by Wally Duff
“In fact, a Hogan team is working at your home as we speak,” David said.
Micah sighed. “When can you begin here?”
“Right now,” David said. “Even though I no longer work for Hogan, I can speed up the process with them if I can access your computer to begin the online hookup to their computers. It will take me about thirty minutes. Maybe you can take Tina for a tour while I get started.”
Finally, Micah smiled. “I will be happy to do that.”
David put on latex gloves and sat down at Micah’s computer. He winked at me. He would download everything from Micah’s hard drive too.
Micah ushered me into the hallway to begin my tour.
50
Forty minutes later, David and I were back in my mommy van heading for home. Another Hogan team was on its way to Micah’s lab.
“That was pretty slick how you accessed Micah’s office computer without him realizing what you were really doing.”
“I downloaded everything from his hard drive,” David said. “Is it okay if I share this with your friend Linda?”
“That’s a great idea,” I said. “Why don’t we drop by her place? You can meet her and talk about it.”
“I hate to drop in unannounced.”
“Unannounced visits are what the Irregulars are all about, but I’ll text her and tell her we’re coming.”
While I contacted Linda, David scanned his emails on his phone.
When he was done, he looked over at me. “What did you make of the lab? I never got to see all of it.”
“It’s a big operation. There are lots of lab employees.”
“How many?”
“At least fifty.”
“And no security. Amazing.”
I parked in Linda’s driveway. Her home is about the size of ours, but that’s where the similarities end. The interior is professionally decorated — paid for by her parents, who are in the Big Leagues of the rich people in Chicago.
This was the reason the Irregulars always entered her home through the lower-level door. Linda doesn’t like little kids running crazy in her fabulously decorated upper levels. As a playgroup, then, we were relegated to the first level, which actually wasn’t bad. Her parents had purchased every conceivable toy for their only grandchild.
And Howard, Linda’s husband? A lawyer and a great guy, who is the beneficiary of Mr. and Mrs. Shrier’s largesse. And he’s smart enough not to let it bother his ego.
We walked into Linda’s computer room. Her nanny was upstairs playing with Sandra. I always shiver when I go from the outside heat into this frigid room, which is never more than sixty-two degrees.
As always, the air smelled artificial, and there was the ever-present low hum from the servers. Three computer screens sat on her desk. On the far wall were six more wall-mounted units.
I introduced David to Linda.
“David, the first time I came in here I felt like I was on the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise,” I said.
“It’s a great setup,” David said.
Wonder if the one you have at home is better?
Obviously, Linda was curious about the same thing. “What kind of equipment do you have?” she asked.
For the next ten minutes, I listened to them compare their computers. What can I say? It was boring, but they’re computer nerds, and it’s what they’re passionate about.
But, kids, enough is enough.
I clapped my hands. “Okay, let’s get on with this,” I said.
David straightened up. “Sorry about that.” He handed the flash drive to Linda. “This is what I downloaded from Micah’s hard drive.”
Linda plugged it into the computer.
“Tina said you have the download from Micah’s home computer, and there was an encrypted section in it,” he said.
“I still haven’t been able to crack it,” she said. “My thought was that he might have the same material on his office computer, but it might not be encrypted there.”
“I agree. It would be cumbersome to work with encrypted files on a daily basis.”
She pushed a flash drive across the table to him. “This is everything from Micah’s computer.”
“I’ll download it as soon as I get home.” He snapped his fingers. “Could you burn a copy of that flash drive from Micah’s office computer for me?”
“I’ll do it straightaway,” she said.
I quietly departed.
They won’t miss me.
But we were on our way to understanding exactly what was going on with Micah and the President of the United States.
51
Tuesday morning, after David and I completed our six-mile run, he went home to work on his computer. I cleaned up the kitchen while Kerry took her morning nap.
There was a knock on our front door. When I opened it, Detective Tony Infantino was standing on our front porch. “Your husband gone?”
“Carter left about an hour ago,” I said.
“Where’s the kid?”
“You’re safe. She’s sleeping.”
The inherent messiness of little kids freaks Tony out. Raising them would interfere with his testosterone-filled life of working out, catching bad guys, and having sex, not necessarily in that order.
“Good ‘cause we gotta talk.”
I stepped back. He walked into the kitchen. The scent of Bleu by Chanel drifted over me. He sat down at the table in the breakfast nook. While I made coffee, he munched on a glazed donut from Dinkel’s.
