Circle of Terror

by Larry Powalisz

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Likewise, and in a cemetery—such an interesting setting. Brett, see you at the office.”

  Declan looked at the main damaged headstone. “So, Lieutenant Stanley Strychalewski, this deep fog just lifted a little on what role you had in this strange web of weirdness.”

  The ID tech who responded to the scene took digital photos of the headstones and checked for fingerprints, which turned out to be negative. “Do you need anything else?”

  “No, we’re good. Thanks.”

  Tomczyk looked over at the uniformed officers. “Do me a favor, guys. File a short report with the who, when, and where’s. I’ll send you the complaint number. Thanks for your help. We can turn this little piece of real estate back over to the cemetery and call it a day.” He looked over at Anne. “How about a quick meal before heading back downtown to finish up?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it. So which high-class, fast-food restaurant would you like to visit and partake of? My treat.”

  “Gotta love a woman with culinary class.”

  She gently pushed him and smiled. “Another day, big fella. We’re crunched for time. Don’t you keep telling me how the job isn’t done until the paperwork is done? Me thinks you have some paperwork to do.”

  Chapter 18

  CHICAGO’S NORTH SIDE

  The old dirty blue Chevrolet Malibu turned right onto North Lincoln Avenue and into the alley in the 2400 block of the Lincoln Park neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side. The driver stopped and peered at the passenger next to him.

  “You know what you have to do. Let’s move.” The tall, white male stepped out from the passenger side wearing a black denim jacket and blue jeans. He was carrying a dark green plastic bag as he emerged from the alley and walked along the sidewalk past several buildings. The tattoos on his neck were still visible under the illumination of the street lights. It was three in the morning, and there was no one on the street. The famous theatre sign became larger as he got closer. Windy City—I’ll say, he thought as he shivered in the cold and windy early November morning.

  He walked over to the double-glass doors in front of the old movie theatre and looked at the large, white sign in the glass window above the doors. “Victory” was spelled out in large, black capital letters. Fitting, he thought to himself. He set the bag in the concrete entranceway next to the glass doors, obviously out of place so it would be readily noticed as something that didn’t belong.

  Just before going back into the alley, he briefly looked back at the large theatre marquis. Some of the light bulbs were off for the evening. The iconic name still stood out like a beacon—Victory Gardens Biograph. Lots of history there. We’ll make our own history tonight. He saw a marked Chicago Police Department squad driving down the street toward him. Too close for comfort. Hopefully that cop sees it—unless he’s blind and dumb like the rest of them. He continued down the alley and climbed back into the car.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here. There’s a squad coming down Lincoln Ave.”

  The driver sped away with his lights out and rounded the corner of the alley in seconds.

  River Hills Nursing Home - River Hills, WI

  Demetrius pulled into the nursing home parking lot for his eight o’clock start. He walked into the lobby and was greeted by the receptionist.

  “Saw the prep scores in the paper this morning. You’re a stud. Great job.”

  “Thanks, Penny. We really clicked last night.”

  “Clicked? Sounds more like you rocked the house.”

  “Oh, yeah? There was a little bit of that going on too. Our fans sure got into it. Man, it was a great experience.” He walked down to the maintenance office and opened the unlocked door.

  “So, which one are you, Thunder or Lightning?” Tim said as he laid the local newspaper down on the desk.

  “Man, I can’t believe they printed that—again. A couple of guys on the team mentioned it to the reporter, and she was all over it. That was just a private joke we had. Don’t need everyone razzing us about it and thinking we’re showboating.”

  “Get used to it, kid. Everyone wants a hero. Right now, you’re the superheroes.”

  “Yeah, but I just don’t want to be the super-duds. Someone is always out there trying to bring you down. I just wanted to go out on the field and give 100 percent to my game. Don’t need no broadcasting so our opponents can jump on us about it.”

  “Makes sense. Well, let’s get on it. I’ll take the third floor. You have the second, and we’ll meet on the first and knock it out as a team.”

