Chapter Eighteen
Sam sent a text to Celia, who was a night owl, asking if she could come by to see her dad about the case.
Of course, honey. He’s watching Fallon. Come on over.
“You don’t honestly think that a decorated former member of our department is doing this, do you?” Freddie asked.
“I don’t honestly have the first freaking clue who’s doing this, and as such, I will leave no stone unturned, including the ones that seem preposterous.”
“I hate cases like this,” he said. “We have nothing to go on, and we know they’re going to strike again. In the meantime, the city is paralyzed with fear at a time of year when everyone wants to be out and about.”
“In other words, the perps are getting exactly what they want. The question is why? What’re they hoping to achieve in the long run?”
“Terror.”
Sitting at a red light, Sam looked over at him. “That’s an angle we haven’t fully explored and probably should.” She called Avery Hill. “Talk to me about your deeper look at homegrown terrorists.”
“I’ve got my people combing the databases looking for any connections, and I’m talking to the intelligence agencies about chatter in recent weeks.”
“Excellent. Keep me posted?”
“I will.”
“Appreciate your help on this one, Avery.”
“Whatever we can do.”
Sam slapped her phone closed. “They’re on it.”
“I know it goes against everything we believe in, but you did the right thing bringing in the Feds.”
“This isn’t the kind of case where pride matters. Who cares who breaks it as long as someone does.”
“Well, it would be nice if it was us.”
“Duh.”
Freddie laughed. “Just so you know, boss of my life, I talked to Elin about the kid thing over dinner, and she sorta sees your point.”
“I knew I liked her.”
“You couldn’t stand her for the longest time,” he said scornfully.
“That is not true. I never disliked her. I wasn’t sure she was right for you.”
“She is so right for me,” he said with a salacious smile that had Sam scowling at him.
“Spare me the gory details, Romeo.”
“The details are so, so gory.”
“Stop it!”
Freddie was still laughing when they pulled up to the Ninth Street checkpoint where they were waved through by the Secret Service.
Sam parked in her usual spot and headed for her dad’s house with Freddie right behind her. They went up the ramp, and Sam knocked on the front door before going in.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to knock on that door?” Celia asked from her perch on the sofa.
“After you two crazy kids were caught making out, I’m always going to knock.”
Celia’s heart-shaped face turned bright red.
“She does that stuff to me, too,” Freddie said.
“I’m a good time had by all,” Sam said with a cheeky grin.
“She should’ve been spanked more as a child,” Celia said, teasing.
Sam laughed. “They couldn’t catch me to spank me. Mind if we pop back to see Dad?”
“He’s waiting for you.”
Sam led the way through the kitchen to her father’s bedroom in what used to be the dining room. A hospital bed sat where the dining room table had once been. She leaned over the bed rail to kiss his forehead. “How you doing, Skippy?”
“Better than you from what I saw on the news. A six-year-old? So awful.”
It was no surprise that he’d take this case hard, having lost his first partner to a drive-by shooting that remained unsolved.
“Yeah.” Sam sat in the chair next to his bed. “It was awful. The dad was a single parent. He’s inconsolable.”
“Terrible. Tell me you have something.”
“We’ve got dick, and we’re chasing our tails. We’ve even called in the Feds, voluntarily.” He would know how desperate they were if they’d taken that measure.
“What can I do?”
“Talk to me about Kenneth Wallack.”
The side of his face that still had expressive ability registered shock. “What about him?”
“He’s a trained sharpshooter.”
“Sam, come on. He’s one of us. You can’t seriously think he’s involved.”
“We’re investigating every person in the local area who has the ability to do what this shooter is capable of—hitting targets with deadly accuracy while traveling at a high rate of speed. His name came up, and I’m looking for some perspective.”
“Does Joe know you’re looking at him?” he asked of the chief.
“He does, and he’s not happy about it.”
“He wouldn’t be. They were great friends coming up through the ranks. Wallack was even closer to Conklin. I think they were in each other’s weddings.”
“If he was close to Uncle Joe, why don’t I remember him?”
“I don’t know. We’ve worked with so many people over the years. It’s hard to keep track of them all sometimes. But Kenny, he’s a good guy. He’d never be caught up in something like this.”
“Who were his other friends in the department?”
“Conklin was his partner for a couple of years,” he said of the deputy chief. “And for a brief time, he hung out with Stahl, but that didn’t last.”
“How come?”
“Stahl has always been the Stahl you know. He became more so over time, and people kept their distance, even people who’d once been his friend.”
