If You'll Believe In Me

"Mr. Mayor," I say.

"I want this crime scene completed as fast as possible. Not great to leave two bodies on the steps of the courthouse in full view," he says.

"Also not great to have a sloppy investigation because of politics," Jill says from inside. "Don't tell me how to do my job, and I won't tell you your poll numbers." I see everyone nearby physically clench from holding back laughter.

"Just get it done," Maxwell hisses and then walks towards the cameras he knows better than to explode in front of.

"Damn Jill, use a dick why don't ya," I say, and she laughs.

"Fuck him," Jill says, the resumes her work.

"Anything weird?" Jeff asks Jill.

"Besides an assassin sniping people in broad daylight? Not really. Five shots fired. First is a through and through headshot. Female victim is dead instantly, falls to the ground. Second shot has similar trajectory, hits the male victim. Third shot shifts to the right, shattering the window and impacted the floor of the hallway leading to the elevators, tumbled, and went through the doors on the opposite side. Frankie is looking for it. Fourth shot hits the building exterior just above the frame of the glass wall. Last shot was either to take off Chase's head or keep his head down. Shooter couldn't have been higher than the third floor with the angles."

"Do we assume someone specific was the target?" I ask, and Jeff looks at me.

"Doesn't look like it. Looks like they were trying to get everyone," Jeff says.

"You got a caliber?" Jill asks Heath.

"You can't rush this boss," Heath says, now sawing a square from the wall with the bullet in the center. "They find the rifle?"

"She ditched it somewhere in the building. They can't find it," Jill says.

"She?" I ask.

"The sniper was a woman. At least, that's who Chase fought. She was in military tactical clothing with a ballistic vest. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's not a coincidence," Jill explains. I ask where Chase is, and she points to the building. "Second floor."

"Jeff, you got it here?" I ask, and he nods. "Witnesses are still at the station. After I debrief Chase, we're talking to them."

"Who's the Sergeant here?" Jeff asks.

"Don't argue, I'm pregnant," I say and start walking across the street.

The street is completely blocked by police, and media starts shouting at me as I cross. I ignore them and enter McGee's after signing the logbook to keep track of who was coming and going.

The room looks like a typical Irish Pub with booths on both sides with several standing tables. The bar is a large semicircle surrounded by tall chairs. Five televisions hang above the bar, and I imagine they show sports during hours of operation.

At the other end of the dining area of the pub is an officer keeping guard at the swinging doors. He is under strict orders to inform me I need to glove up and extends a box to me.

I push the gloves into the recesses between my fingers as I walk up the stairs. To my right a photo snaps and I hear movement of the CSI analysts. Left of me is a large, empty room with tall windows facing the courthouse. It looks like an empty office space. Chase is sitting on a chair as an EMT is checking him out. His wounds appear superficial, but I can tell he got into a hard fight.

"Heard you got beat up by a girl," I say, and Chase laughs as the EMT is touching his throat to check for something.

"That hurt?" the EMT asks.

"A little," Chase says, his voice noticeable hoarse.

"He good to talk?" I ask the EMT who nods.

"You'll likely get some bruising, but you should be okay," the EMT says and leaves the room with his medical bag.

"What happened?" I ask, and he exhales. "Let's start with the perp."

"She's in custody, so I'll save you time with the description," he starts, and I nod to say that was fine. "Competent combatant, highly trained."

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"If she was of comparable strength to me, I'd be dead," he says. Chase is not a push over in a fight. "She didn't get a carotid hold on me, but she was trained. Nathan's level of training."

"Could you tell nationality with an accent or something else?"

"Couldn't tell you because she never spoke. I'd guess military or police background, leaning more on the military side. How many countries allow women in Special Operations?" Chase asks.

"Not many. It should narrow it down," I say and write that in my notes. "She got a choke hold on you?"

"She managed that by feigning a knife strike," Chase says, and I do not follow. "When she drew the knife, I took this stance," Chase says and demonstrates. "This stance screams 'I know how to react to a knife'. If it came down to a force on force struggle for it, I'd win. She knew that, so didn't go force on force. She feigns low and across the body, then drops the knife. My reaction leaves my non-dominant side open, and she gets around to sink the hold, but couldn't lock the carotid. Textbook. Like I said, she's trained."

"Why were you nearby?" I ask.

"To gloat, I guess. To watch Marlene walk into the courthouse," Chase says, then claps his hands. "Bam! Both, right in front of me."

