The Shoulders of Giants

The Shoulders of Giants Jim Cliff Copyright 2011 Jim Cliff

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. Isaac Newton, 1676

Chapter 1 The call came on Sunday. I picked it up on the third ring and said, for the first time, “Abraham and Associates, Jake Abraham speaking.” “Hello,” said a gruff voice on the other end. He paused after every few words. “My name is Gregory Patterson, and I have a matter I’d like to discuss with you.” I’d never actually spoken to a client before. I wondered if there was anything special I should say next. I went for “Please go on.” “Perhaps we could meet up and talk.” He sounded highly strung. “Sure, you can come to my office or...” “Do you know a bar called Flanagan’s on Larrabee Street?” he interrupted.

“Yeah, I know it.” I said. Actually, I didn’t, but it would be simpler to look it up in the phonebook than have him direct me there. “Okay, meet me there in an hour.” He hesitated. “Do you know who I am?” I assured him I did, and he hung up. The question was kind of redundant. You’d have to be living in a very deep hole not to have heard of Gregory Patterson – a year before he was barely out of the papers. Captain Gregory Patterson of the Chicago Police Department, 15th District. At the tail end of 2004, just as the ball was dropping in Times Square, he was arrested on racketeering charges and put on trial along with three highranking members of the Irish Mob. He was accused of tipping them off to raids, tampering with evidence and, most famously, giving up the location of a Federal witness. A witness who later died alongside three FBI agents when the

safehouse they were in was blown up. The evidence they had was circumstantial, backed up by testimony from convicted mobsters, and ultimately the jury found there was reasonable doubt and he was acquitted. Of course, it was too late, since he’d already been tried by the media and found guilty in the court of public opinion. Most people assumed he was guilty and got lucky. Some were angry at the jury and felt he got special treatment because he was a cop. I must admit I thought he probably did do it, but I believe in the system and from what I read I didn’t think there was enough evidence for a conviction beyond reasonable doubt. Naturally, his career was over, his private life turned inside out and laid bare in the press. They went on and on about his youth in Bridgeport, his childhood friendship with future mobster Jimmy Moran, his drinking problem, his citation for using excessive

force. It was brutal. And now he wanted to speak to me. Gregory Patterson wanted to meet with me, in my professional capacity as a private investigator. I panicked about whether I was dressed smartly enough, which was dumb, seeing as a client could walk in at any time. At the moment, I had on light slacks, a blue button-down shirt and a suede jacket. I looked a little like Don Johnson in Nash Bridges. I checked the address of Flanagan’s in the phonebook and decided I had time to go home and change. In my apartment on Halsted, I put on a light gray summer suit, and a tie with little turtles on it. I looked in the mirror to check my guns didn’t show, and left. As I walked into Flanagan’s, I saw Patterson sitting at the bar. I’d remembered him from a thousand newspaper articles, and he

hadn’t changed much in a year. He was about fifty, had lost weight, and I could see in his face there wasn’t much fight left in him. On the way to the bar, I wondered what he wanted to talk to me about. Did he want to hire me to clear his name once and for all? To find out who set him up? “Hi, I’m Jake Abraham.” I said, as I approached him, “We spoke earlier.” Patterson finished his drink and ordered another. A double scotch on the rocks. I ordered a Coke, no rocks. Never drink in front of a client. If I’d had time to formulate a set of rules, I’m sure that would have been one of them. Our drinks came and we moved to a booth at the back of the bar. Patterson spoke first. “I’d like to hire you,” he said, “to find my daughter.”

Chapter 2 I took out a notepad and pencil, and this seemed to encourage him to elaborate on his situation. “Susan just started her sophomore year at UIC.” He took a photo from his wallet and handed it to me. She was very attractive. She had long dark hair, large doe eyes, and Liv Tyler lips. “How long has she been missing?” I said. “She was supposed to come round last night. When she didn’t show up I called her roommate, who said she hadn’t seen her since Friday evening.” “Where did she go Friday night?” I hoped I was asking the right questions. I’d never interviewed anyone officially before.

“She went to a bar, or a nightclub. You’d have to ask Denise. That’s Susan’s roommate. I’ll give you their address.” “Well, she hasn’t been gone long. Have you thought maybe she met someone, and forgot she was supposed to come see you yesterday? You know what college students are like.” I wondered if he did. “She didn’t forget.” He took a deep breath. “Yesterday was my fiftieth birthday, Mr Abraham. Susan had planned a big surprise party at my house. When I got home at six, all the guests were waiting in the street. She should have been there at five to let them all in and set everything up. They were all very embarrassed, and told me what they were doing there. I said not to worry, she was probably stuck in traffic, and that we should wait for her before starting to celebrate. We waited. She didn’t come. She’d

been planning it for over a month. She didn’t forget.” “I’m sorry” I said, “What about the police? Isn’t this more their field of expertise?” “You said on the phone that you know who I am, Mr Abraham. I don’t have any friends in the Police Department anymore. They ostracized me quite effectively. I’ll file a missing persons report, but I don’t trust them to put every effort into finding Susan, let alone keeping me informed of their progress. I called a few P.I.’s I used to know before I called you. The polite ones just put the phone down when they heard it was me.” “I see. Okay, I’ll need to keep this photo, and I’ll have to take Susan’s address, and a few more details. I get $250 a day plus expenses, and I’ll need five days in advance as a retainer.” “So you’ll take the case?” “Yeah.” I said, “I’ll take the case.” Before I

left, I got a check, and some more information from Patterson, such as Susan’s full name, date of birth, Social Security Number, and the name of the bookstore she worked part-time in. That’s about all most parents know about their kids. I’d find out more by talking to her friends. I decided to start straight away, even though I wouldn’t be able to cash my check until morning. Since she’d been gone less than fortyeight hours, there wouldn’t be much of a paper trail to follow just yet, so I headed over to speak to Susan’s roommate, Denise Everett. Susan and Denise’s apartment was in Greek Town, on West Van Buren. I buzzed their apartment, third floor, and a voice answered. “Who is it?” “My name’s Jake Abraham, I’m a private detective.” It was the first time I’d actually said that. “I’m working for Susan’s father and I’d like

to ask you a few questions.” “Come on up.” The door buzzed, and I pushed it open. When I reached the top of the stairs, Denise was waiting for me by the door. She was taller than me, and wore jeans and a baggy gray sweatshirt with the University of Illinois logo on it. When she talked, it was with a southern drawl. “Come in,” she said, “can I get you anything? Coffee? Juice?” “Thanks, I’m fine. I just want to ask you a few questions about Susan. Do you know where she went on Friday night?” “Yeah, she said she was going to Dutch’s. It’s a bar on the North Side. I don’t know how long she would have stayed there, though.” “Did she go on her own? Was she meeting friends there, her boyfriend?” Denise laughed out loud. “I’m sorry,” she

said, when she had recovered, “Susan don’t have a boyfriend. She’s gay. Dutch’s is a gay bar.” “Does her father know that?” “That she’s gay? Sure. He’s cool with it”, she said. I wondered why he hadn’t mentioned it. “Okay, does she have a girlfriend then?” I asked, shifting gears expertly. “Nah, not at the moment. Far as I know she wasn’t meeting anyone, just there for some fun.” “Do you have any idea where she might have gone? Do you think she would have missed her father’s birthday without a reason?” “She has a good relationship with her old man, you know? They’re pretty close these days. I was real surprised when he called me up and said she wasn’t there.” “Tell me a bit more about her. Does she have any close friends, other relatives she mentioned, ex-girlfriends maybe she went to

visit?” I was running out of things to ask before the old favorite ‘Can you think of anyone who might want to hurt Susan?’ “I don’t know, she don’t have a whole lot of friends. I guess maybe I’m closest to her. She’s a quiet person. Keeps to herself, mostly. I think she just prefers her own company. As for ex-girlfriends, there’s only one she’s ever really talked about, name’s Abby something.” “Can you think of anyone who might want to hurt Susan?” “No, like I said, she don’t have too many friends, but she don’t have no enemies either.” “Okay, thanks for your help. Do you mind if I take a look in Susan’s room before I go?” “If you think it’ll help. I sure hope she’s alright.” Denise showed me to Susan’s room and I gave her one of my business cards, with

instructions to call me if she remembered anything she thought might be useful. She left me alone. The room was a complete mess. At first I thought maybe someone had broken in, searching for something, but I figured Denise would probably have mentioned that. I guess she was just messy. I started sorting through some piles on the floor, but it seemed they were just made up of various articles of clothing, so I moved to the desk. I couldn’t actually see the surface of the desk, as it was covered in paper. There were empty envelopes, course notes, letters from her father, a checkbook, old pay stubs, and some more University paperwork. Underneath the mess was an old-looking address book, and a desk diary, still in its plastic wrapping. I took a look in the address book. Most of the names had been crossed out, but one caught my eye. Abby

Dexter, presumably the ex-girlfriend; the address was out in Oak Park. There were few other entries, but I pocketed the book rather than transcribe what was there. I could always put it back later. The checkbook showed that if she’d paid for hotel rooms, car hire, or airline tickets recently, then she hadn’t paid by check. I saw from the course notes that she was taking some psychology courses. I wondered if any of my old professors taught her. It took me another couple of minutes to locate a class schedule. I recognized several of the lecturers’ names, but one brought back the strongest memories. My old tutor in Abnormal Psych, Dr Aronson. It’s a small world after all. A laptop PC perched on the edge of the desk, the encroaching lava-flow of paper threatening to topple it onto the floor. I lifted the lid and fired it up, hoping Susan didn’t favor

password protection. I worked through her emails, her Favorites folder and her Internet history and came up empty. No evidence that she had contacted anyone about making a trip, or booked any travel or accommodation. No threatening emails, demands for money or ultimatums. I wrote down the name Anjali Sharma, who she seemed to exchange emails with about her Psych courses. I found no signs that Susan had succumbed to the temptations of Facebook or MySpace. The online resources exhausted, I turned to her hard drive and looked in her ‘My Documents’ folder. True to form, the files were not organized into sub-folders, meaning I had to wade through a virtual bucket of university related Word documents before one filename caught my eye. Diary. Susan’s diary, it turned out, was the one file

she had password protected – the 21st century equivalent of one of those lockable journals favored by teenage girls. I tried ‘password’, ‘abby’, ‘susan’ and her date of birth but had no luck, so I went back to the emails. Tucked away in her Deleted Items, which by the look of things she had never emptied, was an email from an online bookshop. When Susan had registered they had sent her confirmation of her username and password. Most people can’t remember more than a few passwords, so they tend to choose the same one for everything and, sure enough, when I typed ‘folderol’ into the password screen I was granted access to her deepest thoughts. The diary was not a small document. Susan had typed anywhere between a paragraph and three pages per day for about the past 18 months. I started at the last entry, under

Thursday’s date. Half an hour later I closed the file and the laptop lid, infuriated by Susan’s writing style. She had no apparent concept of what separates an anecdote from just something that happened, nor the prescience to highlight items which might be useful to my investigation. A cup of coffee was described in Michener-like detail over the course of one full page, including an in depth analysis of whether the brand of artificial sweetener available had more or less aftertaste than the one she was used to. Conversely, the entry for Friday the 7th, one week before she went missing, read simply Saw W. again today. Tried not to blush. Failed. Don’t think she noticed. Working backwards, I found more cryptic references to W., every Friday in May and June,

but nothing in July and August. Had W’s recent return had anything to do with Susan’s departure? If W. was who Susan was meeting at Dutch’s, maybe I should talk with her. All I had to do now was find out the other letters in her name. I emailed the diary to myself at the office so I could read some more if I found the time but, knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back to it. In the waste paper basket, amongst some aborted attempts at an essay, and a large number of candy wrappers, I found a credit card receipt for some groceries dated the week before. I put it in my pocket. On the way out I spotted Denise conspicuously hovering around the entrance to the small kitchen, probably wondering what I had been doing for over an hour. “All done?” she said, breezily.

“Think so. I do have one more thing to ask you, though.” She nodded. “Can you think of anyone Susan might refer to as W?” She thought for a second. “No. Definitely not.” “How about Anjali Sharma?” “Anjali? Yeah, I’ve met her a couple times. She and Susan have classes together. Indian girl.” “Native American?” I asked. “No, Indian. From India.” I thanked her again and left. Since I was already in Greek Town, I stopped off at The Parthenon for some dolmades and flaming saganaki. Next stop would be Dutch’s, to find out if anyone saw Susan there on Friday night.

Chapter 3 On my way in to Dutch’s, I was passed by two very muscular guys in tight T-shirts holding hands. I realized I may not fit in. I needn’t have worried. Nobody paid much attention to me. Also, I would have had to try hard to look as out of place as the bartender. He was a heavy-set, middle-aged man, with gray hair, and bags under his eyes, and he wore the international bartenders’ uniform of white shirt and black trousers. I sat at the bar and ordered a Budweiser. They didn’t serve Molson. “Are you Dutch?” I asked. I’m famous for my clever opening lines. “Yeah, I am. Are you a cop?” I knew I didn’t fit in.

“No, I’m a private investigator. I’m looking for a girl.” He smiled. “You’re in the wrong place. All the girls here are looking for other girls. Now, if you were looking for a guy...” I ignored his remark, and laid the picture of Susan that I’d got from her father on the bar. “I understand she was in here on Friday night. I wondered if you noticed her.” He didn’t look at the photo. “We get very busy in here, especially on Fridays, and some of the people who come here, they don’t want to be noticed, if you know what I mean. I’m very discreet.” “I admire your principles, but could you just take a look at the photo anyway?” I put a twenty on the bar by my beer. “Twenty bucks?” said Dutch, picking up the note between his thumb and forefinger and

holding it out in front of him, as if to show his disdain. “You haven’t been doing this too long, have you kid?” I tried not to show how much it bothered me to be called ‘kid’, since I was trying to get on Dutch’s good side, and I put another twenty on top of the photo. Dutch took the photo from the bar, and held it at arms length. After a few seconds, he decided his arm wasn’t long enough, and took a pair of reading glasses from his breast pocket. He stared hard at the photo while I took a swig of the Bud. “You know what, she was in here on Friday night.” “You’re sure?” “Yeah, I remember, because she was with this girl who was wearing a halo, and I remember thinking ‘What’s the deal with that?’”

“A halo?” I was getting to be an expert at asking tough questions. “Yeah, it was, like, some wire with glitter or something on it. She’d bent it so a hoop sat a few inches above her head. You know, like a halo. What’s with that? I mean, what kind of person gets ready to go out, puts some wire on their head, and thinks ‘yeah, that looks good, I’m gonna go out in public like this.’ You know, we had a band in here a couple of weeks ago, and the singer wore swimming goggles on stage. Swimming goggles. On stage. I mean, it’s bad enough wearing sunglasses indoors, but swimming goggles? What’s with that?” Dutch was getting a little over excited, so I assured him I didn’t know what was with that, and fought the urge to draw his attention to a guy at the end of the bar wearing high heels and a powder blue feather boa. I moved on to less

controversial issues. “Had you seen either of the girls here before?” “Nah, they’re not regulars. I think I’ve seen the halo girl before, but I can’t be sure.” I thanked Dutch, and he moved up the bar to serve the feather boa. I put the photo back in my pocket and took another gulp of Budweiser. “Hi there, can I get you a drink?” said a voice behind me. I spun on my barstool to see a tanned, blonde man smiling at me. I smiled back. “No thanks, I've got one here.” I contemplated very carefully the ethics of flirting with a guy to get information. Eventually, I said “Do you come here often?” He laughed. It was a corny line, but I wanted an answer. “Fairly often. I've never seen you here

before though.” “No, this is my first time.” “Well, welcome to Dutch's. My name's Frank” “Jake. Actually, I'm here more on business than pleasure. I'm looking for someone. A girl.” “You're in the wrong pl...” “I know, I know.” I showed Frank the picture. He shook his head. “Never seen her before. What's the story?” “She's missing. I'm helping her dad out. Have you ever seen a girl in here wearing a halo?” “Yes, Jaleesa was in here last week dancing with a girl who had a halo.” He yelled to a group of girls at the other end of the bar, “Jaleesa honey, come over here.” Jaleesa walked over. She moved like a cat, leisurely but precisely, and ready to pounce at

any second. “Hey Frankie, what’s up?” “You remember that girl you were dancing with last weekend, the one with the halo?” “Yeah, Angel?” “Angel?” I said. “Is that her real name?” “Far as I know.” She said. From the way she talked, I suspected she may have been smoking something. “Who’s this dude, Frankie? Why’s he askin’ about Angel?” “It’s okay Jaleesa, he’s a friend. He just wants to ask her some questions.” I smiled at Frank. He was doing a great job of interviewing my witness for me, so I let him continue. I considered winking at him, but decided against it. “Well, I just met her that night. I haven’t seen her since, and we didn’t do much talking, if you know what I mean. Nick introduced us.”

“Nick?” I asked. “He’s one of the bouncers here,” said Frank, looking around. “I can’t see him at the moment, but he’s definitely around tonight.” I waited while Frank went to look for the bouncer. I was feeling very warm, and was about to take my jacket off when I remembered it was busy covering my guns. The bouncers probably wouldn’t take kindly to a man in their bar with a shoulder holster. Instead, I took a sip of my beer and waited. Frank reappeared, followed by a man the size of Hawaii, who I took to be Nick. His neck was about the same width as my waist, and he was taller than me by a good eight inches. His head appeared to be completely clean shaven, although I couldn’t see the top from my vantage point. Perhaps he had a little circle of hair up there.

“Hi, I’m Jake Abraham.” I offered him my hand to shake, and hoped he wouldn’t break it. “Nick.” He was clearly a man of few words. Those few words were spoken in a deep, Barry White voice. “I understand you know a girl named Angel.” He nodded. “Is Angel her real name?” He nodded again. He didn’t look at me. His eyes were scanning the bar, looking for signs of trouble. “Do you have any idea where I could find her?” “You got a good reason for asking?” “I’m a private investigator.” I showed him the Photostat of my license in my wallet. “Angel may have come into some money. I need to find her to verify that she’s definitely the mandated

beneficiary. It’s a little complicated, and entirely confidential.” Fortunately, Nick wasn’t too bright. He seemed confused by long words, and quickly decided it would be easier to tell me what I wanted to know, rather than try to understand why I wanted to know it. “Her name is Angel DeMarco. She lives at 959 West Armitage.” “Thanks, Nick. That’s a great help. Say, you may know someone else I’m looking for. She’s also been known to come in here.” I showed him the photo. “Yeah, she’s been in here. Her name’s Susie, or Susan, or something.” “Susan. She was here on Friday night, spent some time with Angel. Did you notice her? He shook his massive head, “I didn’t work Friday.”

I thanked Nick again, and offered to buy him a drink, but he had to get back to work. I was glad. I didn’t feel much like making small talk with a sumo wrestler in a suit. Frank was on the dance floor, and I waved goodbye to him on my way out. He made a thumbs-up sign, and kept on dancing.

Chapter 4 From what I had found out so far, it seemed Angel DeMarco was the last person to see Susan before she disappeared. So, on Monday morning, I went to visit her. The security door to her apartment building was hanging off its hinges, so I went right in without buzzing. According to the name over the mailbox, Angel’s apartment was the first on the left. I knocked. There was no answer. I looked at my watch. It was eleven a.m. I knocked again, and then put my ear to the door. There was no sound. If Susan Patterson was tied up inside, she was keeping very quiet. I felt around the door frame, and lifted the doormat to look underneath. There was no spare key. I could pick a padlock in about ten minutes

on a good day, but padlocks are easy, and I hadn’t progressed to doors yet. Besides, I didn’t have the right tools with me. So I decided to wait. It was then that it hit me that I didn’t know what Angel looked like. All the people I’d spoken to in Dutch’s, and I hadn’t thought to ask for a description. Shoddy detective work. I couldn’t hang around in the lobby all day without somebody calling the cops, and if I waited outside, I’d only be able to identify her if she happened to be wearing her halo. Which I doubted. I left the building and went to peer in at her window. The room was small, and shabbily decorated. A bed, a couch and a desk took up most of the floorspace, and the remainder was covered in a threadbare gray carpet, strewn with thick text books and assorted pairs of shoes. A poster of Piper Perabo adorned the far wall next

to the kitchen, and on the other hung a simple picture frame, with a collage of photos behind the glass. They were of young people at parties, proms, on holiday, and generally having fun. One girl featured in more than half of the photos. She had spiky, bleached blonde hair, an eyebrow ring, and striking blue eyes. I decided to assume that this would be Angel. There was a coffee shop next door to Angel’s building. I went in and ordered a hot chocolate, two turkey sandwiches and a danish. I sat by the window, where I could just about see the entrance to 959. After I’d finished my first sandwich, I made a couple of calls on my cell phone. “Area 3 Detectives Division, this is Detective Bales.” “Hi, Scott.” “Hey buddy, how’s the P.I. business?”

“Very exciting. How’s yours?” “This morning? I think the best word is bizarre.” “Have you heard about the former Captain Patterson’s daughter going missing?” “Yeah, I heard.” He didn’t sound like he cared. “Any idea how the investigation is going?” “Slowly, I would think.” He paused, and I gave him a few seconds to figure it out. Being a trained detective, he managed it in two. “Is that what you’re working on?” “Bingo. My first case.” “Wow. You really know how stop a career before it’s started. There’s a lot of people hate Patterson. You don’t want to associate yourself too closely with him.” “Yeah, whatever. Anyway, do you know how it’s going?”

“Not my case, but I’ll see what I can find out. At the moment I’m kind of busy though. Got this real wacko case today.” “Wacko how?” I asked. “O.K., listen to this. Twenty eight year old African-American male, found sitting, dead, in his car, parked outside his building on Racine at eight yesterday morning. Medical examiner’s pretty sure he drowned”. “In his car?” “Not in his car. How could he drown in his car? No, in the lake, in a pool, M.E. doesn’t know. Point is, we got a drowned guy fully dressed, in dry clothes, in his car, like he drove home”. “You thinking it was an accident or murder?” I asked. “There was some minor mutilation to the body that makes us think homicide. Drowning

homicide’s really rare, but if it was an accident why not leave him where it happened?” “Isn’t drowning really hard to pin down as a cause of death?” “Why would you know something like that?” “I read it somewhere.” “Well, yes, it is, but the M.E. says he’s ruled out the other possibilities. He’s pretty sure”. Scott Bales was an old friend. I’d roomed with his younger brother Paul at UIC, and got to know the family very well. I spent Christmas in Aspen with them one year. I got to know them all a lot better when Paul died. He was shot by a drug dealer who he was apparently in competition with. I spent a lot of time with his family, all of us trying to make sense of what had happened, and we ended up as a support system for each other. Scott had been hit hard by it all.

He was a young Detective, just out of uniform, and he had no idea his little brother was into anything bad. Family are often the last to know. My second call was to Lucy, who worked for what my old boss used to call a ‘Borderline company’. ‘Borderlines’ are companies which deal in confidential information. Nobody knows how they get it. Nobody asks. But if it’s on a computer anywhere, they can find out for you. To get a P.I. license in Chicago, you first have to work for a P.I. agency for three years. I did my time with Hayes and Co. Investigations. Old Mr Hayes was nice enough, but my job there was mainly administrative. I would file, photocopy, type up the investigators’ reports, deliver bills, and answer the phone. After I’d been there a year, I also did some process serving and learnt how to run financial checks on clients to make sure they could pay. Sometimes, if I was very

lucky, and if all the qualified sleuths were occupied, I would get to liaise with the borderlines. Which basically meant I called Lucy, read out the list of stuff Mr Hayes wanted to know and waited at my desk until she called back. That’s what I love about detective work. The glamour. This time the list was mine. I gave Lucy Susan Patterson’s Social Security Number, date of birth, home phone number, and credit card number from the receipt I’d pocketed. Then I gave her my cell phone number and my office address, so she could bill me. Just before noon, Lucy called my cell. I got out my notebook and wrote down what she had found out. Susan had not used her credit card, or taken money out of an ATM since Thursday afternoon. She didn’t have a car or a criminal record. Her only registered addresses were her

father’s house, and the apartment she shared with Denise on Van Buren. Thirty-six calls had been made from their phone number since Friday morning. I thought that sounded like a lot, even for a girl, until I remembered she had been organizing a surprise party for her dad. One of them was to a number I recognized as Gregory Patterson’s, and I would have to check out the rest when I got back to the office. Having forgotten first time round, I asked Lucy to check for incoming calls to the apartment and for calls to and from her cell phone. At a quarter after twelve a girl with spiky blonde hair turned onto Armitage off Sheffield. I watched her as she went into the front door of number 959. It was the girl from the photo. I finished my lunch and calmly went next door. I walked in through the open outer door, and knocked on Angel’s apartment. She opened the

door, without asking who it was, and stared at me. Her eyes were an intense, unnatural blue, piercing and absorbing. “Yeah?” I showed her the license in my wallet, and she pretended to read it. “My name is Jake Abraham. I’m a private detective. I’d like to ask you a few questions.” “Sure. Come on in.” She stepped aside to allow me to pass. She didn’t ask ‘what is this about?’ She didn’t really seem surprised to see me. Had she been expecting someone? Maybe Nick had told her I was asking about her. I went in and sat down. “I’d like to ask you about last Friday night. I understand you spent the evening at Dutch’s.” “That’s right, Detective.” Perhaps she hadn’t questioned me because she thought I was with the police. I didn’t correct her.

“Do you go there regularly?” “I’ve been there a couple of times. I know one of the bouncers who works there.” She took out a pack of gum, offered me some, and put a stick in her mouth. I declined. “I’m looking for a missing girl, who you were seen talking to on Friday. I’d appreciate if you could tell me what happened that night.” I put the photograph of Susan on her coffee table. “Oh my god.” The first spark of emotion I’d seen since I arrived. “Yeah, I was talking to her. I arrived about nine, and she was at the bar. I liked the look of her, so I went over to strike up a conversation.” “What kind of things did you talk about?” “Oh, this and that. Anything and everything. We’re both Psych students. She’s at UIC, I’m at De Paul. Anyway, we really hit it off. We talked for a couple of hours, we drank, we danced, and

I gave her my phone number.” She smiled. “I wrote it on her hand. Cheesy, I know.” “Then what happened?” Her glowing blue eyes looked confused. “What do you mean?” She said. “Did you leave together?” “No. I left her at the bar. I’d arranged to meet up with some friends. I asked if she wanted to join us, but she stayed at the bar, ordered another drink.” “Did you see her talking to anyone else?” “I glanced over a few times, trying to catch her eye. I did see her talking to someone. An older woman, about thirty, thirty-five. When I left they were still talking.” “What time was this?” I asked, taking notes. “I don’t know. Eleven thirty maybe.” “Can you describe this woman?”

“I didn’t pay much attention. Shoulder length hair, fairly attractive, white. She had on jeans and a blouse. Redhead, I think” “Height? Weight?” “I don’t know. Not fat. About average I guess. She was sitting down, and it was dark. It was hard to tell.” “Okay, I just have one more question. Your eyes are very blue. Are they...” She smiled, and opened her eyes wider. “Tinted contact lenses. Do you like them?” “They’re very... striking.” I said. I thanked Angel, and gave her my card. I felt I had really achieved something. Now I was looking for a fairly attractive woman in her early thirties with red hair. That probably narrowed it down to only a few hundred thousand people. Some of them had to have a name starting with W. I headed back to the Saab, and drove to my

office, stopping off on the way to cash my retainer check from Patterson.

