Chicago Blood: Detective Shannon Rourke Book 1

by Stewart Matthews

  They put Colm on his back. She lifted his shirt and she checked the other wounds. Six in total. There was a cluster of two near his solar plexus, the others were spread out around his chest.

  Their exit wounds were higher on his back than the entry points on his front.

  “Hold him there for a minute,” Shannon said.

  Dedrick and DiMarco did as told, keeping Colm rolled up on his right side.

  The air was so humid during June in Chicago, the blood under his body hadn’t dried yet. It glistened in the flashing lights of the squad cars.

  Shannon shined her light into it. Six black spots revealed themselves. They were like small craters in the concrete.

  “There they are,” she said.

  “What?” Dedrick leaned over Colm’s body, trying to see what Shannon saw.

  “Six impacts in the sidewalk.” She pointed at each of them in turn with the bright center ring of her flashlight. They matched the position of the wounds on Colm’s torso. “Whoever shot him, they did it while he laid here.”

  “And they made damn sure he was dead,” Dedrick said.

  Shannon stood up straight. “You can put him down now.”

  They rolled him over onto his back again.

  “I think the victim and the shooter spoke just before the victim’s death,” she said. “If Colm came from that liquor store behind us, the position of his head and his feet should be reversed. When he fell on his back, his head should’ve been pointed toward the liquor store, and his feet should’ve been pointed away. But they’ve been switched.

  “Maybe the shooter came out of that alley back there.” Shannon pointed toward the nearby alley. “Probably said something to the victim to get his attention—maybe something to piss him off, maybe something as simple as asking for a dollar—but he managed to get the victim to turn around and face him.”

  She held her right arm in front of her as if she aimed a handgun.

  “The first shot was close range. The weapon was pointed slightly down, indicating a shooter who is a few inches taller than our victim.” She pantomimed recoil from the handgun. “That shot probably knocked the victim down. At some point, the shooter realized he was still alive, or otherwise wanted to make sure he was dead.” She stepped forward and aimed the imaginary gun down. “Then he emptied the weapon’s magazine into the victim.”

  Poor Colm. The guy who shot him didn’t even have the decency to put a couple in his head.

  “Did the officers check that alley?” She pointed with a thumb over her shoulder.

  “Probably,” Dedrick said. “But if they found anything, they didn’t tell me.”

  Shannon nodded at him. “Let’s go.”

  She walked into the alley first. Dedrick came a couple steps behind her. Both shined their flashlights side-to-side, up and down, looking for anything out of place—anything that may point them one direction or another. There were boxes, a busted-up pallet, and a sweet, rotting smell like a wet dog raised on a steady diet of putrefied fruit.

  Everything as it should be.

  “What’re the chances our victim and our shooter knew each other?” Dedrick kicked over an old produce box.

  “Pretty good,” Shannon said. “At least on paper.”

  “You know of anyone who’d want your boy dead?”

  “He wasn’t my boy,” Shannon said. “I never really saw him after I enlisted in the Marines.”

  “Your brother stay in contact with him?”

  “Up until a couple years ago, I think,” Shannon said. “Colm had a troubled life, and Michael knew he had to get himself away from people like that if he was ever going to stay in recovery.”

  Up ahead, a shadow moved. Both detectives swung their flashlights to it, ready for anything to come at them—their shooter, an angry bum, the boogieman.

  A possum’s beady eyes glared back at them.

  Dedrick let go of a sigh. “What kind of trouble was Colm into?”

  “Same kind that Michael was into.”

  “Drugs?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said. “You ever heard of an Irish mobster named Ewan Keane?”

  “The name sounds sort of familiar.” Dedrick bobbed his head side-to-side, like he was shuffling knowledge around in his brain.

  “Ewan is Colm’s father.”

  He lowered his flashlight. The connection wasn’t lost on Dedrick—a good detective saw connections in everything.

  “Good God, Shannon, you never told me Michael was into something like that,” he said.

  “He was—that’s the operative word here,” she said. “Michael’s out. Has been for years. And last I heard about Colm, he’d been out for a while too.”

