Second Chance

Chapter 4

I HEARD MY NAME CALLED OUT over the din of the crowd. It was Jacobi. He was in the woods behind the church. “Hey Lieutenant, come check this out.”

Heading over, I wondered what kind of person could do such a terrible thing. I had worked on a hundred homicides; usually drugs, money or sex was at the heart of them. But this... this was meant to shock. -

“Check it out,” Jacobi said, bending down over a spot.

He'd found a bullet casing.

“M Sixteen, I bet,” I replied.

Jacobi nodded. “Little lady's been brushing up during her time off? Shell's a Remington two twenty-three.”

“Lieutenant Little Lady to you.” I smirked. Then I told him how I knew.

Dozens of empty shells were scattered all around. We were deep in the brush and trees, hidden from the church.

Casings were strewn in two distinct clusters about five yards apart.

“You can see where he started firing,” Jacobi said. “I figure here. He must've moved around.”

From the first cluster of shells, there was a clear line of sight to the side of the church. That stained-glass window in full view... all those kids streaming toward the street... I could see why no one had spotted him. His hiding place was totally protected.

“When he reloaded, he must've moved over there.” Jacobi pointed.

I made my way over and crouched near the second cluster of shells. Something wasn't making sense. The facade of the church was in view; the front steps where Tasha Catchings had lain. But only barely.

I squinted through an imaginary sight, leveling my gaze at where Tasha must've been when she was hit. You could barely even fix it into sight. There was no way he could've intentionally been aiming for her. She had been struck from a totally improbable angle.

“Lucky shot,” Jacobi muttered. “What do you think, a ricochet?”

“What's back here?” I asked. I looked around, pushing my way through the thick bushes leading away from the church.

No one had seen the shooter escape, so he obviously hadn't made his way along Harrow Street. The brush was about twenty feet deep.

At the end was a five-foot-high chain-link fence dividing the church grounds from the surrounding neighborhood. The fence wasn't high. I planted my flats and hoisted myself over.

I found myself facing penned-in backyards and tiny row houses. A few people had gathered, watching the show. To the right, the playgrounds of the Whitney Young projects.

Jacobi finally caught up with me. “Take it easy, Loo,” he huffed. “There's an audience. You're making me look bad.”

“This is how he must've made his way out, Warren.” We looked in both directions. One way led toward an alley, the other toward a row of homes.

I shouted to a group of onlookers who had gathered on a back porch, “Anyone see anything?” No one responded.

“Someone was shooting at the church,” I shouted. “A little girl's been killed. Help us out. We need your help.”

Everyone stood around with the unconfiding silence of people who don't talk to the police.

Then slowly a woman of about thirty came forward. She was nudging a young boy ahead of her. “Bernard saw something,” she said in a muffled voice.

Bernard appeared to be about six, with cautious, round eyes, wearing a gold-and-purple Kobe Bryant sweatshirt.

“It was a van,” Bernard blurted. “Like Uncle Reggie's.” He pointed to the dirt road leading to the alley. “It was parked down there.”

I knelt down, gently smiling into the scared boy's eyes.

“What color van, Bernard?”

The kid replied, “White.”

“My brother's got a white Dodge minivan,” Bernard's mother said.

“Was it like your uncle's, Bernard?” I asked.

“Sorta. Not really though.”

“Did you see the man who was driving it?”

He shook his head. “I was bringing out the garbage. I only saw it drive away.”

“Do you think you would recognize it again if you saw it?” I asked.

Bernard nodded.

“Because it looked like your uncle's?”

He hesitated. “No, because it had a picture on the back.”

“A picture? You mean like an insignia? Or some kind of advertising?”

“Uh-uh.” He shook his head; his moon-like eyes were searching around. Then they lit up. “I mean like that.” He pointed toward a pickup truck in a neighbor's driveway.

There was a sticker of a Cal Golden Bear on the rear bumper.

“You mean a decal?” I confirmed.

“On the door.”

I held the boy softly by the shoulders. “What did this decal look like, Bernard?” “Like Mufasa,” the boy said, “from The Lion King.”

“A lion?” My mind raced through anything that seemed likely. Sports teams, college logos, corporations... “Yeah, like Mufasa,” Bernard repeated. “Except it had two heads.”