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Joe could tellElly was struggling to match Peter Colton with the gunman in her mind. This cop was the only one who’d come close to fitting the profile.
But he wasn’t an exact match to her sketch. He had only gotten a glimpse, he had trouble believing they were one and the same either. Sure, the guy’s background was interesting. But that alone wasn’t enough to accuse the guy of committing multiple murders as a domestic terrorist.
“He’s similar in some ways,” Elly said. “But I can’t mesh this man with the one I saw. The description I gave Bethany as we worked on the sketch is imprinted in my mind. The minute Bethany finished the drawing, I knew she’d nailed it.”
“You were under a lot of stress, El,” Brady said gently.
“I know, but I also locked eyes with the gunman.” She lifted her chin, meeting her brother’s gaze. “I’m giving you my opinion, Brady. You can take it or leave it.”
Joe was proud of her for standing her ground. “We’re not here to talk you into anything, Elly. We sincerely wanted your opinion.”
“Joe’s right,” Brady agreed. “You’re the witness.”
She took another long moment to stare at the screen, then slowly shook her head. “I’m going to say no, this is not the man I saw. But can you still dig into his background a bit? Make sure I’m not making a mistake?”
“We will,” Joe assured her. “We still have enough to issue a BOLO for Colton as a person of interest.” He pulled up the complaint that had been filed about Colton’s actions on the job, then instantly pulled out his phone to call Assistant Chief Michaels.
“Do you have him?” Michaels asked.
Joe swallowed a sigh. Trust the assistant chief to think it’s that easy. “We have a possible suspect, former cop terminated over an excessive use of force complaint. Looks like he put some guy in the hospital with a broken jaw and cracked ribs after an arrest. Oh, and his body cam wasn’t working either.”
“I remember that case,” Michaels said. “He was an arrogant jerk, insisting he’d done nothing wrong.”
“Yeah, well, difficult to prove when you put a guy in the hospital like that without video to support his side of the story,” Joe drawled. “I’d like to ask one of the team members to head to his place, see if they can catch him at home.”
“Go for it,” Michaels agreed. “Keep me in the loop.”
“Will do.” He lowered the phone enough to place a call to Raelyn. Once he’d given her the information, she readily agreed. “I’ll take Brock with me,” she assured Joe. “We’ll search high and low until we find this guy. Oh, and you should know Bartholomew Shaw’s financials came back clean. We don’t think he hired our shooter.”
“Thanks, Rae.” He lowered his phone, glad to have one name scratched from the list. Yet it bothered him to send others to do the legwork, and he found himself wondering if this was how Rhy felt when he was forced to take a leadership role in running their team.
“He put a man in the hospital?” Elly frowned. “That’s awful.”
“Yeah.” He grimaced. “I’m wondering if this guy has a grudge against the public in general.”
“Don’t forget, we’ve only checked the Milwaukee Police Department for recent terminations,” Brady added. “I have my boss putting in the same request at some of the local precincts too. Even the Brookland PD.”
Elly’s brown eyes widened. “I hadn’t considered that possibility.”
“At this point, everyone’s a suspect until cleared,” Joe said. He knew that most innocent people would be horrified by how cops approached a case like this. But they had twelve dead with another eight more that were wounded by this guy. As far as Joe was concerned, they didn’t have a choice but to keep the suspect field wide open.
“Marc is calling again,” Brady said, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Hey, Marc. Did you get more terminated cops for us to look at?”
Joe continued working on digging into Peter Colton’s background while listening to Brady’s side of the conversation with Marc Callahan. He paused long enough to send Steele a text message about their possible suspect.
Steele texted back with an okay sign.
“Understood. I’m on my way.” Brady lowered the phone, glancing at Joe with regret. “Our boss is calling a meeting about the child abduction case. I need to go. You still have Steele watching things from across the street, right?”
“Yep.” Joe nodded. “What’s going on?”
“Sounds like Ian has a lead on the missing kid.” Brady shrugged into his coat. “Once we get that boy reunited with his parents, we can start working on creating a three-dimensional facial recognition on our perp.”
“Go.” Joe didn’t hesitate. He felt certain that getting the sketch through the program was their best chance of finding the guy. “We’ll be okay with Steele as backup.”
Brady nodded. “Good.” He wrapped his arm around Elly’s shoulders in a brotherly hug. “Stay safe.”
“You too.” After Brady left, Elly joined him at the table. “What can I do?”
