Marie Force - Fatal Chaos

Freddie pointed to a four-story building on the corner. “She lives on the second floor with a roommate named Delilah. We’ve notified her, and she gave us the contact information for Caroline’s family in Minnesota. We asked her to let us make the call. We were waiting for you to see how you wanted us to proceed.”

“Ugh.” Sam realized she’d probably have to handle the call that no cop ever wanted to make. And they said rank had its privileges. Whatever. She took the piece of paper with the parents’ names and phone number written on it from Freddie and stuffed it in her pocket. “Canvass?”

“We’ve been up and down the entire block,” Gonzo said. “No witnesses. Archie is pulling the footage from our cameras in the area.”

“Anything else?”

“Lindsey thinks she didn’t die immediately.”

“Goddamn it,” Sam whispered. “How long was she out here before someone called us?”

“Thirty minutes or more. She was dead by the time the first Patrol officer arrived on the scene.”

Sam blew out a deep breath full of frustration. “I want these guys. I want them bad.”

“Patrol is stopping every black sedan they encounter,” Gonzo said. “So far, they’ve pulled over nine different cars, but no sign of a nine millimeter or any other weapons.”

“Let’s head back to the house and regroup,” Sam said. “I’ll make the call to her parents on the way.”

“You want me to do it?” Freddie asked.

She gave him a wan smile, appreciating that he’d offer to do something no one wanted to do. In fact, she ought to let him do it because he was way better at those sorts of things than she’d ever be. But she couldn’t ask him to do something just because she didn’t want to. Not something like this anyway. “Thanks, but I’ve got it. Finish up here, and meet me at HQ.”

“Right behind you, LT,” Gonzo said.

Biting back the feeling of dread over the call she needed to make to parents who had no idea their world was about to implode, Sam got in the car, dialed the number and pressed Send before she could lose her nerve. As the call connected, she shifted the car into Park and drove to the intersection.

“Hello?” a friendly sounding woman said.

“Mrs. Brinkley?”

“Yes, who’s this?”

“This is Lieutenant Sam Holland, Metro PD in Washington, D.C.”

Mrs. Brinkley inhaled sharply. “Caroline?”

“Ma’am, I’m so sorry to have to tell you—”

The woman’s piercing screams brought tears to Sam’s eyes. God, she hated this.

A man came on the line. “Who is this?” he asked sharply.

Once again, Sam said, “Lieutenant Sam Holland, Metro PD in Washington, D.C.”

“Oh God, no. Not Caroline.”

In the background, Sam could hear the mother’s heartbroken sobs.

“I’m so sorry to have to tell you she was shot and killed early this morning.”

The man’s guttural moan had Sam brushing at tears while trying to stay focused on the road. This sucked so bad, worse than any other part of her awful job. She had no idea how people survived receiving this kind of news.

“Did you... Do you know who did it?”

“We don’t. Not yet. But we’re working on it. Caroline was the fourth in a string of drive-by shootings throughout the District last night and this morning.”

“So, it was random? It wasn’t anyone she knew?”

“We don’t know that for sure yet, but we don’t believe she knew the shooter.”

“Dear God. How can something like this happen? Caroline was a good girl. She worked hard and was back to school. She was trying to make something of herself.”

“I wish I had the answer to that question, but I’m going to do my best to find out who did this and bring them to justice for Caroline and the other victims.”

“What do we do now? Can we see her?”

At a stoplight, Sam closed her eyes and tried to contain her tears. “We can make that happen if you’d like to come here. I’ll give you my number, and you can call me to arrange it.”

“I’ll take your number. Hang on a minute while I get a pen.”

Sam waited for him and took a couple of deep breaths, hoping her heart would stop pounding. When he returned to the line, she gave him her number. “Feel free to call me anytime. I’m sorry that I have to ask if she had any problems with anyone that you knew of.”

“No, not at all. She has lots of friends. Everyone likes her.”

“Ask your wife when you can, and if you think of anything that might be relevant, please call me.”

“We will.”

“I’ll keep you informed about the investigation. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. We’ll be in touch. I need to see to my wife.”

“Of course.”

The call ended with a click, and Sam had to hold back the urge to throw her phone out the window so she’d never again have to make a call like that one. She wiped the tears from her cheeks, infuriated to be such an emotional basket case. A pang of anxiety struck her in the gut. Emotional outbursts were a hallmark of pregnancy for her. At least they had been in the past.

“We’re not thinking about that today.”

In the time it took to get to HQ, she got herself more or less under control and felt ready to face what promised to be a challenging workday. The usual media scrum outside the main door had doubled overnight, and since she was in no way prepared to face off with them, she drove around to the morgue entrance.

Inside, the frigid AC provided a welcome respite from the stifling humidity. Sam went into the morgue to get an update. She found Lindsey presiding over Caroline’s autopsy.

“What’ve you got for me, Doc?” Sam asked, noting their victim had been a pretty young woman with auburn hair and fair skin.

“Another nine-millimeter slug to add to our collection.” She gestured to the evidence bag containing the chunk of metal that had ended Caroline’s life.

“Gonzo said you don’t think she died instantly?”

“She definitely didn’t. The bullet nicked an artery. I’d say it took about twenty minutes for her to bleed out.”

“Would she have been conscious?”

“That’s hard to say.”

“I’m going to really hope she wasn’t.”

“She had a can of pepper spray rolled up in her hand.” Lindsey pointed to another evidence bag.

“For all the good it did her.” That little detail made Sam so mad—and so sad—for the young woman who’d seemingly done everything right.

“No kidding.” Lindsey glanced at Sam. “You call the family yet?”

“Yeah. That was loads of fun. They want to come here to see her. I told them we’d make it happen.”

“Those poor people. They got their kid to twenty-six. Thought they were in the clear, and then this happens.”

“I hate cases like this. People killing people simply for the thrill of it.”

“Is that the theory?”

“It’s all we’ve got to go on so far. Hopefully, we’ll have more by the end of the day.”

“Are you okay, Sam? You look a little...red around the eyes.”

“I...um, yeah, you know. Tough case. That’s all it is.” She’d learned the hard way to keep her suspicions about a possible pregnancy to herself. That way there were fewer people to tell when it either turned out not to be true or when it went bad. And it always went bad.

“I’m here if you need a friend. I hope you know that.”

“Of course,” Sam said, appalled when tears threatened again. For fuck’s sake. “Gotta hit it. Shoot me your report when it’s finished.”

“Will do.”

Sam headed for the pit, determined to keep her shit together and focus on the case—and only on the case. The four dead bodies in the morgue deserved her full attention, and they would get nothing less.