WHEN SAM ARRIVED on V Street Northeast, the keening wails of the child’s father sent a chill down her spine. If there had ever been a worse sound in the history of the world, she couldn’t imagine what it was.
Officer Beckett greeted her, his expression grim. “Fucking hideous,” he said bluntly. “They were walking hand in hand, talking about the ice cream they were going to get, and she was hit in the chest. Probably killed instantly.”
Sam sighed. “What’s her name?”
“Vanessa Marchand. The dad is Trey. Needless to say, he’s inconsolable.”
“What about the mother?”
“We can’t get anything from him. He’s out of his mind. You might have better luck.”
Sam took a deep breath, steeling herself to deal with Trey Marchand’s nightmare, and stepped under the crime scene tape that Beckett held up for her.
A tarp covered the tiny body on the sidewalk. The father leaned over her, sobbing and rocking back and forth. He was black, muscular, handsome, the type of man who would turn female heads anywhere he went.
Looking back at Beckett, Sam said, “Where’re the paramedics?”
“On the way. They’re straight out tonight.”
“Call them again.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Where the hell was Freddie when she needed him? She assumed he’d gotten the same call from Dispatch, so what was taking him so long to get there? He’d be better at handling the distraught father than she’d ever be. But since she was the only one there, it fell to her.
“Mr. Marchand.” Sam placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m Lieutenant Holland, Metro PD. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
He shook his head. “Not my baby. Please no.” Tears drenched his face, and his hands trembled violently.
She wanted to hug him and tell him everything would be okay, when it would never be okay again. Again, she wondered how people survived these things. “How about we take a walk and get a little air? Officer Beckett will stay with Vanessa until the others arrive.”
“No, I can’t leave her. She’ll be scared.”
Since he wasn’t willing to budge, Sam knelt on the sidewalk next to him and kept her hand on his shoulder, feeling impotent and useless, knowing nothing she said or did would bring him comfort.
“We stayed in last night,” he said after a long silence broken only by his sobs. “Like they said we should. Nessa, she wanted to play. She begged me to go out.” He wiped his face as the tears continued to fall. “I knew we shouldn’t, but it’s summer. We go to the park every night in the summer. Why couldn’t it have been me? Why?” His helpless sobs broke her heart.
Sam’s throat closed around a huge lump of emotion. All she could do was squeeze his shoulder and pray the paramedics would get there soon.
After a long period of silence, she cleared her throat and forced herself to put the emotion aside to focus on the job that needed to be done. “Did you see the car?”
He shook his head. “I heard it coming. There was a squealing sound that caught my attention, but I barely had time to look before...”
In the distance, Sam heard sirens and hoped that meant the paramedics were close. “Is there someone I could call for you? A friend or family member? How about Vanessa’s mother?”
“She left us years ago,” he said in a dead-sounding voice. “It’s just the two of us. Always has been.”
Dear God, Sam thought. I can’t do this.
At the sound of someone approaching them, she looked up with relief when she saw Lindsey McNamara.
“Isn’t there anyone I could call for you?”
“My brother,” he said. “He’d come.”
“Do you know his number offhand?”
He withdrew his cell phone and found the number. “That’s him.” He handed the phone to her. “Jamie.”
Glancing at Lindsey, Sam nodded toward Trey, asking her to watch over him while she made the call. She would’ve introduced Lindsey, but she knew it wouldn’t matter to Trey.
Lindsey nodded in acknowledgment.
Sam walked a short distance away and pressed Send to place the call.
“Yo, what’s up?”
“Mr. Marchand?”
“Yeah, who’s this?”
“Lieutenant Sam Holland, Metro PD.”
“What the hell? Where’s my brother?”
Sam closed her eyes and prayed for the strength to get through this. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that your niece, Vanessa, was shot and killed near the playground on V Street.”
“Oh my God,” he said in a whisper. “Oh God, no. Trey...”
“Can you come? He needs you.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
The line went dead, and Sam walked back over to Trey, who was being comforted by Lindsey. She handed him his phone. “Your brother will be here shortly.”
