Final Shot Read online

  Final Shot

  by

  C. M. Sutter

  Copyright © 2020

  All Rights Reserved

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This book is a work of fiction by C. M. Sutter. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used solely for entertainment. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  C. M. Sutter is a crime fiction writer who resides in Florida, although she is originally from California.

  She is a member of over fifty writing groups and book clubs. In addition to writing, she enjoys spending time with her family and dog, and you’ll often find her writing in airports and on planes as she flies from state to state on family visits.

  She is an art enthusiast and loves to create gourd birdhouses, pebble art, and handmade soaps. Gardening, bicycling, fishing, and traveling are a few of her favorite pastimes.

  C. M. Sutter

  http://cmsutter.com/

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  Final Shot: A Detective Jesse McCord Police Thriller, Book 9

  The murder of Dwayne Lincoln sends Detective Jesse McCord on a nonstop pursuit of an unknown assailant who claims to be the city’s judge, jury, and executioner. Cryptic notes discovered after each murder lead law enforcement to believe the killer is trying to rid the city of sinners with intolerable vices.

  Strange behavior from Tammy Lincoln, Dwayne’s wife, puts Jesse on high alert. Her actions speak volumes, and her lack of concern for her husband’s death causes Jesse to question her innocence.

  But as more murders are committed—each with an execution-style bullet to the forehead—Jesse wonders if Tammy is involved at all. She doesn’t own a gun and isn’t acquainted with any of the other victims.

  Days into the investigation and with bodies piling up, Jesse is blindsided by an unsuspecting character who turns the investigation on its tail. Jesse sets out on a high-speed chase through Chicago, where he has to stop the carnage before he ends up being the next victim.

  See all of C. M. Sutter’s books at:

  http://cmsutter.com/available-books/

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 1

  An insistent knock at the door woke him, and he cursed the late hour. Dwayne Lincoln rolled over in bed and tried to ignore it, but the pounding got harder, and the sound had become more urgent. He wondered if Tammy was causing problems at the women’s shelter.

  “Stupid bitch.”

  Dwayne tossed back the blanket, took a swig of stale beer from the bottle on the nightstand, slipped on his boxer shorts, and headed for the door. As he passed the kitchen, he glanced at the wall clock—3:47 a.m. The dog scratched at the back door, and Dwayne let him out before addressing the person who was about to get a tongue lashing for waking him.

  Without a peephole or a window close enough to see who was standing on the porch, Dwayne called out from his side of the door. “Who’s there, and you better have a damn good reason for waking me up at this time of night.”

  “It’s the police, Mr. Lincoln, and we need to speak to you about Tammy. Can you please let us in?”

  With an irritated groan, Dwayne turned the dead bolt and opened the door. “Now what is she blaming on me?” His eyes bulged when he stared into the business end of a sound-suppressed handgun. “What the—”

  “Slam the door on me and I’ll shoot you right through it. Now get inside.”

  Dwayne raised his hands and backed into the living room. “What’s going on? Who are you, and how do you know our names?”

  “Get on your knees, and don’t make me say it twice.”

  As he lowered himself to the floor, Dwayne tried to reason with the stranger. “What have I done? How can I fix this?”

  “You know damn well what you’ve done, and it’s too late to fix anything. You’re an abuser, a drunk, a cheater, an addict, and you have a gambling problem. Did I miss anything? It’s all your fault it has to end this way. People like you don’t deserve to live, and I’m here to make sure you don’t. Look at me when I talk to you!”

  Dwayne’s body shook as he raised his head. “Please. I’ll straighten out my life. I’ll change my ways!”

  “Shut up. The last face you’ll ever see is mine. I’m your judge, jury, and executioner.”

  Dwayne heard a bullet being racked into the chamber and then it was over.

  Chapter 2

  I hung up the phone after learning that emergency meetings were being held at the women’s domestic abuse shelter. The residents felt frightened and vulnerable when word got out that resident Tammy Lincoln’s estranged husband had been murdered during the night. Counselors were talking to the women, and the building was on a safety lockdown until later that day.

  The twenty-five residents who lived in the group home were short one woman—Tammy herself, who was picked up that morning by officers from my precinct, the second district police station.

  At ten a.m. that Monday morning, Commander Bob Lutz entered the bullpen and made a beeline for my desk. “What did you find out, McCord?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing yet. I’ll have to conduct interviews at the shelter later this afternoon. The administrator said the well-being of the residents is their focus right now, but we can come in and ask questions after three o’clock. Gaines already walked me through the scene as he saw it after he arrived at the home. I have plenty of notes to read, including his report, the police report with the neighbor’s interview, and Don’s field exam report.”