Once his black coffee was poured, I joined him with a donut and a cup of herbal tea.
“Rumor going around about you screwin’ up the arrest of a perp during the abortion clinic bombing in D.C.,” he said.
“Did the FBI tell you that?”
“Yeah, and sweets, they don’t like you very much. They don’t want you anywhere near these recent bombings.”
“I get that, but why is a Chicago PD homicide detective working cases in Hinsdale and Deerfield?”
“Not directly involved with those two. Caught the one last night because it’s on our turf.”
Last night!
“What happened?”
“This time your bomber guy popped an abortion doctor.”
“Popped?”
“You know, shot — like in the head. Doc was dead before he hit the street.”
What!?
“Why are you so sure it’s my bomber?”
“Like Deerfield, perp called the doc’s direct line saying his girlfriend was bleeding after having some kinda abortion surgery. Doc got outta his car at the clinic. Shooter nailed him. It’s a homicide. Gotta get on this and need your help.”
“Give me fifteen minutes.”
“Give me another cup of coffee and two more donuts.”
“Done.”
52
Liv Sanchez came over to babysit Kerry. I rode with Tony in his BMW to the women’s clinic in Lincoln Park. It was located near the corner of West Roslyn and North Clark Street.
Antique brick apartment buildings lined both sides of the street. Businesses and restaurants occupied the first floors of most of the buildings. A yellow crime scene tape surrounded a silver ML 550 Mercedes SUV. We walked toward the vehicle, but Tony stopped me at the tape.
“Can’t let you any closer,” he said. “Active crime scene. Authorized personnel only.”
“Got it. I’m close enough to see what happened.”
The driver’s side door stood open. Dried blood, bone fragments, and human tissue were smeared on the roof, window, and doorframe. There were irregular blood spatters on the street beneath the door and on the front seat and steering wheel.
The faint odor of tarnished copper still drifted up from the dried blood. The smell clashed with the aroma of BBQ and pizza cooking in the neighborhood’s restaurants.
About thirty yards further down and across the street was more crime scene tape. It blocked the front entrance to an apartment building with green shutters on the first-floo
r windows.
I nudged Tony. “What’s going on over there?”
“Our guys think that’s where the shot came from.” He pointed at the Mercedes. “The vic, Dr. Rod Kestel, parks here and gets out of his SUV. Before he can close the door, his cell phone rings. He answers, giving the shooter time to line up the shot. Bang, one to the doc’s head.”
“Why was the shooter so far away?”
“Thinkin’ he needed the practice sighting in his rifle.”
“Practicing to shoot someone?” I asked. “I’ve never heard of that before.”
“You don’t know much about sniper rifles, do you?”
“No, I’ve never fired one.”
“Sniper has to take into account the distance, the elevation, the wind direction, temperature, and humidity and then adjust his scope before he pulls the trigger. Hard to do all that on a flat shooting range in controlled conditions. Needed to work with the rifle and scope in the field, so to speak.”
“So he can shoot other doctors?”
“You said it, not me, sweets.”
“But my bomber doesn’t use a gun.”
“Yeah, about that. Was also a C4 bomb in the men’s bathroom. Had a remote control detonator.”
“If he planned to shoot the doctor, why bother with that?”
“Shooter gives himself two options. If the doc parks so the shooter doesn’t have a clear shot, he waits for the doc to enter the building and then blows him up.”
“But why didn’t he detonate the device as long as he was here? That’s his M.O.”
“Bomb guys think he tried to, but he made a mistake. Men’s bathroom is located next to the room where the x-ray machine is. Room is lead-lined. Bomb was placed in a trash can next to the lead-lined wall. They think he didn’t count on that and had the wrong type of remote control to deal with the shielding effect of the lead.”
“Bet he won’t make that mistake again.”
“Agree. CSI guys also think he used a special-made sniper rifle.”
“I’m not following.”
He motioned for me to follow him to the other side of the SUV. We still stood outside of the crime scene tape. Sitting on the ground about ten feet from the car was a white card with a yellow “1” on it.
“Bullet hit the doc in the head and blew through his skull. Our guys found the slug right here.” He pointed at the card. “Bullet looks handmade. Fired by a homemade rifle.”
“Homemade?”
“Preliminary report on the rifling of the bullet suggested it. Doesn’t match any guns they have in the database.”