“Interesting,” Sam said.
“Did Wallack have any issues during his career?” Freddie asked.
“A contentious divorce from his first wife that spilled onto the job for a time. He was sent to rehab and came out having found the Lord. That put people off for a while, but he eventually settled down and refocused on the job.”
“So they let a guy with substance abuse problems be a sharpshooter?” Sam asked.
“As far as I know, he never touched a drop of booze again after he left rehab. He was a changed man, and that was obvious to everyone. And no one, and I do mean no one, could shoot like he could. The guy was one hundred percent on the mark. It would’ve been a tragic waste of talent not to use him in that role. ”
A tingle of sensation traveled down Sam’s backbone. In fourteen years on the job, she’d learned to trust the feeling that told her she was on to something. “What’ve you heard of him in recent years?”
“Not much. He doesn’t come to the reunions, but I did hear somewhere along the line that he got married again, and it’s a real love match.”
“This is all very helpful. Thank you.”
“Whatever I can do, baby girl. You know that, but I think you’re barking up the wrong tree here. He was a decorated officer.”
“I’m dotting the Is and crossing the Ts the way my dad taught me.”
Half his face lifted in a smile. “Keep me posted?”
“Always. And call me if you think of anything else about him that I ought to know.”
“I will. Have you looked at your current roster of sharpshooters?”
The question struck Sam like a hammer to the head. “Um, no?”
Skip’s eyebrow lifted. He got a lot done with that one brow.
“Freddie,” she said, “take a memo. Look into existing MPD sharpshooters.”
“Got it.”
“Get some sleep, Skippy,” Sam said, kissing him.
“You, too, baby girl.”
“Not happening tonight.”
They said goodnight to Celia and went back outside, Sam glancing longingly at her home as they walked to her car. Exhaustion tugged at her, but she didn’t have time to be tired.
“Where’re we heading now?”
“Back to the house to do some digging on sharpshooters, past and present.”
They spent the rest of the night investigating everyone they could find who had the skills to perpetrate an accurate, high-speed shooting.
By four in the morning, they’d ruled out two current MPD officers, Fitzgivens and Sellers, by verifying they’d been on vacation together and out of town at the time of the first round of shootings, leaving one other current officer who had the skills—Sergeant Dylan Offenbach.
With Freddie standing in the doorway, Sam placed a call to SWAT Captain Nicholson at two a.m. “Sorry to wake you, Captain. You’re on Speaker with myself and Detective Cruz.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Sergeant Offenbach,” Sam said.
“What about him?”
“We’re unable to determine his whereabouts this week and were hoping you might be able to help us as his commander.”
After a pause, he said, “Why’re you trying to verify his whereabouts?”
“It’s part of our investigation into the drive-by shootings.”
“You gotta be fucking kidding me. You’re looking inside the department?”
“We’re looking for people who have the skills necessary to perpetrate this crime. Your sergeant is someone who has the skills.”
“Well, it wasn’t him. He’s at a conference in Philadelphia. He’s been there since Saturday, so that rules him out.”
“We’ll need the information about the conference and the hotel where he’s been staying.”
“He’s one of your brothers in blue, Lieutenant.”
“I understand that, Captain, and I regret the need to follow up in this way, but I can either get the information I need from you, or I can ask someone over both our heads to get it for me. Either way, I’m going to confirm the sergeant has been in Philadelphia since Saturday.”
After a long, long pause, Nicholson rattled off the name of the hotel where Offenbach was staying.
“Let me ask you one more thing,” Sam said. “Fitzgivens and Sellers were both on vacation and Offenbach was at a conference. What were we supposed to do if we needed a sharpshooter and all three of our current officers with that skill were out of town?”
She could hear the snarl in his tone. “We had a scheduling mix-up, and we were only without someone for twenty-four hours. Fitzgivens and Sellers returned from vacation late on Sunday night and were back on duty Monday morning.”
“I see,” Sam said. “Good thing we didn’t need a sharpshooter on Saturday night or Sunday morning, huh?”
“Is there anything else you need?”
“That’ll do it for now. Appreciate your cooperation.” Sam pressed the button to disconnect the call.
“That was intense.”
“I’d feel the same way if someone came to me asking those kinds of questions about one of you.”
“You’re only doing the job.”
“Still, it would piss me off as a commander that someone would suggest one of my people could’ve been responsible for a crime.”
“You didn’t suggest that. You asked for information.”