Through the Flames by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins

him the whole story, and he thinks there’s a good chance we can nail this LeRoy Banks for both murders—André and the André look-alike. As long as LeRoy is living here in Mount Prospect, that’s where the jurisdiction problem comes in. The Chicago PD often cooperates—in a manner of speaking—with suburban departments, but here’s where, unfortunately, the racism surfaces.
    “My boss claims he was speaking for his bosses, but I think I know him better than that. He was speaking his own mind and pretending he wasn’t.”
    Lionel leaned forward. “What’d he say?”
    Fogarty pursed his lips and shook his head, as if he could hardly bring himself to repeat it. “He said to me, ‘Tommy, with everything we’ve got on our plates right now, everybody overworked and all, people are asking themselves what do they care about this element killing each other off.’ ”
    “I have no idea what you just said,” Ryan said, sitting up.
    “I do,” Lionel said. “Nobody cares if blacks kill blacks. Especially if they’re lowlifes like LeRoy and my uncle and whoever that first victim was.”
    “That’s exactly right,” Fogarty said.
    “So, you’re not going to help us?” Lionel said.
    “If I wasn’t going to try, I wouldn’t be here,” the cop said. “I’m a police officer because I’m a justice freak. The problem is, I represent the Chicago PD, and LeRoy Banks is living too far from home right now. I’d have to somehow get Banks back into Chicago.”
    “Because otherwise, your people don’t care enough,” Lionel said.
    “I’m afraid that’s right.”
    “So what do we do now?”
    “You understand I can only advise you,” Fogarty said. “I can’t do anything for you or with you, and I have no official capacity outside Chicago.”
    Judd and Vicki nodded. Lionel turned his face away. Ryan still seemed puzzled.
    “Our people know of Banks and think we can link him to other killings. But as long as he’s holed up this far from Chicago—”
    “And nobody down there cares enough,” Lionel interrupted.
    “—Right, that too. I think your best chance is to scare him out of your house and get him to set up shop back in Chicago where he belongs. Then he’s out of your hair, and he becomes Chicago’s problem.”
    “But they don’t care,” Lionel said, “and when he finds out I’ve moved back home, he comes back and wipes me out.”
    “Oh, I wouldn’t move back there if I were you,” Fogarty said. “Even if you get him to move out. At least until you hear he’s been caught and charged.”
    “So until then, he wins.”
    “Exactly.”
    “I’m for trying to run him off,” Lionel said. “But how do we do that?”
    “That I cannot tell you,” Fogarty said. “I have some ideas about how someone might, how shall we say it, persuade someone to move on. But one thing I must caution you: Don’t ever confront him in person. You know already that he’s armed and dangerous. He’d just as soon kill you as to look at you. He’s done it, and he’d do it again. You already know he knows Lionel was with André just before he got there. And he knows Ryan and Vicki were in the neighborhood.”
    “I’m the only one who’s never seen him or been seen by him,” Judd said.
    “Unless he saw you when he came racing out of the alley last night,” Lionel said.
    “I doubt it,” Judd said.
    “I wouldn’t risk it,” Lionel said.
    “Neither would I,” Fogarty said. “But I’ll tell you what I will do. I’m going to investigate this story and these two murders on my own time. When I get enough evidence on LeRoy, I’m going to be looking for him in his old neighborhood. If you can spook him to the point where he will retreat to there, even one more time, I’ll stop him for any reason I can think of. If he so much as has a broken taillight or a loud muffler, I’ll pull him over and find a reason to take him to the precinct station house. Once there, I’ll find a way to fingerprint him,