  “Nobody’s ever out,” Dedrick said. “You know that’s not how those guys work.”

  “I know I sound naive,” she said. “But Michael’s out. I keep an eye on him. Nobody comes around to talk to him anymore.”

  Shannon couldn’t read his face in the darkness, but she didn’t have to.

  Dedrick put his forehead in his hand. Shannon could only imagine how she sounded to him, and what might be going through his mind right now. She couldn’t blame him for being leery of how sure she was about her brother. If their roles were reversed, she’d probably take it worse than he did now.

  “This is a mess. You know that, right?” he asked.

  “I know that.”

  “And based on the information you just gave me, we should probably call up someone in the Organized Crime Unit. Neither of us should work this case.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he stopped her.

  “This goes so far beyond the rules, Shannon,” he said. “If anyone took a deeper look at this case, they’d see your conflict of interest, and they’d reprimand both of us.”

  “That’s why I need you to keep what I just told you to yourself,” she said. “At least until I’ve got a collar. If we can get the higher-ups the result they want, they don’t care how we did it, so long as we can make a charge stick in court.”

  Dedrick clenched his jaw. He wasn’t convinced.

  “Come on. All the Organized Crime boys care about are gangs now. You know they don’t give a second thought about the Irish Mob,” she said. “These aren’t the bootlegging days of Capone and the North Side Gang. We throw this case to Organized Crime, and it’s tossed into a filling cabinet somewhere because all of their investigative manpower is tied up in drugs and human trafficking.”

  “They care about murders,” Dedrick said.

  “If it’ll get a conviction on the upper echelons of the Crips or the Latin Kings.” She motioned toward the entrance to the alley. “You know this isn’t that. This is some small-time punk brazenly gunned down in the street because no one bats an eye if all the Colm Keanes of the world are shot, stabbed, or burnt to keep the United Center warm during a Bulls game.”

  Dedrick looked back at the squad cars’ lights flashing in the street.

  She’d made her point. And she knew it was one that would resonate with him. Dedrick hated seeing files pulled down to the Cold Case Unit more than anyone.

  “If we do this, you listen to me,” he said. “Got it?”

  “You know I will.”

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t know that. I know you. And I know once you bite into something, you can’t let it go.”

  She shrugged, as if to say, maybe you’re right.

  He stared at her a moment. She liked that he did it in the dark. If she could see his eyes, her crush might force her to soften up on him.

  “You’re lucky,” he said. “You realize that, right?”

  “How am I lucky?”

  “Because if you were a fat, sweaty homicide detective like Jorge Goyez, I wouldn’t put up with nearly as much from you—my life would be far less complicated if you weren’t pretty.”

  Her cheeks flushed. Even the darkness wasn’t safe, apparently. She turned her eyes away from Dedrick. She had to get a grip on herself—Colm’s bod
y laid cold a few feet off.

  And when she looked away, Shannon noticed something on the ground, just at the edge of her flashlight’s reach. She centered on it. A cigarette butt peeking around the far side of a dumpster.

  She stepped toward it.

  “What is it?” Dedrick said.

  “Look.” She pointed at it.

  He put his flashlight on it too.

  “A cigarette butt.” He didn’t sound impressed. “You got any roaches or rats you want to point out to me while you’re at it?”

  Shannon stepped around the far side of the dumpster. She found a half-dozen more. A crumpled Marlboro Red hard pack lay nearby, too.

  She was careful to step over them. Shannon pressed her back up against the brick wall, then crouched down to see if she could hide behind the dumpster with the pile of spent cigarettes at her feet.

  “They’re probably just from some bum,” Dedrick said.

  “You think somebody who can barely afford a cup of coffee would smoke that much of a twelve-dollar pack of cigarettes in one sitting?”

  “Maybe he was a rich bum.” Dedrick shrugged. “How do you know it wasn’t someone taking a smoke break?”

  “Do you see any doors in this alley?” She shined the light up and down the brick walls on either side. “Who goes more than ten feet away from a door when they smoke? Who would hide behind a dumpster?”

