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I spend the rest of the night driving around, visiting old friends. People forty and older, who lived in the South Shore neighborhood in 2005, when Schultz senior was an officer.
I want to know who shot him that night.
Nobody rolls up on an off-duty cop and puts a bullet in his head by accident. That was no car-jacking gone awry.
Not to mention, very few family men with a wife and kid at home are driving around at 1:30 am. Not by Rosenblum Park. I’m expecting to discover a mistress, a gambling habit, a corruption scheme. Schultz senior had an enemy—I want to know who it was.
I talk to Jeremy Porter, an old-timer who owns a bodega on the corner of 76th and Chappel, right by the park. He says he remembers the night the shooting happened, because he was running his shop, and he heard the gunshots and the sirens after. But he says he didn’t see anything.
“The news article said there was security footage,” I tell him. “Did that come from your shop?”
He shakes his head. “Nah. You couldn’t see a thing from here. I didn’t have cameras back then anyway.”
“Where do you think the footage came from?”
He shrugs. “Mighta been from the funeral home on Jeffrey. But that’s gone now.”
I check with the Chinese Kitchen sitting next to where the funeral home used to be. The owner doesn’t know anything about it, and he doesn’t want to talk to me.
“I don’t want trouble,” he tells me. “I’m closing up for the night. Don’t come back here.”
In the end, it’s August Bruce who gives me my lead. He owns a pub in South Shore, not close to the park, but still in the neighborhood.
He’s about sixty years old, with a bulldog jaw and Popeye arms. He offers me a drink on the house, even though I know he’s about the cheapest motherfucker alive. He likes Papa, so he’s trying to be hospitable.
I take the beer, ignoring the dusty bottle and the filthy rag Bruce is using to wipe down the bar.
“Yeah, I knew Schultz,” he says.
He lights a hand-rolled cigarette, ignoring the fact that he’s not supposed to be smoking inside his own pub. It smells like he does that a lot in here.
“How’d you know him?” I ask.
“His sister married my nephew. Plus, he grew up on the south side. Baseball star. Won all-state as a pitcher. Got drafted by South Bend, but never got called up. So everybody knew him in the neighborhood.”
“Then he became a cop.”
“That’s right,” Bruce chuckles. “People only know two kinds of careers here. Crime, or catching criminals. You choose a team, just like sandlot.”
“But he was a dirty cop.”
Bruce frowns, taking a puff off his cigarette, then picking a piece of tobacco off his tongue. “Who told you that?” he says.
“Somebody capped him. That doesn’t happen by accident. Plus, law of averages . . .”
Bruce shakes his head. “Schultz was as clean as they come. Actual hero-type.”
“You sure?”
“As much as you can know anybody.”
“Who shot him, then? Somebody he locked up? Somebody he was investigating?”
“Could be.” Bruce shrugs. “Or . . .”
I wait, letting him enjoy the suspense.
“You know who hates a hero cop?” Bruce says, squinting at me. “A dirty cop.”
