Two guys sitting outside your office building in a Ford Taurus. Different plates than the last time.
I texted back, How long have they been there?
About an hour.
Stay with them. Let me know if anything happens.
Copy.
“Okay, let it roll again,” I said to Rayshawn.
The Suburban stopped for about ten seconds where Seventieth intersected with South Wallace; then it continued east under the viaduct and was gone.
The next hit came at 11:03 a.m. I expected this from the CPD footage. I knew it would be the old woman driving the minivan. Rayshawn did his tricks, slowing down the video, zooming in on her license plate and the front seat. There was another old woman sitting beside her, wearing a white dress and matching hat—two little church ladies. The CPD cameras on Sixty-Ninth hadn’t captured the passenger.
We sped through the next several hours of tape, watching cars continue to cross Seventieth heading north or south, but only a few headed east down Seventieth toward the train tracks. Those that did drive east continued straight and didn’t turn left down South Wallace.
“Not much traffic on these streets,” I said.
“Only Sunday morning,” Rayshawn said. “Otherwise, not too many people drive through here. Most people living in the neighborhood walk over to Sixty-Ninth or Seventy-First and catch the bus.”
“Have you ever driven down South Wallace?”
“Never,” he smiled. “Nothing down there but some empty lots and old houses with addicts hanging out.”
The video continued to roll on the monitors.
“You wanna hear something cool?” he said.
“Sure.”
“Keep this between you and me, okay?”
“No problem.”
When he tapped the keyboard a couple of times, one of the monitors went dark; then a colorful graph soon appeared on the screen. He clicked the mouse, and the room exploded with sound.
“What is that?” I asked.
“The sound from outside.”
“You have microphones out there?”
“Only the camera facing the parking lot,” he said. “Sometimes Bishop likes to hear what people are saying when they leave church.” He brought up the feed from the camera in the back of the building. There were only three cars in the parking lot, mine being one of them. Two men walked into view on the sidewalk.
“Watch this,” Rayshawn said. He moved the mouse, and their voices came through speakers as if they were in the room with us. They were talking about the Bulls and bemoaning the fact that it had been too long since the last championship. They decided that a new version of Michael Jordan could end the drought.
Everything was clear, from horns blowing and birds chirping to car doors closing. The surround sound speakers literally made it feel like we were standing outside. I got an idea listening to the audio.
“Let’s go back to the video on Seventieth,” I said.
Rayshawn punched the video back up on the monitor. The outdoor sounds disappeared. I asked him to speed it up a little. The minutes started ticking away at a rapid pace. We got all the way through the evening. No cars had turned down South Wallace. Ten cars had driven down Seventieth and through the viaduct. I copied all their license plates. I spotted JuJu’s Caprice Classic at 11:21 p.m. Rayshawn slowed the film. Everything JuJu had said was captured on film. He turned down Union. Thirty seconds later he backed up onto Seventieth and headed east. He turned onto South Wallace at 11:23 p.m. and disappeared. The CPD camera had captured him leaving South Wallace and entering Sixty-Ninth Street at 11:25 p.m.
For the next forty minutes absolutely nothing moved. No cars crossed or traveled down Seventieth. Headlights flashed at 12:05 a.m. A black SUV came into view. It slowly headed down Seventieth.
“Pause it,” I instructed Rayshawn. He clicked the mouse, and the video froze. He stared at me. I stared at the screen. I had seen this car before. “Put it in slow motion and zoom in for me,” I said.
Rayshawn knew what I was after. “Looks like the same truck from earlier in the day,” he said. “Somebody’s ballin’.”
“Yup,” I said.
The truck continued slowly down Seventieth. When it reached South Wallace, it stopped for a few seconds, then turned in: 12:06 a.m.
“This time it went down South Wallace,” Rayshawn said.
My cell phone buzzed. It was Mechanic. I told Rayshawn to pause the video.
Mechanic texted, They just got out of the car. Split up. One heading to the back of the building. Other walking around the front. Time to have some fun.
I’m still at the church. Be careful.
I returned my attention to the monitor. “Rewind the video back to the point where the Suburban just comes into frame,” I said. We watched it again. He paused the video when the car disappeared onto South Wallace.
“What now?” he asked.
“Bring it up on the camera facing west so we can see it heading toward us,” I said. “I want to see if I can see who’s inside.”
Rayshawn rewound the tape, then rolled it in slow motion. The Suburban came into view about a block away. Rayshawn did all kinds of tricks to capture the driver. He zoomed in, shot a freeze-frame, changed the contrast. The face was still hidden in the darkness. All that we could see was a flash of fingers on the steering wheel. It was impossible to make out their color or if they belonged to a man or a woman. But there was the glint of a ring on the fourth finger of the right hand. It looked like a simple band. The passenger seat looked empty.
“Let’s go back to the Seventieth Street video,” I said. “Release the pause, and let’s see what happens.”
Rayshawn clicked the mouse. We both stared at the monitor. Seven minutes and fifteen seconds went by before a flash of light popped at the corner of South Wallace and Seventieth Street. Three seconds later, the Suburban backed out of South Wallace, then turned east down Seventieth. It passed through the viaduct and was gone.
I