  Dedrick shined his light down the alley one last time, looking for something to disprove Shannon’s theory.

  “All right, detective,” he said. “Let’s tag ’em.”

  Shannon took out her smartphone and snapped a couple photos before she disturbed the evidence. She’d hand them off to Rud later for filing.

  With that taken care of, she pulled a plastic baggie out of her shoulder bag and scooped the cigarettes into them. If they could get a decent print from the pack and a decent print from the bullet casings, they might be able to make somebody on this.

  Shannon emerged from the alley, feeling a little more sure of the case’s direction.

  “Would you like me to take his body to the morgue now, Detective?” Jean DiMarco screwed the lid on a vial containing a bloody cotton swab. She’d already covered Colm below his shoulders with the sheet. “I believe I’ve got all I can use.”

  It was better not to look into Colm’s eyes, but Shannon couldn’t stop herself.

  Even closed, and even in death, his eyes had a wild undertone to them. They carried the look of a boy who would take a left turn at any moment, who gleefully jumped into fistfights with his friends, whether they were wrong or right, a boy who drove his car through the neighbors’ yards for a cheap laugh, and who’d throw you a beer before the first bell whether he liked you or just wanted to see you get in trouble.

  Sure, Colm was an asshole. He’d tell you so himself.

  But he didn’t deserve to die.

  And Shannon wouldn’t leave her brother saddled with the grief of never knowing why someone decided his old friend Colm deserved to have an entire clip emptied into him.

  “Take him to the morgue,” Shannon said. “I’m going to inform the next-of-kin.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Addison, Illinois slept outside the western reaches of Chicago. Fifty minutes away from the liquor store, according to Shannon’s GPS. She made it in thirty-nine.

  “You ever think about what driving like that does to your car?” Dedrick stepped out of the Jeep and onto Jill Keane’s front lawn. He twisted his chin over his left shoulder, cracking his neck. “Not to mention my nerves.”

  “He’s good for it.”

  Shannon grabbed her work bag, then closed the tailgate as lightly as she could. People in the suburbs were touchy about noises outside their homes at four in the morning.

  “Your car is a man.” Dedrick shrugged. “Why not?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “I’m not judging.” He put his hands up and smiled. “Only observing.”

  Shannon lifted her eyebrows at him. Eventually, that cute smile of his would wear out its welcome—but probably not any time soon.

  Across the manicured lawn ahead of them, a porch light flicked on. A curtain behind the big-picture window on the front of the house swayed as if someone peeked out.

  “At least we won’t have to knock very hard,” Dedrick said.

  The front door flew open. Behind the porch light, the figure of a tall, thin man appeared.

  “You two better turn around and walk away.” The rack of a shotgun punctuated the man’s warning. “I don’t see any reason why you think you can come up to my house at this time of night.”

  Did every nut in the suburbs lay awake in bed with their Mossberg 500 across their chest?

  Both Shannon and Dedrick drew their weapons.

  “Sir, put the weapon down!” Shannon yelled from behind her Glock. She really wasn’t in the mood to blow away some idiot who was too quick to point a gun.

  “Drop the gun, moron!” Dedrick yelled. “We’re the police.”

  “If you’re the cops, show me your badges.”

  Shannon unclipped her star from the front pocket of her jeans. She held it out.

  “Can’t see it,” the man said. “Hold it up higher.”

  “We’re two detectives here to talk about your son,” Dedrick yelled at him. “We just want to speak with Jill—put the gun away.”

  “I don’t have a son.” He kept his shotgun pointed at the ground. “Show me your badge, pretty boy.”

  Dedrick thrust his hand into the inside of his jacket and pulled out a leather wallet. His star was clipped to the front.

  “Good,” the man said. “Now put your badge up higher, sweetheart.”

  In that instant, Shannon’s willingness to play this dumb game vanished.

  “That was the wrong word to use, man,” Dedrick said.

