Chicago Blood: Detective Shannon Rourke Book 1

by Stewart Matthews

  “Pretty good hiding spot,” Dedrick said.

  “Can we get this open?” Shannon ran her thumbs along the seam of the case’s two halves.

  “I’ve got a pry bar in the back of my cruiser,” Coughlin said, “if you two feel like we have PC for this.”

  “It’s a locked case hidden in the walls of the home of a man with Irish Mob connections,” Dedrick said. “I think it’d be easy to argue that the money we’re looking for could be in there.”

  “We’re covered under our warrant,” Shannon said. “Go get the pry bar.”

  Officer Coughlin ran out the front door in a heartbeat. Not thirty seconds later, he came back with the pry bar in his hand—a flattened piece of black steel scratched up from use.

  He looked at the small safe and licked his lips. Easy pickings for a man his size.

  Shannon motioned for him to wait a moment. She pulled out her cell phone and snapped a picture of the safe. Who knew what it’d look like when the officer finished opening it?

  “Detective?” He offered the pry bar to Shannon.

  “Oh, no.” She held up her hands. “You found the box, you do the honors.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.” Coughlin looked like a kid scouting porches for pumpkins a few days after Halloween.

  Using his foot, he pushed the safe up against the wall beneath the front window. Then, with one motion, he reared back and jammed the straight end of the pry bar between the upper and lower halves.

  He had the pry bar stuck in the safe like it was a lollypop stick.

  “You need a little help?” Dedrick said.

  “I’ve got it, Detective.” Coughlin looked over his shoulder. “But you might want to take a step or two back.”

  Shannon and Dedrick exchanged a puzzled look. He stepped back, then he pulled her with him.

  “Here we go.” Coughlin grabbed the pry bar. He jiggled it a little bit, seeing if he could separate it from the case, or if the two were as stuck together as they looked.

  The safe moved with the pry bar. They were stuck together. No question.

  He hoisted the entire thing over his head like a sledgehammer. It stayed aloft, and for a split second, Shannon thought the case would go flying off the end of the pry bar.

  But they stayed together—up until the moment he smashed it into the ground. There was a crack like he’d split the sub-floor open, but the noise came from the safe. He bashed it down three, maybe four more times before it split open like a walnut.

  The damn safe was empty.

  Officer Coughlin stood over it, panting and holding the pry bar like a club.

  “Nice job, Lunk.” Dedrick put a hand on his shoulder. “If we ever need someone to club a dinosaur, we know who to call.”

  “Thanks,” Coughlin said.

  Shannon stepped up to one half of the case and turned it over. It was only naked, gunmetal-gray plastic on the inside. Not a single cent. Not even a bank slip.

  She put her nose toward it, and sniffed the inside of the case.

  “It smells like money.”

  “That’s a start, but we have to find better evidence,” Dedrick said. “We keep looking here, and I know something else is gonna turn up.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “Four hours of raking through Colm’s house, and the only thing we turned up was an empty safe.” Shannon wiped a bit of the June humidity off her forehead. She sat in front of Colm’s house with Dedrick, her legs hanging off of the open back of her Jeep.

  “That’s not true,” Dedrick said. “We found a half-gram of stale weed mashed into the carpet, a prescription pill bottle with someone else’s name on it, and some dirty anime DVDs stashed under Colm’s mattress.”

  “Not even a checkbook to be found,” Shannon said.

  “I don’t think that kid used a bank.” Dedrick leaned on the hood of his black Impala, his jacket off and arms crossed. He stared at Colm’s front door as if he could will some new piece of evidence to materialize.

  “We should’ve known from the start there wouldn’t be any money in that place,” Dedrick said. “Colm’s wallet was close to exploding from all the money he had stuffed in it, and his room was ransacked like he wanted to get out in a hurry. Why would he have left a single dollar behind? Hell, for all we know, every dime he had was in his wallet when we found him.”

