by Jeanne Tosti
Nora had the feeling of running as fast as she could, but not keeping up. She was going to have to sharpen her game if she was going to stay on Alec Cassidy’s team.
“We have a lot more work to do. I’m not ready to run a full investigation on Jordan Lawrence quite yet, but he’s on my radar.” Cassidy leaned back in his chair and looked like he was sorting through the notes he kept in his head.
Just then a police clerk stuck his head into doorway, “Excuse me, Lieutenant. Someone from Forensic Services is on the line for you. Something about a 911 call analysis.”
“Thank you, Mark. Detective Castle will take the call.” He nodded to Nora to follow the clerk. He already knew what the analysis would show.
Chapter 6
SARAH LEFT THE precinct station after her meeting with Lieutenant Cassidy and headed home. She pulled down the alley behind their townhouse, parked in the garage next to Jordan’s car and walked through the tiny backyard to the back porch. Jordan had not taken his car when he went out of town this week.
She usually arrived home from work around 6:00 p.m., but today she was a half hour early. As she opened the door and walked into the house she collided with Jordan. A man she did not recognize stood off to the side. He appeared to be leaving.
Jordan had a startled look on his face. The two men looked at each other. Then Jordan returned to his usual calm and controlled demeanor.
“Hi, Honey. Um, this is Kyle Mason. I used to work with him in California. We’re old friends, best friends in fact. He’s just relocated to Chicago and we were reconnecting.”
Kyle Mason immediately chimed in, “Nice to meet you, Sarah. Jordan has been telling me about his lovely wife and the charmed life he has been leading here. Lucky man.” He turned toward Jordan, smiled, and said again in a low envious tone, “Lucky man—”
Jordan interrupted, “Kyle was just leaving. He has a business appointment. Thanks for stopping by, Kyle. Call me when your time frees up. We’ll go out for a beer and rehash old times.” He rushed Kyle out the door and closed it behind him. He then turned to Sarah, pulled her close and gave her a kiss.
“That’s a nice welcome home,” she said with a big smile. “I thought you weren’t going to be home from your business trip until tomorrow.”
“Got done with things early and rushed home to be with you.” He kept his arm around her and guided her towards the living room. “Kick off your shoes. I am going to pour some wine for us.”
As Jordan disappeared into the kitchen, Sarah glanced out the front window. She saw a man walking down the street. The figure and walk seemed familiar. She moved closer to the window for a better view. It was the man she saw on the steps of their townhouse the previous week. Then it dawned on her that the figure belonged to Kyle Mason, the man Jordan had just rushed out their back door. He must have gone through the alley and walked around the block to the street in front of their house.
Jordan returned to the living room with two glasses of red wine. He handed one to Sarah and sat down on the couch next to her. “So what’s so interesting outside?”
“Nothing. I was just watching our neighborhood squirrel adding leaves and sticks to his nest,” Sarah lied. She pulled her feet up onto the couch and rested her head against his shoulder. “So tell me—who is this Kyle guy? I’ve never heard you mention him. Has he ever been here at the house before?”
“No, no. He just relocated to Chicago and decided to look me up. I guess he found our address on-line. He dropped by on the chance I would be home.”
It struck her as odd that Jordan didn’t acknowledge that Kyle had been at the house the previous week. She wanted Jordan to feel comfortable inviting his friends to visit. “You could have invited him to stay for dinner. I’m sure I could have put something together for us. I wouldn’t mind getting to know some of your friends,” she said.
“He isn’t the social type. He can be kind of crude sometimes and I didn’t want to expose you to him full strength. It’s better to get to know him in small increments. I’m sure he’ll be around again. But enough about him, how was your day?”
“Lieutenant Cassidy called me today. He asked me to come down to the precinct station to talk to him. That’s why I’m home a little early. I just came from there.”
“You should have called me. We could have arranged a time to go together. What did he want?”
“It was fine, don’t worry.” He’s always trying to protect me, she thought. “He just wanted me to look at a picture of the burglar since I didn’t really get a good look at him the night of the break-in. I still didn’t recognize him.”
“What else did he ask you?”
“Nothing much, just about what was I doing when I made the 911 call. I told him all this stuff before, but he wanted to hear it again I guess.
“Anything else?” He then added, “I just want to be prepared in case he calls me next.”
“Let’s see.” She had to search her brain. None of her conversation with Lieutenant Cassidy seemed very important. “He asked again if I saw any strangers in the neighborhood. I told him I did see a cable TV guy working next-door the day before the break-in.” She thought for another moment and then said, “I can’t think of anything else that we talked about.” She was not going to mention that Cassidy had asked if Jordan owned a gun. She didn’t want Jordan reminded that she had asked the same question. Cassidy’s questions about how they met and their respective employers didn’t have any relevancy to the break-in that she could see, so she saw no reason to mention those.
Jordan seemed satisfied with her answers
“If Cassidy calls you again, be sure you tell me. I’ll go with you for moral support. You shouldn’t have to face all their questions by yourself.”