  “You calling me sweetheart?” She stuffed her star in her pocket. “How’s this for a sweetheart? If you don’t put that shotgun down now, sir, I’m going to shoot you. Is that sweet enough for you?”

  He blinked at her.

  “I—uh…I’m a citizen,” he half-whispered. “I don’t have to stand for this tyranny.”

  The thin man in the doorway kept his shotgun pointed down. Smart of him. If he pointed it at her, she’d shove that thing so far up his ass, he’d have buckshot for teeth.

  “You pointed the gun at us first,” Dedrick said. “Now put the damn thing down.”

  “I know my rights! This is an unlawful search of my domicile, and the Fourth Amendment forbids it!”

  “And you’re brandishing a weapon at a law enforcement officer.” With her Glock drawn and aimed straight at his neck, Shannon moved up the lawn.

  He held his ground inside the open front door. But he wasn’t all that brave. She’d spent enough time around people who truly were. She knew the fakers as soon as she smelled them.

  “I don’t like weapons brandished at me.” She clomped up the front porch’s concrete steps. It felt like the house shivered for a moment. “Especially when I haven’t done anything to deserve it.”

  She reached for him. Grabbing the shotgun halfway down the barrel, she swept it aside and wrenched it out of his hands at the same time.

  She pulled back the pump on the shotgun. A shell hopped out.

  “Is that birdshot?”

  “I, uh…yes.”

  Shannon rolled her eyes at him. She pumped the Mossberg four more times until there were shells scattered all over the wicker chair sitting to the right of the door.

  She tossed the Mossberg at him. He caught it.

  “Now that we’ve taken care of that little moronic display, would you go get your wife?” she asked.

  “Y-Yes, ma’am.” He scurried off.

  Dedrick laughed behind her. His shoes tapped up the concrete walk.

  “I couldn’t tell if he was going to blow your head off, or blow off his own to get away from you.”

  She turned to scowl at Dedrick—now wasn’t t
he time for kidding around. But she saw the shotgun shells scattered on the wicker chair’s floral-patterned seat and couldn’t stop from losing herself.

  Who wouldn’t laugh at that?

  She bellowed laughter. Long and hard. The neighbors must’ve thought a loon was on the prowl. Maybe they weren’t wrong.

  When Shannon looked up, the house and the Chicago suburbs were gone.

  A tan canvas tent surrounded her. The Mesopotamian sun bled through it, warming her skin.

  The tent was big enough to house a platoon, but there was only one other person here.

  AJ laid naked on a pair of cots they’d shoved together. He stared at the ceiling, then he moved his head like he heard something.

  He rolled over onto his stomach and smiled at her. His rubber-rimmed dog tags dropped off the edge of the cots, to dangle from around his neck.

  “Damn fine idea to bring birdshot here.” He smiled and tossed one of the green shells from hand to hand. “I bet we can sneak away from the war. Maybe go to Basrah in a humvee and hunt crake.”

  Her heart ached in her chest. It’d been at least ten years since she’d seen him.

  He tossed the shotgun shell at her. It hit her in the chest like a brick, and knocked her back. She closed her eyes and fell.

  “Shannon?”

  Her eyes opened. She wasn’t quite sitting and wasn’t quite standing. Dedrick had her propped up by her shoulders.

  The cute little suburban house was back.

  “I’m fine,” Shannon said. She got to her feet with Dedrick’s help. “Just a little too tired.”

  She blinked until her eyes focused on the weathered-looking Irish woman in front of her.

  Jill Keane held the top of her robe closed with one hand. She scowled at Shannon from across the threshold of her front door.

  “Mrs. Keane,” Shannon said. “You may not remember me, but my name is Shannon Rourke—I’m a detective with the Chicago PD, Area Central. My brother, Michael, was a friend of Colm’s, and I’d like to speak with you about him, if that’d be all right.”

  “I’m Detective Dedrick Halman, Mrs. Keane—I’m working with Detective Rourke tonight.”

  She stared at them. The thin line of her mouth stood pat. Her eyes would’ve sliced the two of them to bits if they said the wrong thing.