Chapter 5 The lunchtime traffic and lines at the bank slowed me down, and when I got back to the office and turned on the TV, the afternoon news was reporting the man found dead in his car that morning. His name was Richard West, 28, a stockbroker who worked for one of the big firms downtown. The details the reporter gave were very sketchy. It said the police suspect foul play; and then some more background someone had dug up about the victim. There was no mention of drowning. Probably they didn’t want to start a panic. As I sat at my desk it suddenly hit me all over again that I was finally doing it. I was working a case. The office had been mine for a little over two weeks, and I’d spent much of that

time watching reruns of Columbo and Hawaii Five-O. At one point I worked out that the money my aunt had left me would last about four months and if I didn’t get a case by then I’d have to shut up shop and do something else. There had been some excitement on Thursday when the new edition of the Yellow Pages arrived and I flipped through to find my listing under ‘Private Investigators’. It hid my lack of experience behind large, bold type that said ‘Jake Abraham and Associates’. Only there were no associates. Not even a secretary. Just me. So far, just me had come up with approximately zip. That meant one of four things. Either Susan Patterson was good at hiding, I was bad at looking, she was being held against her will, or she was being dead against her will. I didn’t much like any of those options, so I phoned Scott to see if the police had found

Susan in the last four and a half hours. “I’m sorry, man. Haven’t checked yet. We’ve been kind of busy here.” said Scott, when I finally got him on the phone. “Yeah, I saw your guy on the news.” “Well, now we’ve got another one.” “What?” “Looks like the same perp” he said “Another drowning?” “Gunshot wound to the head. Well, face, to be precise.” “So how is that the same guy?” I asked. “There are… other similarities”. “Are the victims linked?” “Not as far as we can tell,” replied Scott. “They’re both African-American, but that’s it. Twenty year old girl found at first light by joggers on Oak Street Beach. At first we thought it was a mugging gone bad, but it’s definitely connected. I

have to go. I’ll call if I get the chance to ask about your case.” He hung up. I got out my notebook, and found the page with the phone numbers that Lucy had given me. I turned on my PC, waited for it to boot up, and put my phone disc in the DVD drive. When I typed in the first number, it came up with the name Ralph Everett, and an address in Houston. The call to this number was made on Saturday afternoon, and lasted forty-five minutes. I guessed this was Denise’s parents, although it could be a brother. The second call was later that evening, and judging by the code, was made to Boston. It lasted over an hour. The phone disc threw up an address on Marlborough Street, and the name Ben Slater. The third number produced nothing. I wasn’t very surprised, sixty percent of Americans

have unlisted numbers. There are a lot of paranoid people out there, and it just makes it harder for the rest of us to find out who they are, and where they live. Of the remaining thirty three numbers, only nine were unlisted, and the rest were local. I wrote down the names so I could check them against the guests at Gregory Patterson’s surprise party. I wanted to find out who Ben Slater was, so I phoned Denise, but she wasn’t answering. After twiddling my thumbs for several minutes, I hit on a plan. I typed the address of Susan’s apartment on West Van Buren into the phone disc, and was rewarded with the names and phone numbers of five other people who lived in the building. I dialed the first number, and a woman answered. “Hello, is that Mrs Hirsch?” “Yeah, what do you want?” She sounded hostile. Maybe I was interrupting her daytime

soaps. “My name’s Jake Abraham, I...” “Are ya selling something, ‘cause I don’t want it.” “No, I’m a private detective. I’m trying to find a girl who went missing on Friday night. Her name’s Susan Patterson, she lives in your building, apartment 3B.” “I don’t know nothing about it.” “Well, actually, I was wondering if you ever heard of someone by the name of Ben Slater.” “Why, is he a movie star?” “No. Never mind Mrs Hirsch. Thanks for your time.” Mr Jurgens in 2A had also never heard of Ben Slater, and the third number on my list was busy. I had more luck with my next call, an extremely elderly sounding lady who became very maternal when I mentioned Susan.

“Oh, they are two lovely young girls.” She said, “So polite, and never too loud. I’ve had some trouble with students living next door to me in the past, but never with Susan and Denise.” I wondered how she made it up three flights of stairs. Perhaps she never went out. “And you say you’ve met Ben Slater.” I reminded her. “Oh yes, a charming young man, he’s Denise’s boyfriend you know. He’s away at Harvard. A very intelligent young man. I’m not sure whether Susan has a boyfriend at the moment, but she’s such a pretty thing, I’m sure she’s no shortage of suitors. I had my fair share of admirers in my day, you know.” “I’m sure you did.” I said. “Incidentally, do you happen to know if Denise has a brother?” “Oh no, I believe she told me they were all girls in her family. Yes, three sisters as I

remember. I’m afraid I can’t quite recall their names.” “That’s O.K.” I said, and thanked her for her help. I had no reason to call Denise’s father in Houston, and I didn’t feel inclined to drive out to Oak Park to meet Abby Dexter. I could talk to Susan’s ex-girlfriend on the phone, but I would much rather do it in person. I certainly wasn’t about to fly out to Boston on the off chance that Saturday’s phone call was more than a talk between lovers, so instead I called it a day, and decided to go traveling round the greater Chicago area the following morning. I left the office and walked to my car. It was dusk and the streets were quiet, save for the occasional El train trundling by. When I reached the Saab I stopped and double checked that I’d got the right car, since mine didn’t usually have

two guys leaning on the hood. Somehow I knew they weren’t just resting there and the bulk of the Glock 17 in the shoulder rig under my left arm gave me enough of a boost to speak first. “Can I help you gentlemen?” They both stood. One was about my height and skinny, but with something in his eyes I didn’t like. He looked fast and dangerous without moving at all. The other guy was several inches taller than me and mostly muscle. They both wore suits and I looked for the bulges of guns under their arms but the suits were well tailored and it was hard to tell. “Jake Abraham?” It was Muscles who spoke. I tensed. How to play this? I wasn’t looking for a fight, but I had the sense I wasn’t going to get much choice in the matter. I tried to recall every Steven Seagal film I’d ever seen, just in case.

“And you are…?” I said, smiling and holding my hand out to shake. I thought it was better than ‘Who wants to know?’ but they didn’t seem to agree. Skinny moved like a flash of light, his hand coming from somewhere inside his jacket and flicking open a switchblade as he swung. It opened up the back of my right hand and somehow I managed to keep it together enough to bring my left hand down on the bony part of his wrist. He dropped the knife and my hand went to my Glock. I managed to pull it free of its holster, but before I could do anything else Muscles threw a measured right jab that caught me square on the nose and dropped me to the floor. My gun joined the switchblade in the gutter and my eyes filled with water. I was busy recognizing the fact that I was not Steven Seagal when one of them kicked me in the solar plexus. My vision was coming back and I saw his foot

go back for another try. I rolled away from the kick, catching it hard on my hip and found myself face to barrel with Muscles’ Beretta. I stopped moving and paid attention. They didn’t say anything, but I think that was what they wanted. “I told Cicero, now I’m telling you”, said Muscles, through his teeth. “The Patterson situation is not your concern. Leave it alone. ” I was about to nod when Muscles lifted his gun and brought the butt down on my temple. I guess they left after that, because when I came round they were gone. My gun and Skinny’s knife were still in the gutter, so I picked them both up and limped to my car.

***** I got home from the hospital and turned on Monday Night Football just in time to see Clinton Portis somersault into the endzone. The Redskins were up by eleven with twelve minutes to go in the fourth quarter. The Eagles never recovered. My hand wasn’t hurting, mostly because they’d numbed it up to put the stitches in. My nose throbbed, though, and the cut by my left eye had bled all over my shirt. It hadn’t hurt as much as I’d thought it would to get hit, but I still wouldn’t recommend it. I read a lot of crime fiction. The shelves that line one wall of my apartment carry a few text books from my University days, some psych, some criminal science, but most of the space is taken up by mysteries, police procedurals and

detective novels – from Conan Doyle to Chandler, Ed McBain to Sara Paretsky. And of course, Robert B. Parker. Spenser was my hero. If there was one thing I’d learned from reading all these books, it was this: when a gumshoe is threatened with violence if he doesn’t leave a case alone, he’s onto something. I took out my notebook and went over everything I’d learned. It didn’t take long. I don’t know what Muscles and his friend thought I knew, but I was pretty sure they were overestimating me. So now I had a choice to make. Abandon my first case in fear of my life, or keep stirring the pot and see who else I could piss off. I figured I’d sleep on it and decide in the morning. Just before six a.m., I was rudely awakened by the phone. I had fallen asleep on the couch, the television still on. My suit was crumpled and my mouth felt like a cat had gone to sleep in it. I

reached for the phone, more to stop its noise than to speak to anyone. The voice I heard was Scott’s. “I’m in a parking garage on Dearborn. Think you should get down here.” “Scott, it’s not even six o’clock yet.” “We’ve found your girl. She’s dead.”

Chapter 6 My bathroom light seemed brighter than usual, and at first I didn’t recognize my face in the mirror. My left eye had almost swelled shut, and the puffy area around it was already turning a dark shade of blue. Standing in front of the mirror, I eased myself out of my shirt and pants and examined the bruise on my hip. It matched the one on my face. Although I’d only been hit a couple of times, my whole body ached, and I moved towards the shower, shuffling like an old man. As I drove to the address Scott had given me, my mind was reeling. I was feeling guilty, disappointed, excited, selfish and angry all at once. I wondered if Susan Patterson would still be alive if I had found the right people to speak

to or asked the right questions. I wondered if anything I had discovered so far might help lead the police to her killer. And I wondered if I would have to give three days pay back to her father, or if perhaps I should give him a full refund. It was one hell of a first case. Less than two days after I start looking for the girl, she turns up dead. This would not look good on my résumé. It wasn’t until I arrived that it occurred to me I might be looking at a dead body. My first. I was glad I hadn’t had time for breakfast. The stench hit me as soon as I got near to the Medical Examiner’s black van. “Jesus Christ, how long has she been here?” I yelled in Scott’s general direction. “She’s only been missing three days.” A uniformed officer saw me approach the yellow crime scene tape, and held one hand out

to suggest I stop, while the other hand went to rest on his gun. “Can I help you sir?” He asked, forcefully. By this time, Scott was beside the officer, holding the tape up, for me to walk under. “That’s alright, Marquez,” he said. “Do they always smell like this?” I asked. “Holy crap, what happened to you?” he countered. I think he’d noticed my eye and hand, and the fact I was still walking like I had lead trousers on. “You should see the other guy,” I bluffed. “Why? Did you break his fist with your nose?” “It’s a long story,” I said, not wanting to distract from the moment. “What are you even doing here? You aren’t on duty for another two hours.” “I was on call. It’s our guy again.” Scott

hung his head. It took me a moment to process this. “You mean the drowning thing?” Scott nodded. I turned to see Susan laid out on a plastic sheet on the floor, the EMTs getting ready to put her in the body bag. She looked gray and there were flies all around her, but otherwise she was recognizable from the photo her father had given me. Her feet were bare and, even from this distance, I noticed something else. On the sole of her left foot was a cut in the shape of a Z. I turned to Scott, and he knew what I was going to ask before I did. “Yeah,” he said, “that was on the others too. It’s why we think it’s the same guy. This is confidential information, OK? You can’t tell anybody.” “No problem” I said. Who was I going to tell? “You got any suspects yet?”

“Yeah, Don Diego De La Vega. Unfortunately, he’s fictional, so officially we’re still looking. Has your investigation turned up anyone with that initial?” “No. I’ve got a mystery W, but no Z. Has her father been told?” I was hoping the job wouldn’t fall on me, although in a way I felt I had a responsibility to break the news myself. “Not yet. We’re going to head over there when we finish up here.” “So, what’s the story?” “How much do you want to know?” I was itching to use ‘Just the facts, Ma’am.’, but I felt it might be seen as trivializing the situation, so I just shrugged. “There’s not much yet. She was found in the trunk of that car.” He pointed to a battered old Volkswagen, which was being hooked up to a tow truck, presumably on its way to the crime

lab. “M.E. says she’s been dead at least fortyeight hours. Car’s been here since mid-afternoon yesterday. No license plates, so we’re running checks on the VIN, and going over the car for physical evidence.” “Cause of death?” I asked, as if I did this every day. “Not established yet. Looks like she was injected with something. Dilated pupils could suggest narcotics, although I understand she was out partying before she disappeared, so maybe that’s nothing to do with it. Looks like the cut was peri-mortem, like the others.” “Peri-mortem?” “Around the time of death. M.E. says the first victim, West, was probably cut before he was killed, cause he had bruises around his ankles like someone had held them still while they cut his foot. The girl on the beach and this one

don’t have the bruises, so probably he killed them first then cut them. Either way, it was right before or after. We’ll know more after the post.” I heard the zip of the bodybag behind me and spun round. The zip was fully closed, and the medical technicians loaded her into the back of the van. “Listen,” said Scott, “I’m telling you this stuff because you’ve been working the case, and because we’re friends. Now you need to tell us everything you’ve found out about her. Where she went, who she was with, everything.” “Sure, why don’t I come down to the station and write it up? I’ll need to swing by my place and pick up my notes.” I was putting off having to go and see my client. I imagined him opening the door to a pair of detectives, men he had worked with, men who hated him for what they believed he did, but who took no pleasure in

what they had to tell him. That his only daughter was dead. An obese man in an ill-fitting security guard’s uniform came towards us with a video tape in his hand. “I got it.” He said. “You can’t see much.” Scott introduced him to me as Mr Hagerty, the security guard who found the body. “Yup,” said Hagerty, “We open at five, and this car hadn’t been paid for today, so I came along to put a fine on it. That’s when I noticed the smell. I jimmied the trunk, and that’s when I called you guys.” We were joined by Scott’s partner, Sgt. Al Freedman, to watch the fuzzy black and white security video. The car we had just been standing by drove into a space on the left hand side of the picture, and ended up facing away from the camera. In my mind’s eye I could see what was

in the trunk, but on film it was just any other car. After what seemed like a long time, the driver’s door opened, and someone got out. They were wearing a fleece jacket with some kind of logo on it, driving gloves and a baseball cap. Their face never turned towards the camera. In a few steps they were off the screen, and that was the end of the show. “I can’t find him on any other tapes.” said Hagerty. “We’ll still need to take them all, just to be sure.” The tape ran again. “Can you zoom in on this section here?” I asked, pointing to the logo on the jacket. “What do I look like? CIA? I’m a security guard. This is a VCR. No, I cannot ‘zoom in’.” “That’s fine,” said Scott, jumping in, “We’ll take it from here.”

As I got into my car, I promised Scott I’d see him later at the station to tell him what I’d learned. Freedman and I nodded goodbye to one another. We had met a few times, but we never really hit it off. I had a feeling my new profession wouldn’t help matters. He was a third generation cop, with little time for P.I.’s. I decided to be unselfish, and face up to the fact that I had to see Gregory Patterson. There was never going to be a good time, and putting it off was only making me dread it more. So perhaps I was being selfish, after all. Either way, after driving around for about an hour, I headed over to his house. He greeted me at his door with red cheeks. He had been crying, but there were no tears in his eyes now, only anger. I searched for the right words. “I’m sorry” was all that came out. I expected he would hear that phrase a lot in the

days to come. Discovering that Susan had been dead since before he hired me had eased my pain a little, but I doubted if it would do much for his, so I remained silent. “What’s your next step?” His question took me by surprise. “I have to go tell the police everything I’ve found out so far.” I said. “No, I mean how do you plan to catch this bastard?” I sat, stunned, trying to figure out if he was in shock, or if he was serious. “You hired me to find Susan. She’s turned up.” God, that sounded insensitive. “What I mean is; the police are way more qualified than me to find a killer. I don’t have the experience, or...” He cut me off. He hadn’t been looking at me. I’m not sure he was even aware I had been talking. “The two badges who came to tell me

she’d been found, mentioned it may tie in to some other homicides. I know how these things work. I don’t want Susan to become a number on a casefile, just one more victim of some nutso. There has to be a reason, and I want you to find out the reason. If nothing else, at least it’s one more man out there working the case.” It occurred to me that he was trying to cling on to the last thing he had. Then he confirmed it. “I don’t know if you remember from the newspapers. My wife, Carol, died back in 2002. I made Captain two months before we found out she had cancer.” He paused. There didn’t seem to be anything to say, so I didn’t say anything. “She fought it. There were times when we dared to hope she was winning, but mostly it just consumed her, bit by bit. Susan was in school. She knew what was going on, and we talked

about it some, but I gave all I had to Carol, and there was nothing left.” He didn’t look up to check I was listening. I was, but I figured he was telling me this as much for him as for me, so I stayed quiet. “The job suffered. I was a bad Captain, way too wrapped up in myself to be effective. The squad had to be self-sufficient for far too long. The brass gave me a lot of leeway. I guess they figured they couldn’t fire me. ‘You’ve got to let Greg do what he can. His wife’s dying.’ They tried to get me to take some time off. I was all ready to give in, and then Carol died. I knew it was coming, we all did, but when it actually happened it shocked the hell out of me. After that, the last thing I wanted was to be at home, so I went straight back. I worked extra hours, and they practically had to fire me to get me to take a week. I couldn’t face Susan. She

reminded me so much of her mother, I just couldn’t...” He shook his head, and a tear rolled down one cheek. He wasn’t quite cried out, after all. “I took it out on her and she ended up staying with friends a lot. I threw myself into the department, and that’s how it was right up until New Year’s Eve 2004.” Now he lifted his head, and for the first time since I had arrived, looked straight into my eyes. “It took my whole world falling apart, Mr Abraham. That’s what it took for me to realize what was really important. I tried to make it all up to Susan. Tried to build bridges where I’d burned them down. It took a long time, but she was beginning to trust me again. She was beginning to love me again. Now she’s gone.” I couldn’t imagine how painful it was for him to have lost everything in a few short years. I thought about mentioning my run in with Muscles

and his friend, but it seemed petty compared to what he was going through. OK, so I didn’t have the experience or the resources of the police. Maybe I was arrogant to think I could make a difference, but I figured I owed him my best efforts. Scott and Sgt. Freedman, however, may not be happy.

Chapter 7 I drove back to my apartment and made myself eat some breakfast while I watched the morning news. There was nothing about Susan. Nothing about the first two victims. There was plenty of tragedy to fill the time, nonetheless. When I felt almost human again, I got my notebook out, and skim read it to see if there was any obvious point I’d overlooked which pointed to the killer. If there was, I still couldn’t see it. When I arrived at the station on the corner of Belmont and Western, I told the desk sergeant I had come to see Detective Bales. He pointed me in the right direction. Scott and his partner were standing in front of a large cork board, pinning the crime scene photos of Susan next to

those of two others, who I assumed to be Richard West, and the girl found on Oak Street Beach. There was a lot of room on the cork board for more photos. Scott took me into the coffee room, and offered me a donut, a Coke, and a yellow legal pad. “So, what’s going on with your face?” Scott asked again. “Couple of guys warned me off the case. They were quite enthusiastic about it.” “Do you know who they were?” “We didn’t swap business cards”. “After we’re done here, we’ll go over it together and get a composite done. See if we can get an I.D.” I started writing what I knew on the legal pad and he started pacing. “I went to see Gregory Patterson.” I said after too much silence.

“How’d he seem to you?” “He’s angry. It’s only just beginning to hit him.” “Give it a couple of days.” We both knew what it was like to lose someone close to us. When his brother died, Scott didn’t really start to grieve until after the funeral. “He wants me to stay on the case.” “That’s ridiculous. You told him no, of course.” “Actually, I told him I’d do whatever I can.” “Jesus, Jake. This isn’t a game. We’ve got a serial killer here. Leave it to the professionals.” “Maybe so, but you’ve never gone up against a serial killer, either. Way I see it you could use all the help you can get.” “Thanks for the vote of confidence. I don’t need your help. I’ve got the resources of a whole department behind me. Hell, a whole

government!” “The Feds are involved? Have there been other cases out of state?” “Don’t know yet, have to check it with ViCAP, and we’ve got the guys at Quantico putting a profile together of our guy.” The ‘guys at Quantico’ were the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. I’d studied profiling a little at UIC, and I could read over my old text books when I got back to the office. “They may have a little trouble with this guy.” “Why’s that?” Scott asked. “Three victims so far, male and female, black and white, killed in different ways, left in different places. The only obvious connection so far is a Z carved into the foot of each victim. They’ll probably come back with ‘White male, mid twenties to mid thirties, low IQ, menial job if

employed at all, drives a shitty car and probably lives alone in an area close to where the victims were found.’ Your average serial killer description. They might even get some of it right, but remember, you heard it here first.” I was showing off, trying to remember as much as I could about profiling, trying to prove to Scott that I was up to the job. “Actually, he’s probably AfricanAmerican.” “Most serial killers are white.” “Yeah,” conceded Scott, “about 80%. But serial murder is usually intra-racial. More than 90% of black murder victims are killed by black perps. Anyway, I’ve got lots of leads to chase up. When I catch him, we’ll see if the Feds have come up with a good description.” “They’ll generalize, Scott. Killers come in all shapes and sizes. Didn’t you ever watch

Columbo?” “Yeah I did. And you know what? Saw a rerun a few weeks ago where the ‘genius’ killer somehow managed to put a silencer on a revolver. Know why? Because it’s fictional, that’s why.” He’d got me there. It was a good point, and I’d seen that episode too. But I refused to admit defeat. “I’m not dropping the case.” I said, indignantly. We had locked antlers like stags fighting for territory, and neither was ready to back down. I didn’t feel much like asking Scott for any help, and I doubted he was going to offer any, so I walked out, leaving my statement half finished. He would call me when he’d calmed down. Or I would call him. For now, I wondered if he did have lots of leads to chase up, or if that was just

talk. I didn’t seem to have any leads. I would probably end up calling him. When I got to the office it was nearly eleven. It had been a long day already. I checked through my mail. There were no letters from rich widows, wanting me to track down their stolen collections of priceless jewels. Just as well. I had work to do. I sat at my PC, and typed ‘ViCAP’ into Google. I remembered reading about ViCAP, the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, but I wanted to know more. According to the FBI website, ViCAP is a database of violent crimes, solved and unsolved. ‘Once a case is entered into the ViCAP database, it is compared continually against all other entries on the basis of certain aspects of the crime. The purpose of this process is to detect signature aspects/traits of homicide and similar patterns of modus operandi (MOs), which will, in

turn, allow ViCAP personnel to pinpoint those crimes that have been committed by the same offender.’ So if Susan’s killer had been doing similar work elsewhere, ViCAP should come up with a match. I looked again at what I had. It would be difficult to go much further without help from the police, and I knew now that any help I could get would be limited. Scott was probably right not to want me getting in his way, but I couldn’t let it go. I skimmed the Chicago Tribune, looking for news of a body found on Oak Street Beach on Monday morning. The story was on page five of the Metro section. Her name was Melissa Adams. According to the article, she was a 20 year-old AfricanAmerican office worker who had been walking her dog on the beach early Monday morning when she was attacked. Her body was found

next to the pedestrian tunnel by joggers. She had been shot in the face at close range. Her dog lay dead beside her, shot in the head. The article on Richard West was larger, and on page two. The information was a rehash of the news report I’d seen the day before, next to a smiling picture of a happy family. West, his wife, and two kids. There was no link between the two articles. No connection had been made. Nobody knew their pictures were side by side in a Police Station on the corner of Belmont and Western. From what I could tell, each victim had been killed sometime in the early hours of the morning, West on Sunday and Melissa Adams on Monday. Someone had been very busy. I wondered how many more bodies there were to find. I knew Scott was wondering the same thing. I got out my old text books to look for information about profiling. The hurried profile

I’d given Scott in a moment of anger wasn’t a bad fit for a ‘disorganized offender’, and the Adams killing seemed to fit into that camp. The killing was done in the night, or at least very early morning; the body was left where it fell; and the crime scene was fairly chaotic, what with killing the dog too. It would have been quick. Boom. A bullet in the face and it’s all over. A bullet in the dog, to shut him up, and then leave. Richard West would have taken longer. More care was taken over the whole business. Somehow, he was drowned – God knows how, maybe he was drugged first and then held under water. Then he was dressed, put in his car, and driven to the apartment he shared with his wife and kids. A time consuming, highly organized process. It didn’t fit with my profile at all. Organized killers lead organized lives. He would more likely be a college graduate with above

average IQ, drive a nice car and have a steady job, maybe even a profession like doctor or lawyer. The two crimes seemed so distinct, that I had trouble believing the same person had committed both murders. But then there was the Z. A little too bizarre to be a coincidence. Definitely one killer. There didn’t appear to be a motive yet. As far as I was aware, none of the victims had been robbed and there was no evidence of sexual assault. Often a mugger or a rapist will begin to use more force when they get more confident, and that is when they turn to murder. In those cases you can usually rely on a criminal record. A rapist will frequently have been picked up for, at the very least, indecent exposure; an armed robber will probably have a record for shoplifting, purse snatching, or something drug related. At first glance, this case

was something different, something new. This killer appeared to have launched feet first into murder. As for Susan Patterson, I needed more information. I didn’t yet know the cause of death, only that she had might have been injected with something two days ago, and left in the trunk of a car. I needed to know what had happened to her. I needed to know where she was between leaving Dutch’s on Friday night and being murdered on Sunday. I needed to call Scott. “I can’t help you Jake.” He still sounded stressed from before. I had had a chance to cool off, but he probably had people making demands from all sides. When nobody knows when the next victim will turn up, everything gets a little more hectic. “Look, I’m not asking for a free ride. Maybe I can help you. I didn’t finish my

statement, so you don’t have all the information you might need.” “Like what?” “Well,” I tried to think of something that would hook him in. “You found a phone number written on Susan’s hand, didn’t you?” I prayed it hadn’t been washed off. “Yeah. My next job is to check that out. How did you know about it?” “The number belongs to a girl named Angel DeMarco. She lives on West Armitage. She told me she met Susan in a bar on Friday night, and gave her her number.” “I’ll still have to check all that out. Still have to go talk to this ‘Angel.’ How exactly are you helping me out?” “All I’m saying is, I know where she was, what she did, who she was with on Friday night. At the very least I can save you time. There’s just

some things that I can’t find out without your help. I’ll stay out of your way, I promise. And I can identify the guys who beat me up last night. Who knows how they could be involved.” “If you’re suggesting you’d withhold evidence unless I help, I could just arrest you for obstruction of justice,” said Scott, half serious. “You could, but you know how stubborn I can be. I could sit in a jail cell for weeks before I break. Come on. You know me. I’m not going to go to the papers or anything. Let’s help each other out.” Scott hesitated. “Okay. But I can’t give you too much detail, Freedman would kill me. The latest is that we’ve got the cause of death. Insulin shock. Doc says she could have been injected any time from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon. She was given an overdose, went into a hypoglycemic coma, and died. Also, looks like

she might have been raped. No fluids, but there was some internal bruising. We’re thinking she picked this guy up in a bar and he took her someplace quiet.” “Unlikely.” I said. “Why?” “Susan Patterson was gay.” “Looks like you might be able to save us some time, after all,” Scott said. That was as close as I would get to an apology. “You want to come in and finish your statement?” “Sure, there’s just a few things I want to check on first.” There was no harm in making Scott think I had some leads too.

Chapter 8 I mentally retraced my steps so far in an attempt to work out what I’d done that got the attention of two dangerous men. After speaking to Patterson I’d gone to Susan’s apartment, Dutch’s Bar and Angel’s apartment. With the phone calls as well I’d spoken to maybe a dozen people and had no way of knowing which of them, if any had tipped off the bad guys. I clipped the articles on Richard West and Melissa Adams out of the newspaper, opened the top drawer of my new file cabinet, and started a file on each of them. I labeled a third file ‘Susan Patterson’, and started to type into my PC everything I knew about her so far. When I was done, I printed off a hard copy and put it in her file. I would have to find out as much as I

could on the other two. I wondered if somewhere, in some other part of the city, Susan’s killer was clipping newspapers, maybe even sticking the articles on the wall, like in the movies. I made a mental note that I should tell Scott if I happened to interview anyone who had stuck newspaper articles about the crimes on their wall. Still thinking of the movies, I decided to get a map of the city to put on my wall, and some push-pins to mark where the bodies were found, where the victims lived and worked, and anything else which might show a pattern. I was beginning to think I may have been on the right track about the killer being a doctor, given that they would need to have knowledge of, and access to, insulin and hypodermics. In a morbid way, I was anxious to see how the next victim would be killed. For I had no doubt there

would be a next victim. It was after two, and I had more questions than I’d had that morning. Maybe that was a good thing. At least finding the answers gave me something to do. From my file on Richard West, I made a note of the firm he worked at. Melissa Adams’ workplace was not named. I was sure it would be mentioned once the press made the connection between the crimes. As soon as that happened, I was sure there would be a full color pull-out-and-keep guide to all the victims. I left the car at the office and walked to Leitz Futures Inc. on Jackson Blvd, the brokerage firm where Richard West had worked up until that weekend. The receptionist was smart and cheerful and served every visitor with a fixed smile. I asked to see whoever had taken over

Richard West’s workload, and the receptionist’s smile was replaced by a respectful solemn expression as she asked me to take a seat, and said she would ask Mr Connors to come and see me. As I sat and waited in the bright white lobby, I wondered if I should have got a revolver as a backup, maybe a Ruger SP-101 instead of my Sundance .25. I’d chosen the automatic because it carried an extra round, was faster to reload, and the flatter shape meant it sat in the small of my back without ruining the cut of my jacket. On the other hand, six shots was probably enough in a back-up, given that my Glock carried seventeen. And the advantage of a revolver is that if one round doesn’t go off, you pull the trigger again, and it’s on to the next one, whereas with an auto, you have to eject the dud round before you can shoot. Which is kind of the

reason for carrying a backup in the first place. I was still weighing up the pros and cons when an extremely tall man with enormous eyebrows offered me his hand to shake. “Lee Connors. How do you do? I understand you were asking about Richard. I’m afraid I have some bad news.” He sat in the leather chair next to mine, and put on a very serious face. It was the kind of face newsreaders use when they’re just about to announce an air crash, or a missing child showing up dead. I decided to cut him off before he got carried away. “Actually, I know about what happened to Mr West, I’m working with the police on the case.” I said. Well, it was kind of true. “Oh, I see. Or rather I don’t. How can I help you?” “I was wondering if I could get a little

background on him. What he was like, what he did in his spare time, that kind of thing. Did you know him well?” “Oh yes, he was our best broker. Did you know he was just made employee of the year?” I shook my head and tried to look impressed. “Got a substantial bonus for that, and he earned every cent. As for spare time, he gave so much to the firm, he never seemed to be out of the old place, but he still managed to find time for the wife and kids.” “Did he have any enemies?” “Oh no, he was universally respected and admired.” “Nobody was jealous of his success? Was he maybe pursued by any female admirers, seeing as how he was such a catch?” I asked. “I’m not sure I like what you’re implying. Richard was very much in love with his wife. He

would never have been unfaithful to Marie, he was absolutely committed to her. He never looked at another woman. When we were out on Saturday, he had nothing but orange juice, and he left early to get back to Marie and the children.” “You were out with him on Saturday?” I asked. “Yes, we were working on Saturday, finishing up some details on an international deal, and after the whole thing was done we went to a bar near here to unwind. Some of the guys like a drink or two, myself included, I’m afraid. But not Richard, he’s a teetotaler. Always has been. Anyway, he left about five to go home to Marie. That was the last anyone saw of him. You can talk to any of the others, they’ll tell you the same thing.” I didn’t bother to ask anyone else, as I was sure they would give me the same story. Connors

had worked so hard to convince me of West’s fidelity, that he had succeeded in making me think that maybe West had met someone in the bar. Maybe they thought it was best to spare Marie West’s feelings after the death of her saintly husband. Maybe they were right. I certainly wasn’t about to go visit her and say ‘Hey, any idea whether Rich was screwing around?’ Somehow it didn’t seem the sensitive thing to do. I did ask Connors to tell me which bar they had gone to. At first he was reluctant, but I guess he couldn’t think of a plausible reason not to tell me. It was an upscale place just around the corner called Circle. Before I checked it out I had another stop to make. Scott shook my hand when I arrived at the station to complete my statement. We didn’t usually greet each other by shaking hands, normally a nod and a grunt sufficed, but he was

offering me an olive branch. I took it, and sat down to the legal pad I’d been writing on earlier that day. Once his boss and his partner were both out of earshot, Scott told me that there had been a little progress on the case. I sat bolt upright. “Really?” I said, “What?” “Two things. A fingerprint and a hair.” “That’s good, right?” “It’s a start. Got to say, I had high hopes for the print, since it’s the only one we found anywhere. Both cars were wiped clean.” Scott was talking low, in conspiratorial tones. I thought back to the security video. “That explains why it took him so long to get out,” I guessed. “What do you mean you had high hopes?” “Figured that he was so careful meant he had something to hide. That his prints would be

on file. But we ran them and got nothing.” “Where was the print?” “Pair of Ray-Bans in the passenger footwell of West’s car. Wife says they weren’t his, and it’s not his print. Figure the guy dropped them and didn’t realize.” “But they’re not definitely the killer’s, so maybe you’re right about his reasons for wiping. What about the hair?” “Lab guys found it on the headrest of the Volkswagen the Patterson girl was found in.” “How much can you tell from a hair?” “Well, from this one, we can tell that the guy driving the car was African-American.” He nodded, as if this meant I should immediately bow to his obviously superior intellect. “Have you been able to enhance the security video, to check that? As I remember he had on a hat and gloves so there wasn’t much

skin to see.” “They’re still working on it, but the hair is a dead give-away. Apparently their hair is flatter in cross-section than Caucasian hair. That’s what makes it curl.” In light of new evidence, I mentally adjusted my profile from ‘white male’ to ‘black male.’ “So even if the print isn’t his, maybe we’ll get a hit from the DNA. At the very least we’ll be able to match the DNA when we find the guy, so we can prove he was in the car.” Scott continued, “Guy must have thought he was being real careful, wiping it down.” “Any ideas on motive yet?” I asked. “None. Melissa Adams, the girl we found on the beach, is from Pennsylvania, she’s lived in Chicago less than two months, and she hadn’t pissed anyone off yet, as far as we can tell. Nothing obvious from talking to her family, either.

