The pink burner phone is buzzing.
Jane steps over, giving Andy an inquisitive look. He nods and waves her on.
Jane answers the phone. “Hello?”
“Who is this, please?” A man’s voice.
“Who is this, please?” Jane responds.
A pause. “Is this . . . Lauren?”
Jane looks at Andy, who is standing close and can hear everything. “Him first,” Andy whispers.
“Please tell me who’s calling,” Jane says.
The man clears his throat. “This is Sergeant Don Cheronis, Chicago P.D. Am I speaking to Lauren?”
“No. This is Sergeant Jane Burke, Grace Village P.D.”
“No shit?” he says. “We’re investigating a suspicious death.”
Jane looks at Andy, a look of revelation on his face.
“What a coincidence,” she says. “So are we.”
86
Jane
Sergeant Donald Cheronis of the Chicago P.D., Fourteenth District, a head full of wavy gray hair and a narrow, lined face, is waiting by the doorway when Jane and Andy are buzzed through the front door.
“We need to get the body out of here,” he says, shaking hands with them. “But I made them wait for you.”
“I appreciate that, Don. Very much.”
Jane is immediately hit with the pungent odor of a dead body’s decay. The medical examiner and the circumstantial evidence, according to Cheronis, put the time of death at approximately two nights ago, on Halloween night.
He waves them in. “To your left,” he says. “Say hello to Christian Newsome.”
Jane stops, keeps her distance, takes it all in. On the coffee table, a bottle of Basil Hayden bourbon, the top off.
On the couch, stiff and pale, sits Christian Newsome, his head lying back on the couch cushion, his vacant eyes facing the ceiling, exposing his throat and the single gunshot entry wound under his chin. Next to him, a spilled pill bottle, stripped of any name or indication, and several pills scattered on the couch and floor.
Behind him, on the wall, is massive blood and brain spatter.
He is wearing a white T-shirt and gym shorts.
His feet are bare. But next to them, haphazardly arranged as if tossed from his feet, a pair of boots, the color of caramel, with thick treads.
“Mind if I look at the boot?” she asks.
“Be my guest,” says Cheronis. “Photos and video are done. I’ll bag it when you’re done with it.”
Jane, gloves on, lifts up the boot and looks at the sole, just to confirm what she already suspects. The boots are Paul Roy Peak Explorers. Inside, on the boot’s tongue, is the boot size.
She looks at Andy. “Size thirteen,” she says.
He looks happier than Jane feels.
? ? ?
“We removed the gun from his hand,” Cheronis explains. “Obvious protocol. It was a Glock 23, had a nearly full magazine, only two bullets fired. Serial numbers scratched out.”
Two bullets.
“So, suicide?” Andy says.
“Maybe,” says Cheronis. “Look up at the ceiling.”
A yellow sticky tab hangs in the corner, where the wall with the blood spatter meets the ceiling. A bullet hole.
“That’s not the shot that killed him, obviously,” says Cheronis. “Angle doesn’t work at all.”
“A second shot,” Jane says.
“A second shot.”
Jane looks at Cheronis, then Andy. “Maybe not suicide.”
“We don’t have the tox screen back yet, so who knows how full of booze and drugs he was,” says Cheronis. “But I’ll tell you, I’ve seen a lot in my time. I’ve seen a lot of suicides. I’ve seen a lot of hesitation with suicide victims. But I’ve never seen someone turn a gun on themselves and miss.”
? ? ?
“So his name is Christian Newsome,” Jane says, glancing at Andy, who’s thinking about that religious name comment in the text messages.
Cheronis hands her a business card. All green, the color of money. No logo or catchphrase. Just the name, “Christian Newsome,” in a simple black font, then beneath it, separated by a horizontal line, “Newsome Capital Growth.”
In the corner, the contact information:
NEWSOME CAPITAL GROWTH
Grant Thornton Tower
161 North Clark Street
Suite 1320
Chicago, IL 60601
Jane hands Andy the card. “The Grant Thornton Tower,” she says.
“That’s Clark and Randolph downtown,” says Cheronis. “Across the street from the Daley Center and the Thompson Center. Most people know it as the Chicago—”