by Carol Costa
Dana stepped aside and she and Sam watched silently as Bruno escorted Casey and her attorney out of the office.
"Call me when you're done," Dana shouted after the group.
Bruno turned around. "I'll pick you up at seven for dinner."
"I'm going to my office to call Marianne," Dana told Sam as soon as Bruno was gone. "Greg was coming back from Chicago today. If I can get an address, I'm going to Chicago to talk to Hunter tonight."
"I'll go with you," Sam said firmly. "That way I won't have to worry about you and I won't be here when Bruno realizes you stood him up tonight."
By five o'clock, Sam and Dana were on their way to Chicago to see John Hunter. Greg had called the commander at his old precinct. He knew the head of the parole board and even though it was Sunday, Dana was able to get an address for Hunter.
Sam was driving because Dana had driven downtown that morning with Bruno and didn't have a car. As the sun began to set, the air got colder and Dana was glad she was wearing a warm long-sleeved sweater under her coat and had on wool socks with her jeans and tennis shoes. Fortunately, the new snow they had been predicting for the last few days had still not materialized.
Dana's cell phone rang. It was Bruno. "Hi, sweets," he said casually.
"What's going on with Casey?" she answered suspiciously.
Bruno laughed. "If I arrested her, I wouldn't be calling you. She answered my questions. I also talked to her two girlfriends and they all left together, probably to get a drink and talk about how attractive I am."
"How do you know they're not talking about Troy Kimball? He's pretty darn attractive."
"He's also got a big gold wedding ring on his finger. I don't."
"What questions did you have to ask Casey that you couldn't have asked right there in Sam's office?"
"I'm sure she'll give you all the details."
"Right. Listen, Bruno, something has come up and I'm not going to be able to go to dinner with you"
"Why? What are you doing?"
"I'm with Sam. We're checking on a story for the paper."
"What kind of a story?"
"You ask a lot of questions," she said in a light tone. "You should be a cop"
"Very amusing. I've got another call. Ring me when you get done. I still have questions for you."
"Sure. Bye."
Dana clicked off the phone. "Saved by another call. I'm going to call Casey. Bruno said she and her girlfriends left the station together. I assume he questioned them to put together a timeline for Casey's activities yesterday afternoon. The coroner must have fixed the time of death."
"Our coroner is pretty good, but he'd only be able to estimate it within several hours, unless the body was still warm when the lab guys arrived last night."
"Do you think it was?"
"I don't know. I just looked at it from the doorway. Find out what Casey has to say"
Dana dialed Casey's cell phone number, but Casey didn't answer. Then she tried Nina Jordan's phone and Nina told her that Casey had called and said she was going to dinner with Cathy and Carmen. "Have her call me on my cell phone when she gets in, please," Dana said.
They were driving on the highway now and Dana told Sam about her meeting with Del Pitman that morning.
"He sold all of Porter's paintings? Just goes to show what they say is true: there's no such thing as bad publicity. Have you decided to drop the case now?" Sam asked.
"I don't have a choice, Sam. Sally Larson lied about being with Judy and Teddy the night Lucas disappeared. They also found a hammer that they think is the murder weapon and it's an item sold in the hardware store where Teddy works."
"Bruno told you all of that?"
She nodded. "After some prodding, but only because he knows it will be brought out in the hearing tomorrow morning."
"So it looks like these two kids are guilty after all."
"Yes. I'm afraid so," Dana said, although her instincts still told her that they were not capable of such a brutal murder.
They fell silent for a while as they were getting closer to Chicago and traffic had picked up significantly. Sam got off at one of the downtown exits and put Hunter's address into his GPS unit. He waited while the unit brought up a map and directions to Hunter's apartment.
"Turn right on Polk Street and follow it to Forty-seventh Street," the electronic voice on the GPS unit instructed.
"Greg warned me that Hunter lives in a very undesirable neighborhood," Dana told Sam.
"I know. That's one of the reasons I'm driving you there"
"Thanks," she said with a smile.
Twenty minutes later, Sam parked the car in front of a rundown three-story building. They got out of the car and went into the hallway. There were mailboxes on the wall in the cramped space, but most of them didn't have doors, and there were no doorbells.
"Hunter lives in number 302," Dana said.
"Let's take the stairs," Sam joked. "I don't want to waste time waiting for the elevator."
The stairs were worn and wooden and filled with various types of debris. Dana and Sam trudged up them ignoring the noises and smells that assaulted them as they climbed the steps.
On the second floor, there were children playing on the landing. Three small boys were crashing trucks and cars into the walls.
"Hi," Dana said as she passed by them.
"Who are you?" one of the boys who appeared to be about five years old asked.
She stopped. "I'm a friend of Mr. Hunter's. Do you know him?"
"Nope," the little boy said. "I don't know nobody with that name, but another man just asked me the same thing."
"Sounds like Hunter may have company," Sam said.
"Is the other man still up there?"
The boy shrugged and looked at his two playmates. They were busy with their trucks and didn't seem interested in their friend or Dana and Sam.
Dana and Sam climbed two more flights to the third floor. The apartment numbers were painted on the brown doors in yellow fluorescent paint. Number 302 was the second apartment to the left of the staircase.
