"1505, Back-up arriving on scene, Medics 2 minutes out."

A 15 division car pulled up and Peck and Foxx got out. "Jake," Gail said, "get the tape, make a perimeter." Jake hurried to the trunk of their squad while Gail wandered over to Collins and Price. "What happened here?"

Nick crossed his arms. "Seemed like a routine stop, subject came back on parole, wanted on an assault with bodily harm. I asked him to step out, I thought he was reaching for his seatbelt but he pulled a gun instead. If he wanted to shoot me he had the chance. I couldn't have drawn in time. But he just shot himself."

"I see. I guess he really didn't want to go back to jail."

A wail of sirens signaled the arriving ambulance. They hurried over and Nick told them he was already gone. Yet another siren preluded the arrival of McNally. She hurried over. "Did either of you two fire?", she asked Chloe and Nick.

"No. I was barely even able to draw," Nick replied.

"Price? Where were you?"

"I was at the rear passenger door when the shot happened. I drew but re-holstered a couple seconds later, once I saw what happened."

Andy nodded, "So he shot himself, you two are clear."

"Not that they'll believe us." Nick pointed a thumb over his shoulder toward the crowd where Foxx was trying to keep the crowd calm and a bay. "Peck, why don't you go help Foxx out, just until we get more bodies here."

"Why not," Gail said and walked off. One of the medics walked over to McNally. "You're in charge here?"

"Yeah, for now."

"Okay, he's gone, but we already knew that, right? Did one of you call in the coroner?"

"I did," Nick said from behind the medic."

Okay, we left him as we found him, we only checked for a pulse and other signs of life, reactive eyes, that kind of thing. Everything is preserved."

"Thanks," Andy said with a sigh.

"Any time," the medic retrieved his bag and joined his partner back in their rig.

"So, um, what now?", Chloe asked.

"Now we wait. Wait for more units, the coroner, and the detectives." Andy pulled out her phone. "Nick, keep standing there, block the view from the lookers. Chloe, search the car, see what you can find. I'll call Staff."

A half-hour later, the crime scene investigation was in full swing. Nick and Chloe had given their statements and were now talking with Sam while Dov was talking with the coroner's service. Chris and Marcy joined Gail and Chloe on the perimeter along with some other officers that arrived.. The crowd was growing and some people were not all that interested in peacefully observing. Andy was searching through the car when she came to the duffel bag in the back. It was black, not very large with a couple side pockets that were empty. Andy unzipped the bag and found bundles of cash. $50,000, easy. She poked her head out of the back seat. "Uh, guys, I might have something here."

Sam walked over, Nick and Chloe trailing him. "Woah, what do we have here?" Sam took a picture and asked Chloe what Parker was on probation for.

"Possession with intent."

"Interesting. So, maybe he's on his way to a buy. Bag it up, take it back to the station. Epstein?"

Dov excused himself from his conversation and walked over to his partner. "Coroner says the powder burns and angles match up with a self-inflicted wound."

"Okay."

"Gun was a .38. Serial number filed off. Not really surprising, considering he was on parole, that the gun would be illegal in-and-of-itself."

"Let's take a ride, grab Peck and Foxx, tell them to join us."

"Where are we going?"

"We're going to go by Mr. Parker's house. Turns out he had about fifty grand in the car. And he's on parole for possession with intent. My gut says he got out of jail and right back into the life. Why else would he have that in non-sequential twenties in a duffel bag. Hopefully there'll be something at his place that points us further up the ladder."

"What's the plan here?", Gail asked when they rendezvoused at the house.

"Epstein and I will door knock, you two stand down at the bottom of the porch. Then follow us in."

"If nobody's home?", Foxx asked.

"Then we'll take a look around and see what we see."

Sam and Dov climbed the porch and Sam pounded three times on the door then rang the doorbell. They heard movment and the door opened a moment later, but only as much as the chain allowed it. A twenty-something man was on the other side. "Police? Uh, what's going on?"

"Detectives Swarek and Epstein," Sam indicated the two of them, "15 division. Does a Marshall Parker live here?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess so."

"You guess so?", Dov asked."

"Yeah, I mean, he's my roommate. But he's not here that often. What's this about?"

"Can we step inside," Sam suggested, "talk for a minute?"

"If you have to, let me get the chain." The man shut the door and didn't open it again. They could hear him running through the house towards the back.

"You two, get around back!" Sam yelled but Peck and Foxx were already moving. Dov reared back and kicked the door, it came off the hinge and the two detectives burst through, guns out. They followed the sights on their guns through the house until thy heard the screen door on the back slam shut. They hurried in that direction and found the door led out from the back of the kitchen. Sam pulled it and Dov moved through.

Foxx and Peck were a third of the yard ahead of them, Jake a few steps ahead of Gail. The man was trying to get to the gate in the back of the fence, but his baggy pants were slowing him down and Foxx was rapidly closing. A couple more steps and he tackled the fleeing man and attempted to restrain his arms. Unfortunately, he missed on his first try and the man drove a blade he had somewhere on him up into Jake's lower abdomen. Foxx rolled off of him and clutched at the wound. The man got back to his knees and held the knife out.