  Shannon looked over some of the random notes she’d scratched down in her notebook. No sign of forced entry.

  “That’s the thing I don’t understand,” she said. “The clerk at the liquor store didn’t mention anything about Colm looking rushed. So why was his room such a mess?”

  “Maybe Colm was in a hurry and the clerk didn’t notice. Witnesses miss details all the time,” Dedrick said. “Could be he had an itch for a drink, so he played it cool for a minute. It isn’t a stretch to think the kid needed booze. We’re talking about somebody who probably did a shot of rumplemintz every morning instead of brushing his teeth.”

  She sighed. Of all the people to get murdered in Chicago, why did it have to be Colm? And why right now?

  “Sorry,” Dedrick said. “I crossed a line.”

  “It’s all right.” She gave him a weak smile. “Did you sleep last night?”

  “Oh yeah.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “I slept like a baby.”

  “For how long?”

  “I caught an hour or two in one of the interrogation rooms.”

  “Thought so,” Shannon said.

  “I’m still fit for duty.

  “Not in the same suit you wore yesterday.”

  He flashed the brightest smile he could manage at her.

  “Well, Detective Rourke, I never knew you cared.”

  She laughed. “Don’t take it the wrong way—the only reason I mention it is because the smell’s getting to me.”

  “It’s more of a gentle musk.” Dedrick raised his arms and sniffed his own armpits. “Like a summer breeze through a garbage dump.”

  Shannon threw her head back and laughed a little louder than she’d intended.

  When she regained herself, she found her eyes drawn to Dedrick’s. She lingered a little too long on him for her own comfort. Shannon couldn’t help it. She liked being around Dedrick, liked punching his arm, and rolling her eyes at him. It’d been a long time since she’d come in contact with someone like that—not since AJ.

  She forced her eyes down to her notes again.

  “You know,” she said, “money or not, Colm was into something. The money left in his wallet, the number of times he’d been shot, all those cigarettes indicating someone may have waited for him… If there wasn’t ever any money to find, there’s still someone out there who wanted him dead.”

  “This wasn’t a mugging gone bad,” Dedrick said. “The only question is if we’ll ever see anything turn up.”

  “If we stay on the case, we will.”

  “If I stay on the case, you mean. You’re leaving for Stockholm in a couple days, right?”

  “You know what I meant.”

  Dedrick stood up, rubbed his face, then yawned. “Who do you think the our guy pissed off?”

  Shannon shrugged. “If he had money, I know he didn’t get it by legitimate means. Colm wasn’t the kind of guy who went out and hustled his way to the top. He’d take the easiest way to whatever he wanted.”

  “All right.” Dedrick rubbed his eyes. “So an old running partner. Maybe somebody he did some dirt with.”

  “Could be.” Shannon kicked her legs back and forth off the edge of her Jeep’s tailgate. She scribbled Dedrick’s theory down.

  “Know anyone we can talk to about that?”

  “You think I know someone?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Well, you were friends with Colm Keane, right? He knew people. Hell, his dad is somebody.”

  “You think CPD would let me in if I knew someone like that?”

  “Sure they would,” he said. “You bring some goons in to break some knees or strong-arm the right pe
rson, and you’re working in Violent Crimes.”

  She rolled her eyes at him.

  “All right, maybe not,” he said. “Could be that he took the money from someone he shouldn’t have taken it from.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him,” Shannon said. “Colm wasn’t necessarily a stickup kid, but he was hot-headed enough to have that in him.”

  “You think his dad would retaliate against whoever killed him?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It probably depends on who he ripped off. Last I knew, Colm and his father weren’t really on the best terms. I don’t think that’s changed.”

  “Still,” Dedrick said, “Colm’s his son. And a guy as connected as Ewan Keane doesn’t stay in this game as long as he has by sitting on his hands.”

  “We can check that angle tomorrow,” she said. “Ewan keeps an office in Boystown.”

  “Think he’d talk to the police?”