As they approached the door, a gunshot rang out from inside the apartment and something big and heavy fell to the floor.
Sam banged on the door. His knock was answered by another gunshot that splintered the thin wood on the door.
"Call 911," Sam whispered as he and Dana braced themselves against the wall of the apartment and moved down the hallway away from it.
Dana heard the sound of breaking glass inside the apartment as the dispatcher answered her 911 call. She quickly reported that shots had been fired and gave the address of the building.
Suddenly other doors on the third floor opened. Sam shouted at them to stay inside their apartments.
"I'll bet the shooter went out the window to the fire escape," Sam said. "I'll try and catch him."
Sam started for the staircase, but Dana grabbed the sleeve of his overcoat and hung on. "Don't be crazy," she yelled. "He's got a gun, you don't."
The other doors opened again, and this time people came into the hallway. "What's going on?" a big man with tattoos on his arms yelled as he approached them.
"Someone shot at us from inside this apartment," Sam told him.
Without a moment's hesitation, the big man slammed into the door of 302 and sent it banging against the inside wall of the room. He ran inside with Sam and Dana right behind him.
A man who looked a lot like Tony Hunter was on the floor bleeding. Sam and Dana stopped in their tracks, but the neighbor ran over and knelt down next to the man.
"Oh, no," he cried. "Someone shot Johnny. Call the police. Call an ambulance."
"We already did," Sam told him. "They're on their way."
Dana looked at the shattered window and the metal bar stool that was on its side on the fire escape. It didn't take much thought to surmise that the shooter had broken the window in order to flee down the fire escape.
More neighbors were in the hallway crowding the doorway to get a
look inside the apartment. The big man stood up and shook his head. "Too late, baby," he said. "He's dead."
As sirens sounded in the distance, Dana remembered the boys on the second floor landing. She hurried out of the apartment and down the stairs.
The little boys were gone, probably scared inside by the gunshots and the shouting. Dana began knocking on doors. Finally the last one at the end of the hallway opened and the little boy she had talked to earlier answered it.
"Hi," Dana said. "Is your mom at home?"
"She's sleeping."
"Where are your friends?"
"They're not my friends, they're my brothers," he said. "They got scared and ran in the closet"
"That's was smart of them," she said. "I was wondering if you could tell me about the man you saw going upstairs just before my friend and I saw you"
"He was old and had a black hat with a red bird on it."
"How old do you think he was?"
The boy shrugged. "I don't know."
"Did you see his hair?"
"I told you he was wearing a hat," the little boy said as if she were a dunce.
"So you did," Dana replied. "Can you tell me more about the hat?"
"No," he said just before he slammed the door in her face.
Dana was about to knock again when two uniformed policemen came running up the stairs.
"You the lady that called?" one of them asked her.
"Yes. It's the third floor, apartment 302," she replied.
"Okay. Come with us, please"
Dana followed the officers up the stairs. By now, Sam had managed to get the other neighbors away from the door and grouped together at the far end of the hall. The big man who was obviously a friend of Hunter's was still in the apartment kneeling by the body.
Dana heard more feet clamoring up the stairs and within a few minutes two paramedics appeared dragging a gurney.
One of the policemen who had entered the apartment came out and told the paramedics to leave, confirming the neighbor's earlier announcement. John Hunter was dead.
The arrival of the police had caused all the neighbors except for Hunter's big friend to scurry back to their apartments and lock their doors.
Dana and Sam stood in the hallway with him while the police assessed the situation and called in their report.
"I take it you were a friend of Hunter's?" Dana asked the man.
"We were in the joint together. I got him this apartment when he got out last week. Who are you?"
"My name is Dana Sloan and the gray-haired gentleman talking to the police is Sam McGowan. We work for a newspaper in Crescent Hills."
"What did you want with Johnny?"
"I knew his brother, Tony. I came here to tell him that Tony was murdered last night."
"His brother was killed?" the big man said incredulously. "What the hell is going on?"
"I don't know. Did Johnny tell you anything about his brother?"
"Just that he was mad at him about something and was going to see him as soon as he got permission from his parole officer."
"Dana? What are you doing here?"
Dana turned around to see Jack O'Brien standing on the landing behind her. Jack had reddish blond hair and a ruddy complexion. He was as tall as Bruno, but lean and lankylooking.
"Hi, Jack," Dana said. "What are you doing here?"
"I asked you first," Jack said without any humor in his voice.
"Sam and I came here to talk to John Hunter. Unfortunately, we arrived too late. Someone shot him"
Jack swore softly under his breath. "He's dead?"
"Yes," Dana replied.
"Bruno sent me here to give him the bad news about his brother and ask him some questions." Jack looked curiously at Dana. "Bruno know you're here?"
"No, he doesn't"
Jack nodded and pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed a number. "Hey, buddy. I'm here at Hunter's apartment in Chicago and guess what? Someone shot the guy." He listened for a few seconds, then continued, "Yeah. Damn shame isn't it? But listen, guess who I found standing in the hallway outside Hunter's apartment, your pretty little girlfriend." Jack smiled as he listened to whatever Bruno was saying, then held out the phone to Dana. "He wants to talk to you"
Dana stared at the phone for a few seconds then finally took it from Jack. "Hello," she said casually as if she had run into Jack at the shopping mall, rather than a murder scene.
