When I got the call from Dispatch, it was about seven in the morning. Since I was on my way to the precinct and only about ten blocks away from the house on the corner of West Elm and Liberty, I was there in less than five minutes. I was surprised that the EMT's hadn't beat me there because the call said a possible shooting had occurred. If that had been the case, the responding officer would have called for the EMT's.
When I pulled up at the curb, two uniformed officers were still standing outside the front door. That was odd too. I figured they would have already been inside, cleared the place, and were in the process of setting up a perimeter to keep out the press and any inquisitive neighbors. I saw Kent Majors, another uniformed officer, talking to a man in front of the house next door.
I walked up to the two officers at the door and asked what was going on. Tim Beason had a frown on his face when he answered me.
"Damned if I know. The neighbor called 911 at around six and said he thought he'd heard gunshots in the house next door. When we got here, all the doors and windows were locked and we couldn't see anything through the windows. Without a warrant, we can't go in.
"The owner is Phil Jacobs. Todd got his name from the neighbor along with the owner's daughter's name and number. She gave it to him in case he noticed her father doing anything strange. She's supposed to be on her way now with a key.
"Todd ran Jacobs through the system after he called the daughter. He's seventy-one, and he's been in the system before, once for selling weed when he was twenty-two, and once for threatening one of his neighbors about a week ago. He spent two years in prison for the weed, and the neighbor got a restraining order against him after the threat."
About then, a red SUV pulled into the driveway and a woman about forty got out. I was surprised at how she looked. I remember how my ex looked early in the morning and it wasn't pretty. This woman looked like she'd dressed up for work or for shopping at a high-class store. Her dark auburn hair was styled and she was wearing makeup. She ran up to the three of us standing at the door and she sounded worried.
"Has something happened to Daddy?"
I shrugged.
"Miss, we don't know because we can't get into the house without a warrant."
She held up a key chain with a peace sign on it.
"I can open the door for you."
I shook my head.
"Miss, we don't know what we're going to find in there." I pointed to Todd. "You give me the key and Officer Wilson here will take you to his car to ask you some questions about your father."
"But I need to go in to make sure Daddy is all right. He might be sick or something and need me."
I shook my head and said she couldn't go in until we figured out what was going on.
I'd been on cases like this in the past, and the daughter or son always insisted they go in with me. I always refuse that request for a couple of reasons. The first is it's not safe. For all we knew, the shooter, if there was one, might still be inside the house and waiting for us. The second is if the woman's father had been shot, the last thing we needed was somebody walking around and touching things, especially the person who was shot. Doing that would destroy or alter evidence we'd need to find out who did the shooting.
I took the key and stood to the side of the door with my weapon drawn and off safe. Tim did likewise on the other side of the door. That's standard procedure so if a person inside decides to shoot through the door, nobody gets hurt.
It was an older house so there was no deadbolt, just the lock in the doorknob. I slipped the key in the lock and turned it and the door opened slightly. Tim nodded when I looked at him, and swung the door open from his side. I yelled, "Police. Put down the weapon and get on the floor."
There wasn't a sound from inside the house, and nothing we could see looked out of order. Tim went in first with his pistol ready. Once he'd checked behind the door, he motioned at me and I followed him in. The living room was clear.
Tim and I split up then. Tim went to the kitchen and I went to the hall that I figured probably led to the bedrooms and bathroom. A minute later, Tim came down the hall and whispered, "Kitchen's clear and back door is locked".
In the first bedroom, the master judging by its size, we found Mr. Jacobs. He was lying on the double bed on his back and didn't appear to be breathing. His T-shirt was soaked in blood in the front, and that blood had run down over his belly and soaked his pants and the sheet and blanket under him. I checked for a pulse and didn't find any. Tim left to check the bathroom off the bedroom. He shook his head when he came back out.
We checked the other two bedrooms and the other bath and they were clear too. Once we'd established that, I radioed for the coroner and crime scene techs. It was about then the EMT's showed up. While I went out to tell the woman her father was dead, Tim led the EMT's to the bedroom
The woman started to cry when I explained we'd found her father in the bedroom and the EMT's were checking on him. She sobbed, "Is he dead".
I was careful about what I said next so I didn't give her reason for hope, but I wasn't pronouncing him dead either.
