The 20th Victim (Women's Murder Club #20)(42)

Tyler was there. And so was Jeb McGowan.





CHAPTER 61





I TIPPED BACK my chair so that I could better see the TV hanging above my desk in the squad room.

News anchor Jason Kroner was reporting from the studio of ABC7 Chicago.

“According to a police source, this morning an unidentified man was found shot dead on the pavement on the Chicago Riverwalk at approximately 7:00 a.m. An hour later a person of interest in the shooting was apprehended on the Michigan Avenue Bridge, standing at a distance from his SUV, the engine left running and a .308 Remington rifle in the front seat.

“There’s a sight line from several places on the bridge to the pavement where the victim was discovered. The shooter may have fired from a vehicle.”

I sighed as the reporter gave a rip-and-wrap of the other sniper killings, all unsolved cases, starting with ours. And then there was a cutaway from Kroner to a thirty-second clip of Cindy reading the war-on-drugs manifesto.

Cindy could be annoying for sure, but she was really admirable—smart, professional, and I have to say it, adorable. Richie was beaming and we shared a grin. And then the camera was back on Kroner, who closed, saying that the station would update the story as news became available.

I said, “Could be a break. The guy said, ‘Stop selling drugs …. Or spin the wheel.’ Who says that? You say, ‘Take your chances.’ Or, ‘Roll the dice.’”

“It’s a reference to Moving Targets, all right.”

“Jesus. And the guy Chicago PD has in custody. I wonder if he was looking through a gun sight.”

“You feeling lucky?”

“If this is Christmas, the suspect has a beard and his name is Leonard Barkley.”

We stopped for coffee in the break room, then took the short walk down the hall, past the interrogation rooms, the elevator bank, and the virtually empty Robbery Division detail, and unlocked the door to our war room.

I sat down at the phone, punched in a number I’d put on speed dial. When a phone rang inside Chicago PD, I asked for Detective Richards.

He picked up, saying, “Boxer, are you haunting me?”

“I guess I am. Have you spoken to the unnamed gunman?”

“I processed him. His name is Jacob Stoll. He’s a former marine lieutenant, did a couple of tours in the ’Stan. His prints match what we got off of AFIS. He’s currently employed part-time as a school bus driver. The gun is registered to him and it wasn’t recently fired. We’re holding Stoll as a person of interest, but if he shot the guy found dead in the park, he didn’t use the rifle in his car.”

“No?”

“The gun hasn’t been recently fired. We’ll hold him as long as we can. It’s possible he shot the victim with a different firearm, maybe tossed it off the bridge.”

Conklin said, “Maybe he’s revisiting the scene to watch what the cops do.”

“Possible,” said Richards. “After we get him in the box, we’ll hear what he has to say.”

I said, “Richards, the so-called video game, Moving Targets. The person who tipped off the press used the phrase ‘spin the wheel.’”

“Yep, I got your email and saw your screen shot of the site. I’ll try to work it in when my partner and I talk to Stoll. Would you be interested in watching our interview, live streamed from our house to yours?”

“Hell no.”

“Excuse me?”

“Just kidding, Richards. That would be great. What do I have to do?”

“Stand by for a password. One more thing, Boxer.”

“What’s that?”

“You owe me.”





CHAPTER 62





CONKLIN AND I sat side by side at the old desk in the war room, staring into a computer screen that was, in effect, a window into an interrogation room at the Chicago PD Violent Crimes Division.

We got our first look at detective Sergeant Stanley Richards. He was fortyish, of average height and weight, a restless, hands-in-his-pockets, coin-jingling man with a five-o’clock shadow at ten in the morning.

He took his hands out of his chinos and dropped into a seat at the table approximately twenty-one hundred miles away from our desk in the war room. Sitting beside him was his partner, Detective Sandra Wilson. She was black, wearing a man-tailored white shirt, a navy-blue blazer a lot like mine, and a hint of a smile, an expression I would have loved to wear myself. She looked calm, relaxed, and unreadable.

The suspect, Jacob Stoll, sat opposite from the detectives and had sprawled across both chairs on his side and folded his arms over the table. His body language was saying that he owned the table, the room, the story he was about to tell.

My hope that Stoll was Leonard Barkley by another name evaporated. Unlike Barkley, who was a Fidel Castro lookalike, Stoll had a fleshy face. He looked to be six foot two to Barkley’s five foot nine, and he had a wide, toothy grin, perhaps prompting Detective Wilson’s Mona Lisa smile.

He said to her, “You’re a really good-looking woman, Detective, you know that?”

Wilson said nicely to Stoll, “Jacob? Okay if I call you Jacob? Mind taking a look at this?”

She held up her phone so that Stoll could see a photo. Richards had forwarded it to us, and I recognized the shot of the recently deceased man. According to the police report and the dead man’s bloodstained shirt, he had taken a bullet through his heart. According to Richards, he’d also had a boatload of heroin in his backpack.