“I need to call this in.”
He reached up to his shoulder mike.
I said, “You have to shut this building down and get some men inside, right now, Officer. No one in or out unless your career goals involve riding a Segway writing parking tickets.”
My tone must have hit home, because the next words into his microphone were, “Car one-three-five-six, take the rear entrance. No one gets in or out. Suspect is a white male with long black hair. Proceed with caution, he is armed.”
And then the cavalry arrived.
A Chevy Caprice roared up behind the two squad cars, and Herb burst out from behind the steering wheel as fast as I’d ever seen him move.
We started walking toward the building.
It sounded like several districts coming at once, a rash of sirens echoing between the skyscrapers, the cranky horn of a fire truck blaring several blocks away.
“You’ve gotta lock it down, Herb,” I said.
“It’s happening, Jack. I’ve got units securing the Adams, Marble, and Clark Street entrances.”
“I want everyone funneled through the Dearborn Street exit,” I said as we reached the sidewalk. “Nobody leaves the building until I’ve seen them. Where’s SRT?”
The Special Response Team was our version of SWAT.
“On their way, but you have to…” Herb looked over my shoulder and said, “Oh, hell.”
A crowd of a dozen or so horrified onlookers had gathered around a brick planter up ahead.
Already, I could see the pool of blood.
Herb had his badge hanging around his neck, and he rattled it as we approached.
“Everyone back! No one leaves until we talk to you!”
We stopped several feet away from the carnage.
I said, “Shit, he hit a pedestrian.”
There were two bodies. The first, a suited man—Roe—lay facedown and sprawled in a bed of crushed flower bulbs that had just begun to sprout. He looked like a giant plate of lasagna in a vague man-shape. The poor soul he’d hit was a wreck of bent appendages, and his head had been crushed in against the brick. A thick Bible was open next to him, the pages flipping in the breeze.
Sidewalk traffic had been effectively shut down, so the only onlookers were those who’d been here when it happened.
“I’m going inside to look for him,” I said.
“Jack, we’ve got two dozen cops in the building. They’ll find him.”
“Did any of those cops just have a face-to-face conversation with the killer?” I asked. “I can help.”
“There’s a psycho in there who wants to kill you.”
“I won’t stand here and do nothing.”
Herb touched my arm. “Listen to me, Jack. I promise you…no one will leave that building without you saying it’s all right.”
“Herb—”
“I’ll walk you to the entrance.”
“Herb—”
“Whose crime scene is this?”
I bit my bottom lip, fuming.
But damn, he was right.
“Yours,” I said.
“You respect me?”
“You know I do.”
“Then please, Jack, do what I say.”
April 1, 1:54 P.M.
He strolls through the Law Office of Peter Roe, deceased, PC, which has, not surprisingly, become a ghost town following the gunshots.
He can’t stop smiling.
FaceTime with Jack was even better than he imagined.
Passing through reception, he opens the heavy wooden door and steps out into the hallway.
For the moment, it’s empty, although he can hear approaching footsteps and voices just around the corner.
Police officers coming.
Security arrived faster than he anticipated, and no doubt the cops have already surrounded the building.
The sirens are loud even in here.
Must sound like Armageddon out there.
It’s a concern.
But the harder the challenge, the more satisfying the win.
April 1, 2:04 P.M.
The elevator doors separated and Sergeant Herb Benedict strolled out onto the twelfth floor of the Marquette Building.
It was quiet as death.
Everyone had probably fled following the gunshots.
SRT had given the floor the all-clear and were now sweeping the lower levels.
Herb turned to the three beat cops who’d rode up with him, sent a pair down the opposing hallway.
“Check every office. If you find anyone, confirm IDs. Anyone who looks even vaguely suspicious needs to be brought down to the lobby and questioned. This guy is a killer. He could have taken hostages. Stay frosty. Sakey, you’re with me.”
Officer Sakey, a curly-haired rookie with a unibrow, followed Herb down the main corridor toward Roe’s office.
The building itself was a work of art, one of the first steel-frame skyscrapers ever built, with masonry walls and a two-story atrium down in the lobby, loaded with mosaics, sculptures, and bronze.
Sakey covered the door and Herb went in first, gun drawn.
The Law Office of Peter Roe, PC, still smelled of gunpowder.
Reception felt empty, and a quick look around confirmed it.
Herb headed down the hall and walked into the largest, plushest office in the suite.