"Miss Jacobs I'm not a doctor so I can't say for sure, but it looks to me like he is."
She sniffed and blew her nose, then looked up at me.
"Call me Lisa. Do you know what happened to him? Did he get shot?"
I shook my head as that bell in my head that says something's not right tinged in my head. I hadn't said anything about how her father had been hurt, and I knew Todd wouldn't have either. Per procedure, he'd have only asked her to come and open the house so we could do a wellness check on her father.
"No, and we won't until the Crime Lab and the coroner get here. Why would you ask if he'd been shot?"
Lisa frowned.
"About a month ago, Daddy told me he'd had an argument with the neighbor across the alley. The neighbor's dog had done his business in Daddy's yard, so he went over to complain. Daddy said he told the neighbor the next time he saw the dog in his back yard, he was going to shoot it. He said the neighbor told him if he did, he'd shoot Daddy."
I wrote all that down, and then asked Lisa if anyone could have gotten into the house somehow since all the doors and windows were locked from the inside. She shook her head.
"No. As far as I know, I'm the only one with a key to the house except Daddy. Daddy was a little paranoid after he got robbed one day about a year ago and he kept all the doors and windows locked all the time. He gave me a key so I could get in if he was asleep or something."
She blew her nose again and then said, "If you say Daddy's dead, I believe you. When will they take Daddy to the funeral home?"
I tried to be consoling even though other than a few tears, she didn't seem to be upset at all.
"Miss Jacobs, I understand that you want to take care of your father, but given the circumstances, it's going to take several hours before the coroner can remove his body and then probably at least two days before the coroner finishes the autopsy to determine cause of death."
"Then can I go home now? I need to call the funeral home to arrange his funeral."
I didn't have any reason to keep her there even though I had my suspicions about if she was telling me everything she knew about her father. She seemed to be upset, but not really that upset, at least not like I'd seen before.
"Yes, you can go now. I'm sorry we had to question you like we have, but it's standard procedure. I'm sorry for your loss."
She didn't thank me or say anything. She just walked to her car, got in, and drove away. Very strange behavior, I thought, for a woman who just lost her father. I'd met people like that before, though. I suppose at some point they do grieve, but they didn't show much emotion when I told them someone they knew was dead. The psychologist who taught part of a class on interrogation techniques said some people have a self-protection reaction hard-wired into their brain that won't let them show grief until they're alone. I figured Lisa Jacobs was one of those people.
The coroner showed up about a minute later and like I already knew, pronounced the guy dead. Sam was pulling his thermometer out of Mr. Jacob's belly when I walked into the bedroom. I asked if he had a cause and time of death yet. He looked at me and smiled.
"Walt, you ask me those same questions every time and I always give you the same answer -- I can't be sure until I get him on my table back at the morgue. What I can tell you is he's been dead for at least eight hours and that he has a small caliber gunshot wound to his belly, just under his rib cage. It's my guess he was shot while he was on his back, just like he's laying here. I'll know for sure when I pop the hood and have a look at the damage."
The Crime Lab team showed up then. I knew I'd just be in their way, so I went outside to see if Todd had learned any more than I had. He looked at his notes and frowned.
"No, not much. Mr. Jacobs wasn't her biological father. Her mother was married to a different guy and divorced him when Miss Jacobs was three. She married Mr. Jacobs a year later, and he adopted her. Lisa's been married twice, but changed her name back to Jacobs after the last divorce. She didn't go into why she's been divorced twice, but she seemed a little cold to me.
"Mr. Jacobs also adopted her brother, Michael. He lives in Atlanta. The wife died of cancer three years ago. Since then, Miss Jacobs has sort of taken care of Mr. Jacobs. She said he sometimes forgets things, like paying his electric bill, so she checks on him every day. She told me Mr. Jacobs is the only father she remembers.
"I asked her if she knew of anybody who would want to hurt her father and she said the neighbor across the alley might. I gather they had an argument over the neighbor's dog crapping in Mr. Jacobs' back yard. Mr. Jacobs threatened to shoot the dog if he saw him doing it again, and the neighbor made the same threat to Mr. Jacobs. That's about all we talked about before you came out of the house."
"Did she seem upset?"
Todd shook his head.