  “What about the wife?”

  “Haven’t spoken to her yet. She’s downstairs in interview room one. Thought I’d read the reports first. I’d like to know something about their history before I begin questioning her. From what I’ve read about previous police calls to the residence, the husband was horribly abusive. Tammy admitted as much according to what she told Foxworth
y when he picked her up.” I tapped the police report history. “After nine police calls to the house this year, and plenty of one-on-one counseling at the group home, Tammy finally moved out and now resides at A New Life women’s shelter until she gets on her feet, finds a job, and is able to financially support herself.”

  “How long has she lived there?”

  I ran my finger down Foxworthy’s report. “Two months according to what she told Foxworthy.”

  “Why wasn’t the husband incarcerated for domestic abuse?”

  I shook my head. “Why don’t most husbands or boyfriends get thrown in the slammer? They convince the woman that it’ll never happen again and beg for forgiveness. They promise to change, but in reality, all they want is to avoid having charges pressed against them.” I took a gulp of cold coffee and tossed the empty Styrofoam cup in the trash can alongside my desk.

  Lutz grumbled under his breath and tipped his wrist. “How much longer before you’re done reading all that?”

  I pushed back my chair and stood. “No biggie. I’ll take the reports with me to the interview.” I jerked my chin at Frank. “Want to join in?”

  “Sure, why not?” Frank pocketed his notepad, grabbed his coffee cup, and walked out the door with me.

  Downstairs, we checked in with Bill, the day shift jail guard, then continued on to the first interview room. Frank and I entered to see a woman who had probably been knocked down, physically and mentally, far too many times. She was in her mid-thirties according to her ID, yet she looked at least ten years older. After I opened the door and got a glimpse of her, my first impression was that she’d had a hard, abused life. Frank and I took seats across from Tammy, and I placed the folders containing all the reports on the table. After introducing ourselves, I opened the top folder first.

  “Tammy, this report was taken at the scene where Dwayne was discovered murdered this morning. I’ll admit the content is graphic, but explaining the scene to you may help us discover who the shooter was. Our medical examiner conducted a field exam of Dwayne during the overnight hours, and his body is now downstairs in the autopsy room. What we know is that Dwayne was executed, as in one fatal shot to the forehead.”

  I checked her expression regularly, just as skilled detectives were trained to do. From what I read in Tammy’s face, she appeared emotionless. Her eyes were dull, and she looked like somebody who had no hope left. “Tammy?”

  Her stare was unblinking and almost lifeless. She finally acknowledged me, as if a light switch suddenly went on. “Yes?”

  “It may sound absurd due to the type of person Dwayne was, but do you know anyone who wanted him dead?”

  “Besides me?”

  I gave Frank a side-eyed glance before answering. “Yes, unless there’s something you need to get off your chest. Did you sneak past the guard at the shelter in the middle of the night and find a handgun somewhere? Did you shoot Dwayne point-blank in the head and then sneak back into the shelter while that same guard was at the door?”

  “No, but you asked who wanted him dead, and I was just being honest.”

  “Well, we know it wasn’t you who killed him. The guard was already interviewed, and he said nobody left the premises during the night.” I let out a long breath and allowed Frank his turn.

  “So back to Detective McCord’s question. Do you know anyone else who wanted Dwayne dead?”

  “Plenty of people, I guess. Dwayne was an abuser to me but an overall jerk to everyone.”

  “Enough of a jerk to cause someone to execute him in the middle of the night?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Did Dwayne own any guns?”

  “A shotgun and a pistol.”

  I raised my brows. “What kind of pistol?”

  “A twenty-two revolver. He threatened me with both guns all the time.”

  I felt bad for her and all the women who were victims of abuse. “Would you be able to write down the people who hated Dwayne the most? Maybe people he owed money to, had wronged somehow, or had threatened in the past?”

  She huffed. “Do you have all day?” Tammy stared at the table. I’d yet to see a tear roll down her cheek. “How was he discovered?”

  “Your dog’s constant barking finally got the attention of the neighbor, Mr. Baker. Apparently, he stormed over there, saw the door ajar, and then called 911 as soon as he caught a glimpse of your husband lying on the floor just a few feet inside the living room.”