  “Got it. Between us, I’m Lightning,” he said sheepishly.

  “I’m proud of you, D. Take it all in stride. I know you won’t get a big head about it ’cause I’ll knock it off your shoulders.” He grabbed Demetrius in a bear hug, rubbing his head with a closed fist, and pretending to swing at it.

  “You can count on it. Thanks for your confidence in me. Your guidance and friendship mean a lot.”

  “No problem. I have this strong feeling you won’t be moppin’ floors for a living like me. We have to prepare you for the big leagues.”

  For the next couple of hours, they went about sweeping and cleaning rooms.

  “Okay, break time. I know, I know. Go find George and let him bend your ear. Don’t think he’s said ten words to me since I’ve been here. It’s good to see you’ve grown on him.”

  “He’s a great old guy.”

  Demetrius found his friend sitting at the usual spot on the leather chair in the large gathering room on the first floor. The TV was on, and others were watching it. George was reading the current issue of Sports Illustrated.

  “So, what good article you reading, George?”

  “I was looking for the results of your game from last night,” he smiled. “Can’t find it.”

  “Mr. Comedian. We won, and I can guarantee you won’t find it in there. I had a pretty good game, but dropped two easy balls, one that woulda gone.”

  “Watch the ball fall into your hands, then run with it.”

  “Boy, I’ll say. I took a lotta ribbing for that. Always said if I can touch it, I can catch it. Sometimes, not always so easy.”

  “The pros can’t always do that, D. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “You’re right. I’ll just do better next week. We continue division play. Don’t know who we play yet.”

  “How much time you have so we can get back to my story?”

  Demetrius thought about it. “About twenty minutes. You guys just finished robbing the pharmacies and blowing up the banks.”

  “That really sounds bad, doesn’t it? I didn’t tell the detectives I drove the car for those crimes because I was too scared they would throw me in prison for a lifetime. They only charged me for being in a stolen car and involved in a hit and run. No sense telling them everything.”

  “I hear ya on that one.”

  “Okay, so it’s Halloween, and Idzi planned something crazy. We took one of the stolen cars we had in that garage and drove over to the old police station on Third and Hadley. All the way, Idzi kept sayin’ how he wanted to hurt and kill some cops. It was plenty dark out, so I parked the car on the street and turned off the lights. Idzi and Shrimp took one of the bombs from the car and walked down the alley. They were back in a couple minutes. The explosion went off just as I was pulling away from the curb. It was loud as hell. Idzi told me to drive over to the other police station on Twelfth and Vine. They got out with one of the bombs and did the same thing there. When they got back into the car, I drove off and kaboom! I bet all them cops were freaked out when the place exploded. I parked the car on the street a couple blocks from our clubhouse, and we finished off another bottle of brandy that night. I used to get some hangover headaches from those nights.”

  “Nutso. So how much damage and stuff did you do?”

  “We read in the paper there was damage to both police stations and some officers got hurt, but none were killed. Idzi was really mad the bombs d
idn’t do as much damage as he wanted them to, especially not killing any cops. He said he was going to build a big bomb and take out some people with the next one. I think he was planning on doing either city hall or the safety building next. That was police headquarters back then.”

  “Boy, I bet the cops were really ticked off.”

  “You bet. The FBI came into the city in force after the bank bombings, and there seemed to be blue suits and G-Men everywhere. I know the city was in a frenzy about the whole thing. The local paper even started referring to us as ‘The Mad Bombers.’ Idzi fed off of that.”

  “D, come on. We have to go.”

  Demetrius turned around and saw Tim motioning for him to come over.

  “I have to go, George. See you next time.”

  “Okay.”

  Demetrius walked over to Tim. “What do we got?”

  “A resident in Room 243 threw up all over her room and in the hallway. Ambulance just took her to the hospital.”

  “I’ll get the mop bucket and meet you over there.”

  “Good. I roped it off so no one does the slide until we can clean it up.”