"Which bullet got Marlene?"

"The first. I counted five. Three followed the first, and the last was meant for me. I don't think she was the target," Chase says, and I ask him who was and why. "Hugh Willard got hit while him and Silverlake got tangled up. The next two shots were going after Silverlake."

"You think Silverlake was the real target?" I ask, and he nods.

"Best guess. At least in addition to Marlene. Where is he?" Chase asks, and I shrug. "Almost like he knows it was meant for him."

"We got a BOLO out on him already. He'll turn up," I say. "You good?"

"I'll be fine," Chase says while rubbing his throat.

"I'm going to head back to the station. CSI looks like they'll be a minute. Call in, head home if you can," I say, and he says he will.

--

I have a feeling the rest of my day is going to be interviewing people. Four people saw Marlene Black and Hugh Willard take a bullet. Three people heard the gunshots from within the building they were fired from. I have never had so many direct witnesses to a murder.

Jeff and I have tried our best to keep the two isolated until we talk to them. Chase, I interviewed on site. Zillah Calvin and Summer Pillsbury, we keep in different rooms. Henry Silverlake ran and kept running, but we'll find him.

"Just tell us what happened," Jeff says to Zillah. He is postured against the wall next to the open interview door. Lawyers have a tendency of being extra squirrely, so the door is open to create a more open atmosphere. I am sitting on a chair across the table from her, leaning back and resting my hands on my belly. Even after evacuating under fire, she appears pristine and unaffected. Form fitting porcelain white office dress somehow unblemished from crawling, squeezing her porn star tits together. Perfectly manicured nails with a naked finish. I can smell her European perfume. Sometimes I hate being married; the shit I would do to this woman.

"What is there to tell? I was escorting my client to the courthouse when someone shot her and my partner," she says in a huff. She just looks annoyed. Lawyer hasn't called her lawyer. She knows better, so I find that odd.

"How many shots did you hear?" I ask.

"I think four. At least three," she replies. It's common to get contradicting stories on the amount of shots. I show her a surveillance snapshot a moment before the first shot was fired. The camera at the door which captured everyone standing near, or in the process of entering the courthouse. Zillah's hand is on Marlene's back. "Detective Kramner and her had a history. He seemed to be there for no other reason than to antagonize my client. I was attempting to push her through the door and not let him provoke her." Chase admitted as much. "Perhaps he even tried to stall her at the door," she suggests. I had a feeling she would go there.

"Let's stay on topic," I say to prevent her from taking control of the conversation. "Did you see the shooter?"

"No," she says.

"Did you see what floor they were on? Which building?"

"No. You can ask that ten different ways, my answer will still be no. In this photo, I am clearly not facing the street," she says, spinning the photo around and sliding it back across the table to me.

"You are facing a reflective surface," Jeff says from behind me, and that caught her off guard. She wasn't prepared to answer that, so she takes time to contemplate her reply.

"I suppose I am. But at that moment, I wasn't observant for something like that because I had no reason to be concerned for my safety," she says.

"I know Marlene Black was your client, but what was the relationship with Henry Silverlake?" I ask.

"Defense Investigator. Common practice," she says.

"Even after that article on him?" Jeff asks.

"You mean the unsubstantiated hit job written by the same person slowing our entrance into the courthouse?" she replies, pointing at Summer Pillsbury standing next to Chase. Jeff snuck in one 'gotcha' and thinks he will get another. He won't. "What about him?"

"Where is he?" I ask.

"I haven't left police observation since the shooting, why would I know?" she asks.

"Do you have an idea why he would run?" Jeff asks. He is accustomed to asking narrative questions with victims. He hasn't sat at a homicide desk for years, and it is showing.

"Are you kidding?" Zillah asks. 'Why would a man being shot at, run? Surely you jest detective.' She didn't say that, but her posture is highly expressive.

"He has evaded all attempts to contact us, or be contacted," I say.

"His problem, not mine," she says, and I decide we need more on Silverlake before we can start pressuring the others on his absence. I like Silverlake for the target, but I need him in a room first. "Can I go?"

"Sure. Keep your phone on," I say, and she leaves. "Next."

