Fuzzy Navel

TUHC

The ink on the card is slightly smeared, and the edges have a fine perforation to them. The killer probably printed it himself using his home computer and those blank business card sheets available at office supply stores.

I frown, not liking this at all. In my experience, killers who leave messages aren’t likely to stop any time soon. I have a bad feeling that there’s more to this than hiring a mercenary to avenge a rape.

I stare back at the apartment, viewing the line of site. Perhaps two hundred yards. With the proper rifle, not a difficult shot at all. My mom, a former Chicago cop herself, used to have a Winchester Model 70 she’d inherited from her father. During my teenage years we’d go on afternoon excursions down to southern Illinois farmland and regularly hit ears of corn from four hundred yards, and probably farther, with thirty-aught-six rounds. She’d sold the gun de cades ago – not much use for long arms in an urban environment.

Herb gives the card the same treatment he gave the bullet, holding it at arm’s length to read it. Glasses are in his future.

“TUHC?” His voice registers the same displeasure I feel. “I hate it when they leave us notes.”

My cell buzzes. I free it from my inner jacket pocket and slap it to my face.

“Daniels.”

“Lieutenant? This is Bobalik, Homicide from District 20, Ravenswood. Heard you got a sniper.”

“News travels fast.”

“Let me guess – one shot to the head, through the window from a few hundred yards away, vic was a sex offender?”

News must travel even faster than I thought.

“Yeah. How did you know?”

“I’m at a scene on Leavitt,” she says. “Victim’s name is Chris Wolak. Same MO.”

“Got a time of death?” I ask.

“Call came at a few minutes after five.”

Ravenswood is a Chicago neighborhood about five miles away from us, but Bobalik’s victim died at the same time ours did. I frown at the obvious conclusion.

“It gets better,” Bobalik says. “Guess what happened in Englewood at the same time?”

“One more dead pervert,” I say, quoting the card.

I fill Bobalik in on the details, then hang up and relate everything to Herb.

“Three snipers,” he says. “Jesus. Why don’t we ever get the normal cases? A guy gets drunk, shoots his neighbor for playing his radio too loud?”

I look at the business card again and wonder the same thing.