Fatal Chaos

“Why does hearing that bring me such unmitigated pleasure?”

“Because you’re a coldhearted woman, Lieutenant.”

Sam pretended to dab at her eyes. “You flatter me, Detective.”

His snort of laughter helped to lighten the dark mood that always descended upon her when someone was murdered in her city, especially a child.

“Only you would take that as a compliment.”

“That’s why you love me so much.”

“Whatever you say. What’s the plan?”

“I want to start my murder board and see what Archie was able to grab off the video feed. After that, I’ll brief Carlucci and Dominguez and turn it over to them. We’ll pick it up in the morning.”

“Um, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Carlucci and Dominguez are off tonight. It’s Sunday.”

“Damn it. Whose idea was it to give them time off?”

“I believe the union mandates that we all get two days a week off from this nuthouse.”

“Bloody unions. Who’s covering Homicide tonight?”

“Um, we are?”

“No, we’re not. I’m technically still on vacation, and you’re supposed to be off today too.”

“I don’t mind staying for a while to figure out what we’ve got and what we need to do next.”

“Fine. I’ll stay to help with that, but we’re not working all night.”

“You’re the boss, LT.”

“Yes, I am. Let’s go see Archie.” They went up the same stairs Ramsey had fallen down to get to the second-floor home of IT, which was lit up like a weekday, and SVU, which was dark. That meant there was no chance she might run into Ramsey while she was up there.

“How did I know I’d be hearing from you guys?” Lieutenant Archelotta asked, grinning at them from his post in front of a massive monitor. Several other IT detectives were working in cubicles.

“We’re predictable that way.” Sam was still grappling with the fact that her brief relationship with him had been made public during the investigation into her ex-husband’s murder. Her current husband had been none too happy to hear that she’d once been involved with the handsome IT detective, even if it was only a brief fling after her first marriage ended. “What’ve you got from the scene?”

“Not much, unfortunately. Take a look.” He clicked onto a different screen and played the video feed that showed a fast-moving car and a flash of light that had to be the gunshot, but the details were fuzzy because of the car’s rate of speed.

“Anything on other cameras in the area?” Freddie asked.

“We’re combing through that footage now. I’ll let you know if we see anything that might be helpful.”

“Thanks, Archie.”

“Wish I could do more to help, but we’ll keep trying. I hate when crap like this happens to kids.”

Sam squeezed his shoulder. “We all do. Thanks for your help.”

“Sure thing.”

“Well,” Sam said to Freddie when they were on their way back downstairs, “that takes us right back to square one without a thread to pull.”

“Let’s set up the board. That always leads to threads.”

“You read my mind, Detective.”

They went into the conference room and turned on the lights. Sam stopped short at the sight of the murder board for her ex-husband that hadn’t yet been dismantled, even though Peter’s case had been closed for several weeks.

“We weren’t sure if you wanted us to take care of that or if you wanted to do it yourself,” Freddie said.

Sam’s gaze landed on the postmortem photo of Peter’s bruised and battered face. He’d been tortured by Christopher Nelson’s henchman in an effort to gain information about Sam and Nick that could be used to discredit them. It still amazed her that despite their tumultuous history, Peter had tried to protect her in the end. That was the least of what he’d owed her, but it surprised her nonetheless.

“You guys can take it apart tomorrow. We don’t need it anymore.”

“Will do.” He went to a second dry-erase board and wrote Jamal Jackson, 15 across the top in red ink. Then he pinned a photo of Jamal to the left side of the board.

“Where’d you get that?” Sam asked, taking in the smiling face of the boy who’d been murdered.

“Off his Instagram account.”

Next to that, Freddie pinned a photo of Jamal taken from the crime scene and made notes about the time of death and the information Vincent and Corey had given them about the shooting. Then he drew a line from Jamal to a listing of his mother and sisters’ names.

“You can add that he was shot with a nine-millimeter weapon,” Sam said. “Lindsey is sending the bullet out for analysis.”

Freddie made a note of the bullet information. “What else?”

“That’s all we’ve got for now.”

“Where do you want to start?”

“While every instinct I have tells me this was random, we have to make sure of that. So we dig into his life, the friends’ lives, the mother’s life, the sisters’ lives.”

“Why the mother and sisters?”

“If someone had a beef with one of them, taking out Jamal could be retribution. Nothing would surprise me.”

“It’s a thread,” Freddie conceded.

“We’ll start with the people closest to him and work our way out.” She checked her watch and saw that it was after nine o’clock. “I don’t think we should go to the Jacksons’ house tonight. The morning will be soon enough.”

“Agreed.”

Sam was about to suggest they call it a night when Gonzo came into the conference room wearing a grim expression.

“We’ve got another fatal drive-by.”