“If it’s an automatic. Could be a revolver,” McCord said.
“Probably not. We’re thinking he had a pretty good suppressor at the UC, and suppressors don’t work so hot with revolvers – you get some sound out the back end.”
“True, and it looks like the guy still had the suppressor on his piece. This Saturday guy, he was right outside the shelter. You got three shots, and nobody heard anything. Oh, and the three shots? Got a three-inch grouping right in the middle of the forehead. The gate on the fence around the shelter’s yard locks and it wasn’t open, and this Membe guy dropped straight down right in front of the porch, so the guy was shooting from twenty feet, and shooting damn quick to get all three into the guy’s head before he went down. So it’s not some spray-and-pray job. Guy can shoot some.”
“Swell. Any cameras?” Between red-light cameras, police surveillance cameras in high-crime areas and the private security feeds that have been given access to the city, Chicago was the most photographed city in the world.
“Got a red-light box at the end of the block. Might be close enough to get you something, provided anybody ran the light at the right time.”
“You tell Starshak?” Starshak ran Lynch’s squad. If they were looking at the same guy that did Stein, then the second shooting was going to get assigned to Lynch.
“Gonna, soon as we hang up.”
“So,” Lynch said. “We got a shooter, gets himself in Stein’s box somehow, gives him the triple tap, then walks up the street and goes all OK Corral on some refugee.”
“Looks like.”
“Any thoughts?”
“Mostly that it seems fucked up.”
“Helpful,” Lynch said.
“Sure,” said McCord. “Trustworthy, brave, all that other shit, too.”
Lynch called Starshak, caught him up. Bernstein would be buried in paper going through Stein’s business, so Lynch jumped on Ogden and cut down to Madison toward the shelter. Just like his school days. Off to see the nuns about some trouble.
The shooting had taken place in front of an old three-flat on Madison a few blocks west of the United Center. Place was well maintained – small, neat lawn out front behind a waist-level wrought-iron fence. Madison used to be skid row from the Loop west, but it had been gentrified now, most of the way out to the United Center. West of the stadium, though, it was still a rough neighborhood. Buildings on either side of the shelter were pretty run down. Somebody had put some money into this one, though, and the way upscale was creeping west, the nuns would probably clean up on it somewhere down the line. Of course, you only had to check out the property values on Holy Name and the Cardinal’s residence off Rush Street to know that the church understood real estate.
Lynch looked up the street at the red light camera covering the intersection. Two houses up. Probably not the right angle to get anything on the sidewalk, but it might have a shot of the cars parked on the street this far back.
Lynch thought on that for a second. The way the parking worked at the United Center, you could get crammed in pretty good. You had to get out in a hurry, you might be stuck. So, if you’re a pro, you probably look for a spot on the street. You make the hit, walk out, find your ride and get gone. Maybe the shooter parked up this way, this Membe guy did something to make him nervous?
Pictures from the red-light camera would be time-stamped, so at least they could see whether a car had left around the right time.
Lynch rang the bell. A short, slim woman answered. Light hair, no makeup that Lynch could see. Strong face, one that had been outdoors a lot. Mid-forties Lynch guessed. Khaki slacks and a plain beige crewneck. She wore a simple wooden cross on a leather thong around her neck.
“You’re with the police,” she said. Not quite an accusation, but not happy either. Hint of an accent, Scottish from the sound of it.
“I’m Detective John Lynch. I’d like to ask you a few questions about last night.” He held out his badge case, showed her his creds.
She looked at them, then closed her eyes for a moment, like she was pushing back something.
“I’m Kate Magnus. I run the shelter for the order.”
She stepped aside, walked him into the house. Lynch caught just a glimpse of a huge man off to the right, probably six foot six, hulking, black as coffee. The man glared at him, half hate, half fear. Bad combination. Then the man ducked around a wall, out of view. Lynch followed the woman down a hall and into a small room with a beat-up metal desk, chair behind it, a wall of filing cabinets and a single guest chair. Tiny as she was, neighborhood like this, house full of refugees, Lynch thought the woman would be nervous, but there wasn’t a whiff of that. She sat behind the desk; Lynch took the single chair.
“Our residents come from places where any man with a gun is a man to be feared. We had several policemen here last night, for a long time. The residents are still pretty upset. We will talk in here. If you want to speak with any them, I will ask that you make sure that your weapon is out of sight.”
“Fair enough, Sister,” said Lynch.
She shook her head. “Not Sister. Just Ms Magnus.”
“Sorry. With the cross and the order and all, I assumed.”
“Dangerous habit in your profession, isn’t that, detective? Assuming?” A little dig in her voice.
“Touché,” Lynch said.
“I’ve been with the order since I was twenty. It does good work for good reasons. So far as the cross goes, I have no problem with what it should stand for. Some of the theology behind it, well…” Her voice trailed off and she looked to the side a moment, then looked back. “Vows should mean something. I couldn’t take them.”
Lynch thought he heard some history behind that, but that wasn’t what he was here for and he had a feeling he’d heard as much as he was going to anyway.
“What can you tell me about your residents?” Lynch asked.
“What do you know about Africa?” she said.
“Big place, lots of countries, pretty screwed up. Mostly what I learned looking at maps at the zoo when I was a kid and watching the news. Not sure I should generalize about the whole continent.”
“Ignorance of the world is an American luxury. When you have everything you need at home, you don’t need to know about anywhere else. Most Americans only learn about a country after we decide to invade it.”
“Cynical point of view.”
She looked up at Lynch, studied his face a moment. “I’ve lived in Africa for most of the last fifteen years. People here, they know about Somalia maybe, Rwanda if they’ve seen the movie. Over there, in most of the places I’ve lived, for most of the people I knew, that movie never ends.”
“Dangerous place for a woman,” Lynch said.
She bristled at that. “Dangerous place for anyone.”
She had a fire in her; Lynch had seen it before. Some social workers, teachers at some of the inner-city schools, some nurses he knew, even some cops. Some of them, they see enough, and it hits critical mass, it burns all the happy out of them, all the hope, but they keep doing the work, keep throwing more despair inside, hoping someday it will be enough. Probably why she was so small; fire burned so hot nothing stuck, nothing lasted. Just the fire. Lynch could see where she could believe in the cross, believe in the pain, in the sacrifice, just not in the God behind it anymore.
“What can you tell me about Membe Saturday?” Lynch asked.
“Our residents are all refugees from West Africa, primarily Liberia and Sierra Leone. Our order has a very active mission presence there. While the civil wars in these countries have calmed, there is still tremendous tribal violence. For various reasons, all of our guests would have been killed if they remained. We help them secure political asylum and try to help them start new lives here. The man who was killed last night, Membe Saturday, was from Liberia. He had only been with us three weeks.”