She shrugged. “Just wondering how the autopsy on the drive-by was coming.”
“What do you want to know?” he asked, motioning to a table off to the side. “I just finished.”
“Anything unexpected?”
“Nope. A healthy twenty-three-year-old male, who didn’t look to have any lingering illnesses of any kind. Died at the scene from three bullets to the chest. I would say instantly, but, of course, nothing is instant.”
She nodded. “I got it.”
“Have you found out who your shooter was?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m wondering if it’s connected to a drive-by from three years ago.”
His gaze narrowed at her. “Why would that be?”
“Possibly the same vehicle for one thing.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
“No, but not a lot in this world does,” she fired right back at him.
He groaned. “Isn’t that the truth. Well, let me know when you get there.”
“It’s the bullets I’m looking for.”
“Ballistics has them,” he said.
“Right, I’ll wait on that then.”
“It was three bullets here. How many did your victim die of before?”
She turned, looked at him, and said, “Three.”
He frowned. “Damn. How old?”
“In his twenties too. The shooter drove slowly up and down the street, either looking for somebody or for an opportunity that would work, then chose his victim and shot him.”
“So random killing, random timing?”
She nodded. “That’s what it looks like—at the moment at least.”
“Well, if it’s connected,” he snapped, “we need to find him before he does this again. Senseless killing always pisses me off.”
“Any killing,” she said quietly. “But, yeah, the ones like this are so much worse.” She turned to walk back out again, already dialing Ballistics. “Do you have anything on that drive-by?”
“Not yet,” Daniel said. “Do you want us to do something in particular when we get there?”
She said, “I want you to check it against a cold case from three years ago.” She gave him the case number.
“Interesting,” he said. “Well, it’ll come up in the database.”
“But that might take extra time,” she said. “Check it against the ballistics when you can, please.”
“Will do,” Daniel said.
She smiled and kept on going. She had a sense of freedom and accomplishment being where she was in her job as a detective. She also had a ton of hard work and responsibility that really didn’t go down as easily as she had hoped it would. But she was here, and she was doing the job; there wasn’t anything else she could ask for.
Out of the blue Kate wondered what the hell the number thirteen was about that Simon had texted her earlier this week. She was always wary with any information that came her way, but some of these random things of his had proven valuable, but she just wasn’t prepared to automatically count all of it as being true. Then again, he had never asked that of her either, and that was nice too.