“It’s over now and I don’t want to think about it anymore.” She took a sip of her wine and thought about how nice it was to have Jordan home. “Ruth Abbot called me. She said everyone is getting together for dinner Saturday night and wanted to know if we were free.”
“Yeah, sure. I don’t think I have any work conflicts on Saturday.”
“Good. I’ll give her a call and tell her to add us to the reservation.
* * * * *
The door was open to Lieutenant Cassidy’s office and he was scanning through one of the piles of papers that always populated his desk. Nora Castle knocked on the door frame to get his attention.
“Come on in. Have anything new on our case?” Cassidy pushed the pile of papers he was working on aside and motioned for her to sit down.
She settled into one of chairs in front of Cassidy’s desk. “There are two TV cable companies that service the Lawrences’ area. Neither company had any service personnel in the area on the date Sarah Lawrence saw the man working on her neighbor’s cable box. One cable company has brown service uniforms and the other one has green uniforms. Sarah Lawrence said she thought the man she saw was wearing a blue or grey uniform. Talked to the neighbor and they said they never asked for any repair or maintenance on their cable system. They were surprised to hear someone was there working on it. I also checked with the gas, electric, and telephone companies and they all said they had no service calls to that address on that date.”
“It’s sounding like our watcher was hanging around for at least a day before the break-in,” Cassidy said.
“I talked to Forensics. You were right about the gunshots being recorded on the 911 call. They did their sound scan thing and found there was a five second delay between the first and second shot. That timing fits with what Sarah Lawrence told us about hearing the shot, moving from the far side of the bed to the doorway, and calling downstairs to her husband.”
“Hmm. That’s a long time for a man with a hole in his heart to be on his feet charging forward as Jordan Lawrence told us. Could be that Lawrence was scared and just shot our assailant a second time to make sure he couldn’t attack again.” Cassidy looked at Nora. “Could be Lawrence had another reason for making sure our perpetrator was dead.�
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“The only fingerprints on the gun we recovered at the scene belonged to Jordan Lawrence. We checked the ammo clip in the gun for prints, but there were none. We have nothing to connect that gun to our assailant other than Jordan Lawrence’s statement.”
“Have we heard anything from Forensics on those skin tissue samples?”
“No, not yet.”
“Call them now. I want to know the results. If they aren’t done, tell them I want a rush put on them.”
Nora left the room to call Forensic Services. She returned five minutes later. “They’ll have something for us in an hour. They were slammed with a meth house explosion and are running behind.”
“Plan on a trip to the forensics lab in an hour then,” Cassidy said.
Nora nodded and went back to her desk to finish wading through the crime scene reports. She had gone through most of the reports when she came upon one particular report on a specimen collected from the dead suspect’s clothing. It was an analysis of material found wedged in the angle between the heel and sole of the suspects left shoe. The report read, Organic plant material: intact leaf, flower petal fragment (Ranunculus californicus- California Buttercup).
California? The word took her by surprise. What’s the chance of finding a California wildflower in the urban environs of Chicago? This was something she could take back to Lieutenant Cassidy.
She looked up from her desk. The hour had flown by and Cassidy suddenly appeared at her desk with his coat in hand. She pushed the papers she had been reviewing aside and they were off to the forensics lab.
Cassidy led the way when they arrived at the offices of Forensic Services. He had obviously been there many times before and knew his way around. He threaded his way through a maze of corridors and labs into the office of Supervisor, Sylvester Turner.
Cassidy walked in and extended his hand to the man sitting at the desk. “Hi, Sly. Have you worked your magic on those tissue specimens I had sent down?”
“Yes, we did. Let’s take a walk into the lab so I can show you what we’ve found.” Sly Turner led them down a hallway into one of the labs. “And who is your young colleague?” he asked.
Cassidy introduced Nora and told Sly that she was new to the department.
“Well, for Nora’s benefit I’m going to give you the deluxe version of our findings. Those tissue samples from your dead suspect did contain traces of latent ink suspended in the deeper tissue layers. You have a good eye. They were all old tattoos, but none are visible to the naked eye. There was an attempt to obliterate all three with acid and abrasion, but the injury to the skin surface did not obliterate the ink in the deeper tissues.”
“Were you able to lift any images on those samples?” Cassidy asked.
“Yes, we were. These tattoos are old, not professionally done. We did spectroscopy on the tissue and it is blue ballpoint pen ink for the most part. Could be gang or jailhouse tattoos.”
“I suspected as much,” Cassidy said.
“We also did some infrared photography and some digital image enhancements that provided us with faint images of all three tattoos.” Sly Turner pulled up some photos on a big screen at one end of the room.
“This is the first tissue specimen collected from your suspect’s neck just above the right clavicle. The latent tattoo image that we lifted is the depiction of a knife with its tip appearing to be embedded in your suspect’s neck.”
Sly moved to the second image. “The second specimen is from the right knee and shows a five-pointed star.”
He pointed to the third image. “The last one is from the top of the right foot. It is the image of a cat with its teeth bared.”
“Reads like a book,” Cassidy mumbled as he stared at the blown-up images on the screen.