Summer Pillsbury is still trembling hours later. She recovers, however, and asks for a quote. I cut her loose and instruct a uniformed officer to escort her all the way out, so she doesn't start roaming the halls. The two cooks from the restaurant do not speak English, but Jeff's Spanish is good enough. I have to trust that they don't have much to share. We both agree to release them even though they were illegal aliens. Not our case. The final person we have left to interview is the waiter Saulius Grybauskaitė.

Saulius "Saul' is an immigrant from Lithuania. He is six feet and change and slim like a swimmer. His dark hair is pulled into a bun to keep it out of his face. Thin facial hair encircles his mouth. I see the start of tattoos on his wrists, covered by the sleeves of his shirt on both arms. I see some foreign lettering I cannot make out on the back of his hands. Several of his fingers have rings tattooed on them.

Saul has his visa on him, and hands it to us at the beginning of the interview. It is a U non-immigrant visa, and I do not know what that means. I ask Jeff to run down some of the information while I conduct the interview.

"What kind of visa is that?" I ask, and he hesitates a little. "Saulius?"

"Please, just Saul," he says with a thick accent. It could easily be confused as Russian, but I know it isn't. He knows English, but I have a feeling I will ask him to repeat things or say them differently a few times. He leans across the table invasively, elbows down, hands supporting his chin. I cannot determine if he is trying to be intimidating, or coquettish. Either way, I don't like it.

"What kind of visa? I've never heard of a U non-immigrant," I say, and he shifts in his seat a little, but keeps his forward lean.

"I'm not sure how much I can say," he explains.

"Detective?" I hear from behind me. One of the uniformed officers' hands me a handwritten message on a sticky note. U Non-immigrant Visa: Victim of Criminal Activity. Jeff sent that to tide me over. He could be a witness under protection. I wonder which agency is going to call us today.

"Victim of criminal activity?" I ask, and he nods. "I won't ask any questions about that, until it's relevant. Just tell me what happened."

"Starting when?" Saul asks. Fair question.

"Start from when you arrived at work," I say.

"Sure. I park in front of building. I am also shift manager, so open for the day. Clean, set up tables, things like that," he explains. The longer his sentences are, the more broken they become. He fiddles with his hands, and I see an additional tattoo of an eye on his palms.

"About what time?" I ask.

"I'd say six thirty. I let the cooks in at seven thirty..." he says, then clams up. He does come across as somewhat overconfident and cocky, but he is concerned about outing his employees.

"The immigration status of the cooks is immaterial to us. We already let them go," I explain, and he nods in gratitude.

"They start their day. Then I hear gunshot. Three gunshot," he says, holding up three fingers. Plurals are not his strongest attribute, and neither is counting. "Fast, but not, very fast, if that makes sense." I think he is trying to explain the rate of fire, so ask him. "Yes. Like, pop-pop-pop." Semi-auto rifle. Bolt action is unlikely with that rate of fire.

"Where did the shots come from?" I ask.

"I don't know for sure. Sounded above. Like the second or third floor," he says.

"What is upstairs exactly?" I ask.

"Unrented office space. We don't use it. Not me at least. The cooks like to smoke up there when the weather sucks. Just don't tell boss that," he says, then winks at me. That confirms the intent of his posture. He is a flirt, but something else is making me uncomfortable, and my radar is usually accurate. He isn't looking at me like I'm a person. His eyes look like someone admiring food to be devoured.

"Who is the boss?" I ask.

"Anton," he says, and I ask for the last name. "Mamedova."

"He Lithuanian as well?" I ask.

"No. Georgian," he replies. I ask if he is the owner, or manager. "Owner. Big boss."

A Lithuanian works at an Irish Pub, with Latino cooks, that is owned by a Georgian. No matter how weird my day gets, nothing will beat that.

"What did you do when the shots were fired?" I ask.

"I was in the basement waiting for tablecloth to dry. Our washing machines are there. When shooting start, I was downstairs," he says.

"You heard the gunshots, from the second or third floor, from the basement with a dryer running?" I ask, and he nods.

"Loud. Pop-pop-pop."

"Uh huh," I say, and he looks like he knows I don't believe him.

"I get upstairs, then hear the gunshot from the alley. Police come in, I direct him upstairs," he says. Doesn't mention the stun-grenade. Do I, or do I not ask him if he heard it? Fuck it, he's already suspicious.

"Did you hear a bigger boom?" I ask, and he tilts his head like a dog following a bone. Hurry up Jeff. "A concussive boom?"

"Concuss?" he asks, confused by the word.