  Wisconsin Crime Lab: Milwaukee

  Sitting at his desk in the ballistic section of the Wisconsin Crime Lab on Eleventh and Lapham in Milwaukee, Forensic Program Technician Walter Ferio grabbed scissors off his desk and cut open the top of the sealed plastic bag. He removed the two small, white cardboard matchbox-size boxes, using his knife to break through the white adhesive tape. He noticed the initials “RHB,” indicating the law enforcement officer who sealed the bag, along with the date of sealing, on the tape as he did so.

  Some of the red wax used to seal the tape endings fell onto his desk. He opened the box and removed a Remington-Peters brand .40 caliber brass casing from the first box. Ferio etched his initials, the date, and item number onto the casing to complete the chain of custody requirements. He then placed the casing into the IBIS computer and ran a standard correlation on it.

  Ballistic matching on the bullet was performed using a program called BULLETPROOF. Another program, BRASSCATCHER, ran the correlations of cartridge casings with similar markings. The IBIS computer took two photographs of the casing: one that the computer searched by shades of blacks and grays for comparisons, while the second photograph was more examiner friendly for searching.

  IBIS stands for Integrated Ballistic Identification System. It is an automated computer system developed in 2003 by Forensic Technology Manufacturing, linking firearms-related evidence. The specific markings left behind on the back of the cartridge casing firing pin is where IBIS searches. The marks created are like fingerprints to the technician. The circles, parallels, crosshatch marks, and arches have their own identification when the breach face of the weapon is machined.

  The IBIS computer works much the same as AFIS and CODIS, which are identification systems used for fingerprints and DNA. The images are entered into the system to search from multiple databases of current and past crime scenes. It then kicks out nearly exact matches, leaving the investigator to compare between the images of the evidence and the database to achieve a perfect match.

  Ferio carefully lifted the casing out of the IBIS holder, placed it back into the pillbox, and duplicated the process with the next four casings. Under the microscope, there was no question the weapon used in the homicide was a Glock brand .40 caliber. The imprint from a Glock firing pin nearly always leaves a unique elliptical imprint on the primer that is observable to the trained eye, compared to the hemispherical mark left by other .40 caliber guns. That meant either a model 22, 23 or 27.

  He had already pulled several comparison brands of semi-auto lab weapons from the gun vault and fired them through the “beer mug.” This part of the job was a “gunlick’s” dream. Ferio enjoyed working the firearms section, but to be able to fire weapons on the job was a bonus. The beer mug was a 3/16th-inch thick, heavy-duty steel pipe. One end of the pipe had a flat, metal welded plate that sat solidly on the floor, leaving the other end open. It was packed tightly with cotton threads and the rounds were fired into the cotton and retrieved. The pristine bullet had all the lands and groove imprints from the inside of the barrel and could be matched with the recovered bullets. His two-dimensional computer confirmed that the bullet taken from Harold Carter’s head was fired from a Glock .40 caliber pistol. He noted this conclusion in his report, which would be sent back to the police department in the morning, hand-delivered mail.

  In another lifetime, Ferio was a member of the US Navy in Vietnam, assigned to a boat patrol in the Mekong Delta. He was often at the ready with a fully automatic M-16 and within close proximity of the twin-mounted .50 caliber machine guns. The names of some of his buddies were etched into the granite walls of the Vietnam Wall Memorial in Washington, DC. Upon returning to the States in 1970, he switched to the Coast Guard and spent the next twenty-two years at a number of small boat stations along the West Coast. While at his final assignment at Station Sturgeon Bay, he fell in love with Wisconsin. He married a Milwaukee girl and decided to plant his roots there.

  “What do you have, Walt?”

  “Just matched the recovered casings and bullet from the homicide in Gordon Park from a week or so ago. For some reason, this case was flagged for an immediate. Definitely a Glock. My guess is a model 22, but the examiner will have to verify with his machine.”

  “I remember reading about it.”

  “Always love it when we get a positive identification. Now the cops will know what to look for. It’s the least we can do for them, for now.”