Gail and Dov ordered him to drop the knife. Sam saw something in the guy, maybe a twitch in his eyes that gave his intentions away. He raised his arms slowly but instead of dropping the knife he moved to bring it down hard and fast towards Foxx again. Sam fired three quick shots that hit the man before his arm got halfway back down. He was dead before he fell back onto the ground and the knife rolled out of his grip. Gail and Dov might have fired also, Sam wasn't sure.

"10-33, Officer down and shots fired! This is 1519. Suspect is down. Repeat officer down and suspect down. Rush a bus!", Gail relayed through her radio. "I'm going to get the kit!", she yelled and ran back towards her squad. Dov dropped down next to Foxx and applied pressure to the wound. Sam moved towards the suspect and found that he landed all three shots. Two in the chest, one in the head. He was gone. The knife was a long kitchen knife. "How's he doing?", Sam asked kneeling down next to Foxx as well.

"He's conscious, losing blood quickly though. Gail!"

"I'm here," Gail dropped to the ground and pulled out the gauze pads and tape from the kit. She affixed the bandages and helped apply pressure. A couple minutes later an ambulance showed up and multiple squad cars. The medics rushed to the back yard with a stretcher. Soon Fox was loaded up and Gail accompanied him to the hospital. Dov went to clean himself up and Sam sat down in the yard and allowed himself to decompress.

"Brother, what happened?"

Sam looked up to Shaw standing over him. He wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting there. He rubbed his eyes, re-focused, stood up, and filled Oliver in.

"Let's get you in my truck, until SIU gets here. Where's Epstein and Peck?"

"Peck went with Foxx in the ambulance. Dov is getting cleaned up."

"I'll find him, put him in your car. Um, McNally is gonna be here soon, working the scene. Don't talk to her if she gets here before SIU does. Go with them, give your statement. It sounds like a clean shoot. Then you can talk to her later.

"Yeah, I got it."

"Listen Sammy, you did good. The other two didn't fire. If you hadn't, Jake might never have made it to the hospital.

Andy arrived on scene and met up with Oliver in the front yard. "Where's Sam?"

"SIU already took him back to the station. We've got another problem."

"What's that?"

"Follow me." Oliver led her into the house, which was a split level, and down to the lower floor and a side room to the left of the stairs. Inside was a body.

"Who is it."

"Billy Fisher, according to the landlord, he's the principle renter of this place. This is the roommate of our dead driver."

"Then who is the guy Sam shot?"

"Still trying to figure that out. No I.D. on him. Anderson is on her way down to work this. I'm also waiting to hear back from Drug Squad if Parker or Fisher were involved in anything they knew about. Maybe that will point us at who the third guy is."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Supervise here until Detective Anderson arrives. I have to get back to make some more calls and check in with SIU. I'm going to detail Epstein to Homicide for this one so he'll be working it with Anderson. Who knows, might even have to get Guns and Gangs involved on that third guy if he's liked to anything. This could be really big."

"Yeah, too bad all three guys involved are dead."

"Hey, nobody said it'd be easy."

That evening Sam finally walked out of his interview with SIU. All parties agreed it appeared a clean shoot and Sam should be back on duty in a week or two after his mandatory leave. He walked up to his desk and signed off on some final things before he could leave. When he was just about finished, Andy stopped by.

"How are you doing?", she asked

"I think I'm good. I was a little shaky earlier as I came down from the adrenaline but I'm okay now."

"You want to talk about it."

"Nothing to talk about. I had to shoot. If I didn't, Foxx might be dead right now." Earlier he had heard that Jake had been stabilized and should make a full recovery. Back on the job in six weeks or so.

"Okay, I'll go change and then we can go home."

"What about the party?"

"I wasn't sure you'd want to go after today."

"I feel fine. We should go be there. At least for a little while."

"If you say so.

"I love you, McNally."

"I love you Sam Swarek." She kissed him deeply then walked off to the locker rooms.

Dov came up a minute later to log off his system and put his files away.

"Swarek. How did SIU go?"

"it went fine. Pretty straight forward stuff."

"That's what I said, too,"

"At least there's no missing weapon and there's an injured officer. Should help my case."

"Yeah, you'll be fine."

"What about you? You going to be able to hack it while I'm out of here?"

"I'll work with Detective Anderson on the murder at the house, we presume the perp to be the guy you shot but we still have to figure out who he is. I'll try to stay out of trouble."

"I bet you will."

"Listen, if you don't want to come to the penny tonight, we'll understand, no hard feelings."

"Epstein, right now I could use a drink."

Dov smiled, "Well, alright then."

After Epstein had left, Sam pulled out his phone and punched up a contact. The call went to voicemail. "Hey, it's Sam. I was just calling to check in, see how it's going. I had a bit of a rough day, had to shoot somebody. Anyway, I'll be off for a little while and I was hoping we could plan something out…