He nodded.
The paramedics showed up a few minutes later, and with Sam’s help, they convinced Trey to let them tend to him.
“I’ll be with Vanessa,” Lindsey said. “I won’t leave her for a minute.”
As the paramedics led him away, Trey looked back over his shoulder several times.
“Unbearable,” Lindsey said.
“The worst,” Sam said.
Lindsey lifted the tarp to reveal a beautiful little girl with braids in her hair. She wore a white dress with sunflowers all over it that was now covered in blood from the huge wound on her chest. “The poor baby.” Lindsey brushed away tears and signaled for her team.
Captain Malone arrived on the scene and waved Sam over.
She briefed him and watched his face harden with rage.
“They killed a baby,” he said.
“I know.”
“We have to find these motherfuckers, Sam. This has to stop.”
“I couldn’t agree more, but whoever they are, they’re good. It happens so fast, no one sees them coming.”
“What do we have for video around here?”
“That’s my next question. I’ll check with Archie and let you know.” She glanced at the back of the ambulance where Trey was being treated for shock. “He’s a single dad. She had braids in her hair and the cutest dress.”
“What the hell does he do now?” Malone asked.
Sam released a deep sigh. “I can’t begin to imagine.”
“The press is going to be even more aggressive than they were before when they hear about this one. The mayor has already called the chief—again.”
“I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I want to bring in Avery and his team more formally on this. We need all the help we can get.”
“I agree. Maybe the Marshals too.”
“I’ll make the calls.”
“Let’s get everyone back to HQ to regroup when you’re finished here.”
“I’ll see you there.”
Freddie and Gonzo arrived separately and spread out to begin interviewing the people gathered outside the crime scene tape, looking for anyone who might’ve witnessed the shooting.
Sam went to talk to Trey before he was transported for observation. She handed her card to his brother, who had arrived while she talked to Malone. “Please call me if I can do anything for you or if you think of anything that might be useful to the investigation.”
Nodding, Trey wiped away more tears.
“I hope you understand that I have to ask if there was anyone in your life that might’ve wanted to harm you or Vanessa.”
“No, I’m not into anything like that. I go to work, I take care of my kid, and that’s my life. I barely have time to see my friends and family.”
Sam wondered when he would realize he had nothing but time now. It was such a cruel, senseless loss. “If you think of anything or anyone who might have a beef, even a coworker who got passed over for a promotion that you got or something as trivial as a parking dispute, I want to know.”
“I can’t think of anything, but if I do, I’ll call you.”
“I’m so, so sorry this happened to you and Vanessa. I’ll do everything I can to get justice for you both. I promise.”
He nodded again. “Thank you.”
Feeling shredded by his grief, Sam left him to the care of paramedics and his brother and went to check in with Lindsey, who was preparing to transport Vanessa to the morgue.
“Days like this make me question my career choice,” Lindsey said.
“Right there with you. We’re calling in the Feds to help us, and you know how much I hate doing that, but we’re getting nowhere fast.”
“Take all the help you can get. The goal is to stop them before they kill anyone else. Who cares how that happens?”
“You’re absolutely right.” And Sam was left to wonder if she’d called in the cavalry sooner whether a little girl with braids in her hair might still be alive.
“I’ll see you back at the house,” Lindsey said.
Sam spent an hour helping Gonzo and Freddie interview bystanders, but like the other shootings, no one had seen enough to be helpful.
“This is so frustrating,” Sam said as they returned to their cars. “We have no more after five shootings than we had after the first.”
“I like your sharpshooter angle,” Gonzo said. “I have a feeling about that.”
“I do too,” Sam said. “Let’s see what Carlucci and Dominguez got done tonight.”
They headed for HQ in three separate cars. On the way, Sam called Avery Hill.
“Sorry to bother you,” she said, “but we’ve had another shooting. This time a six-year-old girl killed leaving a playground in Northeast.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, it was brutal. The father is a single dad, and the kid was obviously his whole world.”
“What can I do?”