As for Richard West, he’s a fucking Boy Scout. Happy marriage, both kids doing great in school, just got employee of the year at Leitz, and everyone we’ve spoken to about him thinks he should be running for pope. We were kind of hoping you might be able to help us with Susan Patterson, motive-wise, but to be honest, it looks like this is random. Some psycho raging against society.” “Well, that’s possible, but it makes him much harder to catch.” “That’s why we look for motives. Gives us something to do until the psycho gives himself up. Can’t wait for the press to get hold of this. They’ll have to come up with a name for him and everything. Do you know how that terrorist Carlos the Jackal got his nickname?” I did, but I let him tell the story. “When the cops raided his place, they found a copy of Day of the Jackal.

Lucky he wasn’t reading Silence of the Lambs. ‘Carlos the Lamb’ doesn’t have quite the same menacing quality to it, does it?” Scott cleared his throat, and looked down at the work on his desk. Sgt. Al Freedman passed me, and sat down opposite Scott. “Good afternoon, Jake.” “Good afternoon, Sgt. Freedman.” I said, respectfully. He didn’t say ‘You can call me Al’. The phone on Scott’s desk rang. All three of us looked at it, then at each other. It could have been anything. It could have been a lab report, the security video, an anonymous tip, the newspapers, or Scott’s mother calling to check he was eating properly. But it wasn’t. We all knew exactly what it was before Scott picked up the phone. Another victim had been found. Scott and Freedman moved from their chairs as one, without speaking, and headed for

the door. I had finished my statement, and I wanted to go with them, but I still hadn’t seen the sketch artist and I didn’t want to get Scott into trouble, so I stayed quiet. They paused at the door, and spoke for a minute. Freedman closed his eyes, shook his head, and said something to Scott, before turning to leave. Scott motioned for me to follow. When we reached the car, Freedman stopped and looked me right in the eye, and said “When we get to the crime scene, you stay back. You do not touch anything, you do not ask people questions, you do not speak to anybody, you do not get in the way, you do not try and look like a cop, and you do not repeat anything you see or hear to the press. I do not want you there. If you do anything to jeopardize this investigation, I will personally take out my gun and shoot you in the head. Is that clear?”

“Crystal. Sir.” But at least I got to go along.

Chapter 9 There are 25 police districts in Chicago, each with uniformed beat officers, rapid response teams, plain clothes and gang tactical officers. They do all the protecting and serving, but they don’t investigate the crimes. Districts are grouped, in fives, into Areas and each one of those has a Detectives Division. Scott worked out of Area 3. This time the body had been found outside the Area 3 boundary, but since Scott had picked up the phone when the first victim was found, anything connected to it was his responsibility. We drove west on the Eisenhower Expressway, in absolute silence, towards Maywood. After about twenty minutes, we came to a lay-by flanked by two squad cars and the

Medical Examiner’s familiar black van. Scott and Freedman got out of the car and started towards one of the uniforms, to get the full story. I opened the car door, and went to follow them. Freedman shot me a look which told me exactly where I stood. By the car. From where I was standing, I could see most of what was going on, and hear parts of conversations. The young girl lying by the side of the road was black. That made three out of four, and more evidence to support Scott’s theory. She didn’t look real, more like a mannequin. There was no indication of an actual person within the shell of a body. It was different from seeing Susan in the parking garage – I think because I didn’t know this girl. Sure, I didn’t know Susan, but I’d pried into her life, talked to people she knew, read her diary. The fact that she was dead was just the latest piece of the

puzzle. But this one; all I knew about her was the dead part. For some reason I couldn’t stop looking at her. I felt like the people who slow down on the highway to look at an accident. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Similar in age to Susan. I wondered if that was significant. I wondered if maybe she was a student. Then I heard part of Scott’s conversation with the uniformed officer. “....hitchhiking. We found this a few feet from the body.” He held up a plastic bag with a revolver in it, which looked like a .38 S&W. I looked for blood on the ground around the body. There wasn’t any. “Send that down to Ballistics, see if there’s a match with the slug found in Melissa Adams’ face. What about I.D. on this one?” asked Scott. “European Passport. Name is ... Julie Campbell. Age nineteen. From Great Britain.

Probably took a year out to travel, and ended up here.” The smell wasn’t as bad as Susan’s, so I guessed she hadn’t been dead so long, but it was still there. I was glad Freedman was making me wait by the car. I was feeling distinctly nauseous by the time he spoke to the M.E. “First impressions? Cyanide.” “Cyanide?” said Freedman, shaking his head. “That’s right my friend, most likely potassium cyanide, or one of its derivatives.” The M.E. was a short, round man, with little hair and a Texan accent. I imagined he was glad to be out of Texas, where everything is reportedly big and plentiful. “Also, she had in her possession a pack of Tylenol Flu capsules” he continued, “The packaging and some of the remaining capsules

appear to have been tampered with.” “Tampered with?” said Freedman, shaking his head. Freedman’s entire interview technique appeared to consist of repeating the last words spoken, and shaking his head. I hoped he didn’t go this easy on suspects. I suddenly didn’t feel so bad about not knowing the right questions to ask when I’d been interviewing witnesses. After all, he’d been doing this for thirty years, and this was the best he’d come up with. I decided that perhaps I should watch and learn. “I’ll do a tox screen, obviously, but at the moment I’d say cyanide. There’s a certain amount of reddening of the skin, and one of the boys said he smelled bitter almonds. Myself, I can’t smell it. Not everyone can, you know. She’s been dead around ten to twelve hours. I’d say she was killed here, or close to here and then

dumped. She has a laceration in the shape of a Z on the sole of her left foot, inflicted peri-mortem with a very sharp blade. The cutting was almost certainly done here.” I realized at this point that it might have been useful if I’d been taking notes. I got out my notebook and pencil, but it was too late. Scott and Freedman had finished their respective interviews, and were walking towards me. I got back in the car. I had stayed by the car, asked no questions, stayed out of the way. I had an odd feeling that Freedman was grudgingly pleased with me. I was not a loose cannon. I respected authority, and followed orders. I hoped he felt he could trust me not to screw up. “Tylenol,” he said as we pulled away. “Goddamn Tylenol.” “What’s wrong with Tylenol?” I asked.

“Where were you in 1982?” “I was three.” “Didn’t you read the papers, listen to the news on TV?” “I was three,” I repeated. “Well, you know how there’s ways to tell if jars of food have been opened before you buy them?” “Those little buttons that pop up, yeah. What’s that got to do with this?” “Before 1982, there was no way to tell. Not with food, not with drinks, and not with medicine. Nobody had ever heard of product tampering. Then seven people in the Chicago area died suddenly after taking Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide. Someone had taken the bottles from a store, replaced the medicine in five or so of the capsules with poison, and put the bottles back on the shelves of different stores.

The youngest victim was a seven year old girl.” “So, is the killer out of prison, or what?” I asked. “We never found him. Case was never solved. Johnson and Johnson, who make Tylenol, offered a $100,000 reward. There have been a few similar cases over the years since then, but we’ve never been able to tie them in conclusively.” “Did you work the case?” I asked Freedman. “Sure. Everybody worked it. It was the biggest thing around.” “Have any suspects?” “Not really. There was a guy who tried to cash in on the publicity, but it turned out he couldn’t have done the actual poisoning. He was put away for extortion, served thirteen of a twenty year sentence in a federal pen in Reno.

He was released in ’95. We never really had any leads. There seemed to be no motive, the victims were random. Far as we know, the killer never even met the victims.” “Not like our guy.” said Scott. When we got back to Belmont and Western, Scott ushered me to the interview room and left me there for a minute or so. When he came back he had a laptop under his arm. “Right,” he said. “Let’s talk about the guys who attacked you.” I looked around. “Aren’t we waiting for the sketch artist?” I asked. Scott smiled. “Don’t use them anymore. Well, there’s a guy in the Cook County Sheriff’s Office who comes in if we’re having trouble. He qualified as a forensic artist a couple years ago. But mostly we just use this.” He opened up the laptop and launched some software called FACES. It

looked like an electronic version of those identikit images they use to show on America’s Most Wanted in the 80s. “And this works?” I asked, trying not to seem too skeptical. “Pretty well, actually. There’s about 4000 different facial features in here and you can change the sizes and positions of everything, so we can get pretty close to what a forensic artist can do. There’s about a hundred of us trained to use it, so it saves a lot of time and money. Now, tell me what happened last night.” I told Scott everything I could remember about the attack: the guys waiting against the car; my hand being cut; my gun falling as I was punched; the gun to my head; and the warning to stay out of the Patterson case. “I can’t help noticing you haven’t taken their advice.” Scott said.

“Yeah. I noticed that too,” I said. “Thing is, this is my first case. I figure doing this job I’m probably going to piss some people off, so if I give up when one of them complains then I’m not going to be much good at it.” Scott nodded. He understood. “Right. We’re going to build this face together. I want you to relax and take your time. Let’s start with the bigger guy. We’ll focus on what he looked like rather than what he did. Close your eyes and try to picture him. When you’re ready, we’ll start with the shape of his face.” I closed my eyes and thought about Muscles. His face was wider at the bottom than at the top, like he’d worked on his jaw muscles as much as his biceps. Scott and I scrolled through the head shapes, which were the top of the head down to the ears, and then the jaw

shapes, until we found the right combination. Scott asked if I wanted anything made bigger or smaller and then we chose some hair, made it blond, and moved on to the eyes. For each feature there were several categories and then a ton of little thumbnails to choose from. More than a few times we chose an element and it just didn’t look right, so we changed the size and the position or swapped it for another one. Eventually, after a little over an hour, we had a picture that looked like Muscles. A bit too symmetrical, but good enough to see it was him. When I looked at the finished product, something clicked. “Cicero.” I said. “What?” “He said something about Cicero.” “This guy?” “Yeah. I remember now, he said ‘I told

Cicero and I’m telling you, stay out of Patterson’s business’. I think that was it.” “Who’s Cicero?” “Got me.” “Maybe Patterson would know,” suggested Scott. “Shall we start on the second guy? Maybe you’ll remember the bit where they told you who killed Susan.” We made much quicker progress on the composite of Muscles’ friend but I had trouble with the eyes. Everything else was done, and we’d been through lots of different pairs of eyes before we finally settled on Deep Set pair number 221, which were the closest but were sadly lacking in crazy. Scott said he didn’t know how to add crazy, so we settled on what we had and he sent both images to the printer in the squad room. By the time we got out there, Sgt. Freedman already had the image of Muscles in

his hand. “What’s Tommy Byrne got to do with this?” he asked. “You know who he is?” I said. “Sure,” said Freedman. “He runs the drugs trade across most of the South Side.” “He’s a dealer?” I asked, confused at why a drug dealer would warn me off the Patterson case. “He mostly gets involved with the larger shipments, splits them up amongst the local street level dealers at a premium and then collects street tax from them if they want to sell in his territory.” “How does he get away with that?” Scott was already at his desk, studying Byrne’s details on his computer. He provided the answer. “He’s connected. Irish Mob.” “The Irish Mob? But I thought the bosses

all went down last year when Patterson got off.” “It’s not like the Italians,” said Freedman. “There’s no capo di tutti capi. Irish Mob these days is more like a collection of gangs. There’s a loose hierarchy, but those convictions barely made a dent in the bigger picture. Byrne’s fatherin-law is Michael Coughlin, one of the gang bosses that pretty much runs the South Side.” “But the gangs are linked? I mean he warned me off the Patterson case and Patterson was accused of getting in bed with the Irish Mob. It’s pretty obvious there’s a connection. Do you know who this guy is?” I asked Freedman, showing him the composite of Byrne’s companion. “Face doesn’t ring a bell”, he said, “but if we look at Byrne’s known associates I bet we’ll get an I.D. Maybe we should pick them up for questioning.”

“Based on them beating me up and me identifying them? And what happens when you can’t hold them? I don’t like my chances.” “Jake’s right,” said Scott, leaping to my defense. “We need to have something more solid before we get into it with them. We’ll hold off for now. But thanks, Jake. It’s a good start.”

Chapter 10 I didn’t sleep much. I rarely do. The alarm went off at 8.30, but I was already in the bathroom. My joints had stiffened since the night before, and I ran myself a hot bath for the first time in ages. As I soaked, I began to wonder exactly how the killer could have killed Richard West. Scott said the M.E. wasn’t sure where West drowned – could be the lake or a pool. I tried to imagine how I would drown someone in Lake Michigan and, short of knocking them out and dropping them off a boat, which would make the body pretty hard to recover, I couldn’t think of an easy way. In a pool you could probably hold someone under water if you were strong enough, and then I wondered if you could do the

same in a bathtub. I wondered whether the M.E. could tell bathwater from lake water or pool water. Surely if someone drowned in a pool they’d have chlorine in their lungs, and I guess lake water would be dirtier than bath water. I would have to ask Scott. As I lay in the tub I thought about how I would defend myself if someone came in and tried to push me under water. I braced my feet against the inside of the tub and tensed up. There was no way anyone would be able to push me under, and I still had my arms free to fight with. With the tub full, you could probably kneel someone down at the side and push their head in from behind. You’d have to cuff or tie their hands behind their back first, but it would be doable. There would be a fair amount of struggling and I would guess there would be bruising at the back of the neck and around the wrists where the cuffs

were. Scott hadn’t mentioned any marks like that. But there were bruises around the ankles. Something clicked and I remembered reading about a serial killer who murdered several of his wives while they were in the bath. I couldn’t bring the details to mind, but I remembered the gist of how he did it. He grabbed their ankles and pulled upwards, so their heads went under water quickly. I stuck my feet out of the bath water and thought how it could be done, and I couldn’t picture why West would be having a bath, away from his own apartment, and in the presence of the killer. I think I’d probably leap up and grab a towel if some guy came in while I was bathing. Unless I wanted him to be there. Unless I was in a relationship with him. That would explain a lot of things. It would explain more readily why Lee Collins would go

to such great pains to cover up what happened on Saturday. Not just to spare Marie West’s feelings, but maybe to avoid a scandal that could cause the firm to lose business. MARRIED LEITZ BROKER KILLED IN GAY LOVE TRYST. If the killer had picked West up, or if they had been having an affair, he would have been much easier to catch off guard. If the killer was gay, it would explain how he might have met Susan if he was in Dutch’s on Friday. I began to wonder about Melissa Adams’ and Julie Campbell’s sexual preferences. Perhaps their murders weren’t as random as they seemed. It was a hot day already, at least for September in Chicago, so I drove out to Joliet with the top down. The former Captain Patterson opened his door wearing the same clothes he had on the day before, and stinking of bourbon. I needed him to talk, so I headed straight for the

kitchen and put on a pot of very strong coffee. I’ve never tried it myself, but it always sobers people up in the movies, so I figured it’s worth a shot. Two cups into the pot, it seemed to start bringing him out of his fug. Maybe it was just the caffeine buzz, but I took my chance where I found it. I showed him the composite sketches of Byrne and his friend that Scott had printed out. “Do you know either of these men?” He perked up noticeably. At first I thought he recognized them, but then I realized it was just hope for a lead. “Are they suspects?” “Maybe. See this?” I asked, pointing at my bruised face, which was now a curious shade of purple. He nodded. “They did this. To warn me to stay away from you. Do you know who they are?” “No.”

“Does it help if I tell you they’re connected to Michael Coughlin?” Patterson sobered up, like flicking a switch. “What did they say to you?” “Just to stay out of it. They said they’d told Cicero the same thing.” He nodded. “So that’s what happened to him,” he said. I waited, but he just sat there. “You want to start telling me what’s going on? Who’s Cicero?” “Joey Cicero. He’s a P.I. I hired about a year ago to find out who set me up. We met, he took the case, and that was the last I heard from him. He wouldn’t return my calls and when I went round to his office his neighbor told me he’d left town for a while”. “And you left it at that?” “I couldn’t get anyone else to take my case. Cicero needed the money. Everybody else

thought I was a dirty cop.” “Any reason they might think that?” I asked. I expected him to get angry, but I guess he’d been accused so often it didn’t have the same effect anymore. Instead, he calmly laid out his defense. “I was a fourth generation cop. My great grandfather came over after the potato famine and settled in Chicago. Most Irish were met off the boats in New York by whores and mobsters and shown the only way they could survive was hustling or joining a gang. The only legitimate jobs for Irish were ditch digging and construction, and access to those jobs was controlled by the Mob anyway. After the Civil War the murder rate went up, what with all the unemployed, traumatized soldiers on the streets, and the Police Department started hiring. It was a dangerous job with long hours that paid shit. My great

grandfather joined up with all the other Irish who wanted a better life, and by the time my grandfather joined at the turn of the century half the force was Irish. My father followed him into the job and I grew up knowing that it was the only thing I wanted to do. I never took a bribe, looked the other way, shook anyone down or planted evidence. I was never drunk on the job and I never beat anyone up who didn’t hit me first. The worst I ever did was accept free coffees and donuts in a diner, which we weren’t supposed to do. All that stuff they said I did in the trial? The only true part of it was that I grew up in the same neighborhood as Jimmy Moran and we played together when we were kids.” “It’s been a long time. Is there any reason they might think you’d be starting this up again? He hesitated. Not long, but long enough. “Look, I don’t want you wasting your time on

this. This has nothing to do with Susan. I’m sorry you got beat up, but I’m not paying you to clear my name.” “You’re paying me to find out what happened to Susan. I don’t know much about the other victims yet – maybe they did something to piss off the Mob too. Or maybe a family member of theirs did. For all I know, they killed Susan to warn you to leave your case alone.” “But I am leaving it alone,” said Patterson. “But there’s a reason they might think you’re not. It’s more than just hiring me. Why do they think you’re going after them?” He still looked reluctant. “I don’t know if it is anything, really,” he said. I waited. It was a long wait, but finally he broke. “Deputy Chief Hennessy. He died last month. Heart attack. I always figured it was him.”

“Him?” “The one who did the things they accused me of. I never had any evidence, never really anything but suspicion, but I spent a lot of time when I was on trial thinking about who it could be and he made sense. He spent a lot of time at the station house around the time it was all supposed to have happened, made a big thing about how he was keeping in touch with the officers on patrol, making out like he wanted to help us make everything work better. He had access. I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure he was there the day the call was made from my office. The one giving up the witness. Then there were the rumors.” “What rumors?” “Well, everyone knew he was a powerful man – you didn’t want to get on his bad side or you’d be shipped off to some godforsaken

corner of the city on traffic duty. But it was more than that. People said he made problems go away. That some cops in Internal Affairs had tried to build a case against him but their witnesses suddenly clammed up and then the case was dropped. They said one of the I.A. guys retired soon after, bought a boat.” “You think he paid them off?” “I don’t know. It’d take some balls to offer I.A. cops a bribe. But if you knew Hennessy… Well, I could believe it.” He paused. “There was another rumor, too. That Hennessy had a mobster for a C.I.” “I’m sorry, what’s a C.I.?” “Confidential Informant.” “Isn’t registering C.I.’s allowed?” “Sure. It’s encouraged. We let some low level street thug stay on the streets and he uses his criminal contacts to get intel that helps us take

down rapists, murderers and drug lords. It’s a great system. But it’s not a guarantee of immunity. Word is, Hennessy turned a blind eye to extortion, murders and worse. Word is, Hennessy’s C.I. was Michael Coughlin.”

Chapter 11 I had some thinking to do. I needed to clear my head, and I knew the best way to do it. On the way to the practice range, I swung by my office to pick up my S&W and some ammo. I started with the Glock 17. It hurt a little to keep my left eye closed, even though the day before I hadn’t been able to open it. To begin with, I fired five rounds on the fifty foot range. The Glock’s polymer frame absorbs a lot of energy, and although it’s lighter than most other nine millimeters, it doesn’t recoil nearly as much. With my first five, I managed a one and a half inch grouping. It wasn’t bad, but I could do better, and my mind was still full. I pushed the button to my right to send a fresh target down the range.

I tried to clear my mind. The ear defenders cut out a lot of the background noise, although I could still hear the pop, pop, pop of the shooters on the adjacent lanes. I focused on the target at the end of the range. I tried to picture Tommy Byrne, the mobster formerly known as Muscles, but I couldn’t keep the image in front of me for long. I stared at the center of the black silhouette, took a breath, and let it out as I brought the sights of my gun down into view. I fired five shots into his chest. I put the gun down, took off my goggles, and then pressed the button which made the target fly towards me. A three quarter inch group. And my mind was clear. I drew a circle around the group, and sent the target back down the range. I fired the remaining seven rounds in the Glock at the target’s head, and then took out my Sundance A25. It felt small in my hand, compared to the

Glock, and again I wondered if a small revolver would have been a better choice for a back-up gun. I switched targets one more time, and went for the bullseye with all seven shots, waiting to breathe until after the gun was empty. I knew my groupings with the Sundance would be nothing compared to the Glock. The gun wasn’t made for distance work. If you expect to stop anyone with a .25 caliber pistol, you’ll have to be close to them, or extremely accurate. Finally, I took out my Smith and Wesson Model 500. It weighed more than four times as much as the Sundance and it only carried five rounds, but it was big. Big enough that the first thing anyone said when they saw it was ‘Wow. That’s a big gun’. I figured if there was ever a situation where I was in my office, in trouble, and didn’t have access to my usual two guns, I might as well have something impressive to threaten

someone with. If I could lift it. Although it lacks the theatricality of jacking the slide back on an auto, there is something altogether imposing about a large caliber revolver. No matter how many times I fired the 500, it still surprised me on the first shot. Smith and Wesson went to a great deal of trouble to reduce the recoil. It’s got rubber grips and a ported compensator on the muzzle and it’s balanced slightly forward of center. Even with all these measures, the recoil shook through my arm and rocked me back on my feet. And the noise. Even through ear defenders, it was quite amazing. I prepared myself for the second shot, and managed to keep it under a bit more control. I thumbed the hammer back and fired one last shot, inspected my wrists to make sure they still worked, and retrieved the target from the end of the range. The thing I noticed first was the

difference in the sizes of the holes made by the different weapons. The .25 caliber holes, in a grouping of about three inches on the chest, looked tiny in comparison to the three holes made by the .50 caliber S&W, which were just about confined to the head of the silhouette. I dropped the 500 back at the office and, promising myself I would clean my guns later, I walked a couple of blocks to Jackson Boulevard, and had a turkey sandwich and a Coke at Caffè Baci. I’d arranged the major players in my head now. The guys who attacked me worked for Michael Coughlin, Irish Mob boss, who fed information to Deputy Chief Hennessy, who maybe should have been the one on trial for racketeering and conspiracy instead of Gregory Patterson. With Hennessy dead, and therefore considerably less intimidating, maybe Patterson would start looking into the case again.

Maybe the link between Hennessy and Coughlin would come out. And maybe Coughlin’s mobster colleagues would be disappointed to find out he was a rat. I guess Mob guys don’t take disappointment well. It all kind of fit, but there was plenty that didn’t quite make sense. First, how did they know I’d been hired? Did they know it was to find Susan, or did they think it was to clear Patterson? Did Susan’s death have anything to do with it? If it did, why hide her body in the trunk of a car - if you’re going to send a message, you want to make it loud and clear. Well, at least I had no shortage of questions. Back at the office after lunch, I looked at my ad in the Yellow Pages once again. There, a couple of inches below it, was Joey Cicero, P.I., a number and an address in Riverdale. I dialed the number and he picked up straight away.

“Joey Cicero.” “Mr Cicero? My name’s Jake Abraham, I’m a P.I. in the city. I wonder if I could come see you and pick your brains about a case I’m working?” “You want advice? I’m flattered Mr Abraham, but I’m a busy man.” “I’ll pay you for your time,” I said. “Well why didn’t you say so? How soon can you be here?” Cicero’s office was on the fourth floor of a building that looked condemned. There was a tattoo parlor on the first floor, and most of the other units seemed abandoned. One had yellow crime scene tape across the door. The man himself looked only slightly out of place, largely because he was wearing what could only just be called a suit. His office was small and it didn’t

look like he’d cleaned up for me. He pointed to his sole client chair and I moved a pile of papers so I could sit down. “Just to get it out of the way, I get uh… $100 for a half hour consultation.” “No problem,” I said. I’d brought $200, but I tried not to let the rest show as I got out his hundred and placed it in his sweaty hand. He grabbed it like it was the only money he’d seen in weeks. “So, what happened to your face?” he asked. “Funny story…” I said, and I took out the composites of Tommy Byrne and his friend and put them on the desk, side by side. Cicero went white and his obnoxious smile disappeared. “What is this?” he asked. “You know these two?” I said. “Never seen them before.”

“You’re a terrible liar, Joey. Can I call you Joey?” “I think you’d better leave,” he said “I paid for a half hour. I’d like you to answer my questions.” “I can’t help you.” He said. Emphatic this time. “Look, Joey, I’m not trying to get you into trouble. I know Gregory Patterson hired you last year to look into his innocence. I know you took the case and then disappeared. Now I know why. These guys paid you a visit. Did they hurt you?” “I ain’t saying nothing. I don’t know what you’re talking about. You got the wrong guy.” “Come on, Joey. How about a little professional courtesy? All I need to know is what you were looking into that might have got their attention. I swear, if you tell me, it’ll go no further

than these four walls. If you don’t, well, I might have to start telling people that you’re helping me clear Patterson’s name. I know a guy at the Tribune…” “You call that professional fucking courtesy? You could get me killed!” He was scared. I had him. “So tell me what I want to know. Then I’m gone. Who did you talk to first?” “There’s nothing to tell. I swear. I took Patterson’s check and cashed it, but I didn’t do anything. Within twenty four hours they… somebody jumped me coming out of my apartment. I ain’t saying it was them,” he said quickly, motioning to the composites on his desk. “All I know is, if they thought I was onto a lead they were way off. The only thing I could figure is they must have been following Patterson and they saw him hire me.”