“Why would he use something like that?”
“Hard telling because sniper rifles are easy to buy.”
“Sounds like he’s had special training.”
“Your guy knows a lot about C4 bombs and sniper rifles. SEALS, special forces, black ops guys have training like that.”
“It’s nice to know that our tax dollars are being so well spent to train killers.”
53
We walked across the street to the apartment building. Several people were leaving through the front door. They took off paper booties and latex gloves and threw them in a trash can.
“Got anything, Steve?” Tony said to a well-fed man who came out last.
“Nope,” Steve said. “The suspect has to be a pro. I haven’t seen a crime scene this clean for a long time, but he did leave one item.”
He handed Tony a sealed clear plastic evidence bag containing a cell phone. “A burner phone. Only two numbers have been called. The second one is to the victim’s phone.”
“And the first?” Tony asked.
“To the doc who got blown up in Deerfield. Your suspect wanted someone to know who did this.”
My stomach felt queasy.
I know who that someone is.
The CSI team departed.
“Can I get in there?” I asked.
“Fresh case. Don’t want to contaminate the scene and piss off the D.A., but I’ll tell you what’s in there.”
He took out his small spiral notebook.
“Apartment 3E. One-bedroom unit with an efficiency kitchen,” he began. “Room spotless. Smelled like recent use of cleaning products. Brown couch and dark green chair in living room. A table and kitchen chair in dinette. Other kitchen chair positioned in front of an open window which faced the street.”
I pictured the scene as he spoke.
“Smelled gunpowder next to the window. Best guess is shooter sat on the chair waiting for the doc. SUV pulls up. Doc gets out. Shooter calls him on the cell. Doc stops moving and answers. Shooter fires.”
“Who rented the room?” I asked.
He flipped a page in his notebook. “Rented a couple of days ago through an Internet broker. Credit card used was stolen.”
“Did the neighbors see anything?”
He flipped two more pages in his book. “Talked to everyone in the building. Shooter is either tall and skinny or short and fat, with blond — or no — hair, and he’s Caucasian or Hispanic.”
“Narrows it down.”
“Like always, but we’ll interview them all at least once more. Maybe someone’ll remember something we can use.”
“Until then?”
“FBI says you gotta mole feeding you inside info on these bombings.”
“I might have one.”
“Need him.”
“Or her.”
“Whatever.”
54
Tony drove me home from the scene of the shooting. I’d noticed security cameras attached to the clinic building, but he hadn’t mentioned them.
“Is there anything you forgot to tell me about the shooting?” I asked.
Tony glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “Don’t think so.”
“What about the security videos?”
“You didn’t give me everything you knew about what went down at O’Hare.”
He was right. I’d held back some important facts about that story, but he had done the same thing to me then, and now he was doing it again.
“Okay, I admit I did, but if I’m going to be of any value on this investigation, I have to know everything.”
He hesitated.
“Need to know, right?” I asked.
“You got it, sweets.”
“Well, I need to know.”
“Security video shows the doc driving up and getting out of his SUV. Stands up and then answers his phone. Waits with the phone to his ear. Gets shot in the head. Bada bing, bada boom. Neighbors must’ve heard the shot because someone calls 911. Next thing the video shows are the cops arriving on the scene.”
I knew Tony and something wasn’t right.
“But there’s more.”
“Not there.”
“Where?”
“Here.”
I stared at him.
“Wasn’t gonna say anything, but a car has been following us since we left the crime scene at the apartment building,” he continued.
His face was expressionless. He was telling me the truth. The surge of adrenaline that rushed through my system made my head begin to pound.
“Please tell me you’re kidding,” I said.
“Would love to but can’t. Bomber guy of yours is not the usual nutcase we deal with. He’s a pro and left the cell phone in the room to prove it. Means he’s toying with us. Could be watching to see what we’re gonna do next.”
“But is that even realistic?”
“Realistic?”
“How often do criminals follow cops? It doesn’t seem likely.”
“You’re right. Wouldn’t make sense for him to follow me.”
I thought about that statement a few seconds. “You think he’s tailing me?”
“Pretty obvious he knows you’re part of this. According to what the FBI told me, he saw you five years ago, so he knows what you look like. Could be he’s following you to get a feel for what you’re up to, maybe to have an idea about what you know and, through
you, what we know too.”