“We need the cavalry. We’ve got dick, and we have to stop these people before they kill again.”
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“Thank you.” She placed the same call to Jesse Best, local commander of the U.S. Marshal Service. The Marshals specialized in finding people, and Sam hoped those skills could be used to hunt down the sons of bitches who were killing people in her city. Like Hill, Best agreed to meet at HQ within the hour.
At HQ, the usual throng of reporters had quadrupled and satellite trucks lined the street. Apparently, word was out about another shooting, and the fact that such a young child had been cut down would fuel the frenzy.
Sam drove around to the morgue entrance and bypassed Lindsey’s lab for now because she wasn’t ready to see that sweet child laid out on an autopsy table. She’d have to face that horror eventually, but not right now. The pit was overrun with detectives and brass, including Chief Farnsworth.
“Everyone in the conference room in five.” Sam ducked into her office, hoping for five minutes to decompress. She got exactly one minute to herself before someone knocked on the door. “Come in.”
Chief Farnsworth came in and closed the door. “You okay?”
“I’ve been better. She was just a little kid leaving the park with her dad.” Sam ran her fingers through her hair, which was still damp from the shower and the humidity. “And we’ve got abso-fucking-lutely nothing to go on.”
“The media is hungry for information about the latest shooting and the investigation. Can you do a quick briefing?”
“How about I write it up and we let Captain Norris and the Public Affairs people handle the actual briefing so it doesn’t turn into a three-ring circus about my husband?”
“I can live with that.”
“Captain Malone was on scene, and we agreed to call in the FBI and Marshals. We need all the help we can get.”
“Agreed. Encourage your team to seek counseling if they need it. This is a tough one.”
“They all are.”
“Indeed. I’ll let you get back to it.”
“Thanks for checking on me. Give me a minute to write the statement for Norris, and then I’ll be in.”
“You got it.”
Sam sat at her computer and wrote out the key facts about the latest shooting, mentioning they’d called in the FBI and U.S. Marshal Service to assist in the investigation and reiterated the warning asking city residents to remain indoors after sunset. When she was satisfied with the statement, she emailed it to Norris and suggested he not take any questions because they still had no answers.
She fired off a quick text to Nick, letting him know she’d be gone all night, and then went in to join the others in the conference room. “I want to talk sharpshooters,” she said without preamble.
“Per your request,” Detective Carlucci said, “Dominguez and I have been digging into that angle based on Detective McBride’s research from earlier. We have a few names worth considering. Two are ex-military, Special Forces, and one is former MPD.”
A shiver went down Sam’s spine when she heard the MPD acronym. “Who?” she asked.
“Kenneth Wallack,” Carlucci said. “Retired five years ago as a captain after a twenty-year career spent mostly in SWAT. He was an Army sharpshooter before he joined the department.”
“I knew him well,” Farnsworth said. “He came up with Skip, Conklin and me. We were all in the academy together. He’s one of the good guys. There’s no way he’s involved in this.”
“We still need to talk to him,” Sam said. “Whoever is doing this has mad skills with a weapon. He might be able to tell us something we don’t already know. He’s first on my list for the morning.”
Carlucci slid a piece of paper across the table. “He lives in Brentwood.”
“Which is right next door to Eckington,” Sam said.
“He’s not involved,” Farnsworth said sternly. “I’d stake my badge on it.”
“I’m just pointing out that he lives next to where one of the shootings took place.”
“So noted,” Farnsworth said. “Move on.”
“Who’re the ex-military?” Sam asked.
“Carlos Vega, a former Army Ranger who was a decorated sharpshooter during the Iraqi war, and Douglas Simpson, an ex-Navy SEAL who received a Purple Heart for his second tour in Afghanistan.”
“What was his injury?” Avery asked from his post next to Best in the back of the room.
“He was shot in the head and medically retired,” Carlucci said.
“Would he still have the faculties to carry out these kinds of shootings after an injury like that?” Malone asked.
“We’ll have to pay him a visit and find out,” Sam said.