“Did he come here?” “No, he had me meet him in a bar out by Oz Park.” “Place called Flanagan’s?” “Yeah, that’s it.” “Okay, Joey. That wasn’t too painful, was it?” “Fuck you,” he said. Nice guy. Assuming Patterson wasn’t in the business of setting up multiple private investigators for a beating, it had to be someone at the bar feeding back information to the Mob. I briefly considered interrogating the bartender, but I decided there were easier ways to get myself killed and chose instead to head back to the office. I hadn’t even reached the car when my cell phone rang. It was Scott. He sounded cheerful. “Call off the dogs,” he said.

“What?” “We’ve got him.”

Chapter 12 For a moment, I couldn’t take in the enormity of what Scott was trying to tell me. “Got who?” I asked, and by the time the words were out, my brain had caught up and I knew the answer. “The killer. You remember, the bad guy.” “Is he a Mob hitman?” “No, he works in a zipper factory – Milton Zippers. Guy’s name is Calvin Walsh. Ballistics matched the Smith & Wesson .38 special we found at the last crime scene with the bullet from Melissa Adams, and the piece was registered to this Walsh guy, so we did a bit of checking. Turns out he owns a blue VW, just like the one Susan Patterson was found in.” “So what, he’s just a psycho? Does he fit

the profile?” I asked. “Don’t have it yet,” snapped Scott. He had a story he wanted to tell, so I let him continue. “The Feds get hundreds of requests a month from all over the world. They’ve got a bit of a backlog. If you must know, he’s white, single, mid 30s. Anyway, I haven’t finished. We went to the guy’s apartment, all jacketed up, just in case, but he wasn’t in. When we did the search, we found a few more interesting items. Looks like our Mr Walsh is a diabetic. And there are prints everywhere that match the ones on the Ray-Bans we found in West’s car”. “Wow,” I said, when Scott paused for me to praise his investigative powers. “Did you find any cyanide?” “Nah. But that doesn’t mean nothing. His shotgun’s gone too.” “He has a shotgun?”

“Unless he’s got rid of it. Wherever he is, he’s probably got it with him now.” I took a moment to let Scott’s last sentence sink in. “What do you mean ‘wherever he is’?” I asked, “I thought you’d got him.” “Well, when we find him, we’ve got him. What I mean is, we know who he is. We’ve got people staking out his apartment, checking out haunts, talking to people. Everyone’s on it. Just a matter of time now.” “Meantime, he’s out there with a shotgun. Forgive me for not breaking out the medals just yet.” “Hey, do you want me to let you know what’s going on or not?” Scott had somehow sensed I was less impressed with his news than he was. I probably should have been more expressive of my admiration, but I had had a long

week, and I was being unfair. Perhaps I was also a little jealous that he had solved it before me. “I’m sorry man, it’s been kind of a weird day and, to be honest, this wasn’t the way I thought it was going. It’s great that you’ve got the guy, and I hope you catch him.” Back in my office, I decided to start typing up my report and bill, so that I could give it to my client as soon as the word came through that Calvin Walsh had been charged with four counts of homicide. The rough draft of my bill did not make me feel better. With the $1250 retainer I’d got, even after taking away three days’ pay, gas, and the money I’d given to Lucy, Dutch and Cicero for information, I ended up owing Patterson almost $200. I started work on the case report. It was the first time I had prepared a report for a client, and I wondered how much detail I should put

into it. I began by making a list of people I had interviewed, and what I had learned. It occurred to me that I had meant to talk to Susan’s exgirlfriend, Abby Dexter, her Psych tutor, Dr Aronson, and her friend Anjali Sharma. After I got beat up and then she showed up dead, it had seemed less urgent to speak to the people who knew her, but I still might have learned something useful. I wondered if any of them had heard of Calvin Walsh. I wasn’t sure how much of the stuff about Deputy Chief Hennessy and the Irish Mob to put in, since most of it had come from Patterson anyway and, after trying several different formulations, I got distracted by an email and went online instead. I decided to learn a bit about the Tylenol murders from 1982. The archives on the Tribune’s website didn’t go back that far, so I typed the words ‘Tylenol’ and ‘cyanide’ into

Google. I found a large number of articles, news reports and studies, some of them actually relevant to the subject. One study by a group called the Foundation for American Communications claimed that there have only been a few fatalities due to true product tampering, and all of them involved cyanide. The first was the Tylenol in 1982, then separate cases involving Excedrin, Tylenol, and Lipton Cup-asoup in ‘86, Sudafed in ‘91, and Goody’s Headache powder in ‘92. The study said that faked or staged tamperings were far more common, where someone contaminates a product to make it look as if they have been a victim of random tampering. That appeared to fit with what happened to Julie Campbell. Next was an article in the Augusta Chronicle from May ’97 about tamper-proof

seals, which went into a bit more detail about the crimes which followed the Chicago cases: ‘others tried to use the senselessness of the Tylenol murders to cover up specifically targeted crimes of their own. In one particularly notorious case, a Seattle, Washington insurance salesman put cyanide in Excedrin in an attempt to kill his wife. She survived, but two other people died to make it look like a random act.’ There was a site which laid out most of the details of the original case that Freedman had mentioned, along with information about the victims, the stores where the Tylenol had been placed, and a suggested profile of the killer. This had been put together by an individual who believed the killer could still be caught, and wanted to help out. Finally, I found some information about

cyanide, what it does and where you get it. I read the clinical words on the screen with a morbid sense of fascination, and the image of Julie Campbell lying by the side of the road came back to me. Apparently, cyanide stops red blood cells from absorbing oxygen, so major organs like the heart and the brain don’t get any, and stop working. It’s like being suffocated from the inside. Then there was a list of industries that use it: chemical processing, gold mining, electroplating, film processing, refineries, steel and iron industries, pesticides, and more. It’s even found in apricot kernels. I wondered where Calvin Walsh had got his. It was still weird to me that the Mob angle, which had seemed so plausible earlier that day, now looked like a total bust. I mean, it looked like there was something to Patterson’s claims of innocence, but, as he said, I wasn’t getting paid to look into that, and

doing so would likely put me in danger. But it looked like Susan’s death was nothing to do with it. Now I thought about it, I’d never heard of a Mob hitman using such odd ways of killing people, but then I guess I’d never heard that much about Mob hitmen. If Walsh was just some psycho then the link with the Tylenol murders made my bathtub theory make some warped kind of sense. If he emulated one famous historical killer, why not another? I found all I needed to know about the ‘brides in the bath’ murders on Wikipedia. George Joseph Smith, a serial bigamist, murdered three of his wives in London in the second decade of the last century, mostly so he could collect on life insurance policies they’d just taken out. He grabbed his brides by the ankles and pulled sharply upwards. The coroner figured out later that the water rushed up their nose and

into their throats, causing shock and unconsciousness, and then they drowned. I turned on the news to put off doing any real work for a little longer. A blonde reporter was interviewing a distraught Hispanic cleaning woman outside an apartment building on what looked like Wacker Drive. The interview ended before I could work out what they were discussing and just as the reporter was handing back to the studio, Al Freedman walked into shot behind her. I managed not to call Scott’s cell for a full thirty seconds. After all, I didn’t want to bother him while he was working. When he answered, he didn’t sound relaxed and fulfilled in his work. “Hey, I just saw Freedman on the news. What’s going on? Have you got Walsh?” “Not exactly. We’ve got another body.” “Shotgun?”

“Kitchen knife. Sorry man, gotta go.” I surfed through the channels, looking for another local news station covering the same story. I didn’t find one, so I waited patiently for Scott to call me back.

Chapter 13 It was after six when Scott eventually turned up at my office. I had still not finished my case report, but I’d made a very impressive title page for it. Body number five belonged to Grant Foster, a thirty-six year old actor slash model. Unfortunately, someone had taken the slash part too literally. He had been discovered in the kitchen of his apartment, with a large knife embedded in his neck. And yes, he did have a Z cut into his foot. “Maybe it’s an elaborate marketing campaign for a new Zorro movie.” I suggested. “Who found him?” “His cleaning woman. Hysterical Mexican lady named Hernandez.” The woman I’d seen

being interviewed on the news. “Think she did it?” “Well, we thought about taking her fingerprints, just to freak her out, but Al said it was too cruel.” “I suppose it’s too much to hope Calvin Walsh’s fingerprints are on the knife?” “Way too much. No fingerprints anywhere. Not a mark on the body except the knife wound and the Z. Killer is neat, left the kitchen spotless.” “Except for the dead actor slash model making a mess on the floor.” “Except that.” “Do you know how Walsh got in?” I asked. “No sign of forced entry, no sign of a struggle. We can’t rule out the idea that maybe they knew each other. Soon as we catch the asshole, we’ll ask him.” “No luck there at all?”

“None. Nobody he knows has seen him in almost a week. Hasn’t been into work, or into a bar. Hasn’t made any calls from home, got money from the bank, used a credit card.” “Well, he’s had a busy week killing people. Probably hasn’t had much time for shopping.” “He’ll have to surface soon anyway, to get some insulin. We’re staking out the places he usually goes to get it, in case he’s figured out he can’t go back to his apartment. Just a matter of time.” “There’s a few things I wanted to ask you about,” I said. “Richard West. You said the M.E. wasn’t sure if he was drowned in the lake or a pool. Can’t he test the water in the lungs for chlorine?” “There wasn’t much water, from what I heard. I don’t know whether it’s possible. I can ask.”

“Do you know if he could tell if it was bath water?” I told Scott about my theory. He took it all in, but I couldn’t tell whether he bought it or not. “Also,” I went on, “if Walsh’s car was the one Susan was found in yesterday morning, and it had been in the parking lot since Monday afternoon, how could he pick up a hitchhiker in the early hours of yesterday morning.” “He probably stole a car.” “Or rented one,” I supposed. Scott shook his head. “No, we took a picture of Walsh round to all the car rental places in Chicago. Nobody recognized him.” “Anything else?” he asked. “The hair you found in the VW. You said it showed the driver was black, but Walsh is white.” “So it’s somebody else’s hair. Maybe he

lent his car to a friend the day before. What are you saying; you think he didn’t do it?” he asked. “No, of course he did it, look at all the evidence. I’m just saying it bugged me, that’s all. It just didn’t seem to fit. I mean why would he leave a body in his own car, and then steal a car to drive around in. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to leave Susan Patterson’s body in a stolen car? More to the point, if Walsh was dumping his own car, why wipe it clean? His own prints in his own car don’t prove anything. And why leave the gun with Julie Campbell’s body. He didn’t even shoot her, and it leads us straight to him. Do you seriously believe he just dropped it?” “Hey, you’re supposed to be the Psychology expert. Didn’t Freud say something about criminals secretly wanting to be caught? Leaving clues subconsciously or something?” “Yeah, Thanatos, an instinct for self

destruction. But Freud talked a lot of shit. You don’t want to believe...” I was interrupted by a beeping sound. Scott looked at the number on his pager and pointed to my phone. I nodded, and he lifted the receiver and dialed. I tried not to listen in, but I didn’t try very hard. “This is Bales, is Al there?” said Scott. Someone went to get him. “Al, it’s Scott. What’s up?” he continued. “What?” “When?” “How?” “Shit.” “Okay, I’ll be there soon as I can.” He hung up. “What’s going on?” I asked. “They’ve found Calvin Walsh.” He did not look happy. He grabbed his coat from the back

of the chair, and looked back at me as he headed towards the door. “You coming, or not?” he asked. I went.

Chapter 14 I caught up with Scott as he was getting into his car. He shoved open the passenger door from inside, and I got in. He made a U-turn in traffic and pulled away fast. I looked at his face. It was not the face of someone who had just caught a serial killer. “So what’s the deal here?” I asked. “You said they’ve found Walsh. That’s good, right?” “Wrong. Walsh is dead.” “What, they had to shoot him?” “No, he was dead when they found him.” “Suicide?” I suggested, hopefully. “Not unless he beat himself to death with a baseball bat. It’s not a very common method.” “Okay, lets start at the beginning.” “We had a couple of guys in his apartment,

in case he saw us watching the door and decided to go in by a window, or a skylight or something. Anyway, it seems they got hungry and started looking around for something to eat.” “Man can only live so long on coffee and donuts.” Scott gave me a serious look. I shut up. “They looked in the cupboards, didn’t see anything they wanted, so they took a look in the freezer. Then they lost their appetite.” “Walsh?” “Yeah.” “Well, maybe he tried one last kill, and the victim overpowered him, beat him to death and put him in the freezer.” Scott looked at me quizzically. “What? It could happen.” “He must have been there at least since yesterday afternoon, we’ve been staking out the place since then. And Grant Foster was killed this morning.”

We pulled up outside an apartment building on East 46th Street, and walked up two flights of stairs and along a musty corridor. Scott indicated to the policeman guarding the door that I was with him, and we ducked under the yellow tape across the doorframe. The short Texan M.E. was there, along with Sgt. Freedman, and about six uniforms, all doing nothing very busily. Freedman saw me and looked at Scott. I waited for him to say ‘What’s he doing here,’ but he didn’t. Scott took a pair of surgical gloves from his pocket and put them on. He told me not to touch anything and to stay out of the way. I did as I was told. The M.E. came over to talk to Scott and Freedman. He glanced at me before he started. He probably recognized me from the other crime scenes and wondered if I was a reporter. He gave them his opinions anyway. “Cause of death is almost certainly massive

head trauma. Murder weapon looks like the baseball bat found in the freezer with him, we’ll match it to the dents in his skull at the lab. Like the others, there is a Z shaped laceration in the sole of his left foot, peri-mortem, with a sharp blade.” “What?” I said, out loud. The three of them turned and glared at me, and then went back to their conversation. I don’t know why I was surprised, but I was. Calvin Walsh wasn’t the killer, he was another victim. Suddenly, everything fell into place. Unfortunately, that meant that when we thought we had answers, we had been asking the wrong questions. “Time of death?” asked Freedman. “Ah, that may be a little tough on this one. The freezer screws up just about every method we have of estimating the time of death. Obviously it speeds up body temperature loss

dramatically, but it also slows down putrefaction, and makes rigor and livor mortis meaningless. Since the freezer is hermetically sealed, we can’t even use entomology. Vitreous potassium might give us some clue, since it’s not affected by ambient temperature, and when we get him back to the lab we’ll check stomach contents and so on, but at the moment, my best guess is somewhere between eight hours and six days.” He shrugged apologetically. I knew a bit about rigor and livor mortis and entomology. Rigor mortis is the stiffening of muscles after death because of the loss of ATP. It usually starts about four hours after death, and by twelve hours, the body is totally stiff. After about thirty hours, the muscles all relax again, because the muscle fibers start to decompose. Contrary to popular belief, rigor is one of the worst ways to estimate time of death, because it

varies with the environmental temperature, the body weight of the victim, and the level of physical activity immediately before death. Livor mortis is another matter. After death, the blood stops pumping, and gravity draws it to the lowest points of the body. After about six to eight hours, the blood no longer moves when the body is moved. That’s known as ‘fixed lividity’, and it means the police can sometimes tell if a corpse has been moved after death. Forensic entomology, as any regular viewer of C.S.I. knows, is about the study of insects that come to feed on a corpse in a predictable order. Flies arrive within ten minutes and lay thousands of eggs in the eyes, mouth and nose of the corpse. Twelve hours after death the eggs hatch, and the maggots start feeding on the tissue. At twenty-four to thirty-six hours, beetles arrive to feed on dry skin, and two full days after death,

spiders and millipedes show up to eat the insects that are already there. The M.E. had mentioned one method I hadn’t heard of, vitreous potassium. I asked Scott about it in the car on the way back to my office. “When you die, your red blood cells start to break down and release potassium, and it builds up fairly predictably over time in the liquid in your eyes. They get a big needle and suck out the vitreous humor, then check the potassium levels against a table of expected results”. “Does it work?” “Depends who you ask,” said Scott. “Some experts’ll tell you it’s the most accurate method, but most agree there’s a high margin for error. Trouble is, you don’t know what the victim’s potassium levels were when he was alive. Sometimes you’ll get different readings from each eye. Still, it should at least narrow it down. When

you’ve got nothing else…” Scott didn’t need to know this kind of information to do his job, but he’d never let that stop him. Most cops will rely on the scientists for the science stuff and the lawyers for the law stuff and just stick to what they know, but Scott felt that everything he could learn would make him a better detective. It’s a trait I admire, and like to think I share. “Well, it’s obvious Walsh has been dead since Sunday, at least,” I said. “My guess is he was the first victim. Then the killer stole his guns, his insulin, and his car.” “And his Ray-Bans.” “Them too.” “And, apparently, the tape from his answering machine. Probably means the killer called him, so we’ll run his phone records and see if they were stupid enough to use their own

phone.” I thought about my next question carefully. I didn’t want Scott to think I couldn’t handle everything I was going through, even if I had been having doubts myself. I’d been telling myself that P.I.’s don’t deal with corpses on a regular basis, and that after this case was wrapped up I’d probably have a few months of nice easy cases following wayward husbands. But I hadn’t slept well the previous night, and I wasn’t looking forward to trying again. “Does it get easier?” I asked him, finally. “What?” “I don’t know, the whole thing. Looking at dead bodies; that smell; talking about death? Do you stop thinking about it when you go home at night?” “It’s hard at first. I remember the first time I saw a corpse. Was still in uniform, and I got

called out to a domestic dispute. Usually we just went in and stopped a drunk from hitting his wife until the following night, or something like that. But this time we pulled up to a house and this lady was on the front steps crying, and there was no yelling. My partner and me thought maybe the husband had left, gone back to the bar, or to his mistress or whatever, but then we heard more crying inside the house. A kid.” I realized we had stopped, and we were outside my office. Scott continued his story, his eyes focused on something outside the car, mine on him. “The lady was hysterical, we couldn’t get any sense out of her, so we went on in to investigate. I saw the kid first. He was maybe eight or nine, and he was sitting in the corner of the room, rocking back and forth, bawling. And then I saw the kid’s father, flat on his back on the

floor, blood everywhere. He had on a white shirt, but it was totally red from the blood. I stood there in the doorway. Didn’t know what to do. I should have checked for vital signs, but I didn’t have to. I knew he was dead. My partner came in, went straight to the body, checked his pulse. Nothing. I knew he was dead. I didn’t sleep that night.” “Did the wife kill him?” “Yeah. Turned out he was drunk, he was beating up on her, then he started on the kid. She went and got an axe from his toolbox, and she cut him sixteen times. She kept chopping even after he was dead, just to make sure. She got off. Pled justifiable homicide.” “So, does it get easier?” “After a while, you kind of become detached. It’s like these bodies were never actual people. You can’t let yourself care about them.

They’re just puzzles to solve. That’s the theory anyway. Fact is, you get used to it, but it doesn’t really get easier.”

Chapter 15 Once Scott had left, and I was alone in my office, I tried to figure out my next move. With Walsh dead, all bets were off. It could be some unidentified motiveless psycho, someone with a grudge against all six victims, or maybe even the Mob. I still couldn’t let that one go. I scanned in the composite of Tommy Byrne and emailed it to Lucy, my Borderline contact with what little I knew about him. This was going to cost me. About an hour later, after Lucy had compared the composite to all the photos of Tommy Byrnes on the Illinois Department of Motor Vehicles database, I had a copy of his driver’s license, last known address, date of birth and car make, model and registration. I took the files on Richard West and

Melissa Adams from my filing cabinet. I started three new files which I labeled Julie Campbell, Grant Foster, and Calvin Walsh. By the time I’d finished, the last two were still empty, except for a single sheet of paper in each containing what little I knew about them. I had updated the information in the other files, and added more newspaper clippings. I scanned in pictures of Richard West and Melissa Adams from the newspaper reports of their deaths. The report on Julie Campbell had not warranted a picture, and one would probably been harder to get given that her family lived in England. For Grant Foster, I trawled the Internet, looking at sites about film and television. It soon became clear that he was not a successful actor. I wondered whether he had more luck as a model. After a good half an hour of research, I

discovered he had once played a minor criminal in an episode of NYPD Blue, and fortunately, a fan of the show with way too much time on their hands had posted screenshots of every guest star on his website. Grant Foster’s picture was grainy, to say the least. He was good looking, but that was before someone had shoved a knife through his neck. I copied and pasted the picture into a Word document with the others, and printed it out. I wished I had a photo of Calvin Walsh, but for now these would have to do. As I left my office building, I half expected to see Tommy Byrne and his friend again. If I was right, and someone at Flanagan’s was tipping them off when Patterson hired me, then maybe they hadn’t bothered to have me followed, assuming I’d cave just like Joey Cicero. If they were only protecting their boss and had nothing to do with Susan’s death then

maybe I didn’t have anything to worry about anyway. Time would tell. In the meantime, my right hand went inside my jacket to rest on the butt of my gun. It stayed there until I reached my car. It was almost nine when I arrived at Dutch’s bar. Nick the bouncer was on the door. I didn’t say hello. I didn’t want to confuse him. I sat down at the bar, and ordered a Budweiser. If Dutch recognized me, he didn’t show it in his face. I must remember never to play poker with him. I was halfway through a bowl of complimentary peanuts by the time I realized I hadn’t had any dinner. The bar was a little less busy than it had been on Sunday, but business was still good. I sat nursing my beer for around twenty minutes, during which time, nobody offered to buy me a drink, or asked me to dance. I felt a little put out.

Finally, I noticed the person I had gone there to see. I waited a couple of songs, until he stopped dancing, and then sidled up to him. “Hi Frank,” I said, “can I buy you a drink?” He turned, and looked at me for a moment, trying to place me, trying to remember... “Jake, isn’t it?” I smiled. “That’s right.” “I knew you’d be back,” he said. I didn’t know quite what to make of that. “The shiner threw me for a minute.” I self-consciously touched my black eye, which had now added some yellow to the purple. “What happened to you?” “Occupational hazard,” I said. “So how about that drink?” “Sure, I’ll have whatever you’re having.” I ordered him a Budweiser, and got myself another. When they arrived he clinked the neck

of his bottle against mine. “Bottoms up!” he said. “Once again, I’m afraid I’m here on business.” “Oh yes, still looking for that girl?” “No. She turned up. Unfortunately, we were too late.” He looked appropriately saddened. “But you may still be able to help.” “Fire away.” Frank looked deep into my eyes, and I wondered if he was fully paying attention. I took the folded page from my pocket and showed it to him. “I was wondering if you’ve ever seen any of these people in here. Or for that matter, anywhere else.” He looked at the pictures in turn, and I watched his face for any reaction. When he got to Grant Foster’s picture, he arched his

eyebrows, and I got a small rush of adrenaline. “He’s kind of cute.” “Ever seen him before?” I asked, hopefully. “I wish. Sorry, I can’t help you.” “Would you mind showing these to your friends? Maybe someone else has seen them around. I’d appreciate a call, if you hear anything.” I handed him one of my business cards. “Jake,” he said, smiling, “It would be my pleasure. You want to dance?” “No, thanks, I have to go and eat. But I’ll see you around. And thanks.” I drained the last of my beer and left before they played any more Abba songs. When I got home I fried some chicken with some chopped peppers and onions and I added a few ripe tomatoes. I let it simmer while I dropped some noodles in a pan of boiling water. When I was

done, and I’d doused the whole lot in soy sauce, it actually tasted fairly good. I watched a documentary on black holes on the Discovery Channel until it was time to go to bed, but I wasn’t tired, and I didn’t want to lie in bed trying to sleep, so I started looking for things to do. I flipped through the TV Guide, and read an article on the demise of sitcoms since Seinfeld finished. I started watching Twelve Angry Men on TCM for about the millionth time, but I fell asleep somewhere near the end of the film, and didn’t wake up until after ten the next morning. I showered and shaved, and thought about eating breakfast. At the moment, I didn’t seem to know very much. With six victims and a possible Mob connection there were a lot of people to talk to and things to know, and I didn’t want all my eggs in one basket. I decided I would keep speaking to people who knew Susan, since she

was my connection to the case, and I’d look into two of the other victims to see if I could find a link between them, to the Mob, or to Susan. If I didn’t find anything I’d move on to two more victims, and then two more. The obvious one to choose first was Calvin Walsh, since he was probably the first victim, and according to Silence of the Lambs that’s a good place to start – “What do we begin to covet? We covet what we see every day.” I didn’t know if there was any coveting going on in this case, but maybe Walsh was the first victim because he knew the killer. There were no signs of forced entry into his apartment, suggesting he let his killer in. Come to that, Grant Foster was also killed in his apartment, and his door hadn’t been forced either. Maybe they both knew the killer. I decided to start with these two and look for where their lives might have overlapped.

I called the zipper factory where Calvin Walsh worked, and spoke to his boss, Mr Perry. Perry seemed excited at the prospect of my coming to speak with him, and suggested he set aside a room so I could talk privately with some of ‘the boys’, who probably knew more about Calvin. Forty-five minutes later, when I arrived at the factory, I was greeted like an old friend. Perry had an office up a flight of metal stairs, with windows on all sides, so that he could survey his people constantly. The second I entered, he left his sentry box, and practically ran down the staircase towards me, hands outstretched in welcome. He must have been watching the door. “Hi,” he shouted, before he got anywhere near me. “Hi there. Name’s Perry, Joe Perry. You can call me ‘Pez’, everybody does. Jesus,

you been in a fight? That’s a pretty nice bruise you got there. I used to do a little boxing, you know.” He grabbed my hand and started pumping it up and down like he expected oil to come shooting out of the top of my head. “Jake Abraham.” I said, quite meekly. I was ushered through the huge factory, past acres of noisy machinery, and men in matching blue coveralls, to a small room containing a table and two chairs. The walls were lined with cardboard boxes, which, judging by the writing on the side, contained coffee. Nothing else. No choice of caf or decaf, no cocoa, or tea. Maybe they had different rooms for different drinks, but I doubted it. If they had a siege, they might starve to death, but they would certainly stay awake. Suddenly the reason for Pez’s exuberance became all too clear. As the manager, he probably sat in his treetop office all

day watching the troops and drinking the coffee. He motioned me to sit down behind the table, in the position of authority, and said he would send the boys in to speak to me, one by one. I wondered how many he had in mind. “Mr Perry,” I said. “Pez, please.” “Pez,” I conceded. “Why don’t we start with you? Unless you’re busy.” “No busier than I’m gonna be later on.” He almost sat down, but stopped himself when a thought occurred to him. “You want some coffee?” “No, thanks.” I don’t drink coffee. Can’t stand the stuff. “Mind if I get some?” He was an addict. I considered trying an intervention, but decided I didn’t know him well enough yet. “Not at all.”

He opened the door to the small room, and yelled towards one of the coveralls. “Hey Billy, get me a coffee, would you?… Huh?… No, just one.” He walked over to one wall, and stared at the side of a box as if he was looking through a window. Before long he thought better of it and sat down in the chair opposite me. He began fidgeting immediately. I would have said he was hiding something, but I figured it was just the DTs. “So, dreadful thing about Cal, huh? Just tell me what I can do to help.” “Perhaps you can begin by telling me what Calvin did here, exactly.” “Well Jake, ...can I call you Jake?” I nodded. “Cal was a line manager.” “Which means...?” “He was in charge of about thirty machinists. His team mostly makes the stringers

on the spiral plastic zippers.” I had know idea what that meant, and was still deciding whether or not to ask, when Pez decided to tell me. “Lot of different processes go into making a zipper, Jake. Zippers have been made here in Chicago for over a hundred years – they were invented here. Most of the production’s in China and Japan these days, but we still produce over 7 million zippers a day right here. Cal and his team run the machines that make the stringers – that’s the tape and teeth that make up half a zipper.” “Had he done that long?” “He started out as a machinist himself. Eight years, he stuck at it. He was a Union Rep. for a while, then he got promoted, and he’s been a line manager going on four years.” “So, he was here for a while, then.” Loyal, I wondered, or unambitious? “You know anyone

who might have had a grudge against him?” Pez smiled. “A fairly long list of jealous husbands and boyfriends, I’d say.” “He fooled around a lot?” “Cal? Hell, yeah. He’d fuck a snake if you hold it for him. I mean, you know, he’s a single guy, and ordinarily, there’s nothing wrong with playing the field, per se, but Cal did have a liking for ladies who were already taken. He told me once...” There was a faint knock at the door. Pez said “Yeah?” and the door opened. Billy came in carrying two coffees. He handed one to Pez, and offered me the other. It seems Billy didn’t have much of a memory. Either that or the concept of someone not wanting coffee was just too much for him to cope with. I took the coffee with a smile, and placed it on the table, next to my notepad.

“You were saying?” I continued, after Billy had left the room. “Huh?” “You were just about to say what Cal once told you.” “Was I?” He thought for a couple of seconds, and took a large swallow of his coffee. “No, sorry, it’s gone.” “Is there anyone who works here, who might have been mad at Cal?” “Here? No, he gets on with everyone.” “Nobody that you know of that might have had good reason to dislike him at all?” “No. Like I said, he was very popular.” He wasn’t getting it. Third time lucky. “Let me put it like this. To your knowledge, did Cal ever sleep with the wife or girlfriend of anyone who works at the factory?” Well, third time less subtle, anyway.

