I held up my hand. “My name is Jack Daniels, out of the two-six. Heard of me?”
His brow furrowed, skeptical. “You mean Lieutenant Daniels?” He looked at my belly, dubious.
“You were called here on a one eighty-seven in progress, correct?” I asked.
“That’s right.”
“The suspect is a white male with long black hair. Armed. He’s still in the building, and he’s killing a man.”
“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?”