  Chapter 19

  DISTRICT FIVE POLICE STATION: MILWAUKEE

  It was ten fifteen in the evening when Police Officer John Birke parked his marked Dodge Charger “police package” squad in the south parking lot at District Five. He had two reports to file before his four-to-midnight shift ended, with no desire for a late assignment tonight. Three full days of court for an armed robbery jury trial and five straight work nights had sapped his strength. As he exited the squad, he noticed an older, green Toyota four door containing two bald white males going southbound through the alley. The men gave him a “fisheye” look, which he knew was a sure telltale sign of trouble.

  Birke noted the rear Wisconsin license plate. The car turned eastbound out of the alley and caught the green light at Martin Luther King Drive, heading back north. Just as Birke was about to get back into the squad to catch up to them, he heard a loud explosion and saw a bright flash from the back of the station. Instinctively, he knelt down between his squad and another parked next to it, to protect himself from flying debris or shrapnel. Instantly, he was faced with a dilemma: get back into his squad and chase after the car or stay at the scene to assist those who had been injured or worse.

  He reached for the microphone on his nylon squad jacket. Calmly, he keyed the mike and spoke into it. “Squad 5258 to dispatch for the air!”

  One long second passed. “All squads standby. Go ahead, you have the air.”

  “5258 to all squads. Explosion just occurred at the northeast corner of District Five. Damage and casualties not immediately known. Involved is an older-model, green Toyota four door, Wisconsin plates ADF673. Wanted are two bald, white males in their twenties. Both suspects appeared to be wearing black leather jackets and the passenger had a dark beard. Vehicle last seen northbound on MLK Drive from the scene. Dispatch, I need a listing. Fire department units requested. At least two vehicles on fire, east side of the building along the alley.”

  “10-4, squad 5258, get back to us with any additional, KSA536.”

  “Shit, that pig saw us!” screamed Spike, turning right onto a side street. The loaded Glock 22, .40 caliber handgun sat next to him on the seat.

  “We need to ditch this bitch,” Madman yelled, scanning the road for any signs of squad cars. “I thought you said no one would be around the station now.”

  “Nothing’s 100 percent!”

  Spike drove the car into an alley west of the Mi
lwaukee River and parked it behind a garage. There was no movement up or down the alley. “Okay, let’s go.”

  “What are we gonna do with these other bombs?”

  “Hide it behind one of the garbage cans, and we’ll get it later.”

  Madman grabbed the red plastic bag from the trunk, and they ran halfway down the alley. He set it behind one of the large, green garbage carts in front of a garage. They threw their blue latex gloves into a cart and cut through one of the yards, walking down the street to a corner bar.

  “Let’s have a coupla brewskis to celebrate.” “Now you’re talkin’.”

  “Doubt if we hurt anyone in the initial blast. I know we wrecked some of them pigs’ rides. Would love to see their faces when the other one goes off.”

  Cautiously walking along the east side of the brown brick building, Birke tried to assess the damage. A newer-model Chevrolet 1500 parked next to the building was engulfed in flames. So was a car on either side of it. The explosion left a gaping hole in the wall he “guesstimated” to be ten feet in diameter. Birke could see straight into the garage and hoped no one had been inside when the bomb went off. Bricks and brick shards would have been high-speed projectiles flying at them.

  “John, what happened?” Mark Sandick and two police officers came running toward him. Sergeant Sandick was the acting shift lieutenant.

  Birke put his left index finger up for them to standby as he re-keyed the radio mike. “5258, dispatch, advise the fire department there are three vehicles in flames. Injuries unknown.”

  “10-4. Be advised the plate comes back to a Harold Sampson Carter Jr., on a 1999 Toyota Corolla four door listed as stolen. Taken in a homicide from a week ago. MFD notified on the status of the vehicles.”

  “Copy.” He looked over at Sergeant Sandick. “Sarge, I had just parked my squad in the lot. When I exited, I saw a car with two white guys driving through the alley. They went east, then northbound on MLK when the explosion occurred. I immediately broadcast what I had, including the subject vehicle and license plate.”