“Oh, no. Cal would never do that to a friend. No, he liked women, but he was honorable.” He gulped down the rest of his coffee. He must drink thirty of those a day, I thought. “It looks like Calvin was killed on or before Sunday. Would anyone here have usually seen him at the weekend?” “I don’t know. You’d have to ask them.” “When he didn’t show up for work on Monday morning, what did you do? Weren’t you concerned?” “Not really, I got someone else to cover for him.” “Wouldn’t you normally expect a phone call from someone who was taking the day off?” He looked directly into my eyes, leaned forward, and lowered his voice. “Cal used to drink a little, Jake. He’s been better recently, but

he’s not clean. I had a similar problem a while back. Still do, I guess. So I know what it’s like. Difference is, Cal never really admitted he had a problem. I’ve been clean for six years now. Don’t drink, don’t smoke. By the way,” he said, gesturing at my coffee, “If you’re not gonna drink that, do you mind if I have it?” I pushed it across the table to him. A man’s got to be allowed to have vices. “So, when he didn’t come in on Monday, you assumed he was drunk somewhere?” “Yeah. I figured he’d come back when he dried out. It’s happened before, and he always made up the time he lost. He was responsible like that.” Over the next three hours, I talked to more than twenty of the people who had worked with Calvin Walsh. Pez’s loose definitions of

‘honorable’ and ‘responsible’ seemed to be backed up by the general consensus about ‘Cal’. Beyond that, I learned that he was a good manager, because: he knew the machines; he’d done the job himself for so long; and because he didn’t take any shit from Pez when production was down for any reason. I learned that he usually went out for a drink after work, especially on a Friday, but he divided his patronage between several bars in the area. Sometimes he drank with ‘the boys’, sometimes not. It appeared that on Friday the 12th, he had gone off on his own. Most of the workers couldn’t think of anyone specific that he had pissed off, but everyone agreed that it was probably over a woman. Nobody had heard of Grant Foster. Three of the guys mentioned an incident that occurred about two months before Walsh

disappeared. Each had a slightly different version of events, but the core was the same. It seemed that one day, when everyone was leaving the factory, a large black town car with blacked out windows was waiting by the gates. Between two and five burly men were standing next to the car, and while one held the door open, the rest grabbed Calvin and shoved him inside. Then the car drove away. Walsh was back at work the following morning, none the worse for wear, and a story gradually worked its way round the factory. The car belonged to a local gangster, whose first name was either Vittore or Vincenzo, but who definitely wasn’t Irish, and Walsh was being warned off after he had slept with the man’s mistress. Walsh himself would never comment on the story, so none of the three could say for certain whether it was true or not, but they all felt it was the sort of thing Cal would get

mixed up in. Aside from Billy, everyone seemed to have one syllable names - Pez, Don, Hal, Ed. People with names like Jerry had them shortened to Jer. I wondered if, because of all the coffee they drank, nobody could concentrate long enough to make it to the end of Jerry. I left the factory, unable to decide whether zipper production would go up or down if they switched to decaf.

Chapter 16 I bought a large honey bacon club from Quizno’s and took it back to my office for lunch. I’d barely unwrapped it when my phone rang. “Abraham and Associates, Jake Abraham speaking”, I said. The picture of professionalism. “Mr Abraham, my name is Dr Robert Odin,” said a man with a distinct Texan accent. “The Medical Examiner?” “I didn’t realize I was famous.” “I recognized your voice,” I explained. “How can I help?” “Detective Bales mentioned you had a theory about the Richard West drowning. He asked that I call you, He explained your interest in the case and said you can be trusted to treat confidential information as confidential.”

“Of course. How much did Scott tell you about my theory?” “Let’s pretend nothing. I’d rather get the whole story from you than try to piece things together.” “Fair enough. I wonder if, first, you’d mind telling me how you figured out it was a drowning? I understand it’s hard to say for sure.” I could practically hear him puff up his chest with pride. “It’s a diagnosis of exclusion. There’s no one thing that is definitively diagnostic of someone having drowned, although obviously if they’re found face down in the river that helps a lot.” He paused, perhaps for a laugh. When he didn’t get one he continued. “In this case there were several factors that, taken together, led to one most likely conclusion. First was the foam cone.”

“I’m sorry, the ‘foam cone’?” “It’s a pinkish foam that forms in and around the airways due to the water mixing with the respiratory mucosa, the air in the lungs and pulmonary surfactant. We see it in drownings, but it can also indicate a head trauma or a drug overdose, both of which I was able to rule out at autopsy. I also found some pulmonary edema – that’s fluid in the lungs, a fair amount of water in the stomach, and some hemorrhaging in the middle ear and sinuses. Any one of these taken in isolation could be linked to multiple causes of death, but all put together they are highly indicative of drowning”. I said “uh huh” occasionally during this to indicate I understood at least most of what he’d said. “Could you tell what kind of water he was drowned in?” I asked when he’d finished. “Scott said it could have been a pool. Did you find any

chlorine?” “Nothing definitive. When someone drowns in a pool the chlorine tends to dissipate fairly quickly into the lungs and bloodstream, and the chlorine used in pools is actually chloride ions similar to those we would expect to find in the body anyway. Add to that the fact that pools have wildly varying quantities of chlorination depending on how well maintained they are and all I can say is that I can’t rule it out. I can’t rule out bath water either, if that’s what you’re asking. Tell me your theory.” I laid it all out for him. He had heard of the brides in the bath murders, but was sketchy on the details. When I was done he went silent for a few moments. “Interesting,” he said, finally. “I’d like to be able to give you more, but all I can say is that it is not inconsistent with the autopsy findings. I would

imagine that, if the procedure were performed perfectly, there would be less water in the stomach and lungs, as the victim would be rendered unconscious, but pulling the legs upwards would likely be sufficient to bring the head under water, at which point holding him there would be much easier than pushing him there. Of course, it would go some way to explaining the contusions around Mr West’s ankles. I had thought that they came from the perpetrator holding his feet while he made the signature incision, but this actually makes a little more sense given the bruising pattern”. We said our goodbyes, and I finished my lunch. I hadn’t proved anything, but I’d come up with a viable theory, and that was enough to put a smug grin on my face while I ate.

Chapter 17 After lunch, I picked up a Tribune, sat in my car, and dug out the small address book I had taken from Susan Patterson’s bedroom. I found the address for Abby Dexter, Susan’s ex. I typed the street name into my Sat Nav, and within five minutes I was on the Eisenhower Expressway, headed west. Before I came off at the Austin Blvd exit, I passed the lay-by where Julie Campbell’s body had been found. Abby Dexter’s house fit right into its Oak Park surroundings. It looked like Frank Lloyd Wright himself had built it on a slow weekend. It was low and horizontal, with a shallow roof and wide eaves. Small as it was, it had an air of austerity. I walked up the stoop and put my hand out to ring the bell. There was no bell, so I lifted

the brass doorknocker, and let it fall against its brass plate with a thwack. I waited. No-one came. I tried again, with the same result. I began to leave, thinking to myself that I should have called before making the trip out there, when a woman stepped off the sidewalk on to the short path leading up to the house. She was maybe mid-thirties, wearing an extremely well tailored navy blue power suit, and a long coat which looked like it was made of silk. As she walked, her coat billowed around her like smoke. She noticed me, and looked up. When her eyes met mine, I was captivated. “Can I help you?” she asked. After a short pause, I remembered why I was there. “Actually, I’m looking for Abby Dexter. This is her house.” I don’t know why I felt the need to add that.

She smiled. “I know. I’m Abby Dexter,” she said. When she smiled, her eyes brightened, and dimples appeared in her cheeks. It made her face appear younger, but she retained an air of maturity. All in all, she was incredibly beautiful. I realized I was staring. “Jake,” I said. “My name’s Jake. Jake Abraham.” I struggled to regain some composure. “I’m a private investigator. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions. It’s about Susan Patterson.” Her smile faded quickly, and was replaced by an equally fascinating expression of sorrow. “Please, come in.” As I followed her in to her house, I breathed in her perfume. I had no idea what kind it was, but it was elegant and feminine, and went with her completely. Once inside, she led me into the living area and lit the huge fire before sitting

down. After all, as Frank Lloyd Wright had said, the fire was the heart of the house. I considered trying to impress her with this bon-mot, but remembered I was there to talk to her about her dead ex-lover, and this made it seem inappropriate. “I saw the papers yesterday morning. It’s terrible. Are you working with the police?” “Actually, I’ve been hired by Susan’s father, but I am following the investigation.” Her talking about Susan reminded me that Abby was, in fact, a lesbian. And I was flirting with her. Well, barely. Besides, she was probably ten years older than me. Which meant that she was probably twice Susan’s age. For some reason the theme from The Graduate popped into my head. “What is it you do for a living?” I asked, getting down to business.

“I’m an attorney. Up until two months ago, I used to work as a Public Defender, but I got sick of the ridiculous workload and defending people I knew were guilty, and I was offered a job at Harrison and Duke, so I took it.” “How did you come to meet Susan Patterson?” “Susan was friends with my niece, Mary. They were at school together.” She said. “How old was Susan at this point?” I prompted, taking notes. “When we met, she was sixteen.” “And the two of you got together?” “Yes, over a period of time we became very close.” She said, without a hint of remorse. Not that I expected any. I wondered if she would appreciate the wording of my next question. “Miss Dexter, were you trying to seduce her?”

She laughed, lightly. “I can see why that is how it would appear, but to be honest with you, I think I had as little choice in the matter as she did. We simply clicked. We both gave each other something that, until that point, neither of us knew we needed.” “How long did your relationship last?” “A little under a year. At the end, Susan was having a very rough time with family stuff. Well, I guess you know about her father. She needed support, and I was busy with work. I couldn’t be there for her like I should have been, like I wanted to be, and I think she resented me for it.” “Did you resent her, for the break up?” I asked. “It hit me hard, I cared about her a great deal. I threw myself into my work, which I was finding less and less rewarding, and which I

blamed for causing the problems in the first place. No, I didn’t resent her. I didn’t blame her. I blamed the person I couldn’t be. Does that make sense?” “Absolutely.” I lied. “When was the last time you saw her?” “I ran into her in a store on the North Side about two or three months ago. We went for a coffee, talked for a bit, she said she’d call. That was the last time.” “Did she call?” “No,” she said, with a rueful smile. “I didn’t expect her to.” “You mentioned that you were a Public Defender until recently. Did anything happen to make you change career?” “I stayed a lot longer than most P.D.’s. As I said, I found I spent a lot of my time keeping people out of prison who really deserved to be in

prison. The workload was such that when I did get a client who might have been innocent I didn’t have the time I should have had to give them an aggressive defense. Now I can choose my clients to a certain extent.” “Were you ever threatened by clients you weren’t able to keep out of jail?” She smiled, “All the time. It goes with the territory, I’m afraid.” “Anyone recently?” “It’s been over a year since Susan and I stopped seeing each other. I’ve had other relationships since. If someone wanted to get to me I can’t see why they would pick Susan.” “Maybe someone has some out of date information” “Still, I’m sorry, but I can’t discuss my former clients.” “Even if it might be connected to Susan’s

disappearance?” “Mr Abraham, for ten years I defended some of the most vicious and dangerous criminals in Chicago. I’ve been threatened at least a hundred times and had police protection on numerous occasions. Believe me, if I thought anyone connected to me through my work could have harmed her, I would tell you.” I believed her. “Thank you, you’ve been very helpful. Just one last thing before I go,” I said, and suddenly felt like Columbo. “Could you tell me if any of these names mean anything to you?” I took out a piece of paper, on which I had written the names of the other victims. She studied it, and I studied her. She really was quite stunning. I got the impression that she was genuinely moved by Susan’s death, and that she was being totally open and honest.

“I’m sorry, these names mean nothing to me. What do these people have to do with Susan?” “That’s what I’m hoping to find out.” I said, avoiding the point of her question. “Thank you for your time.” She stood, and walked me out, the gracious hostess. As I reached the door, I took a business card from my pocket and handed it to her. “If you think of anything you think might be useful, then please give me a call.” I said. I wanted to add ‘If you want to talk, or go for a coffee’, but I didn’t. She took the card and smiled again. “Thank you, Mr Abraham.” She said. “Call me Jake.”

Chapter 18 I drove away from Abby’s house feeling confused. I was sad for her. Gregory Patterson was obviously more affected by Susan’s death and for him I felt a kind of pity, I guess. But Abby clearly felt the loss, and I felt her pain. As I took the ramp up onto the Eisenhower, my cell phone rang. “Hey buddy,” said Scott. “Watcha doing?” “On my way home.” I said. “Yeah, me too. Listen, you feel like going for a beer? Maybe shoot some pool? I need to relax, take my mind off this case for a few hours.” “Sure, meet me at my place, about half an hour.” At my apartment, I changed out of my suit,

and put on a white muscle shirt, with a Budweiser logo on it. Not because I have muscles, but because it was clean, and I hadn’t got round to doing any laundry recently. It was getting to the point where I would have to buy some more socks. I covered my lack of sleeves with a dark blue shirt, which I left unbuttoned, and then I saw my guns on the chair. If I wore the shoulder holster over the shirt, I would need to wear a jacket on top, which would make it harder to play pool, and if I wore it under the shirt, it would be really uncomfortable with the muscle shirt. I thought about changing altogether, but the doorbell rang, and I decided to take the Glock out of its holster, and tuck it into the belt of my jeans, so it sat on my right hip. My shirt hung down and covered it nicely. In truth, I was only allowed to carry the guns when I was ‘at work’,

but since my agency was open 24 hours a day, I had a nice get-out clause. Scott left his car outside my building, and we walked half a mile down Halsted to The Corner Pocket. A rerun of Friends was on Channel 9 on the television by the bar. After a short wait for a table, we got down to business. We decided to play nine-ball, because you can fit more games into an hour, and that was how long we had the table. Three games later, I was on my second beer, and Scott was having a cappuccino and a pastrami sandwich. We hadn’t discussed the case at all. Actually, we hadn’t discussed anything at all. But we were both thinking about it. “Hey man, I thought we came here for beer.” I said, more to break the silence than for any other reason. “You getting old or something?”

Scott tapped his temple. “Got to stay alert. I’m on call. We don’t know when the next body will show.” “How much sleep have you had recently?” “I’m fine. I slept an hour or two on Tuesday.” He said, smiling. “What are you doing here with me? If you’ve got tonight off, you should be resting.” “I can’t just go home and shut off. This is good for me, I’m relaxing. Trust me. It’s your shot.” I hit a lovely cannon off the four ball, onto the nine, and the nine dropped in to the middle pocket without touching the jaws. “That’s three one. Your break.” I said. “Rack ‘em.” We played out the hour, neither of us giving the game our full attention, and in the end I won by five games to three.

“Loser buys dinner.” I said. I was trying to make it a tradition, since I usually beat Scott, even when his mind was on the game. The beer garden was a little cold, so we sat at the bar and watched the goings-on. I had another beer. Scott had switched to club soda. “I don’t know how you can drink that stuff.” I said. It was a feeble attempt at putting off what we both knew we would end up talking about, and it didn’t work. I’m not even sure he heard me. “We should be getting the profile from Virginia tomorrow.” Said Scott, absently. “They finally got around to it, huh?” “Yeah, I think when you collect six victims, they put a rush on it. And you get a free set of steak knives.” “What are you expecting from it. Motive?” “My opinion? There’s still no motive. I

don’t even think he’s connected to the victims. Maybe they ‘symbolize’ something from his childhood that he’s angry about. I don’t know. Who the hell knows anything about criminals?” “Remind me again what it is you do for a living.” Scott smiled. “What I mean is, you think you know. You think you’ve seen the motives that people have for killing other people. And then something else comes along.” “Lust, loathing, and lucre.” I said. “J.B. Priestley once wrote that those are the three motives for murder. Lust, loathing and lucre.” “Yeah well, he didn’t work homicides. He didn’t, did he?” I shook my head. “I didn’t think so. If he did, there would have been a fourth. Loopiness.” “Loopiness?” “Yeah, you know, insanity.”

“I know what it means, I’m just not sure it goes. Lust, loathing, lucre and loopiness? It doesn’t sound right. How about lunacy?” “Okay, good. That sounds better. Lust, loathing, lucre, and lunacy.” I was on my fifth beer, and this conversation was making complete sense. “But what I’m saying is,” Scott continued, “Sometimes there’s just no good reason. Sometimes they’re just crazy. Do you know how Jeffrey Dahmer started?” “No.” “He was eighteen, he picked up this hitchhiker, liked the look of him, and took him back to his place, on the promise of some dope. The guy smoked his dope, and it seems he wasn’t gay. Dahmer didn’t want him to leave, but he couldn’t think of anything to say to make the guy stay, so he picked up a barbell, and caved

his skull in. Then he cut him up and put him in a few garbage bags. After a couple of days, he took him out to the desert and buried him. It was seven years before he killed again. In the end, he killed sixteen people. And it started because he wanted to spend some time with a guy who was going to leave.” We sat, once again in silence, and thought about what it takes, to make someone capable of killing. Are we all capable, given the right circumstances? Or the wrong ones? Then I remembered what I wanted to ask Scott. “I went to Calvin Walsh’s factory. Spoke to a man named Pez.” “Real upbeat kind of guy, isn’t he?” “Did you go there?” I asked. “Spoke to him on the phone. Find anything out?” “Do you know of any gangsters called

Vincenzo or Vittore?” “Boss or soldier?” “What do you mean?” “How high up is he?” “High up enough to have a chauffeur driven town car.” “Vittore Castelletti. He mixed up in this?” “Could be,” I said. “Who is he?” “You know Castelletti’s Restaurant on Taylor Street?” “No.” “Well, that’s his, and he owns part of about twenty other legitimate restaurants and nightclubs. Blue wisdom says he also finances ninety percent of the city’s cocaine, but he stays well clear of the business end and nobody’s ever been convinced to testify against him.” “Is he dangerous?” “Lot of people are prepared to do time for

him. I don’t think it’s because he’s got a good dental plan. What’s his connection?” “Probably nothing. Calvin Walsh was seen talking to him a couple of months ago.” “Not exactly a smoking gun, is it?” My cell phone rang. I closed off one ear with my finger and put the phone to the other. It was Lucy, with the list of incoming phonecalls to Susan’s apartment and calls to and from her cell phone. I had to cradle the phone between my ear and shoulder so I could write down the short list of numbers. Then Lucy volunteered a piece of information I hadn’t thought to ask for. The last known location of the cell phone. ‘”That’s interesting,” I said, as I pocketed my phone. “What is?” asked Scott, taking the bait. “At 10.16am on Saturday, Susan Patterson’s cell phone was on the corner of

154th and State.” “154th? That’s down in Calumet City. That’s way outside our search area. I’ll have to check if any of our suspects have connections down there. This from the phone company?” “Via a contact of mine,” I confirmed. “That’s the last location they have. Does that mean someone made a call?” “Just means it was switched on. They track you the whole time so they know where to send your calls.” “But they just know what cell you’re in, right? And those transmitters must cover a huge area.” “Yeah, about 10 square miles each,” said Scott. “But in a city you’re always in range of at least three, and by comparing the signal strengths they can narrow it down to a few hundred meters. Even less if you’ve got GPS.”

“GPS in a phone?” “Yeah. Since 2005 pretty much all new phones have GPS. It’s the law.” “How come?” “911. Nearly half of all 911 calls are made by cell. The dispatcher needs to know where to send a car. Do you know if Susan’s phone had GPS?” I confessed I did not. The news came on the television at the end of the bar, and my attention drifted towards it. The lead story was from the University of Illinois. The local news crew had somehow arrived on the scene before the police. I could see the reporter polishing her Pulitzer Prize in her mind’s eye. Apparently, the body of a girl had been found, strangled, next to the bizarrely shaped Art and Architecture Building. Details were still coming in (obviously the reporter herself couldn’t do any actual work,

for fear of breaking an expensive nail) but the information so far was that the girl had been strangled with a piece of electrical cable, and her face had been cut several times. She also had one shoe missing, and some cuts on her foot... I twisted round in my seat. Scott was out of the door. I threw a bill on the bar, and followed him.

Chapter 19 Scott and I made the half mile run back to my apartment in three or four minutes. I was breathing hard when I got in to the passenger seat of his car. Scott was hardly breathing at all. I felt the five beers as a dullness in my head, and I wished I’d had the presence of mind to follow his example, and abstain. As we sped down Halsted, Scott took out his cell phone and phoned Freedman, who was apparently also on his way. When we arrived, there were already two squad cars at the scene, and one patrolman was putting up the crime scene tape, while three others were herding reporters and possible witnesses away from the immediate area. Next to arrive was the crime scene division, which consisted of two guys in

coveralls who put latex gloves on as soon as they got out of their car. One was heavy set, with sandy hair and a moustache that covered the entire lower half of his face. His companion was tall and thin, and his coveralls didn’t cover his wrists, but stopped halfway down his forearms, where they nearly met the beginnings of latex gloves. These two were followed closely by Freedman and finally, the M.E., Dr Odin. I stayed out of the way, and paid attention. The body was partially hidden in some bushes by the path. She was a young, blonde, white girl. She was dressed in sports clothes, as if she had been jogging, and she was lying on her back, spread-eagled on a small area of grass by the Art and Architecture building. Her face and neck were covered in blood, and cut several times, and there was some blood on her sweatshirt. The ground around the body was

churned up and a little muddy. Everyone went about their specific allocated tasks, without interfering with each other, and the whole effect was like a well-choreographed ballet. First of all, the crime scene investigators started photographing everything. The body, from every conceivable angle, the area around the body, and then, using right-angled rulers to show scale, the shoe prints in the mud around the scene. Then the tall one marked out the areas where they would be taking casts of shoe prints, allowing the M.E. to move in and examine the body, avoiding the marked areas. At this point, he was the only other person allowed within the tape. The evidence had already been hugely contaminated by the reporters, as I gathered from some choice words the heavy set crime scene guy muttered under his moustache, and now they were doing their best to salvage what

they could. Finally, while Moustache took some measurements and made a rough sketch of the scene, his friend began to prepare the shoe prints for making casts. He sprayed the surface of the mud with some kind of fixative, and then mixed up some plaster in a bucket, and put a portable wooden frame around each of the prints. He then poured the plaster carefully into the prints, using his stirring stick to break the flow, and added some twigs from the surrounding area to reinforce the plaster. While he left the plaster to dry, he took a sample of the soil from the scene, and put it in a paper evidence envelope. In the meantime, Dr Odin was examining the victim. The first thing he did was look at his watch, and make some notes. He was probably pronouncing her officially dead. Next he felt the movement in her jaw, to check for rigor. He

bagged her hands, to protect any material under the nails in case she had managed to scratch her killer, or pull some hair out. He examined the cuts on her face and neck, and on her feet, making more notes as he went. He then took the temperature of the air, and the core temperature of her body. To do this, he made a small puncture in her abdomen, and inserted the thermometer. The reason for the puncture, I discovered later from Scott, was that an oral thermometer would have been useless mouth temperature after death gives no indication of core body temperature. A rectal thermometer would be more accurate, but in a case like this, the use of one could damage potentially valuable evidence, and confuse the investigation. When he was finished, a pair of emergency medical technicians lifted her into a body bag, and loaded her into the van.

Scott and Sgt Freedman, during this time, had been interviewing possible witnesses and reprimanding reporters. Both were furiously taking notes. They finished up almost simultaneously, and came towards where I was standing to talk to Odin. “I’d say the cause of death on this pretty young thing,” said Odin, “was asphyxiation, due to ligature strangulation. Electrical cable we found round the neck looks like the murder weapon, there are contusions on the back of the neck where the killer pushed against it for leverage. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if the thyroid cartilage is fractured.” “What about the cuts to the face?” asked Freedman. “Well, there’s a lot of them. At first count, it looks like seventeen or eighteen, most likely made with a slashing motion from left to right.”

He demonstrated the motion, and he looked like he was trying to swat a fly. “Were they part of the attack, or after?” “I don’t see any defense wounds, so I’d say they were post mortem, and likely made with the same knife as the incision on the foot, which is the same as the others. The wounds are consistent with a scalpel or a craft knife, something like that.” “What about time of death.” “A little early to say for sure. Rigor has started in the jaw, even in this outside temperature, but in my opinion that was probably hastened by strenuous activity before death. It looks like she may have been exercising. Her body temperature is still pretty high, but she died of asphyxiation, which raises the body temp. All in all, I would estimate she’s been here no more than three hours.”

“Okay, thanks.” Scott said, and began to turn away. “There’s one other thing you should know,” said Dr Odin. “I found a drop of liquid on her thigh. Probably semen.” “Probably?” “I’m pretty sure. Naturally I’ll do a rape kit when we get back for the post.” “What about the other victims?” Freedman asked. “Well, you already know about the one we found in the trunk of the car. As for the others, there’s nothing to show it, but I can’t rule it out.” Scott thanked Dr Odin, and told Freedman he’d meet him back at the station. “You know, this could be very good” he said to me after his partner had left. “Not for her.” “No. But he’s getting cocky. This one was

raped and killed in broad daylight, a few yards from a path, and it looks like he might have left us some DNA. I can feel us getting closer to him. Are you okay to get a cab home?” he asked me. “I really have to get to the station; we’ve got some people to talk to.” “No problem. Have you got anything good?” I asked. “No eye witnesses, but we’ve got an I.D. from a couple of people. Her name’s Linda Kramer. She’s a math student, lives in the dorms over there.” He pointed to a buff colored brick building on the corner of Harrison Street. “She was probably on her way home and she got jumped. She was only a few hundred yards from her front door.” “What about the reporters?” “At least one of them got an anonymous tip. That’s who I’ve got to go talk to now, see what

they can remember about it. Maybe it was the killer themselves, wanting a piece of the action. Wouldn’t be the first time a murderer contacted the media for a little attention.” “Of course, it could just be a member of the public who didn’t want to get involved in a police investigation.” I pointed out. “Could be,” he agreed, “but I’m thinking this killer wants to be famous.”

Chapter 20 By nine o’clock on Friday morning, I was sitting in my car outside Red Again, the second hand bookstore where Susan had worked, just off the Magnificent Mile. I was checking the morning’s Tribune for the story on last night’s murder. There was a leader on the front page, with a picture of Linda Kramer how she used to look before someone had strangled her to death. Inside were a few of the less gory details, and someone had done an editorial on how our educational institutions are no longer safe. It talked more about Columbine and Virginia Tech than UIC, and I got the distinct feeling that that writer had rehashed a piece he’d put together some time ago. The shop was small, and every inch of

space was used to its fullest. Books of various sizes, some in good condition, some in need of repair, lined the walls from floor to ceiling. The clientele were, to say the least, eclectic. Businessmen in suits browsed next to students who hadn’t washed their hair in weeks. Books are a great equalizer. Behind the counter was a young man with a Letterman jacket on. Another part timer, no doubt. “Can I help you?” he asked, helpfully, as I approached the counter. “Is the manager in?” I asked. He smiled at the implication that there was a question he couldn’t answer. A situation he couldn’t handle. “Is there a problem?” I smiled right back at him, and showed him my license. “No problem at all,” I said. “I’d just like to ask them a couple of questions about Susan Patterson.”

“I’ll just get the manager,” he said, and went into the back office. About half a minute later, he emerged and came back to the counter. “Mrs Henshall would like to speak with you in the back.” He held up the flap of the counter and motioned me through. The kid showed me into a room barely big enough for a desk and a couple of chairs. Sitting in one of the chairs, behind the desk, was a very proper looking woman wearing half-glasses, a blouse that buttoned all the way up to her chin and a frown that seemed to weigh down the top half of her face. She was surrounded by bookshelves, and more books were piled on the floor, presumably waiting to be sorted through. I had to move the waste basket in order to sit down, and in doing so, I sent one pile of books crashing to the floor. “Leave them,” she barked. I sat down.

“William tells me you’re a detective.” I nodded. “May I see your credentials?” I handed her the Photostat of my license, and she read it carefully, to check I wasn’t the book police in disguise. “Jake.” she said, in disgust, still reading. “Is that short for anything? Jacob?” I got the sense she didn’t like names to be shortened. I bet William preferred to be Bill if he was given the choice. Maybe she felt it showed a lack of respect for words. She would have a fit if she ever met Calvin Walsh’s boss. In a way, I was sorry to disappoint her. “No ma’am,” I said, “it’s just Jake.” “Then I will call you Mr Abraham,” she said, handing back my license, “and you may call me Mrs Henshall.” I almost said ‘Gee, thanks’, but I thought if she frowned any more she might disappear into her blouse.