"Did the blast...could you feel it in your chest, or stomach. Like a drum being pounded," I say while slapping my chest at the collar bone.

"Oh, yeah. Before the shooting," he says. That doesn't conform with Chase and Sergeant Donner's stories. They fired, then got stunned. I'll lean on that later if I must.

"Midge," I hear from the door, and turn over my shoulder to see Jeff gesturing for me. I politely excuse myself, then push my pregnant ass off the chair and waddle into the hall. "We got some shit."

"What kind?" I say, and he takes us even further away from the room. "What?"

"While I was digging into our boy, I got a call. Guess who?"

"Just tell me."

"FBI," he says. Goddamn Feds.

"That guy is an FBI informant?" I ask, and he shrugs in reply.

"They didn't give me details. They said let him go," he says.

"Fuck," I say, and he nods. "We cutting him?"

"We got nothing to hold him on anyway," Jeff says, and I don't disagree. "What was your read?"

"I like him for something. He's not ignorant of what happened," I explain. I really hope I don't need to pull him back in later. I walk to the door and step inside. "Thank you for your time Mr. Grybauskaitė." I butchered that. "If you think of anything, give me a call." I extend my card to him from the tips of my fingers.

"Thank you. I will help," he says as he takes the card. "Have a good day."

I leave the room and join Jeff in the hall.

"What now?" Jeff asks as we walk to the elevator.

"Warrants for camera footage, start going through it. I was already investigating Marlene Black for murder, but let's give her a once over again, then move to Silverlake. You got that FBI Agent's number?" I ask, and he nods. "Send them the picture of the assassin. See if they know of her."

"Got it," Jeff replies. "When do you want to interview the shooter?"

"Let her strew for a little more. Labs are trying to get an ID, so let's hold off. I want to least go in there with her name," I say, and he agrees.

--

Tuesday -- October 13, 2026

-Jennifer Ito-

Detectives Appletree and McCants give me a run down on the status of the current courthouse murder. The case Midge would have been testifying for in two weeks. That Chase would have testified in next month. So much for that.

"Silverlake?" I ask after they inform me one of the key witnesses is still missing. He is also likely the true target of the assassination. My first question is naturally who wants him dead so bad they would hire a sniper to kill him?

"In the wind. Ran into the courthouse south entrance and straight out the north side. APB out, but nothing so far," Midge summarizes.

"We're going to try and talk to the assassin again in about an hour," McCants says. They have already spent hours trying to get a word out of her. The woman hasn't even cleared her throat. We have no ID on her.

"Do it while you can," I say, and they both ask what I mean by that that. "Chief is trying to make the FBI take the case."

"Why?" Midge asks.

"Two reasons. One of the witnesses might be an informant, and because that woman is an assassin and we have nothing on her in terms of print or DNA. Nothing. She is a ghost," I say, and they both look at each other. "She is dangerous, without a doubt. Someone trained her, and someone may not like where she is."

"What does he expect to happen?" Jeff asks.

"No idea, but I agree. She might be a higher risk than we can handle," I say.

"Just because she beat up your boyfriend?" Midge asks with a laugh, and I bite my lower lip to contain myself.

"Just don't expect to have the case for very long. Get to it," I say and they both start leaving my office. "Appletree, stay a moment, close the door." Midge does as requested after Jeff leaves.

"What's up LT?" she asks, then takes one step toward me.

"Leave my personal life out of work discussions. At home, he's my boyfriend. Here, he's Sergeant Kramner. Understood?" I ask, and she nods.

"I didn't mean anything by it," she says while holding her hands up defensively.

"I know. It's bad enough I was IA. I already have enough problems commanding authority as a woman, without you reminding my Sergeants where I spend my evenings," I say, and she nods. "Do you understand?"

"Yes ma'am," she says, and I dismiss her.

It's difficult enough trying run things being a woman. Add the fact people still see me as the IA snitch who investigated their friends and ended careers. Multiply that with me sleeping with a Sergeant in a different department. To top it all, my ex-husband is the Captain of Patrol Three. That is a perfect storm for insubordination.

The layout of the new unit is four teams: the dedicated Homicide, Violent Crime, Missing Persons teams, and the floater team. Four Sergeants, each partnered with a junior detective. I run Sergeants McCants' and Kaiser's teams. Kaiser is still partnered with Midge, but I do not like the optics of Kaiser near Marlene Black, so ordered a swap for the time being.