phone and thumbed to Chief Millhouse’s number. He wanted to drive the killer’s route to I-90, but Spinks was right, that would have to wait until later.
Chapter 7
Even with the torturous Chicago traffic, Loshak and Spinks ended up making it to the station where the task force meeting was being held just under ten minutes late. Inside, a large grandmotherly woman in uniform met them at the front desk.
“Special Agent Loshak and friend?”
She had a growling five-pack-a-day voice and hair as silvery and rough-looking as steel wool. She grabbed their hands one at a time and gave them a hardy pump. Loshak noted the nicotine stains on the first two fingers of her left hand.
“Officer Lynette Washington, great to meet ya. I’m supposed to show you guys back to the meeting.”
With a flourish, Loshak brought the Triple Dog Dozen Donut Box out from under his arm and opened it, putting the confectionery goods on display.
“Can I interest you in a donut, Officer Washington? Before the rest of the precinct smells blood in the water.”
“Sure can.” She grinned and picked out a chocolate icing with sugar sprinkles. “But you better call me Lennie if you’re going to be filling me up with the sweet stuff.”
Loshak chuckled.
“You got it, Lennie.”
She buzzed them into the desk pool, then took the lead, heading for a hall off the far corner.
“You boys catch traffic on the way in?”
“It caught us,” Spinks said. “There was a wreck on the highway. All but one lane closed.”
Lennie shook her head, disgusted.
“Tourists,” she said with the absolute certainty of a lifelong native. “I swear to God they forget how to drive as soon as they see a snowflake. They’re gonna be shitting their pants in a couple days here.”
“What’s happening in a couple days?” Loshak asked, shifting the huge donut box to a more comfortable position.
“We’re gonna get some real snow, that’s what,” she said. She popped the last bite of her donut into her mouth, talking around it. “They’re saying six inches overnight, and that’s just the beginning.”
“Well, Toto, we’re not in Miami anymore,” Spinks said, looking sidelong at Loshak. Then he turned to Lennie. “You folks have got some asshole weather out here, you know that?”
The reporter plucked at his coat.
“I’m wearing two coats, a sweater, a shirt, an undershirt… the wind didn’t even care! Just sliced right through them.”
Lennie let out a smoker’s laugh that turned into a hacking fit debilitating enough that she stopped at the edge of the hallway and put one hand on the wall. After a few seconds, Spinks caught Loshak’s attention, the reporter’s eyes wide. Loshak gave him a micro-shrug. He was wondering whether Lennie needed them to get help, too. Or maybe oxygen.
Loshak was just opening his mouth to ask if she needed them to do something when Lennie cursed between coughs and held up one finger, Just a sec. He nodded, even though her eyes were squeezed shut. A couple of the inhabitants of the desks were looking their way, but after they saw the coughing was emanating from Lennie, they went back to work.
Apparently, this wasn’t distressing for anyone who knew the woman. Peachy. It was awkward as hell for him and Spinks.
Finally, she got her breathing back under control.
“Woo. Stay in school, kids,” she said, shaking her head. She cleared her throat, spat in a nearby trashcan, then patted Spinks on the shoulder. “Two coats. That’s cute. You gotta buy your winter wear for Chicago from Chicago. It’s the only way. Tell you what you do: After the meeting, you run down to Target and grab something with at least two thermal layers. One of those puffy dealies with the down lining.”
She spotted a bit of chocolate icing on her thumb and licked it off.
“Make sure you get a nice warm scarf, too. You’d be surprised how much heat you lose out the back of your neck.”
“Better grab a hat while I’m there,” Spinks said, running a hand over his smooth brown scalp. “I don’t have a lot on top to protect me from frostbite.”
Lennie chuckled at that, but to Loshak’s relief, she didn’t break out in another coughing fit. She led them down the hall to a door standing ajar.
The room inside was dark except for a projector flashing through a PowerPoint slideshow. Lennie gave them a wink and motioned for them to go ahead.
Loshak gave her a little wave of thanks, then slipped inside, Spinks following. In spite of their silent entrance, heads turned to see whose shadows had just passed over the door. Detectives and uniformed officers who’d been on the job long enough not to like people sneaking up behind them.
At the front of the room, the woman running the slides saw Loshak and smiled. With her hair piled carefully on top of her head and all the teeth she was showing, she looked like an aging beauty queen trying to dazzle the judges.
“Oh, Special Agent Loshak and his consultant, everyone. Welcome, gentlemen, we’re so glad you could make it.”
The pleasantly distracted voice registered in Loshak’s head immediately — Nancy Millhouse. Oddly enough, he didn’t detect any sarcasm in her words.
“If you’re prepared to present your profile, we’ll get to it in just a second.”
“Thank you, that’s fine,” Loshak said, nodding. Now that everyone’s attention had been drawn to him, eyes were starting to stick to the donut box.
As Millhouse went back to the images being projected onto the wall — stills Loshak recognized from the file — he found the requisite card table coffee set-up against the back wall and headed over to set the donuts down.
There was already a box there.
Propped in the inside of the lid was a card that said, Enjoy! – DCoD Millhouse
Loshak frowned down at it for a second. A boxful of glazed, several missing. Only glazed. No other options. It was his go-to move, except without the variety. No way to make guesses at personality based on whether certain detectives picked crullers over jelly-filled or iced over plain. What did it say about Millhouse that she’d gone with a double dozen of nothing but glazed? Friendly but unimaginative? Preferred uniformity? Usual bakery out of everything but glazed? Or had she just wanted to do something nice for the task force and had no interest in making up ridiculous profiles based on donut choice?