“Well, Mrs Henshall,” I began, “I just have a few questions about Susan Patterson.” “Yes, awful news. She used to work here, you know.” I nodded. “That’s why I’m here.” I said. “How long had Susan worked for you?” “Approximately six, no wait, five months.” “And how many hours a week did she work?” “It varies. She did a lot of extra time over the summer break, but mostly she works evenings and weekends.” “Saturdays?” “Yes,” she confirmed. “Were you surprised when she didn’t come in last Saturday?” Mrs Henshall shook her head. “She had booked the day off. It was her father’s birthday.” “Did she mention anything to you

beforehand that seemed odd? Maybe only in hindsight?” “I’m afraid not.” “What about anyone else who works here? Did she talk to them much?” I asked. “There is usually only myself and one other person here. It’s a small shop Mr Abraham, and not usually as busy as today. It appears there really is no such thing as bad publicity.” I couldn’t recall any mention of Red Again in any of the newspaper reports of Susan’s death, but I let it slide. I took out the list of victims names I’d shown to Abby Dexter. I had added Linda Kramer to the bottom. “Do any of these names mean anything to you, Mrs Henshall?” I asked, showing her the list. She took it from me, looked at it for a little bit too long, and handed it back. Her eyes gave

her away. “No.” she lied. “Are you sure?” I said, giving her a chance. “Take another look. Look at the names one by one.” “Well...” “Yes?” “These are the other victims, aren’t they?” No, that can’t be what she said. I must have misheard. I checked. “Excuse me?” “The other victims. All killed by the same person as Susan?” Shit. How should I handle this? Who knew about the link? The killer obviously, and also cops. Maybe she was a cop’s wife. “So you do know the names?” I asked, gingerly. “Some of them ring a bell. Linda Kramer.

That was the name of the girl found at the University last night, I believe.” She knew far too much about the case for my liking. I decided to try the direct approach. Maybe she’d confess. “And you know this because...” “It’s all over the papers.” “That’s pretty observant. Most people wouldn’t even notice the name, let alone remember it.” “Usually, I’m sure I would be the same,” she said, “but given the connection to Susan, what with it being the same killer...” “What makes you think it’s the same killer?” I asked, beginning to lose my patience. She looked at me as if I was stupid, then reached down into her bag by the side of her chair. My muscles tensed, ready for fight or flight. She brought a copy of that morning’s Chicago

Sun-Times down on the desk with a thud. My eyes went reflexively to the headline. ‘ZORRO KILLER SLAYS SEVENTH. POLICE BAFFLED.’ I looked from the paper to her eyes and back. Her expression was fairly blank. I don’t know what I’d expected. The headline remained the same no matter how long I stared at it. “May I?” I asked, gesturing towards the paper. She nodded. Even as I was reading it, I couldn’t believe the story had broken. It took up several pages of pictures and text, and I skim read as best I could. Scant details were given of each of the crimes, in the order in which the bodies were found. Richard West was described as a ‘high-flying city broker, found dead in his own car.’ They still hadn’t mentioned the drowning. The other

victims followed, some with information missing, some in more detail. ‘Melissa Adams, shot while jogging on the beach...Susan Patterson, daughter of disgraced police captain Gregory Patterson, was found in a parking garage, having died of an insulin overdose... Julie Campbell, 19, a British hitchhiker poisoned and dumped by the side of the road...actor Grant Foster, stabbed in his kitchen... Calvin Walsh, a factory worker, beaten to death...and finally, last night, math student Linda Kramer was brutally strangled only yards from her front door. Seven seemingly unconnected but violent deaths in a city with more than its fair share. However, one gruesome connection between the bodies has now been revealed. One of the feet of each victim had been mutilated by a cut in the shape of a ‘Z’. Police spokesmen are refusing

to comment on the possible motivation behind this, but one thing seems clear. A serial killer is on the loose in the streets of Chicago tonight.” Great. That should stop people from panicking needlessly. I folded the paper, and put it back on the desk. Mrs Henshall was tapping away at her computer keyboard as if I wasn’t there. I gave her my card, apologized for taking up her time, and left. Twenty minutes later, I was in my office with the news on, and my own copy of the SunTimes spread out on my desk. On the way over, I listened to WGN talk radio, and the talk was about the case. People were angry, but not at the killer. The anger was aimed at the police. People couldn’t understand why they hadn’t been told there was a serial killer on the loose. As if it would have made a difference. All the same, I

could see lawsuits on the horizon from the victims’ families, claiming that their beloved sons or daughters might have been more careful had they known. The television news had frantically rehashed the information that was in the Sun-Times, and added footage from its coverage of the individual murder scenes. Last night’s scene at UIC was conspicuous by its absence, as the police had commandeered the tape, since it provided their only record of what the crime scene had looked like before it was contaminated. What I wanted to know, however, was how the Sun-Times had got their information. They knew almost everything. Worst of all, they knew about the ‘Z’ on the feet. When the cops eventually decided to go public, that would have been the main detail to keep from the press, since it was the only real connection between each of

the crimes. By publishing so many of the details, the papers were practically inviting copycats. At ten the television news had something fresh. There were protests springing up around the city. Apparently, the latest victim, Linda Kramer, was a member of a church group. The group had started a vigil at the university, to remain there until the killer was caught. People were chanting, crying, lighting candles, and praying. Praying for the killer to be caught. I wondered if they would forgive him. The news showed these Christian people, even interviewed a few. Handy soundbites, which could be packaged and used again on news reports throughout the day. Then the location changed. Outside the police station on Belmont and Western, an even larger crowd had gathered. Some were marching in circles and holding placards with ‘Reclaim the streets’ and

other inspirational messages on them. I admired what they stood for, and their motivation, but I couldn’t help feeling that their methods were lacking. For all the good they were doing, the placards might as well have read ‘Down with serial killers’ and ‘Investigate crime’. When I had finally pored over and assimilated all the information in the papers, along with the story in the Tribune about Linda Kramer, which had gone to print too early to break the Sun-Times exclusive, I went to the coffee shop around the corner for some Coke and donuts. Everyone in the place was talking about the ‘Zorro’ killer. The anger expressed on the radio talk show, and in the protests on the news was echoed in the atmosphere of the coffee shop. I wanted to tell them that they should be angry with the killer, not the police, but I thought I might be lynched. I got my Coke and donuts to

go. The media went into overdrive, with regular news updates when there was nothing to update, and constant summaries of the updates so far that morning. They were hyping the story out of all proportion, but I did watch every bulletin in case there was something different, so I guess I was one of the news junkies perpetuating their power. I hated that. At eleven I got a call from Scott. “Hey Scott”, I said, “how’s life in Area 3?” “Peachy. Have you seen the news?” “Could I have missed it? How’d it get out?” “No idea. Frankly, I’m amazed we kept a lid on it as long as we did. People talk. After a hard day, they talk to their girlfriends, husbands, dogs. Helps them unwind. Then it gets talked about some more, in a bar, in a beauty parlor, eventually it gets to a reporter.”

“Dogs?” “Well, my experience, dogs can usually be relied on to keep a secret. It’s really the girlfriends and husbands you got to watch for. “So, are all those people marching outside your office inspiring you to toil harder on this case?” “Of course. You know, if it wasn’t for them, we may not have thought to actually investigate the seven homicides this week.” Scott’s voice had an equal mix of hostility and sarcasm. “We would probably have just hoped the killer got bored and went away. And those placards certainly gave me some things to think about.” I told him about my idea for a ‘Down with serial killers’ placard, and he said I should have some posters and T-shirts made up and sell them outside the police station.

“Anyway,” he said, eventually, “On to the purpose for my call. The M.E.’s office has been very busy. We got a fair amount of new information from them last night, and having passed it on to the Feds, we’re expecting an up to date profile around four. Do you want to come over and see a real live FBI profile later?” “Actually, I’m not sure what I’ll be doing later.” I said. “I’ve got some people to talk to. Can you email it to me?” “Uh… I guess I can. You got a lead?” “Not really. I’m still following up about Susan Patterson”. “I thought you’d moved on to Calvin Walsh.” “Yeah, him and Grant Foster, since they both let the killer into their homes. But I’ve still got some people connected to Susan to talk to and I feel I owe it to her father.”

“You know, not everyone’s that careful about who they open their door to. No sign of forced entry doesn’t mean they knew him.” “I know, but it’s a start. Who knows, maybe they belong to the same bridge club or something. What did the M.E. come up with then?” “Well, first of all, from the knife in Foster’s neck, Odin estimates the killer is around 5’10” and left handed.” “Wow. That’s a lot more than we had before. And it’s not in the papers.” “Give it time. Also, we have a time of death on Calvin Walsh. Some time after noon, last Friday.” “From the vitreous potassium levels? I thought it wasn’t that accurate.” “Yeah, actually, that one required a bit of legwork by us as well. Walsh’s stomach contents

showed partially digested chicken and potatoes, and pumpkin pie. I don’t know how the hell they can tell what it is after it’s been chewed and partially digested, and frankly, I don’t want to know. But the point is, the last time anyone saw him was Friday, at work, and on the menu in the factory canteen that day was...” “Chicken, potatoes and pumpkin pie.” “Exactly. Stomach contents is notoriously bad for estimating time of death, since so many factors affect the digestion, but it’s consistent with the vitreous results, so it looks like you were right about him being the first victim. Or at least the first of the ones we’ve found so far.” “You think there could be bodies we haven’t found yet?” I asked, incredulously. “Anything’s possible. Who knows how long this freak’s been lashing out at society in his own unique way?”

“Did Forensics turn up anything on the Kramer crime scene? I saw they took casts of shoe prints.” “Almost all the prints matched to reporters and witnesses. One partial print we couldn’t match, but they reckon it’s from a ladies’ sneaker, so chances are it was just some co-ed taking a short cut across the grass before the murder.” “What about the murder weapon?” “The electrical cable? Common kind of cable, probably from a hairdryer. The really exciting thing is the drop of semen on her thigh.” “So it is semen?” “Not only that, it’s mixed with spermicide. There was some internal bruising, like on Susan Patterson, but no semen found inside. I’m thinking the guy used a condom and was a little hasty taking it off after he finished. Didn’t check

for spills before he left.” “So we’ve definitely got his DNA this time?” “Looks like. The lab guys will run it through CODIS once it’s ready, along with the DNA from that hair that was bothering you. They should have the results in a few days. Anyway, I should get back to ignoring the protesters outside. I’ll email you the profile when it comes in.” I thanked Scott, and hung up the phone. CODIS is the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System that allows local, State and federal labs to exchange and compare DNA profiles by computer. All sexual offenders since the early 90s are in their database, and some states take a sample from all their felons. I watched one more news bulletin, which taught me only that I had watched too much

news that day, and went out to lunch.

Chapter 21 I’d been rushing my meals lately, only eating because I had to, so for lunch I treated myself to a nice meal for one at a sweet little Italian restaurant on Taylor Street, called Castelletti’s. The meal was good, but the oversized tip I left the waiter was to soften him up, not to praise the chef and the service. Consequently, when I asked him if Mr Castelletti was in today I was not thrown out on the street or hung up by my thumbs. Instead, the waiter walked away and before long a dark haired man in an expensive suit joined me at my table. He had a tattoo of a bloody dagger on the back of his hand. “Mr Castelletti?” I offered, by way of greeting. “No,” said Tattoo, “I am a business

associate of Mr Castelletti’s. He would like to know why you are asking for him.” I felt that if Mr Castelletti was that curious, he could just agree to see me, and he would find out. I didn’t suggest this, however, as I also felt that the man across the table may break me in two for insolence. He wasn’t big, in the conventional sense, but he was intense, and looked like he contained as much power in his arms as in the gun that was causing a slight but distinct bulge in his tailored jacket. I quickly decided honesty was the best policy. “I’m a private investigator. A man by the name of Calvin Walsh has been killed, and Mr Castelletti was seen talking with him recently. I’d like to know what they talked about so that I can rule him out of my investigation.” The tightly coiled spring of a man went into a back room and re-emerged moments later. To

my surprise, he beckoned me in. The room was a small storeroom, shelves stacked high with various foodstuffs. Tattoo lifted my arms and began to pat me down. “Gun,” I warned him, “under my left arm. Another in the small of my back.” He took both and put them in his jacket pocket then guided me firmly by the arm to the back of the storeroom, where there was another door. He knocked. On a muffled signal from within, he opened the door and helped me through. A heavyset well-dressed man stood silently to one side of the large oak desk and scanned the room as if very small aliens were about to invade and planned to use this office as their drop-off point. The man behind the desk was maybe sixty, with a deep tan and a lot of silver hair. He smiled as I entered the room, and stood to shake my hand.

“Good evening Mr…?” “Abraham. Jake Abraham.” “Mr Abraham. I am Vittore Castelletti. I trust you enjoyed your meal?” His speech was measured, as if English was his second language, but he had no trace of an accent. “Very much, thank you. And now I have a couple of questions if you don’t mind.” We both sat, he in his high leather-backed antique chair, me in a small wooden chair that put me much lower than his eyeline. “You want to know about Calvin Walsh?” He said, as he looked down at me. “Please.” “He made the mistake of sleeping with a woman very dear to me, so I visited him and asked him to desist.” “And when he didn’t?” He shook his head, slowly. “People

generally do what I ask. Mr Abraham. Mr Walsh never saw the lady in question again.” “That kind of power is somewhat unusual for a restaurateur.” I pointed out. “I have earned the respect and loyalty of the community over many years.” There was no sense in asking him if he had an alibi, as I’m sure he wouldn’t have done the job himself, so I went another way. “Any of your men loyal enough to take matters into their own hands?” “None would disrespect me by going against my wishes.” “Could you tell me whether you have had dealings with any of these people?” I placed my list of victims on the desk. He took his time reading it before he handed it back. “No. I’ve only heard of the others through their connections to Mr Walsh’s unfortunate

death.” “Well, I appreciate your time Mr Castelletti. If you don’t mind my asking, why did you agree to talk to me?” “You took a direct approach. I respect that.” Respect was obviously a big thing for Vittore. “I have nothing to hide in this matter, and have no interest in wasting everybody’s time.” It seemed like a reasonable answer, and for a gangster, Vittore Castelletti seemed like a reasonable man. A reasonable, intimidating, slightly scary man. If I was Calvin Walsh I would have done exactly as he asked, but I wouldn’t rule Castelletti out just yet.

Chapter 22 The entrance to the public parking structure at UIC was blocked by protesters. There were more there now than had been on the news earlier, and now there were crowds of people who had come not to join them, but to watch them protest. They were probably also attracted by the small chance that they might get on TV. That chance was getting smaller by the hour, as there was now only one local news crew still hanging around. I suspected that if something interesting didn’t happen soon, they would have to provoke some people or leave. “Could I see Dr Aronson please?” I said to the secretary in the Behavioral Sciences office. “Take a seat, please,” she replied, without a hint of a smile, “I’ll just see if he’s in.”

He was. “Ah, Mr Abraham,” he said, as I walked in to his office for the first time in over three years. “Good to see you once again. To what do I owe the pleasure? Have you finally completed that essay for me?” I remembered that I did indeed neglect to hand in an essay on the psychology of substance abuse during my final year. As I recall, the night before the essay was due, I was busy getting drunk at a party. I was always a great believer in the importance of thorough research. “Actually, I was wondering if I could have an extension?” I smiled. “Is this a social call?” He looked at my bruised eye, which by now was turning a kind of dull yellow, but was too polite to bring it up. “Not exactly. I’m a private investigator now.” Aronson raised his eyebrows to indicate

he was interested. Or perhaps surprised. I continued “Are you aware that two UIC students have been murdered in the past week?” “I heard. One was a student of mine, Susan Patterson. The other was murdered on campus, last night, I believe. Dreadful business. Are you looking into it? Isn’t that more the realm of the police?” “Well, I was hired by Susan’s father when she went missing. After she showed up dead, he asked me to stay on the case.” “I see.” He sat behind his enormous desk and almost disappeared behind a pile of books. He moved the books to one side before he began again. “And how can I help you.” “What can you tell me about Susan?” “What do you want to know?” “I don’t know yet. I’m hoping that if enough people tell me enough stuff, eventually, something

might begin to make sense. Just tell me your impressions of her, as a student, as a person. Friends, behavior, whatever you can think of.” “Well, alright then. Susan was a good student. She worked hard, and got excellent results. On the rare occasions she asked questions in class, they were intelligent and thought provoking, and on more than one occasion I had to go and look up the answer. Her essays were always on time, and consistently of a high standard.” He didn’t look in his markbook. He didn’t need to. Aronson was famous for his memory. “She didn’t seem to talk to anyone in particular, and often sat on her own. I don’t think anyone disliked her especially, they just never bothered to get to know her. She made no special efforts in that field either, as far as I could see. Susan never struck me as a happy young woman, but not a remarkably unhappy

one, either.” He paused, and I sensed he was deciding whether or not to tell me something. “Was there something else?” “I’m not sure. I don’t want to succumb to idle gossip, especially if it could affect a colleague’s career.” “I assure you, anything you tell me will remain completely confidential,” I said, intrigued. “I want to make it clear that this is unsubstantiated information, and should be treated with the utmost discretion.” “You have my word.” “There is a professor in this department who is openly gay. She joined after your time here. There have been rumors that she had had an affair with a student. Now I have no concrete reason to believe these rumors, and they may very well be due to another’s discomfort with her

sexuality.” “But you think maybe they’re true, and you think maybe Susan was the student?” “As I said, it’s nothing concrete. I saw them talking in the corridor a few times. They seemed… familiar. I’ve been a student of human behavior for many years, and their demeanor just struck me as informal.” “Who is the professor?” “Dr Jane Parker. She teaches Comparative and Neuropsychology.” “Okay. Do you know anything about the other girl that was killed?” I asked. “Nothing. I never taught her.” “Well, if you hear anything around campus, I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a call.” I handed him one of my business cards. I showed my old tutor the list of names of the other victims, and asked if he recognized any

of them. He did not. He had obviously managed to avoid the news so far that day. Before I left, he told me that I could drop in even if I wasn’t investigating a series of murders, as he was always happy to learn how his former pupils were doing. Back at the secretary’s desk, I asked if Dr Parker was free. After a quick phone call to check, she pointed me in the right direction and I knocked on the professor’s door. She did not come to the door, choosing instead to sit at her desk and say “Enter” in a loud voice. “Dr Parker?” I asked, for no good reason. Even sitting down, I could tell she was tall. Her hair was short and blonde and she was probably in her mid to late thirties. Seems Susan had a yen for the older woman. “Yes. How can I help you?” “My name is Jake Abraham, I’m a private

detective. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about Susan Patterson.” I left it there for now and watched for her reaction. There was none. So I continued. “I believe she was a student of yours”. “Yes, I believe so”. “You’re aware she was murdered last week?” I asked. “Yes, I heard. Terrible business.” That’s it. No emotion visible at all. Either she was not bothered, or was trying very hard not to give anything away. I kicked into high gear. “My investigation has revealed that Susan was having an affair with one of her professors. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” “No, I’m afraid not.” Definitely something there. Thank you, Dr Aronson. “Look, Dr Parker, I’m not interested in

exposing student-staff relationships, I just want to find Susan’s murderer. To do that, I need to know everything I can about her.” “I’m sorry, I can’t help you,” she said, getting animated for the first time since I’d sat down. “I’d like you to leave now, I have a lot of work to do.” “Fine. But I should tell you, I’ll be asking around. If you and Susan had an affair, I’ll find out. And if I do, I’ll be wondering why you lied to me and I’ll have to investigate some more. If you talk to me now, I’ll give you my word that this will go no further.” She thought about this for a minute. “This doesn’t get out?” “So long as you didn’t kill her, I don’t care who you sleep with.” Another minute passed before she answered.

“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Susan and I dated.” “When was this?” “Towards the end of last term. It began in April and was over and done with by the end of May.” “Who ended it?” “It was mutual,” she said. I tried not to laugh. “Seriously. Who ended it?” I repeated. “She got upset that we never went out to restaurants. She couldn’t understand it would jeopardize my position here. She said if I really loved her I wouldn’t worry about my position. I told her I didn’t love her. She left.” “She was upset?” “I imagine so. She was a teenager with an infatuation. When I was her age I had my heart broken several times a month.”

“Did she threaten to expose you?” “God, no. She wouldn’t have done anything like that. She was fine within a couple of weeks.” “How do you know?” I asked. “She came to see me,” she said, “to say she hoped her grade wouldn’t be affected by our relationship. I assured her it wouldn’t, and asked how she was. She said she was fine.” “What grade did she get?” “I’m sorry?” “I’m curious whether, despite your assurances, she may still have assumed her grade had suffered. What did she get?” “She failed my course. She was struggling already, and she had made very little effort in exam preparation.” “Where were you last Friday night, Dr Parker?” “I finished up here about six, then I went

home.” “Alone?” “Yes,” she said apologetically. If I wanted to follow the TV movie rules of interrogation I would have followed this up with an accusatory ‘That’s convenient,’ to which she would probably reply ‘I didn’t know I’d need an alibi.’ Truth is, most people spend a large portion of each day on their own. Doesn’t make them killers. “What about Monday afternoon?” “I teach all afternoon Monday. I had a lecture from two until four and then a tutorial group until five.” “Is there any reason Susan would have ever referred to you as W?” “I can’t think of any.“ I had no more questions, so I left her to worry whether or not she could trust me. If she

really did have a lecture Monday afternoon, which was easy enough to check, she couldn’t have parked a beat-up VW in a Dearborn parking garage at 3pm. It didn’t rule out the possibility she hired someone to kill Susan, but that seemed remote. I decided not to go to the cops just yet. Instead, I went back to the secretary’s desk. Apparently my absence had not made her heart grow fonder. “Yes? Which professor do to want to see now?” she asked, stone-faced. “Actually, I came to see you,” I said, and flashed my biggest smile. It had no effect whatsoever, so I turned it off. No sense wasting it on an unappreciative audience. “Could you tell me what course Dr Parker teaches on Monday afternoon?” “She has a Neuropsychology lecture at two, and a Comparative Psychology tutorial every

other week at four,” she said, without looking anything up. “How would I locate a student in this department? Could you give me her course schedule?” I asked. “I can’t do that, I’m afraid. Security.” “But I know she’s a Psych student. I could just wait outside the building until she comes along – you’d just be saving me some time.” “I’m sorry, I can’t. Do you know if she lives on campus?” “How would that help?” “Well, if she’s a resident, Campus Housing might have her details. I doubt they’d give you an address, but you could probably get a phone number.” I thanked her and cranked up the smile again. Well, she’d earned it. Ten minutes later I was in the Student

Services Building, reading upside down from the student directory while a Housing assistant tried to decide if she should tell me where Anjali Sharma lived. After a minute or so she decided against it, but it was too late. 102B, Marie Robinson Hall. The student residence wasn’t far, but Anjali probably had lectures during the day. In any case, there was somewhere else I wanted to be.

Chapter 23 The lobby of the law offices of Harrison and Duke was constructed of equal quantities of chrome, glass, and white marble. I sat beside a chrome and glass coffee table while the receptionist phoned through to Abby Dexter’s office to let her know I was there, and had asked to see her. On the walk over, I had been going over in my head all the questions I had forgotten to ask her at her house. Freud would have said I forgot them deliberately, to give myself an excuse to see her again. I sat in the lobby, trying to convince myself that I was there for a valid reason, when I was, in fact, fairly sure by now that Susan’s death was either Mob–related or a ‘stranger killing.’ There was no real reason to suspect that Susan knew

her killer. For some of the other victims, there was some suggestion that they did. Grant Foster and Calvin Walsh, for example. The fact that the killer had mutilated the face of his last victim, Linda Kramer, may have been an indication that he had some personal connection to her. When a killer has a personal relationship with a victim, and a crime is motivated by hatred, the violence is very often concentrated on the face, because, as the criminal sees it, the face represents the person. In this case I wasn’t so sure. It could easily be something the killer was doing to throw the police off. I decided that, after I had completed one final interview concerning Susan, I would focus my attention completely on looking for a link between Calvin Walsh and Grant Foster. As I waited to see Abby Dexter, I felt nervous. The questions I had thought up on the

way over seemed inane, and I wondered if the reason for my being there would be as transparent to her as it now seemed to me. My stomach did a somersault as she stepped into the lobby and smiled at me. She had hardly been out of my mind since the previous night, and by now her face seemed familiar to me. Yet somehow still fresh and exciting. “Mr Abraham.” she said, offering her hand. “It’s Jake, remember?” I replied, as I took her hand in mine and shook it. I made sure not to hold it too long, and hoped she did not feel the sweat on my palm. “And you must call me Abby. Shall we go through to my office?” I nodded and followed her out of the lobby, leaving chrome and marble for warmer, more traditional, wood-paneled, surroundings. As she walked ahead of me, I watched her. The navy

blue suit of the previous evening had been replaced by a similarly elegant ensemble in a color I can only describe as Autumnal. It hovered between rich brown and red, and where the skirt stopped, her calves took over, curving gently into perfectly co-ordinated shoes. Her perfume was the same as I remembered, and it triggered a picture in my mind of her living room, with fire blazing. We rode the elevator to the 16th floor, both observing the etiquette of remaining completely silent and not making eye contact by pretending to read the guidelines on how many people the elevator could safely carry. Abby’s office was large, and well lit from a window behind her desk, which offered a marvelous view over the lake. The remaining walls were lined with books, and I had no doubt she had read them all at one time or another.

“Would you like some coffee?” she asked. “Sure, thanks.” Although I hate coffee, for some reason, I couldn’t say no. “Decaf?” “Caf is fine.” “I assume you have some more questions about Susan.” she said, pouring the coffee. She handed me my cup, which I took with great enthusiasm. “That’s right, I do. I apologize to put you to this trouble, I really should have made sure I asked you everything last night.” I was stalling, trying to come up with a question important enough to warrant my visit. “It’s really no trouble at all. I’m glad to see you again.” She smiled. My heart leapt. “I saw the papers this morning. Has there been any progress in the case?” “We have a little more forensic evidence

now, and we’re expecting a profile from the FBI this afternoon.” I hoped that sounded like I was working closely alongside the Feds. Special Agent Abraham. Just a matter of time. “Really? An old boyfriend of mine works for the FBI.” “Boyfriend? But I thought you were...” I know. I can’t believe I said it either. I didn’t think. I felt my face go six shades of red. Abby smiled. “You thought I was gay.” “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...” “That’s okay,” she said, almost laughing by now. Laughing at me. “It’s no secret. I also like men.” I practiced my best poker face, managed not to say ‘woohoo’, and desperately hoped she couldn’t read minds. I coughed, embarrassedly, and suggested we move on.

“When we talked before, it was mainly about your relationship with Susan. I’d like to ask you a little more about Susan herself, and any other acquaintances of hers.” “What would you like to know?” I took out my notebook and read over my notes from the last time we had spoken. “You said that when you broke up, Susan was having trouble with the situation with her father, and you couldn’t be there for her. Do you know who she went to for support? Did she have any close friends she could talk to about it?” “I don’t think so. Mary, my niece, was probably her best friend at high school, but when they graduated Mary went to study law at Harvard. Susan was a bit of a loner. She didn’t make friends easily and didn’t open up until she really felt comfortable with them. That’s what made it so much harder when I wasn’t able to

spend enough time with her. We were no longer together when she started at UIC, so I wouldn’t know beyond that.” While she answered, I took a sip of my coffee. It was foul. I forced it down. “Do you know of anyone Susan might have referred to as W?” “Not that I can think of.” “Do you know if Susan’s father ever talked to her about his work?” “Not that I know of. Do you think it could be connected to him? Maybe someone he put away?...” As she continued talking, a few strands of hair fell across her forehead and over her eyes. She brushed them away and shook her head slightly. I watched her every movement with fascination and when she turned back to me, I looked into her eyes and got lost in them. I realized I hadn’t been paying attention to what

she had been saying, and with great effort, I tuned back in. “...I mean I know he claims he was set up, but what if it’s true, and someone really was out to get him. Maybe him losing his career and respect wasn’t enough for them. Maybe he had to lose his daughter as well.” “It’s possible, but to be honest, from everything we’ve seen up to now, it’s really beginning to look like Susan was killed by someone she didn’t know. She was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” “I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse,” she said. “So, if you think that Susan was killed by someone she didn’t know, why do you want to know more about her? How will that help you find the killer?” “Good question. It may not, but there’s a chance that I’m wrong, and she did know him. The more I find out about her, the more likely I

am to come across something pointing that way. Plus, I feel like I have a certain obligation to her father to check these avenues as thoroughly as possible before moving on to something else.” She nodded, approvingly. She was giving me her undivided attention, and I got the sense that she understood and actually cared about what I was saying. “You don’t strike me as a typical private detective.” She said, evaluating me. “Well, perhaps that’s an advantage.” I wasn’t quite sure what I meant by that, but fortunately, she didn’t ask me. “How long have you been doing it?” “I worked in a larger firm for three years, but I only recently set up on my own. This is my first solo case” “Hell of a first case.” I smiled. We sat and looked at each other

in silence. I spoke first. “Well, I guess that’s about everything.” I said, wondering if it was rude to leave the rest of my coffee. “You have my card if you think of anything that might help.” “Yes I do, and you should take one of mine. And this,” said Abby, writing on the back of the card, “is my home number. In case you need me for anything else. Anything I can do to help.” She was smiling again, and the dimples were back in her cheeks. I stood and took her card, and my fingers brushed against hers. “I’ll see myself out. Thanks again for your time.” “No trouble at all. Goodbye Jake.” And I left.