"What are you doing there?" Bruno asked in a menacing tone.
"Sam and I came here to talk to Hunter, but someone got here before us. He's dead"
"Are you and Sam okay?"
"Yes"
"Good, now get yourselves back to Crescent Hills. I want to talk to both of you"
"I don't think we'll be allowed to leave real soon," Dana told him.
"Why not?"
"We're witnesses."
"Oh, great," Bruno said loudly. "You saw the shooter?"
"Not exactly. When we got to Hunter's door we heard a shot. Sam pounded on the door and the shooter fired the gun at us. Then he threw a metal bar stool through the window and ran down the fire escape"
"You just can't stay out of trouble, can you?" Those were the words Bruno used when he was about to lecture her on her job and the dangers of it.
Dana was in no mood to hear it again. "I've got to go. The police want to question me" Dana pushed the button that ended the call. She handed the phone back to Jack O'Brien.
"I'll bet he's steamed, huh?" Jack asked.
"Of course not," Dana said. "Bruno understands that I'm just doing my job and he supports me."
"You wish," Jack replied with a big smile. "Well, I guess I'll go and introduce myself to the local cops" He walked into the apartment with his detective shield held out in front of him.
Dana turned around to find that Hunter's prison mate had vanished, but Sam was standing in the hallway now. "Bad luck to have O'Brien show up," Sam said.
Dana nodded. "Bruno is fuming"
"He'll get over it," Sam assured her.
"I told him we were witnesses and we'd probably be here awhile."
"Right. The uniforms reported in. The homicide detectives should be showing up any minute."
"I'm starving. I haven't eaten since breakfast this morning," Dana said absently.
"Maybe they'll have doughnuts at the police station," Sam told her.
Dana nodded. "What happened to the big guy?"
"When no one was looking he went back to his apartment, got a jacket and hat, and left the building."
"He's not really a witness," Dana said. "But he did tell me that he and Hunter were in prison together and he got him this apartment"
"Interesting"
"He also said that John was angry with Tony for some reason and wanted to go to Crescent Hills to see him, but was waiting for permission from his parole officer."
"Very interesting," Sam said.
it was well after midnight when Sam dropped Dana off at her apartment. They had been interrogated separately by a pair of Chicago homicide detectives and signed statements for them.
Dana told them about the little boys on the second floor who claimed to see the man who was in Hunter's apartment when she and Sam arrived. One of the detectives promised they would check it out.
There were no doughnuts at the Chicago station and the coffee they brought Dana was so strong she feared drinking it would keep her awake for a week.
Before they left the station, Sam called the newsroom at the Globe and dictated a story about John Hunter's murder in Chicago.
On the way home, Sam made a stop at a fast-food place and they ate their dinner in the car.
Dana was exhausted. She had turned off her cell phone at the police station and had not bothered to turn it on again. Whatever messages were on it could wait until morning. She also decided not to check her messages on her home line either. Both phones probably contained messages from Bruno and she was not up to arguing with him tonight.
"If Bruno's car is in my lot," she had told Sam when they arrived at her building, "don't stop. Just take me to the nearest hotel."
Sam laughed. "You've got to talk to him sometime."
"I'll see him tomorrow in court. That will be soon enough to face his wrath."
"You can say it was all my idea," Sam offered.
Dana brightened. "I just might do that"
Dana's head was swirling from all the questions the police had thrown at her. She was grateful that Jack O'Brien had decided to return to Crescent Hills and had not insisted on being present when she and Sam were giving their statements.
Dana didn't like Jack much, maybe because he obviously disapproved of her relationship with Bruno. Jack was one of those cops who thought reporters were people who only got in the way and made his job more difficult. Dana thought that Jack got in the way of his own investigations because he made snap judgments about people and situations that often took him off in the wrong direction.
In her bedroom, Dana stripped off her clothes and decided to take a long hot shower. She was uptight from the unsettling events of the night and felt grimy from her time in the run-down apartment building and the noisy chaos of the Chicago police station in the same neighborhood.
The shower helped and Dana fell asleep immediately. However, her dreams contained images of little boys, red birds, and John Hunter's dead body. She was relieved when her alarm clock roused her from sleep the next morning.
After completing her morning rituals that included two cups of freshly brewed coffee, Dana braced herself and listened to the messages on her cell phone.
The first one was from Casey. "Hi, Dana. Bruno had more questions for me, but he seemed satisfied with my answers. He also questioned Carmen and Cathy, who verified the time they spent with me. I guess the coroner's report came in, but Bruno wouldn't tell us what it said. He did say that my fingerprints were on the golf club on the living room floor. I told him Tony and I often shared the same putter when we practiced. I'm really grateful to have Troy Kimball at my side. He is a very good lawyer and that may be why Bruno went easy on me again today. I'm coming to the office tomorrow. I need to work and stay busy."