Nora looked puzzled. She had reviewed the police catalogue of gang related tattoos and she did not recognize any of these.
Cassidy saw Nora’s puzzled look and offered further explanation, “Our guy was someone who adhered, at least for a time, to an old school criminal code. Maybe someone who served a short sentence in a Russian prison, or possibly someone who emulated that ethnic criminal life, or someone with ethnic crime family ties. The tattoos are a code advertising a specialty or used to send a message.”
Nora looked up at the photos on the screen, but could not decipher their meaning.
Cassidy added, “You’re not supposed to figure out what they mean. It is a way of silently communicating with his criminal brethren. I haven’t seen this kind of ink in years.”
“So, can you translate for a novice?” Nora asked.
“Sure. But don’t feel bad for not being able to decode this. I only know because I had a case one time where a man’s son went missing. Turns out the old guy had spent years in a Russian prison and had jail house ink covering his body. I spent a lot of time with the old guy and he told me his whole history through his tattoos. It’s like a secret language.”
Cassidy walked up to the photo projected on the wall and pointed to the first one. “The knife tattoo that is drawn to look like it is penetrating the neck just above the collar bone means that our perpetrator has killed before and he is available for hire.” He moved his hand to the second photo, “The star on the knee tells his criminal associates he will kneel to no authority, in particular, the police.” He motioned toward the last photo, “And the single cat image on the foot communicates that he is a thief that works alone. The snarling teeth on the cat is for effect— it’s just a warning that he is vicious and no one better mess with him.”
Nora looked closer at the images in order to commit them to memory.
Something appeared to be churning in Cassidy’s mind. “Usually you’ll see the whole body covered with these criminal code tattoos. It’s a little strange to have just three inked areas. Could be he had a close relationship with some old school Russian criminal elements and was imitating them with a few tattoos—maybe a father or an uncle. Sly, can we have copies of these enhanced images?” Cassidy asked.
Sly nodded, “No problem.”
“O.K., I think we’re done here. Thanks, Sly. I can always count on you to come through.”
Sly printed out copies of the images and handed them to Nora. Alec waved a goodbye and they left. Nora followed him through the maze of halls until they were finally outside.
She was anxious to show that she was able to contribute something positive to the investigation. As they climbed into Alec’s vehicle Nora said, “I went through all those crime scene reports like you asked. I did find something—maybe.” She didn’t want to sound too sure of herself in case her find turned out to be nothing.
“Go ahead, I’m listening.” Cassidy gave her his full attention.
“There was one report about material collected from the bottom of our suspect’s shoe. Turns out that it was dried plant material from a California buttercup. He had to have picked that up on the West coast. It doesn’t grow around here.”
“Good find,” Cassidy responded.
Finally, something that impresses him! She was relieved and added, “I’ll make contact with the California authorities to see if they recognize our guy.”
Alec smiled. Yes, she was coming along nicely. Not quite there yet, but making progress, he thought. “I think there’s a more intriguing connection. Jordan Lawrence used to work in California. Interesting that our dead assailant may have a California connection too, don’t you think?”
The big picture was coming into focus for Nora. She was anxious to get back to the office and start following up on her leads.
* * * * *
Nora sat at her desk and picked up the phone. Jordan Lawrence had told his wife he worked in Los Angeles before coming to Chicago so that is where she would start. She called the Los Angeles Police Homicide Department hoping that they would be most inclined to help out another homicide department on an investigation. Her call was put through to Lieutenant Mark Jennings, L.A. Homicide.
Lieutenant Jennings came on the
line, “I understand that you are looking for some help identifying a suspect with a California connection. Why don’t you tell me what you have and we’ll see what we can do for you.”
Nora ran through the details and evidence to date on their case. “We’ve run fingerprints through all the national data bases and haven’t found a match. Our local facial recognition data base has come up blank. I was hoping that maybe you might have something in your system to help identify our guy. My Lieutenant thinks that there is something more to our break-in incident than a simple neighborhood robbery. We need to find out who this guy is in order to figure it out.”
“Your perp sounds like a career criminal. It’s surprising he isn’t showing up in the system. If he’s a pro for hire, he must have been taking great pains to keep a low profile. Our Organized Crime Unit may have him on their radar, though. They have a watch list of shady characters that they track. Send me whatever photos you have, I’ll run him through our facial recognition program. Better send the autopsy and tattoo images as well. I’ll touch base with our Organized Crime and Gang Units to see if anyone recognizes him or his ink. It might take me a few days to get back to you. Our department is running with a couple of high profile homicides right now. Those investigations are tying up most of our resources and personnel.”
“Any help you can give us will be great. Thanks.” Nora gave Lieutenant Jennings her contact information and thanked him again before hanging up. She faxed him the case evidence he requested. Now all she could do was wait to see if anything turned up.
Chapter 7
ON SATURDAY SARAH and Jordan went out to dinner with Ruth and their group of friends as planned. They ended the evening at Ruth’s house enjoying one of her fabulous desserts. Jordan was his attentive and engaging self and Sarah felt like things were finally returning to normal.