Chapter 24 “Scott my friend, I have just had coffee with a most enchanting woman.” “Why are you talking like that, you sound like Frasier.” “I can’t help it, I feel elegant just thinking about her.” “Well stop it, you’re freaking me out.” I was walking back to my office, talking to Scott on my cell phone. The sun was out, the birds were singing, and all was right with the world. Except for someone going around killing innocent people, obviously. Normally people who walk along talking on their cell phones annoy the hell out of me, but I couldn’t wait to tell someone about Abby. I couldn’t keep it to myself. So as soon as I had left Harrison and

Duke, Attorneys at law, I had dialed Scott’s number. I told him all about her. Her eyes, her lips, her hair, and finally, her name. “Abby Dexter?” He repeated. “As in Susan Patterson’s ex-lover Abby Dexter? As in the former lesbian lover of your client’s dead child?” It didn’t sound so romantic when he said it. “Yeah, why?” “Do the words ‘conflict of interests’ mean anything to you? What if she’s involved? Hell, she could have hired someone to kill Susan for all you know. She certainly has the contacts for it, she was a Public Defender for ten years.” “So what are you saying? I shouldn’t ask her out?” “You’re goddamn right that’s what I’m saying. On the other hand, once the case is over, it may not hurt. I’ve met her a few times. Hubba

hubba.” “How dare you talk that way about the woman I love.” Scott laughed. “Anyway, enough about your love life, have you seen the profile?” “No, I’m on my way back to the office now.” “Well, it’s there waiting for you. Meantime, it looks like another body has shown up.” “Another one?” “Yeah, she was found Wednesday night in the Greene Valley Forest Preserve over in DuPage County. DuPage guys didn’t realize they might be linked until they read the papers this morning.” “Hooray for the freedom of the press.” “This one was killed with a shotgun.” “A hunting accident maybe?” I said. “Yeah, she was out hunting deer, half

naked, when she suddenly and accidentally shot herself in the back of the head. That’s one of the theories we’re working on. At the moment, the favorite is that she’d gone into the woods with our killer for a little privacy, and suddenly he takes out Calvin Walsh’s missing Ithaca 12gauge.” “It had to turn up sooner or later. So then the killer shoots her in the back of the head, carves a ‘Z’ into her feet, wipes his prints off the gun, and leaves, right? Same old story?” “Not quite. Seems some dentist, who was out walking his dog in the woods, heard the shot and went to investigate. He saw someone running away, but he couldn’t give a full description.” “He didn’t set the dog on him?” “According to the report, it was a very old dog. But it looks like they disturbed the killer in the middle of his artwork. He’d only had time to

make a single cut on the girl’s foot before he ran. That might be why we didn’t get any hits on ViCAP. He also hadn’t had time to pick up one of the spent shotgun shells. It was partially buried in some leaves, and it took the crime scene guys a while to find it. There’s a nice clear thumbprint where he loaded it into the gun. We’re running it through AFIS now.” “I don’t believe it.” I said, excitedly. “He made another mistake. This is huge.” “Yes it is,” agreed Scott. “We may finally have caught a break.” I reached my office about ten after four, cleared the newspapers from my desk, and switched on my PC. As promised, an email from Scott was waiting for me. “Jake, Well, this is what we’ve been waiting for.

With all the information from the last week, up to and including Linda Kramer, this is what the Feds have come up with. Here’s hoping it does some good, because I don’t know how much longer I can stand those Christian assholes chanting outside my window. African-American male, aged 25-32 years. Left handed. Approximately 5’10”. Smart, relatively attractive / athletic appearance. Residence and car will be well looked after, and ‘trophies’ of his victims (jewellery, items of clothing) may be found well hidden at the residence, as will newspaper reports of his crimes. Lives alone and does not date frequently, but may visit prostitutes and strip clubs. Lives or has lived close to the location of the first crime scene. Probably unemployed, may have been fired during last six months due to aggressive /

confrontational behavior. Good verbal skills, above average intelligence, high school / college graduate. Will be remembered as a bully at school and is likely to have suffered sustained physical abuse in the home as a child. May have some military service from early twenties. Prior convictions likely for rape, sexual assault or drug offences. Reads pornography and true crime magazines. Interested in police work, may try to ‘help’ police, insinuate himself into investigation. The perpetrator is a ‘mixed offender’. That is, he exhibits characteristics of both organized and disorganized offenders. He cleans all fingerprints and trace evidence from a scene, yet makes no attempt to hide the body or prevent identification. While it appears he took a scalpel or other sharp knife with him to each crime scene, in some cases the murder weapon itself

does not appear to have been chosen in advance. P.S. Don’t give it to any reporters. Scott” I read through the profile several times. Then I printed it out, and read through it again. If they were right, and he had either been convicted of lesser offences, or if he had been in the military, then his prints would be on file, and AFIS would tell us who he was even if CODIS couldn’t. I dug out the list of names Gregory Patterson had given me the day before, and tried to match them up to the phone records I’d got from Lucy. When I was done I had nine unlisted numbers, two cell numbers and ten spare names. I plugged the names into my phone disc and

came up empty on each one. I took my map off the wall and found the corner of 154th and State, then drew a circle round it with a radius of 500 meters. The circle took in about ten square blocks. Next time I had a couple of hours with nothing to do, I decided, I would take a walk and see what jumped out. It was possible that whoever switched off Susan’s cell phone in that area was there for a reason – maybe they lived there, maybe it was where Susan died. Maybe both. But the chances I would stumble across their hideout on a walking tour seemed slight, so I headed back to the university instead. I stashed my jacket and tie in the trunk of the Saab and wandered into Marie Robinson Hall in shirtsleeves. It’s co-ed and I could easily be mistaken for a student so nobody gave me a second look. I found room 102 by the laundry

room on the first floor and knocked on the door. While I waited I listened to the sounds of hundreds of students getting ready for a Friday night, some in their rooms, some in the hall. Finally, a girl came to the door and opened it slowly. “Yes?” “Are you Anjali Sharma?” I asked. “Yes,” she said, quietly. “My name’s Jake Abraham, I’m a private detective”. I showed her the Photostat of my license. “I wonder if I could ask you a few questions about Susan Patterson?” She sighed and stepped back from the doorway and I followed her in and closed the door behind me. It was a two-bed apartment with a communal kitchen and a sitting area. We each took a seat at the breakfast table in the kitchen.

“I understand you and Susan were friends,” I began. She nodded. “We took Comparative Psych together.” She was short and slim and wore delicate glasses with frames as black as her hair. She spoke with just the tiniest hint of an accent. “Dr Parker’s class?” “Yes. Do you know her?” “We’ve met,” I said. “Were you aware of a relationship between Susan and Dr Parker?” “Sure,” she said, smiling. “Last semester it was pretty much all we talked about in our Friday sessions.” “Friday sessions?” “We had a standing lunch date every Friday. We both had lectures that ended at noon and then we were done for the weekend, so we’d get together at Skinner’s Grill in the BSB and just eat and talk. Usually we’d be there ‘til

they close, around three.” “And you’d talk about Dr Parker?” “Sure. It was kind of exciting while it lasted. Elicit, you know?” “How did it end?” “Parker said she didn’t love her and couldn’t see her anymore. Susan was pretty upset, missed a few lectures, but she got over it. Of course, she didn’t sign up for Parker’s class this semester, so I have to endure it alone.” “Were you in Dr Parker’s lecture on Monday afternoon?” “Yes.” “And Dr Parker was there?” I asked. “Sure. Be kind of hard to have the lecture without her.” So Dr Parker was telling the truth about her alibi for Monday, and only lying slightly about how they broke up. “Did you and Susan meet for lunch last

Friday? The day she disappeared?” “Yes,” said Anjali, solemn again. “How did she seem? Did she have something on her mind? “No, she was cheerful. She was organizing her Dad’s surprise party.” “Did she mention she was planning on meeting up with anyone later? Maybe someone she called W?” Anjali laughed. “W? No way! She definitely would have been shouting about that, but there’s no chance.” “Who is W?” “She makes the sandwiches at the deli counter at Skinner’s. It’s the main reason we go there, Susan has a mega crush on her. I’m straight and even I think she’s hot.” “What’s her real name?” I asked. “We don’t know. She just has ‘W’ on her

name badge. We’ve never got up the courage to talk to her beyond ordering a sandwich. W. doesn’t even know Susan exists.” “And Susan didn’t tell you her plans for the evening?” “Not really, she just said she was probably going to Dutch’s. It’s a gay bar on the North Side.” Anjali couldn’t think of anything else that might be useful, but I left her my card anyway. She seemed to know a different side of Susan from everyone else I’d spoken to, but I was still hitting dead ends. Time to put some eggs in a different basket.

Chapter 25 The following morning, I woke up to hear noises coming from my kitchen. The clock on my bedside table read 10:14. As quietly as I could, I slid out of bed, pulled a pair of jeans on over my boxers, and picked up my Glock. As I left my bedroom and started across the hall towards the closed kitchen door, I smelled bacon. This was bizarre for two reasons. Firstly, I couldn’t work out why someone would break into my apartment and start cooking, and secondly, I didn’t think I owned any bacon. I took a deep breath, and kicked the door with my bare foot, simultaneously aiming my pistol at the first thing I saw, and yelling “Freeze!” The door swung open violently, to reveal a man standing in front of my fridge-freezer.

Before my brain registered what was happening, Scott let go of the carton of juice in his hand, and by the time it hit the floor, his gun was in his hand, and pointed at me. For a full second, we stood in a Mexican stand-off, me barefoot and bare-chested, looking like I’d just got out of bed, and him with orange juice all over his patent leather shoes. We lowered our guns in perfect synchronization. “Jesus Christ!” Scott said first, quickly followed by me. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You scared the crap out of me.” “Me? This is my apartment!” I reasoned, “I don’t expect people to come in on a Saturday morning and start using my kitchen. Don’t you knock?” “Damn Jake, I haven’t knocked to come into your place since you roomed with Paul.” He had a point. But that was when he used

to drop round all the time. When I had moved in to my apartment, I had given him a key ‘for emergencies.’ He’d just never used it before. I was about to mention this, when he noticed the bacon was beginning to smoke. He reholstered his gun, and went to turn it down. I put my Glock on a stool and got a cloth to clean up the juice. A few minutes later we were sitting at the counter eating eggs and bacon with beans and hash browns. I asked Scott if he’d forgotten the pancakes and maple syrup, and he promptly lifted some out of the bag he’d brought with him. “So,” I said finally, “what’s all this in aid of?” “Wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” “Try me.” “Nothing.” “I don’t believe you.” “See? It’s Saturday morning, so I figured

you’d be in. Anyway, I’ve got a day off, unless something new comes up, and I was sitting around at home feeling sorry for myself, so I thought I’d come over here and deprive you of some sleep.” “How thoughtful.” I said. “You want to talk about the case?” “No, I do not want to talk about the case. I want to talk about anything but the case. Tell me about this girl, Abby. Are you going to ignore my advice, and ask her out?” I told him I hadn’t decided yet, and that I would probably wait until the case was all wrapped up. I don’t know whether he believed me, but then I don’t know whether I did either. We managed a full hour without mentioning murder once. Somehow the conversation got around to drinking, and we talked about Paul’s twenty-first birthday. It was the biggest party any

of us had ever been to. His parents had rented a huge yacht, and we sat on Lake Michigan, drinking and dancing all night. Scott won the contest to see who could drink the most tequila in ten seconds. That was the last thing most of us could remember. Unfortunately, the morning after, the rocking motion of the yacht did not help us with surviving our hangovers. Six months later, Paul was dead. Scott blamed himself for what had happened to Paul. He was a cop, and he felt that even if his brother hadn’t felt able to tell him what was going on, he should have recognized the signs. The junkies who killed Paul were never identified. Scott spent most of his off-duty hours in the months that followed trying to track them down, but there were few real clues, no reliable witnesses, and no case. If there was a reason for what happened, maybe it was to make Scott a better cop. From

then on, he took death personally. He had already made detective before any of his contemporaries, and he had one of the highest clearance rates in the city. I sincerely believe that killers were caught who may have gone free if Paul hadn’t died. Or maybe believing that was just my way of coping with the loss of a friend. Inevitably, we drifted on to the subject we had been trying to avoid. “Nothing came up on the thumbprint.” Scott said “Which means no criminal record, right?” “Assuming the killer loaded the shotgun, that’s what it means.” “We can also cross Military service off the list.” “Which puts us no closer to finding him than yesterday.” “What about the DNA?”

“It’ll take a couple more days, but since the print didn’t match the best we can really hope for is a forensic hit.” “A what?” “A match to a DNA sample collected from another crime scene. But that still won’t tell us who he is.” “So what angle are you working now?” “We’ll be checking into Linda Kramer. Seems a lot of people think the fact that he cut her face up may be significant. Maybe he knew her. Meantime we've been knocking on doors around each crime scene looking for possible witnesses. Brought in maybe six suspects in the past week from tips we've had from the victims’ friends and relatives but so far everyone checks out. Two guys down the station spend all day going through the anonymous phone tips we've been getting since the story broke yesterday. It’s

mainly nuts and ambulance chasers, but you never know when something useful could come in. Not to mention the confessions.” “People are confessing?” “About a dozen so far. It always happens on a high profile case, over two hundred people confessed to the Lindbergh kidnapping. But we’ve got to check them out. There is one glimmer of light – DuPage cops were recanvassing around Greene Valley and someone remembered a partial plate on a blue Honda they saw burning rubber away from the scene around the time Stacey Lloyd was shot. Might lead to something.” “So how many bodies do we have now?” “Eight. Four white, four black, three male, five female. That’s weird too, because serial killers don’t mix genders. I mean, it happens, but it’s rare. All were killed between Friday 14th

September and Thursday 20th. No apparent regular times for the murders, either. Some were done in the morning, afternoon, evening, even the middle of the night.” “So we’re looking for a very busy insomniac.” I said. “Hell, that could be me. What are your plans for this fine day?” “I thought I’d take a trip down to the public library, and see what I could find out about Grant Foster and Calvin Walsh.” “You done with Susan?” “I think I’ve spoken to everyone I can about her. Did you ever find out who Tommy Byrne’s friend was?” “Oh, yeah. Meant to let you know. We ran his known associates and one guy pretty well matches your composite. He’s a button man by the name of Dean Dugan.”

I sniggered. “A button man?” “A foot soldier. A grunt. If the boss wants the button pushed on anyone, he pushes it. Mostly Byrne just uses him for protection.” “Might he have pushed the button on anyone we know?” “Doubtful,” said Scott. “He’s a one trick pony. Always uses a gun or a knife.” “Two trick pony.” I said, under my breath. “What?” “Never mind.”

Chapter 26 When Scott and I had finished the last of the pancakes, he left to kill time before his next shift. I offered him the opportunity to help me with my research, but he politely declined. Actually, he said he’d rather beat himself repeatedly over the head with a baseball bat, and then go and sit in a freezer. I got dressed, and headed for the Harold Washington Library Center. It was a bright day, and as I took Lake Shore Drive down to East Wacker, the sun reflected off Lake Michigan and into my car. It was noon when I pulled up outside the library on State Street, and while I waited for the song on the radio to finish, I sat in my car and looked at the largest public library building in the world.

It still looked newly built, and at just fifteen years old, it was only a baby compared to most of the skyscrapers that towered over it. I stared, as I always did, at the green metal gargoyles which crouched on the roof and surveyed Congress Parkway. Apparently, they are supposed to be owls, but they had always looked more like dragons to me. I had parked in the sun, and before long, the car began to get very hot. The airconditioning hadn’t worked properly since just after I bought the car, but I couldn’t seem to get round to taking it in to be fixed. I got out and crossed the street to the library. I walked briskly through the lobby, barely glancing at the mosaic mural of Harold Washington, the city’s first African-American mayor. I made straight for the third floor, and the Newspapers and Periodicals section, which

housed copies of the Chicago Tribune dating back to 1947, all on Microfiche. The Trib’s website had an archive search which went back to 1985, but it only showed the first few lines of an article, and you had to pay four bucks a pop for the rest. Back at the office, I’d searched under Calvin Walsh and Grant Foster and I’d written down the dates of the articles that looked likely. I started working backwards through the list, and found most were not about the people I was looking for, including one that had looked promising but turned out to be an opinion piece on whether or not a group named ‘Rights for Foster Parents’ should get a grant for their campaign. My first real hit came with a story from April 2000, involving Walsh. I retrieved the appropriate roll of film, and loaded it onto the Microfiche reader. It took me a few minutes to

get the hang of the controls, but before long I had found the correct page. Walsh’s name was mentioned in a human interest story from an opinion column about dogs being banned from children’s play areas. It seems he was a dog-owner involved in a dispute with a local parents’ group over whether dogs should be allowed to run around in parks where kids are likely to be playing. The columnist appeared to feel things were getting too serious, judging by the tongue-in-cheek lilt to his words. ‘The City has not yet figured out a solution to the growing tension between angry parents and dog-owners. There is no city-wide policy to give dog-owners their rights over these powermad human toddlers, but someone has to stop these dangerous radicals before things get out of hand.’ I thought it a bit of a stretch to imagine the

parents’ group had got together seven years later to rid the world of Calvin Walsh. Nevertheless, I printed the story out and went back to my list of dates. The Microfiche didn’t take too long to check, and I was enjoying the feeling of doing some real hands-on research. Grant Foster’s name came up next, and I found the Microfiche roll containing the Tribune for Monday 15th September 1997. The headline was ‘WOMAN SERIOUSLY HURT IN HOUSE FIRE’. ‘An unattended cigarette ignited a couch and sent flames racing through a Westchester home early yesterday morning. The fire was reported shortly after 3 a.m. by a next door neighbor who saw smoke pouring from a downstairs window. Responding initially with two engines, fire-fighters had the blaze under control within an hour.

Shelley Ryan, 24, who lived in the house on the 1600 block of Mandel Avenue, was listed as being in serious condition at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where she is being treated for severe smoke inhalation, as well as burns to approximately five percent of her body. Her fiancé, photographic model Grant Foster, 26, was not home during the fire, said assistant fire chief John Huffman.’ While I waited for the story to print out, I looked through the next few days worth of papers, to see if there were any follow up stories which weren’t in the index because Foster wasn’t mentioned. I came across a small article buried in the following Monday’s edition, simply saying that Miss Ryan was well on her way to a full recovery, and would be released soon. The next hit, a short piece from August 1997, was the one that shocked me.

‘Levi Jeans model Grant Foster was found not guilty Tuesday of a drunken driving charge. Foster, 26, of Westchester, was arrested on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol after a portable Breathalyzer test showed his blood alcohol level at 0.9 percent, making him one of the first drivers to be prosecuted since the state limit was lowered to 0.8 percent on July 2nd. Previously, Illinois presumed impairment at 1.0 percent. Foster’s attorney, Cook County Public Defender Abigail Dexter, argued that the tests were improperly administered and Circuit Judge George Van Allen apparently agreed.’ When I showed her the list of names, Abby had said she didn’t know any of them. Was she lying or did she not remember? It was a while ago, but she had known Grant Foster. I felt sure she had just forgotten the name. I wondered how to go about getting a transcript of the case.

There were no more website hits that actually involved either of the men, so I turned to the paper indexes. Searching manually, year by year, through the large leather-bound books slowed things down considerably, and I had no more luck until I reached January of 1979, and found an emotive piece about seven year old Calvin Walsh saving a school friend who had fallen in a frozen pond. ‘One of the children ran to get help, while others stood and stared, not knowing what to do, as their friend screamed in the freezing water. Young Calvin Walsh sprang into action. He crawled on his stomach across the ice towards the hole where Richie was treading water, and he pulled his friend up onto the ice with him. By the time help arrived, Richie was safe, and is recovering from his ordeal at home in bed.’ I was reminded of George Bailey saving his

brother in It’s a Wonderful Life, and I wondered if it would be long before the press found out and I saw the headline ‘ZORRO VICTIM WAS CHILD HERO’, or something to that effect. I decided I had gone back far enough, so I left the indexes and asked the lady at the Information Center desk how I could find out which agency represented a local actor. She pointed me towards a very useful reference book, and within minutes I had the name and address of Grant Foster’s agent. I made up my mind to go and talk to them first thing Monday morning. I couldn’t think of anything else to look up, so I headed over to Foster’s 2nd floor walkup to talk to his neighbors.

Chapter 27 I started by talking to the super in Grant Foster’s building, a guy named Hudson, who was as wide as he was tall. Apparently, he also collected the tenants’ rent every month for the landlord. I wondered how long it took him to climb two flights of stairs, given that he had to rest twice on the way from his front door to his armchair. “Foster, 2G. I tell you, I’ve had so much hassle since he bought it, with the police coming round every other day, checking they haven’t missed anything, and the phone hasn’t stopped ringing with reporters asking me questions. I didn’t tell them shit, though,” he said, proudly. “I hate reporters. You sure you’re not a reporter?” It was the third time he’d asked me since

answering the door. “Positive.” I said, and showed him the Photostat of my P.I. license again. “Good, I hate reporters.” I was curious as to where such a deep seated hatred stemmed from, but I felt that if I asked, he might tell me, and I may never leave, so I got right down to business. “What can you tell me about Mr Foster?” I asked. “I didn’t like him.” I waited for more, but nothing came. “Any particular reason?” I prompted. “He never paid his rent on time. Not since his girlfriend moved out, anyway. She was real good about it, but he was always late.” “When did his girlfriend leave?” “Four, five months ago. I guess they broke up. Anyway, after she left, I always had to chase

him for it.” “Do you have a forwarding address for her, by any chance?” “Yeah, I think so,” he said, “lemme find it.” I waited while he heaved himself out of his chair. He could have done with one of those devices they used to use to lift knights on to their horses. He waddled over to the desk, and opened one of the drawers. He took out a wad of scraps of paper, with hand written notes on them. He then started to spread them out across the desk, and sifted through them, searching for the one I needed. I wanted to ask a couple more questions, but I didn’t want to break his concentration. “Here it is!” he finally said, triumphantly. I waited while he waddled over to me and handed me the slip of paper. The name on it was

Emma McKinley, the address no more than ten minutes away. “Do you remember anything else about either of them?” I asked, pocketing the address. “Not really. I think she was some kind of actress. He was a big guy, worked out a lot. He never said much to me, kept himself to himself, but then he never complained about the plumbing like some of the others live here do.” “What about the day of the murder, um, Wednesday? Did you see or hear anything unusual? Did you see anyone you didn’t recognize around here that morning?” “First I knew anything was up, I heard Louisa going crazy.” “That’s Mrs Hernandez? The cleaning woman?” I asked. “Right. She found him. Next thing I know the place is crawling with cops and reporters.

Bastards.” “Okay, thanks. You mind if I talk to some of his neighbors?” “Not if they don’t mind talking to you.” When I let myself out of his apartment he was trying again to wrench himself from the armchair. He reminded me of a turtle flipped over on its back, trying to right itself. I climbed the stairs, and knocked on the door of 2F, opposite Grant Foster’s place. There was nobody home. I moved back across the hall, and tried 2E. A man answered in a cardigan and slippers. He looked mid 50’s but dressed mid 60’s. “Can I help you?” he asked. His accent was Boston. “I hope so. I’m a private investigator.” I showed him my license. He seemed impressed, but I think he was just being polite. “I’d like to

ask you a few questions about Grant Foster if I may.’ “Certainly,” he said, “Come in, come in. Would you like some tea?” “No, thank you, I won’t keep you long. Did you know Grant well?” “As well as anyone here, I would imagine. He’s lived next door to me for the last five years. “What can you tell me about him?” “Surprisingly little actually. He is usually friendly. Sorry, was. We didn’t exactly chat, but we used to nod hello in the hall. My wife used to talk to Emma a little.” “Emma McKinley, his girlfriend?” “Fiancée, actually.” “Fiancée?” I said, surprised. “I didn’t realize.” “Oh yes, Grant didn’t have girlfriends, only fiancées. He seemed very quick to commit.”

“So there were others?” “I can think of four since he’s lived here.” “The super didn’t mention any other girls, just Emma.” “Mr Hudson? Oh, he’s new. He’s only been here a year. Less, probably.” “I don’t suppose you remember any of their names, do you? “Let’s see,” he stroked his chin as he thought. I wondered if he used to have a beard. “There was a Camille, a Julia, and I think I remember a Diane.” “No surnames?” “Oh no, I doubt I ever knew them.” “Would you happen to know who broke off the engagements? Was it Grant or them?” “I believe it was Emma, in the most recent instance. They were always fighting about money.” He looked a little apologetic. “The walls

are thin,” he offered by way of an explanation. “Are you sure you won’t have some tea?” “I’m sure, thanks. Did Grant have many visitors?” “I couldn’t say. I never noticed much coming and going, but I probably wouldn’t hear unless they made a lot of noise like his friend from the gym.” “What friend is this?” “He was here about a week and a half ago. Large, muscled man. He was banging away for some time on the door, but Grant wasn’t in, so eventually he went away. He made such a commotion that I popped my head out as he was leaving.” “Did he look like this?” I asked, producing the composite of Tommy Byrne from my pocket. “Oh no, larger than that. Muscular, you know, and tanned. He had a sort of goatee

beard, and he had a kerchief on his head. I believe in street argot it’s known as a ‘do-rag’.” “And he told you he was a friend from the gym?” “Oh, I didn’t speak to him, but I assume, because of the muscles… Grant was big too, you know.” “Yes, Mr Hudson said Grant worked out a lot. Do you know if he ever got aggressive? Violent?” “Not that I saw, I don’t know how I would know if he was ever aggressive to Emma, if that’s what you mean.” It was exactly what I meant. I wasn’t sure where I was going with it, but I was trying to build up a picture of Grant Foster, and in my experience, people who work out to the extent that they are well built sometimes feel the need to show their masculinity in other ways.

“Well,” I explained, treading carefully, “you said the walls were very thin. When you heard them fight, was it just raised voices, or were things crashing about, breaking. Did you hear her scream?” He thought for a long moment. “No,” he finally said, “I don’t believe I ever heard her scream, nor do I remember any sounds of breakages. Not that I was paying much attention, you understand.” I nodded, absolving him of his guilt from listening to his neighbors’ lives being played out through the thin walls. “What about Wednesday morning? The day of the murder? Did you hear anything then?” “No, I’m afraid I did not. The police asked me the same thing. I wish I could help more.” “You’ve already been a great help, thank you.” I said, handing him my card. “If you think

of anything else, I’d appreciate a call.” “Absolutely,” he said, and politely stood up as I left. I drove across town to Calvin Walsh’s apartment, to repeat the exercise, but I struck out. None of the people on Walsh’s floor had even heard of him before their building became a crime scene.

Chapter 28 I was awake at seven on Sunday morning. I lay in bed, trying to ward off the morning until a more sociable hour. I managed several brief periods of unconsciousness, which took me all the way to ten o’clock. In truth, I was waiting for the phone to ring. The last body was found on Thursday, and it seemed time for another. Eight in one week was a lot by anyone’s standards, but I was sure it wouldn’t be long until number nine showed up. The phone still hadn’t rung by the time I got out of the shower. I called Gregory Patterson to give him an update on the case. He answered the phone, and immediately I heard his voice, an image entered my head of him sitting in his living room,

unshaven, clutching a bottle of whisky. I wondered how much of what I had to tell him would be remembered, when and if he sobered up. Nevertheless, I told him about the profile, and the thumbprint, and about the most recent victims, and about Abby. I told him I’d spoken to Susan’s ex-girlfriend. I didn’t mention her possible connection to Grant Foster. I didn’t mention that I’d been thinking about her day and night, when I should have been concerating on the case. I didn’t mention that I’d been trying to pluck up the courage to call her and ask her out. I didn’t mention her eyes, her hair, or her smile. I didn’t think he’d be interested. When I had told him everything I had to say about the case, the conversation wrapped itself up fairly quickly. I went and sat in my car, and started it up, ready to drive to the address I had for Emma McKinley, but I changed my mind and

tried calling Scott on my cell phone. Something was bugging me. I got no answer on Scott’s direct line at the 18th, so I headed over there. Scott wasn’t in, so I told the PAA I would wait, and took a chair by the entrance. Scott and Sgt Freedman came up the stairs about ten minutes later with a handcuffed man in tow. I stood up and Freedman took the man into the interview room while Scott hung back to talk to me. “You got something for me?” he asked. “Just questions.” “Can it wait? I’m kind of in the middle of something here.” “No problem.” “You want to watch?” he asked. “Can I?” “Absolutely not. It’s against regulations.” “Oh. Okay.” I said, slightly puzzled.

“So when Al and I are done, I do not want to see you coming out of that door over there,” he said, indicating with his head. “Which door?” “Over there, the one opposite the vending machine.” “Got it.” I opened the door gingerly and found myself in a room that was not much bigger than a closet. Most of one wall was glass, through which I could see into the interview room. I was trying to think whether it was called a two-way mirror or a one-way mirror when Scott entered the room next door. The kid in cuffs was white with red hair, looked about eighteen and wore clothes that made him look bigger than he was. He looked like he had tried to put his hair in dreadlocks but it hadn’t gone well. He was desperately trying to act like a ghetto kid but he was basing his

character on some bad urban movies. “Yo dogg, this is harassment. I’m gonna sue yo ass.” “Shut the fuck up” said Scott, looking as mean as I’ve ever seen him. “Account for your time, Wednesday evening.” “I was hanging with my homies.” “Out at Greene Valley?” “Nah man, we was on the beach.” “You know anyone called Stacey?” “Nope.” Scott slammed his fist down on the table, and the kid jumped. So did I. “Let’s try the truth now.” “Man you trippin’. Hey,” he said, turning to Freedman, “don’t I get a lawyer?” “Why do you need a lawyer, Ethan? Did you do something illegal?” asked Freedman, smiling.