  “Probably not,” Shannon said. “But he’d talk to the daughter of his old friend, Tommy Rourke.”

  Dedrick looked at her sideways. “I thought you said you didn’t have connections like that.”

  “I don’t,” she said. “But my father did. As a rule, I try not to follow in his footsteps.”

  He nodded and yawned.

  “There’s another thing I’d like to follow up on,” Shannon said. “Turns out Colm had a girlfriend.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Facebook.”

  “Facebook.” Dedrick snorted. “God help the twenty-first century cop who can’t stand Facebook.”

  “Well, you’ll be glad to know she has her account set to private. Other than her name, I don’t know much about her.”

  “Solid lead, Detective.” Dedrick straightened out and popped his back. He desperately tried to stay awake now. “What’s her name?”

  “Isabella Arroz.” Shannon circled Isabella’s name on her notes.

  “And what makes you think she was his girlfriend?”

  “Michael said so. I also saw a couple pictures of them. I guess I assume they’re together by the way he held her in them—the way the two of them looked together. I can’t explain it.”

  “Sounds like women’s intuiti—”

  “Don’t you dare finish that word,” Shannon said. “If I hear another person in this department put another smart observation under the category of ‘women’s intuition’ again, I’m going to scream.”

  Dedrick tried to say something smart back to her, but his yawn washed it out of his mouth.

  “You’re a hypocrite, by the way,” Shannon said. “You were on me about going to get some sleep this morning, and you can barely stand up straight.”

  He grinned at her, his eyes fighting to stay halfway opened.

  “Go home,” she said. “I’ll take it from here.”

  “What?” he said. “You’re going to solve this thing without me? Who’ll make all the wisecracks—and don’t say you will, Shannon. We both know you can’t hold a candle to me.”

  “I would never presume to be better than the master,” she said. “But I don’t think I’ll have to be. I’m on my way to Colm’s wake.”

  “Irish wake.” He chuckled. “I’m better off staying away. Tired as I am, I’ll pass out after I take my first swallow of beer.”

  “What a shame,” she said.

  He smiled at her. “Looks like you’ll have to trick me into getting drinks with you some other time.”

  She felt her cheeks blush at the idea. Hopping down from the back of her Jeep, she turned as quick as she could and slammed the tailgate shut. She didn’t want him to catch her.

  “Darn.” She held her voice flat. “Almost had you.”

  “Some other day, Shannon.” His car door whined open. “I know you can’t have fun without me, so I’ll just leave it at that.”

  He closed it behind him and started the engine.

  She waved at him, hoping her cheeks weren’t flushed any longer. He waved back, and her heart fluttered in her chest like a little girl seeing her crush across the class room.

  To think she’d been a United States Marine once.

  If only everything were as simple as carting supplies back and forth across Iraq.

  CHAPTER 11

  After Dedrick drove off, Shannon went back up to Colm’s porch. She caught Officer Coughlin, Mr. Handy-With-A-Pry-Bar, on his way out.

  “Find anything else?” Shannon asked.

  “Just a whole mess of empty booze bottles and some dirty socks.” Officer Coughlin marked the front door with crime scene tape. “Looks like our guy hardly kept anything personal.”

  “No laptop?”

  “One that doesn’t work,” he said.

  “Did you bag it?”

  Coughlin nodded.

  “How about a cell phone?” she asked.

  “We found a couple burners around the house, but the ones that ain’t password protected are busted.”

  Shannon sighed.

  “Detective, I wish we would’ve found something more,” Coughlin said. “I wish we would’ve found something that kept me from searching his bathroom.”

  “And we’re sure we had someone watching the house last night?”

  “That’s right,” Coughlin said. “I relieved Officer Knox this morning. Parked my cruiser right where it is now,” he pointed at it across the street, “and never took my eyes off this place until you and Detective Halman came by.”

  Shannon frowned at the house. There had to be something else there. Locard’s Exchange Principle had never failed her in the past.