The stench of shots fired was strongest here, but there were other underlying odors—blood, the lake, stale coffee. Herb stood for a moment in the threshold, letting the awful aura of this room wash over him.
At his feet lay the two security guards in puddles of congealing blood.
Multiple gunshot wounds to the chest.
Behind the desk of Peter Roe, a hole had been chopped through one pane of the bay window. Chunks of safety glass peppered the carpet, surrounding what he figured had been used on the window—a fire ax.
How had Kite even gotten a meeting with Roe? There was probably a firm calendar on the receptionist’s computer. Herb turned and started toward reception as the mike on his lapel crackled.
“Sergeant Benedict, Nicholson here, over?”
“Yeah, whatcha got, over?”
“I’m down in office twelve-twelve. Got a guy here who doesn’t want to leave, over.”
“Keep him there, on my way. Out.”
Herb picked up the pace and hollered for Sakey to follow.
They made their way back out into the corridor, where every office door stood open, a few having been kicked in.
Around the corner from another set of elevators, he saw Officer Nicholson standing outside an open door. Nicholson didn’t have his weapon drawn yet, but he had unsnapped his holster and his hand was resting on the square composite butt of a Glock.
Herb sidled up beside Nicholson and stared into the small office.
The occupant was a Caucasian with short brown hair, wearing a white shirt and blue tie. Since the response team had already cleared the floor, Herb wondered why the hell this guy was still here.
“Sir, I’m Sergeant Herb Benedict. Put your hands where I can see them.”
The guy scowled as he raised his hands above the monitor.
He said, “I just went through this with those other cops.”
“Didn’t those other cops order you to leave?”
“I know my rights. You can’t make me leave.”
Herb made a mental note to take the SRT to task for not forcing this moron out of here.
He said, “Sir, do you understand what just happened in this building, not two offices down from yours?”
“Yeah, someone got shot. I saw the guy run off. Ran right past here.”
Herb shook his head, amazed. How stupid were some people? “Aren’t you worried about being killed?”
“You want to know what I’m worried about?” The man pointed at a stack of manila folders sitting on his desk next to the keyboard. “Do you know what happens in fourteen days, Officer?”
Herb noted the plaque on the doorway: David
Dean, JD, LLM. Master’s of Laws in Taxation.
Ah. He was a tax attorney.
“Filing deadline is two weeks away,” Dean said, “and I’m up to my armpits in work right now. My clients come first.”
Herb took a quick look around the sparsely furnished office, saw a few ferns that needed watering, generic art on the walls. He noticed sawdust on the floor. Probably some recent remodeling. The only personal items were on Dean’s desk—a smiley-face coffee mug, a crystal paperweight, and a framed picture of Dean shaking hands with Bill Clinton.
Herb said, “Sir, I’m going to ask you to leave the building. We’re clearing everyone out.”
“That’s bullshit, I—”
“You’ll be able to come back tomorrow. It is within my power to arrest you if you don’t comply.”
Dean pulled a big, dramatic sigh, rubbed his temples, and then powered off his monitor.
“I don’t get it,” Dean said. “Isn’t this the safest place I could possibly be right now? That guy you’re looking for is outta here.”
He snatched his jacket off the chair as he stood, and Herb escorted him to the elevator, watching to make sure it didn’t stop until it reached the lobby.
Then Herb and Sakey returned to Roe’s office.
April 1, 2:07 P.M.
Jack Daniels is surrounded by cops, and she’s scanning the crowd in the Marquette Building’s gorgeous lobby.
It’s all terribly exciting, and Luther struggles to keep the smile off his face.
She stares right at him, locks eyes for a delicious moment, and then moves along to the next person in line.
Luther waits patiently for his turn to leave.
April 1, 2:07 P.M.
Not for the first time since she had retired, Herb wished Jack was with him. She had an almost supernatural knack for finding clues at crime scenes, for figuring out things that didn’t add up. He understood why Jack had needed to retire, and supported her decision, but he hoped the building would be fully cleared soon so Jack could come up here and offer her impressions.
When Herb stared at Roe’s office, he didn’t see clues. He just saw an office.
Desks, chairs, plants, too many file cabinets to count…
File cabinets.
All offices had file cabinets.
But that tax attorney Herb had shooed out of the office down the hall, the one with the Clinton photo…where were his file cabinets?
Herb hadn’t noticed any.
Odd. So odd, in fact, that it made Herb uncomfortable.
Feeling a little spurt of adrenaline, he led Sakey back to 1212 and made a quick tour of the tax guy’s office.
