Keeping It in the Family (Linstead)

Chapter 112

The next morning, Zelina Vega had centre stage for the briefing regarding the Adam Russell case. She stood in front of the whiteboard in the bullpen with a printed out image in her hand. As was most often the case, she was casually chewing gum. She had recently had her hair colour returned to black after sporting red streaks in it for a while. To Halstead, she finally looked back in good health after the shooting, and he was happy to see it.

"Alright, I've been through all of the CCTV we got from the Wallmart store. I have a few observations. First, I don't know why they bother opening 24 hours. There were hardly any customers there for most of the night. Second, their CCTV system is trash. There's maybe half the parking lot that isn't even covered by the cameras. Who wants to guess where our vic got his head squished?"

"In one of the areas that wasn't covered," Atwater guessed.

Vega pointed at him. "Winner. There's no footage that shows Adam Russell in that lot. Of course we know he was there, and he died there by a vehicle of some kind crushing his head. So I spent a lot of time last night looking at the vehicles going in and out of the lot, searching for anything that looked in the least bit suspicious."

"Did you find anything worth pursuing?" Lindsay asked.

"Concretely, no. But I did see something that might be of interest. Take a look at Purrazzo's computer."

Everyone gathered around Purrazzo's desk, and she played a short segment of CCTV video footage that Vega had loaded up ahead of the briefing. It showed a white car leaving the parking lot, travelling quite quickly, before speeding off up the road and out of sight. The footage was set to loop, and they all watched it a couple of times.

"Whoever that is, they're in a hurry. Maybe to get away from something," Vega suggested.

"Could be. What have you got on that car?" Lindsay asked her.

"The picture quality is ass, as you can see. No chance of getting a plate. So I called in a favour with a guy I know. He knows a guy who's an expert on vehicle recognition. We're looking at a 2010 Toyota Corolla, obviously in white. I ran a search on owners of matching cars in Chicago, and an interesting name came up."

"Liam Dunbar," Halstead said in a moment of realisation. "I saw it in his garage yesterday. There was no damage or anything on it, but..."

"But after seeing this I want him picked up," Lindsay said. "Jay, Raquel, get over to his house. Z, find out where he works. Ruzek, Atwater, get over there once you have the address. Burgess, Purrazzo, you get over to his brother's place in case he's gone to ground there."

"You got it, boss," Atwater said.

Halstead and Gonzalez headed straight for the stairs, since they already knew where they were heading.

"I said I liked him for this," Gonzalez said, clearly feeling some satisfaction that her perception may have been accurate.

Halstead was happy about it too. He wanted a partner who had the fundamentals of their job, not just someone who was good at sneaking around in shadows and lifting weights in a gym. As much as he liked Purrazzo, personally and professionally, it was nice not to have to think about constantly teaching someone. He actually felt like he had high hopes for the new partnership with Gonzalez. They both had strengths where the other had weaknesses, and they had contrasting styles when it came to dealing with people, and for him those things were also bonuses.

"You did, and it seems you may have been right. If it wasn't him, he at least has to know something," he said.

Entering the parking lot, Gonzalez insisted on taking her car again. Possible control freak tendencies, Halstead wondered. But if she wanted to do all of the driving for them she was welcome as far as he was concerned. He was happy to take it easy in the passenger seat. Besides, he had a favour to ask, so letting her have her own way was a good way to start.