Calm Before The Storm

Sniper

 The team arrived at the upscale home. Police cars were out front with lights flashing and caution tape had already been set up. Voight met with Miller outside the home as the other intelligence vehicles started to roll in. The front window had a circular hole where a bullet had penetrated. Voight and Miller walked past the uniformed officers to the body laying on the floor facedown in the living room. There was a single hole in the back of her head and a pool of blood.

"What have we got?" Jay asked as he and Adam came through the door putting their gloves on.

"Her Honour Vanessa Wilson. One of the most respected and prominent judges in Chicago." Miller explained. Jay walked around the body before starting to examine the room.

"Single bullet through the window and into the back of her head. This guy is trained, I'm going to go see if I can find where the shot came from. Ruzek, see if you can find the slug. It looks like it went right through." Jay looked out the window with the hole in it before walking back out the door. Hailey Upton followed him out the door and across the street.

"It came from high up, probably the roof of the building across the street." Jay pointed to the steep rooftop of the house on the other side of the road. They walked across the street, Hailey knocked on the front door while Jay slipped around to the back of the house. In the back he found a thick metal drain pipe leading up to a second story balcony. He used the pipe to climb to the balcony and from there he stood on the rail and was able to reach the eavestrough. As he reached up he felt the searing pain in his side again. He jumped back down to the balcony and held the rail until the pain had passed.

"Jay? You ok?" Hailey called up from the back patio. Jay took several more deep breaths and took a second to stretch his torso before climbing back up on the rail and pulling himself onto the roof. Carefully he crawled to the peak of the roof where he found the perfect long shot straight into the judges house across the street. Jay shook his head, the shot would have been incredibly difficult. He looked over the roof into the eavestrough on the other side and saw a gold glimmer. He suspected it was the shell casing but knew he would need a ladder to retrieve it. Carefully he slid his way back down the roof to the eavestrough, to the rail and finally back down to the ground.

"What was that??" Hailey asked him when he landed on the ground, breathing heavily.

"I pulled something at the gym last night. It only seems to hurt in certain positions. That was definitely the shooter's position. I think there is a casing in the eavestrough but there's no way I could get it without a ladder. It would have been a challenging shot, even for a professional." Jay stretched his torso again trying to figure out where the pulled muscle was as he talked.

"You're sure that's all it is? Maybe Will should check it out since you are so anti-hospital." Hailey raised an eyebrow at him. Jay smirked at her and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

"You're cute when you worry." Jay smirked at her and she cuffed him in the shoulder before they headed back to the crime scene.

"Sarg, I found the shooter's location on the roof across the street. This person is a professional, I would have had trouble even making that shot." Jay relayed the information when they re-entered the crime scene. They called CFD to bring a ladder to retrieve the bullet casing while Adam dug the slug out of the wall.

"Alright, what do we know?" Voight asked the room when they were all back at the district. Ruzek came forward with the picture of the judge.

"Judge Vanessa Wilson. Well respected in Chicago, 66 years old. Lives by herself, divorced with 2 adult children who don't live in Chicago, one's in New York, one in Los Angeles." Ruzek recited from the file folder in front of him. Jay added pictures of the shooter's location from the roof across the street and the bullet casing that CFD had recovered. Crime scene had checked the house across the street for prints but the sniper had apparently worn gloves.

"The weapon was most likely an M24 military assault rifle. We recovered a casing at the scene. It was challenging to get up to the sniper's perch and it was a hell of a shot. We are dealing with someone military trained." Jay walked back to his desk and took a drink of water from his bottle.

"Halstead, Burgess, Upton go to the courthouse and talk to Wilson's office. See what cases she was working on and if anyone of interest might have recently been released from prison. Ruzek and Atwater, see if anyone is claiming ownership and dig into the family. Also get the financials to see if there are any red flags." Jay, Kim and Hailey left the bullpen while the others jumped into action on phones and computers.