  “What’s going to happen to Coby?”

  “The dog?”

  She nodded.

  “You can move back into your home and be with your pup now that the threat of personal injury is gone. Is that something you’d consider doing?”

  “I’m not sure if I want to live in the house where Dwayne was killed.” Tammy shook her head as if to erase the thought of her husband being murdered there.

  Finally, a lone tear slid down her cheek. “Anyway, I can’t afford a house payment. I’ll have to sell the house and find a small apartment that allows pets. That’s after I get a job. Dwayne wouldn’t let me work or have my own phone. It was like I was a prisoner in the house.”

  I’d heard that same scenario many times in my career, and the people I usually interviewed were wives who’d finally had enough, snapped, and murdered the husband while he slept.

  “I’d suggest living there until the house sells and then auction off the contents for spare cash. Did Dwayne have a life insurance policy?”

  “Yeah, a small one through his work.”

  “There you go. That’s something. What did Dwayne do for a living?” I asked.

  “He was a high school janitor.”

  I nodded while Frank wrote that down. I was sure that fact was already in the police report, but we always took our own notes in case the person being interviewed had a change of mind.

  “You’ll have to contact Dwayne’s place of employment to file for the life insurance. They’ll need a copy of the police and medical examiner’s reports, as well as a death certificate. We can provide you with all of that tomorrow. The dog was taken to an animal shelter with the understanding that he isn’t up for adoption and his stay is just temporary. For now, our forensic team needs to finish printing the door and the immediate area around where Dwayne was shot.” I pointed at the sheet of paper in front of Tammy. “And we need the names of those people who disliked Dwayne. We have his cell phone, so that will help match up the numbers to the names you give us. What about family members?”

  “What about them?”

  I frowned. “We’d like their opinion of Dwayne and the relationship you had with him.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t have any family.”

  “Can you expand on that?”

  “Yeah, I bounced around from foster home to foster home. I don’t remember my parents and have no idea if I have siblings.”

  “I’m sorry. What about Dwayne?”

  She shrugged. “Never met his family. He always said they lived in California, and of course we never traveled.”

  “Wow, okay. Then we’ll try to track somebody down from his phone. Once Forensics clears the house, we’ll have the crew we work with come in and clean up the scene, and then you can move back in if you like. I’ll let you know when that time comes.”

  She thanked us.

  “One more thing before we go.”

  “Yes?”

  “Has anyone banged on your door in the middle of the night before?”

  Tammy let out a loud huff. “Only Dwayne when he was so drunk that he couldn’t figure out which key unlocked the door.”

  I looked her in the eyes. “None of the neighbors have ever threatened you, have they?”

  She shrugged. “Not really.”

  “Not really? What the hell does that mean? Either they have or they haven’t.”

  “Okay, okay. Then I’d say they haven’t.”

  “Explain that, please.”

  “Fine. The neighbors have warned me
that Dwayne attracted too much attention to our neighborhood because I always called the cops when he beat me. I guess they didn’t appreciate that, but it wasn’t actually a personal threat.”

  “Funny, that sounds like a threat to me. So it was okay for Dwayne to beat you senseless, but you were supposed to keep quiet?”

  “I suppose so.”

  I felt my blood pressure rising, but I didn’t want to let my anger take over. “Whatever. That’s all we have for now, except for the names. Make sure you stick around the area since we may have more questions for you.” I patted the table, handed her my card, and called Bill. He would let us know when she was done with that list, and then he’d have a patrol unit take her back to the shelter for the time being.

  Chapter 3

  I tapped my pen against the blank sheet of paper staring me in the face. Something wasn’t sitting right. Dwayne and Tammy Lincoln were far from high-profile people, and from what I was told, Dwayne’s murder seemed more like a contract hit than an angry neighbor taking him out. It didn’t add up. The couple was on the low end of the social totem pole, and Dwayne wasn’t a physical threat to anyone, other than his wife, as far as I knew. I didn’t think he was important enough to have a professional hit put out on him, yet a shot to the forehead made it appear that way, according to Chuck’s description of the scene. I needed to check deeper into Dwayne’s death. It didn’t ring true to me that the murder—resulting from a single execution-style shot to the forehead—was committed by someone from that neighborhood. Not unless Dwayne was a known drug dealer with a lot of cash in his home. If that was the case, he would never have opened the door in the middle of the night, especially unarmed. Most people wouldn’t take that risk unless they expected someone they knew to show up. I rubbed my forehead.