  “Good work, Coughlin.” She clapped his shoulder. “I appreciate you being here today.”

  Coughlin picked up his roll of yellow tape, then gave her a nod. She watched him get in his cruiser and drive away.

  When the car was out of sight, she walked south down Albany Street.

  No signs of forced entry at Colm’s house, and anything that may have given the police some clue as to what Colm was into—who he spoke with and why he was halfway across town at that liquor store on Ashland—was mysteriously absent.

  Shannon stepped off the curb at North Avenue. Across the street, she saw McCullough’s Pub. Convenient that Colm’s wake would be held so close to his house, and at a bar he had apparently been to.

  After a short walk down the road, Shannon opened the front door of the pub around eight o’clock that night.

  McCullough’s Pub was small and dark. She could probably walk from one wall to another in ten steps if it weren’t for the mess of tables and chairs cluttering the place. There were so many brewery logos, neon signs, and pictures of half-naked women on the walls, she wondered if they held the roof up. In the little blank spaces between them, she saw hints of faux wood paneling.

  One wall had a large picture of Colm’s face—taken straight from this Facebook profile photo. Bunches and bunches of flowers surrounded it. So many that they almost covered up the stink of stale beer and piss that Shannon assumed was the natural aroma of McCullough’s.

  It came as no surprise that Colm liked the place.

  Michael had already claimed a spot in a booth directly across from the front door. Two of his high school friends, Henry Jackson and Ryan Tooley, yelled at him from across the table in a way that only thoroughly drunk men could.

  The wake had only started an hour ago. It looked to be a long night.

  Her brother spotted her. He waved her over. She made her way through the tables and chairs toward him.

  “I’m surprised someone got a wake together already.” She scooted in next to Michael on the wooden bench.

  “Word gets around,” Michael said.

  “How’d they get a place so quickly?”

  “You didn’t know Colm’s dad was part-owner of McCullough’s?”

  She blinked at her brother. “Should I have?”

  “Oh, that’s right—he bought into it when you were out in Iraq. Colm wouldn’t shut up about it. Said he was going to dri
nk the place dry the first weekend after all the papers had been signed.”

  If his house were anything to go by, he probably could have done it, too.

  “You were in Iraq, Shannon?” Ryan Tooley looked at her with wide eyes. “What branch?”

  “Marines,” she said. “I did a tour in 2006.”

  “Oh yeah?” Ryan asked. “My cousin was there with the Army—you know a guy by the name of Greg Bandert?”

  Shannon shook her head. “There were a lot of people there.”

  “They keep you in the back?” Henry Jackson’s mouth was half-buried in his glass. He took a drink and swallowed. “You know, since you’re a woman and all?”

  “I drove a truck, if that’s what you’re asking.” She could already see this conversation heading in a direction she didn’t like.

  “Oh, so you didn’t ever shoot nobody.”

  She kept her mouth shut and looked at him.

  “Yeah, she left that to the men.” Ryan flexed and nearly choked himself from laughing. He acted as if he’d been in the war. In reality, the closest he came to being in the service was probably when he drove past a recruiting center nestled in a strip mall somewhere. “Bet you never even fired a rifle, did you?”

  Shannon squeezed her fist. It wouldn’t be right to kick the hell out of one of them. They were morons, sure, but they were harmless.

  Shannon tried to talk over their cackling.

  She heard her Drill Instructor’s voice bellowing in her head: “Every Marine is a rifleman! I don’t care If you’re greasing wheel bearings or making lunch for the SEALs. If any of you recruits are deemed worthy to become part of the United States Marine Corps, you’ll be able to shoot the ass off a fly at a hundred yards.”

  “Every Marine is a riflem—”

  Michael cut her off when he slammed his glass of cranberry juice on the table.

  The laughing quit.

  Michael looked from Ryan to Henry and back. “I respect the hell out of Shannon for doing what she did over there.”