“We’ll pay them both a visit tonight, if that would help,” Dominguez said.
“Go to it.”
Archie came into the room. “I’ve got a shot of the car that carried out the latest shooting.” He went over to the computer station and inserted a flash drive. The video appeared on the screen a few seconds later. “As you can see, we’re looking for a red SUV this time around. I wasn’t able to get the make or model or any distinguishing features because of the speed at which it was traveling, but the shape and size indicates SUV over sedan.”
“Have we had any reports of red SUVs stolen in the last forty-eight hours?” Sam asked him.
“Just one, so that gives us a plate number.” Archie handed her a report on the stolen car. “I’ve already put out an APB, and we’ve got everyone looking for that car.”
“I’ll put the info out to my people,” Best said.
“Good work, Lieutenant,” Farnsworth said.
“Yes, thank you, Archie,” Sam said.
“Happy to be able to give you something to work with. I’m going back upstairs to keep looking at the film. I’ll let you know if we find anything else.”
“Let’s go talk to the people who owned the stolen car,” Sam said.
“It’s almost midnight,” Freddie said.
“I don’t care what time it is. We’ve got murderers on the prowl. No time to waste.”
“I’m with you, boss.”
“Everyone else can keep looking for more on the sharpshooter angle. Call me if you get anything.” She left the conference room and went to her office to grab her keys, meeting Freddie in the hallway that led to the morgue. “Let’s do this.”
They drove to the Trinidad neighborhood in Northeast, to an address on Florida Avenue where Mary Jane and Rod Demmers lived. Sam didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty when she rang their doorbell at a quarter after midnight. It took a few minutes, but the porch light came on and the inside door opened to reveal a man in his mid-to late-fifties, wearing pajama pants and a T-shirt.
His eyes bugged when he recognized Sam.
“Mr. Demmers?” Sam flashed her badge. “I’m Lieutenant Sam Holland with the Metro PD. We’re here about the car you reported stolen two nights ago.”
“At this hour?”
“We believe your car has been used in the perpetration of a homicide. We’re sorry to disturb you, but we’re trying to find cold-blooded killers before they strike again.”
“Come in.” He stepped aside to admit them.
Sam appreciated that kind of cooperation.
His wife came down the stairs, wearing a robe and attempting to fix her bedhead. “What is it?”
The husband brought her up to speed, and she gasped, her hand over her heart. “Oh my God! Is it the same thugs who shot those poor innocent people a few nights ago?”
“We believe so,” Sam said, deciding not to tell them about Vanessa. They’d hear about her soon enough. “I read the report you gave our officers about the car being stolen from in front of your home, but it doesn’t say here if there were any stickers or other identifying features.”
“There’s a Feds sticker on the lower right side of the tailgate window and a Redskins flag on the upper left side,” he said.
“Don’t forget the faded Towson sticker,” she said. “Our daughter went there.”
Sam recorded everything they said in her notebook.
“There’s also a dent in the back seat door on the passenger side,” he said. “It got hit in a parking lot, and we hadn’t had the chance to get it fixed yet.”
“This is all very helpful,” Sam said, making a mental note to ask Patrol to do a better job of capturing these details when cars were reported stolen. They took so many of these routine reports that sometimes they glossed over the details. Sam handed the wife her card. “If you think of anything else, please call me.”
“We will,” she said. “I hope you catch these people. What they’re doing is so awful. Terrorizing an entire city.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Sam said. “And we are going to get them. Sorry again to disturb you so late.”
“It’s no problem,” he said. “We’re glad we could do something to help.”
Sam had her phone out before they were through the door, placing a call to Dispatch. “This is Lieutenant Holland with some more information about the red SUV we’re looking for.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Sam recited the details the Demmers had given them and asked the dispatcher to add the information to the APB.
“Yes, ma’am, Lieutenant. Right away.”
“Thank you.”
“What’s next?” Freddie asked when they were in the car.
“I want to talk to my dad about Wallack.”
“But the chief said...”
“I heard him. I still want my dad’s take.”