It was small. No reception area. Just a desk and a computer.
And no file cabinets.
Herb grabbed his walkie-talkie.
“This is Sergeant Benedict. Put me in touch with the SRT leader. Over.”
“This is Lieutenant Matthews, SRT. What’s up, Sarge? Over.”
“When you swept the twelfth floor, why didn’t you escort the tax attorney down? Over.”
“What tax attorney?”
April 1, 2:08 P.M.
Unwinding his tie and tugging it off his neck, Luther eyes the exit. The atmosphere is electric. A touch of fear in the air. Confusion. Excitement. Lots of chattering, questions, complaining. A few jokes, some of the nine-to-fivers obviously excited that something interesting is happening in their drab, dull lives.
Something to tell the kids about over dinner. Maybe they’ll even get on the six o’clock news.
There are now only four people ahead of Luther in the exit line, and police are waving a metal detector wand over each person before allowing them to leave the building.
He checks his watch, trying to appear impatient.
A minute, two tops, and he’ll be out of here.
April 1, 2:08 P.M.
Herb checked the nameplate on the door and spoke into his radio, “David Dean, in twelve-twelve, over.”
“There was no one on the floor, Sarge. We checked every doorway. Even broke into a few offices. I don’t know about Homicide, but my team doesn’t make mistakes. When we do something, it’s done right. Over.”
The little spurt of adrenaline became a giant spike.
Herb walked behind Dean’s desk and turned on his monitor, still half-expecting to find a spreadsheet or an Excel document—some evidence of tax work.
Dean had been playing the videogame Angry Birds.
Herb lifted the Clinton photo, saw the blur lines around the president’s head—a mediocre Photoshop effort.
“Attention!” he yelled into his mike. “Suspect is in the lobby. He’s a white male, mid- to late forties, short brown hair, wearing a white shirt and a blue tie. He’s claiming to be an attorney named David Dean. Repeat, the suspect has short brown hair and is using the name David Dean.”
April 1, 2:09 P.M.
Jack stands less than six feet away.
She hasn’t glanced at Luther again, having already dismissed him.
He’s tempted to clear his throat, make a noise, see if she’ll notice, but he’s already cutting it too close.
Instead, he takes out his iPhone, hits redial, and slides the device into his breast pocket.
Jack paws at her phone, distracted by it, as the cop at the exit begins to check Luther for weapons.
April 1, 2:09 P.M.
I accepted the Blocked Call FaceTime request, but the screen was black.
I held the phone to my ear, heard the sound of numerous, muffled voices.
“Hello?” I said.
A second later, I heard, “Hello?”
But it wasn’t an answer.
It was my voice coming through the iPhone speaker.
An echo.
An echo meant another iPhone was picking up my voice.
It meant that Luther was here, in the lobby, with me.
Near me.
“He’s here!” I yelled, a big mistake.
While panic didn’t break out, there was an uptick in movement and commotion.
Since I wasn’t a cop, I didn’t have a radio.
I grabbed the lapel mike from the uniform standing next to me at the same time I heard Herb’s voice shouting through his earpiece that Luther was in the lobby.
As I scanned the crowd, I pressed the iPhone to my cheek, hoping to hear something that would give me his location. I plugged my free ear with my finger, focusing on the sounds coming through my cell.
It was faint, but unmistakable.
“Okay, you can go.”
I looked to the exit as a thin, brown-haired man left the building.
“Stop him!” I yelled, but all the cops in the lobby were already in motion, closing the door after the man who had just left.
I hurried to them, trying to push my way past, but one of the officers grabbed my shoulders.
“He just walked out!” I yelled.
We both pushed through the door—
—into chaos.
Outside the building, the scene was bedlam.
Firemen, paramedics, cops, swarms of people waiting for their coworkers to emerge, a slew of media sticking microphones and cameras at anyone who stood still long enough…
But no sign of the brown-haired man.
April 1, 2:10 P.M.
Herb listened to the radio chatter. Orders were barked. Men complied.
No one found Luther.
Chewing his lower lip, Herb eyed the sawdust on the carpeting in Dean’s office. He looked at the paneling on the wall directly above it, saw that the color didn’t quite match on either side.
Herb put his fingers in the seam along the top and pulled.
The panel tore easily away, revealing a small, dark bathroom.
Herb saw a gun on the sink. A black T-shirt. Boots. A black wig.
STIRRED Page 17