“Yo, I know how this works, I seen NYPD Blue. You ain’t gonna get shit from me.” “That’s real smart Ethan,” said Scott. “You just leave us to draw our own conclusions. We got a witness puts your blue Honda speeding away from a dead girl named Stacey Lloyd. We got her family saying you’re her boyfriend. We got another witness puts you running away from the body seconds after shots were fired, and we got your fingerprints placing you at the scene and your footprints in the mud by the body. Yeah, the last thing you want to do is give us your side of the story. You should just take your chances in court on what we have, you’ll probably be out in fifteen to twenty.” He lifted Ethan out of his seat by the scruff of his oversized jacket and headed towards the holding cage. Ethan suddenly capitulated. “Yo, yo. Hold it. I ain’t going down for

this.” “Are you going to tell us what happened?” asked Freedman, quietly. Good cop. “Yeah bro. You jus’ had to ask nice.” “Alright, can we just drop the jive-talk? We know you’re from the Gold Coast,” said Scott, “It’s really starting to piss me off.” “Yo, this is how I talk, brother.” Scott took one step towards him and he put his hands up to shield his face. “Okay, okay. You got it.” “Let’s start again. What happened on Wednesday.” “Okay. Stacey and me went out to Greene Valley for some privacy, you know?” Now he sounded like a Young Republican trying to fit in at a youth club, but it was an improvement. “We found a quiet spot and lay down.” “What time was this?”

“I don’t know, maybe seven, seven-thirty. Anyway, we were kind of getting down to it when I hear this really loud bang and all this dirt flies up right near Stacey’s head. She’s screaming and we jump up and then there’s another bang and she’s on the ground. There’s blood everywhere.” He was breathing deeply, the memory causing adrenaline to surge. “Then what?” asked Freedman. “I freaked. I just got the hell out of there.” “You ran to your car?” “Man, I didn’t know where I was going, I just ran. I heard another shot, but nothing hit me, so I kept running. Took me another five, ten minutes to find the car.” “You just left her there to die?” asked Scott angrily. “There was nothing I could do. Her brains were all over the place. I swear, if she was still

alive I would have helped her. I loved her.” He wiped a tear from his eye with the back of his hand. “Did you see who shot her?” “No way, man. I didn’t look back.“ “And you didn’t think this was worth calling the police?” “I wasn’t thinking straight. I figured it looked bad, you know? I take her out to the woods, she gets shot, I leave her there…” “So why are you telling us this now?” “I didn’t know you had all that evidence I was there. Am I in trouble?” “Write it down,” said Scott, tossing a legal pad onto the table in front of Ethan. I opened the door to the hallway and made sure nobody was watching, then I left the tiny room and retook my seat by the stairs. Scott and his partner came out in a few minutes and Scott

took me into the coffee room. “You think he’s telling the truth?” I asked. “Most likely. Did you want something?” “Yeah, I’ve been talking to people about Grant Foster. By all accounts, he was built. He worked out, apparently.” “So?” “Well, you said there wasn’t a mark on his body except the fatal wound and the Z on his foot. No defense wounds. Why didn’t he try and fight back?” “Could have something to do with the fact that he had a blood alcohol of point two eight. Probably slowed his reactions some.” “He was killed in the morning. He must have been drinking all night.” “Guess so,” Scott conceded. “Found a couple of empty bottles of Jack Daniels in his trash.”

“Did any of the other victims have alcohol in their systems?” “Not all, but some.” He took out his notebook and flipped through it. “Apart from Foster,” he said, “it’s just Calvin Walsh and Richard West. Susan Patterson had traces, but nothing really significant.” “Interesting.” I said.

Chapter 29 Emma McKinley came to the door in tight jeans and a ribbed white T-shirt. I could smell something baking in the kitchen, and I suddenly wished I’d stopped for a snack on the way over. I showed her my I.D. and told her why I was there. She asked me in, and I followed her through to the back of the house. “You read about Grant in the papers, I assume.” I said. “Who hasn’t? It’s weird, you know? It’s one of those things you think always happens to someone else, you know? And then suddenly, it happens to me. Well, not me, but....” “I know what you mean. I understand you were engaged.” “That’s right. Seven months. It didn’t work

out.” “Any particular reason?” She hesitated. I arched my eyebrows and tried to look receptive and non-judgmental. It seemed to work. “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, you know?” “If you want to help me, you have to tell me everything.” I said. “Well, he was a total shithead.” It wasn’t what I’d been expecting to hear, but I think I masked my surprise. “How so?” I asked. “Grant was a gambler, and not a very good one. He went to three auditions a months and called himself an actor. Every now and again he got some work, although I don’t know how, he was shit at that as well, you know? Anyway, he rarely worked, so he never had any money. He

spent half his time sitting in front of the TV, and the other half at the track. Then he pawned the TV, my TV, and spent all his time there. I paid all the bills, and his rent, and in the end, I came home one day to find him stealing money out of my purse. That’s when I walked out.” I didn’t know what to say. ‘Good for you’ sprang to mind, but didn’t seem professional, so instead I went on with the questions. “Were there any other problems? Did he fool around?” “Oh no,” she said, shaking her head. “Nothing like that. Grant was a one woman man. Well, one woman at a time, anyway. He was what they call a serial monogamist, you know? Is your eye okay? It looks really painful.” “No, it’s fine.” I’d actually been thinking it was nearly back to normal. The timer on the oven pinged. Emma

picked up a dish towel, opened the oven door, and removed a tray of oatmeal raisin cookies. One by one, she started to arrange them on a wire cooling rack. They smelled great, and my stomach rumbled audibly. “Was he ever aggressive?” I asked, finally. “Huh?” she said, as if she had forgotten I was there. “No. He was strong, but he would never have used it against anyone. He was real gentle.” “Can you think of anyone that might have wanted to hurt him? Did he have any enemies?” “I don’t know. He probably owed money all over town, you know?” “Any ideas who I should talk to about that?” I asked. “We never really talked about things like that. Argued, but never talked.” My next stop was a bar downtown called

Circle. Being a Sunday afternoon it was almost empty, and I was hoping it hadn’t been too busy the week before when Richard West and his buddies came for a drink after work. The bartender was a young guy with high cheekbones and a ponytail. He looked like the maverick cop who usually gets paired with a grizzled old-timer in those buddy movies. I sat at the bar and ordered a Coke, then I asked him if he was working last Saturday. “Yeah. I work every weekend,” he said. I put a picture of Richard West on the bar. “Do you remember this man being in here?” “Yeah, absolutely. This is the guy from the papers, the guy who got murdered. Soon as I saw his picture in the paper I was telling my girlfriend ‘He was in the bar Saturday’.” “Was he with a large group of brokers?” “At first, yeah. Then he got talking to a

woman.” “What did she look like?” I asked. “Average height, long blonde hair, too much makeup.” “Attractive?” “I wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crackers.” “What were they drinking?” “He was on straight OJ at first, but when she started buying they both had a splash of vodka in it.” “She pay by credit card?” He shook his head. “Cash,” he said. “Do you remember when they left?” “Yeah, they were here till closing. His buddies left a couple hours before.” I arrived back at my apartment around half past five. I made myself a pastrami sandwich and stared at the phone. I was planning on using it

later, just as soon as I finished my snack. The sandwich didn’t fill me up, so I started rooting around in my fridge and my cupboards for something else. I found nothing of interest. I opened a bill which had been sitting on the hall table for almost a week, and for a while I couldn’t decide which to put off longer, paying the bill, or making the phone call. I sat and stared at the phone, my mouth completely dry, for a full two minutes. Finally I picked up the handset. I dialed. Before it started to ring, I punched the ‘end call’ button with my finger and stood up. I got a Rolling Rock out of the fridge. Dutch courage, I told myself. Fifteen minutes later, I had finished the beer, and was watching the end of a rerun of ‘I Love Lucy’ on TV. I decided to try again. The phone rang at the other end. Again. I turned the business card over and over between my fingers.

She answered. “Hello?” she said. “Abby?” “Yes, who’s this?” She didn’t remember me. Oh my God. What the hell was I doing? It was all a horrible mistake. I couldn’t speak. “Hello?” she said, again. “Hi. It’s Jake. Jake Abraham.” “Jake!” Well, she did at least sound pleased. “How are you?” Damn. I should have started with that one. “I’m fine, thanks Abby. And you?” “Very well. How can I help? Surely you’re not working, on a Sunday?” “Er..” Oh my God. “Actually, no. This is more of a... a personal call.” “How intriguing,” she said. She was smiling. I don’t know how, but I could hear it. “Go on.” “I was wondering...” This was it. Now or

never. All or nothing. Oh my God. “I was wondering if you were free tomorrow evening.” “As a matter of fact, I am. What did you have in mind?” “I thought we might go to dinner. Do you like Italian food?” I could hear Scott in my head, telling me what a bad idea this was. Telling me she had something to hide. “It’s my favorite.” In my head, I told Scott to go to hell.

Chapter 30 I should have called it a day. It was getting dark outside, and it was Sunday, after all. But speaking to Abby had made me feel invincible, and there was something I’d been putting off doing. I found a small screwdriver and a hammer, put them in my pocket, and left the apartment. I drove to Bridgeport, then down South Wallace, to the address Lucy had given me for Tommy Byrne, and looked for his black Camaro. It was parked a few doors down. I went another block south and then turned around and drove past again. I parked half a block away, facing away from Byrne’s building. I sat in the passenger seat, so that anyone who saw me might think I was waiting for the driver to come back from somewhere, and adjusted the

rearview mirror and the wing mirror so that I could see the entrance of the building without turning around. After ten minutes, nobody had been in or out, so I made my move. I walked back on the far side of the street to where Tommy’s Camaro was parked and kicked it to see if it was alarmed, ready to run. No alarm. I looked around to make sure nobody was watching and then I hunched down at the back of the car. I held my screwdriver against the Camaro’s taillight and gave it a tap with the hammer. The glass broke and I took a small piece out. I’d managed to do it without breaking the bulb. I stood, looked around again, and headed back to my Saab. I sat for nearly another hour, looking in the mirrors, before anything happened. Then I saw them. Tommy Byrne and Dean Dugan came out of the building and started towards their car. I

scooched over into the driver’s seat and turned the key. But when I re-adjusted the mirror I saw that they’d gone past the car and kept walking. Following people on foot is pretty hard. Ideally, you’d have two or three people who could keep swapping positions so that the mark didn’t get suspicious. One might follow behind while another tried to stay parallel, and the third would hang back in a car in case the mark took a taxi or something. With one follower the main difficulty is distance. Too close and you’re easy to spot. Too far and you lose them round the first corner. And if they get in a car, forget it. I was on my own. To make matters worse, the guys I was following were criminals, and therefore naturally paranoid, and they knew me. If they spotted me I’d have some trouble explaining what I was doing there. On the plus side, it was now completely dark. So I stayed on the far side of

the street, in the shadows, about half a block back, and hoped to God they didn’t look round much. As it turned out I didn’t have to stay behind them for long. They turned onto West 32nd Street, walked two blocks east and went into a bar. I looked for somewhere to sit until they came out. As I watched, more people arrived. They came from different directions, mostly on foot, and greeted each other warmly before going in. It wasn’t the usual Sunday night bar crowd. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say they were having a meeting. It occurred to me that I should have a camera. What the hell kind of detective goes on surveillance without a camera? Less than a half hour later, people started coming out. With so many people coming onto the street alongside Byrne and Dugan, it would have been hard to leave my hiding place without

drawing attention, so I stayed where I was and watched as they walked up the street and turned onto South Wallace. When the coast was a bit clearer I moved out of the shadows and walked slowly and calmly to the corner and, straining my eyes, I could just make out Byrne opening the door of his Camaro. I broke into a jog and reached my car just as they turned right onto West 31st. I was around the corner in half a minute, and met with a sea of red taillights. Then, signaling for a left turn onto LaSalle, I saw it. The white light streaming out of the broken taillight like a beacon. I made the turn and followed the chink of white up the ramp onto the Dan Ryan. If following people on foot is hard, following by car is a nightmare. The traffic conditions, the weather, overzealous highway patrols, stoplights, car trouble, all conspire to make it hard to do on

your own before you even get to the question of how far back to stay. Thankfully, due to my slight criminal damage earlier, I was able to follow Byrne and Dugan from half a mile behind, switching lanes occasionally, dropping back when the traffic got light and moving up when it got heavier. There was no way they could have spotted me, and the beam of white light amongst all the red was like a flashing neon arrow over their car. We stayed on the Expressway all the way to O’Hare, and I wondered if they were getting on a plane, but instead of going into the airport we headed south and followed the road round the perimeter. Irving Park Road was much quieter than the Dan Ryan, and I had to stay well back. I only just had the Camaro in sight when it turned left into Bensenville. I stayed as far back as I could, and turned my headlamps off while I

tried to keep the car in sight. We were the only two on the road, and when they turned onto Orchard Street they slowed down like they were looking for an address, so I pulled into the driveway of a house that was boarded up. The street was eerily empty. The streetlamps were on, but the houses were dark all the way down the block, and most of the windows were boarded up. This was the City of Chicago’s property. They’d been buying people out for months to make room for the O’Hare expansion project; adding another two runways to what was already one of the world’s busiest airports. A few residents were stubbornly staying put, hoping the project would never get the clearance or the funding to build and they would somehow get their neighborhood back, but the City had just won a 7th Circuit appeal to say they could move a cemetery to make way, so it

looked like it was a done deal. Most of the people in the area had accepted better than market value on their homes and gone elsewhere, so the village, and Orchard Street in particular, were like a ghost town. Byrne’s Camaro pulled up a few hundred yards from where I parked, and I saw the outline of another car across the street from theirs. As I watched, Byrne and Dugan got out of the car and went into a house. I saw a faint glow of light as they opened the boarded up front door, but then the street was dark again. Something was definitely going on. I really wished I had a camera. The streetlamps’ beams covered the sidewalk, but the front yards all along the street were set back far enough to stay dark. I kept low as I crossed the yards towards the house. If they came out unexpectedly I wanted to be able

to dive into a bush or something. I made it all the way in the darkness without anyone spotting me and listened at the wooden board covering the window. I could hear shouting, but not much else. I edged around the back of the house, looking for some way to figure out what was going on inside. When I got to the far side I got lucky. The board on the window this side was a bit short, and they’d nailed it in place with a tiny gap at the bottom, no more than a quarter inch. The first thing I saw was a candle on the floor, and then the two men, kneeling down next to it. They were lit from below by the candle and looked like statues at first. When one of them lowered his head I saw Byrne standing behind him, gun in hand. The kneeling men had their hands behind their backs, tied or handcuffed I guessed, and Dugan was circling the three of them, twirling a butterfly knife around and around

like a bad guy in a Bruce Lee film. The shouting had stopped. Byrne was now talking to one of the men softly. So softly that I couldn’t hear, but from the look on the guy’s face he wasn’t apologizing for shouting earlier. Then, barely flinching, Byrne fired his gun into the back of the man’s head. I think the man fell slowly. That was how it seemed. The crack of the gunshot made my ears ring and I jumped back, but through the gap I saw the man fall forwards. I wanted to run. I couldn’t be sure that I hadn’t made a noise; that I hadn’t given myself away. When I looked though the gap again I saw the man on the floor. The candlelight reflected off a pool of blood by his head. The second man was whimpering. Begging. Byrne calmly turned his gun on him and took a breath. “Tell me what I want to know,” he said.

As quietly as I could, I moved away from the window, to the back of the house next door. I couldn’t hear Byrne anymore, so I figured that if I spoke quietly he wouldn’t be able to hear me either. The 9-1-1 operator asked me to speak up, but I insisted I could not. With the police on the way, I wondered what was the best thing to do. Obviously going in to save the guy would get both of us killed, so that was out of the question. Sitting by and waiting for him to die didn’t seem like the right thing to do either, so I hit on a plan. I would create some kind of diversion. One that would make a noise outside the house but didn’t involve them coming out to find me there, so I had to trigger it from further away. I was looking for a rock to throw when I, and the man in the house, ran out of time. The second gunshot was every bit as shocking as the first, and when Byrne and

Dugan came out into the night I had not hidden myself. Had they turned around before they got to their car, the cops would have found three bodies instead of two when they eventually showed up. By the time they reached the car I was in the shadows behind the neighboring house. I heard a siren in the distance. The Camaro started up and instantly drowned out the faint siren noise. Byrne and Dugan sat talking for a moment before they reversed into a driveway to turn around. It was enough time for me to decide what I had to do. As the car accelerated away I stepped out from behind the cover of the house, onto the sidewalk, pulling my Glock from its holster as I went. I jacked the slide back and let it spring forward, chambering a round. I exhaled as I lowered the sights of my gun into view, and fired one shot.

At first I wasn’t sure I had hit it. The tire didn’t explode. But then the car swerved wildly across the street and stopped suddenly with its front wrapped around a utility pole. The sirens were getting nearer, but that was the only sound. The Camaro’s engine had cut out, and there were no people to rush out of their houses to see what had happened. No dogs barked at the noise of the crash. The driver side door swung open suddenly and Byrne staggered out, gun in hand, shouting. In the light from the streetlamp I saw he had blood on his face. I tensed, ready to fire, but he didn’t see me. He stumbled a few steps and fell down in the street. I kept watch until the cops arrived, but neither he nor Dugan were going anywhere without help.

Chapter 31 It was three in the morning before I was through at the police station. I’d told them everything I knew and all I’d got out of them was that the victims didn’t have Z’s cut into their feet. I got a cab back to Bensenville to pick up my car, so I didn’t get to bed until nearer five. When I finally surfaced on Monday morning, I looked at the clock by my bed. Eleven thirty. Eight hours to go until my date with Abby. I had made a reservation at Spiaggia immediately after talking to her, before last night’s big adventure. I was picking her up at her place. The traffic division of the Cook County Courts, like all the other divisions, has public access terminals where you can look up the details of old cases. I typed in Grant Foster’s

name and the date of his court appearance and was rewarded with a few facts about the case. Mostly the ticket number, the verdict, and the name of Foster’s attorney, which I already knew. No details on how to get a transcript, so I asked at the desk and was told I had to go to the Court Reporters’ Office, a few doors down. When I got there I was greeted warmly by a rotund man with facial hair that made me wonder if he did Civil War re-enactments on weekends. “Help you?” he said. “I’m looking to get a transcript of a DUI case.” “Sure thing. I need the ticket number, date, first name and surname.” I provided them, and he pursed his lips. “Case this old could take a while to retrieve from storage,” he said. “How long is a while?”

“Four, maybe six weeks.” It was my turn to purse my lips. I couldn’t wait four, maybe six weeks to find out if I could trust Abby. I would just have to ask her about it and then trust her or not trust her. Luckily, I was seeing her in five hours Sitting in the reception area of the Leonard Williams Agency, I flipped through a copy of Variety. I was busily reading what new TV shows were filming and where, while the girl at the desk phoned through to let Mr Williams know I was there. On the sofa opposite me sat a man with a small dog. I wondered if the dog did tricks. I was about to ask him (the man, not the dog), when the office door opened. Leonard Williams himself came out of his office and strode over to me. He introduced himself, and showed me into his office, shutting the door behind me. He was a short man, with a gravelly voice,

and he reminded me of Danny DeVito, but with a beard. As I sat, he offered me a cigar. I declined, and he lit one up. Maybe he thought it made him look like a bigshot. Or maybe he just liked cigars. “How long have you represented Grant Foster?” I asked. “As long as he’s been in the business. Twelve years, I’d say, but I could check if you want.” He didn’t wait for me to nod or even acknowledge his offer. Instead, he pushed a button on the intercom which sat on his desk. “Janice,” he said into it. “Bring me a copy of Grant’s résumé, please.” “Did he get a lot of work?” “He used to. He started off as a model. He was popular right from the start. He got a big contract straight off with Levi’s, did very well for the agency, but it seemed to screw him up a bit.”

“How so?” I asked, taking notes. “He wanted fame, but when he was suddenly on billboards everywhere from here to Times Square, on TV, in magazines and so on, he found it difficult to deal with. He wasn’t used to having money, either. It didn’t take him long to develop a taste for gambling, which I don’t think has ever left him. Anyway, about nine or ten years ago, he just walked out.” “Walked out of what?” “Everything. His life. He left his fiancée, got all his money together, and just headed out. He still had six months to go on his Levi’s contract, which we had to buy him out of. I was pretty pissed about it at the time, but he had brought a great deal of money into this agency, so I got over it.” Janice came in almost silently, and left a copy of Grant’s résumé on Williams’ desk. He

picked it up and studied it. “I was right,” he said. “Twelve years, he’s been with us. 1995.” “Where did he go?” I asked. “He spent three months in Atlantic City, until the money ran out. Frankly, I’m amazed it lasted more than a week the way he played. Maybe he had more than I thought to start with. Anyway, after that, I don’t know where he went. Just that eight months after he left, he showed up here again, looking for work.” “And you took him back?” “He’d done well for us in the past,” he explained. “We’re not a big agency, Mr Abraham. We don’t have any real big names. Grant pretty much put us on the map. To be honest with you, it’s why we’ve kept him around. He hasn’t been doing so well in recent years.” “What’s the most recent project he worked

on?” “Actually, he was in rehearsal for a play when he died. Community theatre. The director was an old friend of his, so he was doing it for nothing.” “What did he do for money?” “Got me. He used to hit me up for loans every now and then, but I had to draw the line after a while.” “Any idea who he placed his bets with when he was in Chicago?” “He had a bookie on speed-dial. I don’t know if the guy was legit or not.” “This play he was rehearsing. I’d like to speak to the people involved in that.” “Well, they’re still in rehearsal,” he said. “They’ve had to find a new leading man, obviously. I’ll give you the address.” “Incidentally, did you represent his

fiancée?” “Shelley wasn’t a model, she was a photographer. Actually, that’s how the two of them met.” “Shelley?” “The one he walked out on all those years ago.” “No, I meant Emma McKinley, his most recent fiancée. She’s an actress, apparently.” “Never heard of her, sorry.” Williams walked me to the door of his office and, as I left, beckoned the man with the dog to go in. I made a mental note of what they looked like, so that when they were famous I could say ‘I knew them when.’ I looked at my watch as I got into my car. Three thirty. Four hours until I was due to pick up Abby. From what I’d learned so far on Grant

Foster and Calvin Walsh, I couldn’t see any connection between them. They were both white, single and in their thirties, but then Richard West was black, married, and in his twenties. The more people I asked, the more likely it seemed that these were stranger killings. That there was no connection between the victims. The only thing they each had in common was the last person to see them alive. Perhaps they symbolized something in the killer’s mind. This was not surprising – most serial killers pick strangers as their victims, but if it was true that meant the only thing to be investigated was the forensic evidence, and only the police can do that. So I would go on asking questions, and hope something fell into place. On the way back to the office, I bought a Tribune. Scott wasn’t answering his phone, so I called Lucy, who was rapidly becoming my

favorite slightly illegal friend. I gave her Grant Foster’s cell phone number and asked her for a list of his most frequently called numbers. She called me back within an hour. There was one number Foster called far more than any other, and when I dialed it a man with a thick Bronx accent answered. “Yeah?” he said. I didn’t really know how to begin. Asking ‘are you a bookie?’ seemed like the kind of thing that would arouse suspicion unless the gentleman was entirely legitimate. “Hi there,” I said, “can you give me odds on the Niners to win on Sunday against the Steelers?” “+ 350. You got an account with me?” “Not yet. Grant Foster put me on to you.” “Don’t talk to me about that bum. He’s cut off. I don’t do business with people who don’t

pay. You a friend of his?” “Not really,” I said, which was true. “He told me he paid you what he owed. You’re still not taking his bets?” “He told you he paid? He’s a lying scumbag. Anyways, not my problem any more. I sold his debt to a collector.” “Big guy with a goatee and a tan?” “Yeah, Carlton Pepper. Anyways, you want this bet or not?” “Actually, I’m not sure the Niners can do it this week, thanks.” I tried Scott again with no luck, so I did a web search for Carlton Pepper and found a registered address for his debt collection agency which looked at least semi-legit, then I started reading the paper. The update on the ‘Zorro’ murders had been relegated to page five. People were already getting bored with the story. This

was the fourth day without a body. In a way, it became even scarier for that. The paper once again recapped all the victims, this time including Stacey Lloyd, the teenager who had been found in the Forest Preserve in DuPage. I made a list of all the victims, went through my files and my notes and wrote down when they were each killed. First was Calvin Walsh, Friday before last, in the afternoon. Susan was abducted sometime after eleven that night, and she was dead by Sunday morning. Richard West was last seen at around 11pm on Saturday, and died during the night. Melissa Adams was shot in the head on Oak Street Beach in the early hours of Monday morning, the 17th. All in all, a busy weekend. Julie Campbell was next. The English hitchhiker found dumped by the side of the Eisenhower. She was killed around 6 o’clock

Tuesday morning. Grant Foster was stabbed through the neck on Wednesday, and that afternoon the same killer shot Stacey Lloyd with a twelve gauge shotgun. Finally, Linda Kramer, the most recent victim, lost her life on Thursday night. All in all, I figured the killer could still be someone with a full time job, provided they took Wednesday off, and didn’t need any sleep. When Scott eventually picked up his phone, he sounded tired but happy. “We won’t need you to testify,” he began. “They confessed?” “Byrne did. He folded like a lawn chair. He confessed to the two executions tonight and three others and he couldn’t wait to roll over on Dugan, Michael Coughlin, the whole Bridgeport Crew. He practically bit the DA’s arm off when

he offered the deal.” “Wait a minute,” I said, “He’s getting a deal? Does that mean he’ll be out on the street?” “Don’t worry. Your name is well out of it. He’ll never know it was you that took him down. Besides, he’ll be relocated as part of the Witness Protection Program. This is big, Jake. There’s one other thing. He also told us the last job he did for Coughlin. Apparently, he and Dugan were sent to strong-arm some P.I. they’d heard was looking into the Patterson trial, opening up the whole thing again. It was never about Susan. They’re not involved in the Zorro case.” “Did he say why Coughlin sent them?” “Doesn’t know. Just did as he was told. Other stuff he knows a lot and isn’t holding back, so I believe him.” “What about the two dead guys?” “Dealers. They worked for Byrne, but lately

they started hijacking his drug shipments on their way into the city. Byrne found out and wanted to know who they were selling them to. They wouldn’t say.” “And the Zorro case? Jeez, I can’t believe we’re calling it that.” Scott’s mood audibly altered. Apparently the Zorro case wasn’t going so well. “Got no eye witnesses. Eight fucking murders, and I have no eye witnesses. We’ve got a security tape you can’t see shit on, of the guy dumping Walsh’s car with Patterson’s body in it, and some short-sighted asshole who disturbed him in DuPage county but has no idea what he looks like.” “So it’s not good then?” “People, and by people I mean the papers, so I use the term loosely, are asking why we haven’t released a sketch of the guy yet.”

“What about forensics?” “We’ve got enough to prove we’ve got the right guy when we catch him, but that’s about all it’s good for.” “Is the DNA back?” “The semen found on Linda Kramer’s leg matches the hair found on the headrest in Walsh’s car, so it’s looking very likely our killer is African-American.” “You remember the reporter who got the anonymous tip about Linda Kramer?” I asked. “Yeah.” he replied, wearily. “What happened with that?” “Well, the news room at the TV station record all the calls they get, in case there’s, like, a bomb threat or something. Plus they keep a caller I.D. log so they can get back to people if they need to.” “And?”

“We got the tape. The voice was distorted.” “Why would a witness disguise their voice? It must be the killer.” “Lab guys did what they could to clean it up, but it’s not recognizable. Best they can tell, it was a woman’s voice, so he must have got someone else to call it in.” “What about the caller I.D.?” “That’s the kicker. Number came back to Calvin Walsh’s apartment.” “So the killer went back there after strangling Linda Kramer?” I asked. “Nope. Phone company say it’s been disconnected since we found Walsh’s body. Landlord called them to arrange it. You heard of spoof cards?” “No.” “It’s like a calling card. Anyone can buy one on the net for about ten bucks. You dial a

toll free number, give them your PIN, and then you can call someone and make them think you’re calling from anywhere you want. You can also change your voice. Worse thing is, it’s completely legal.” “Why would he pretend to be Walsh, though? He must know you found the body.” “Why else? To fuck with us”. “What about the card company? Don’t they have the customer’s details”. “They gave us what they had. Fake name, fake address”. “Bummer. Still, on the upside, no more bodies have shown up, right?” “You’d think that’s good, wouldn’t you? And it is, but it means we have to go with what we have. And what we have is shit. No new bodies means no new evidence.” “Also, it’s kind of eerie.” I added. “I mean,

what’s happened to him? Has he just stopped?” “They don’t just stop. They get caught or they die. Ed Kemper gave himself up, but he was a one-off. No, I reckon maybe he’s got better at hiding the bodies. Up to now he hasn’t made much of an attempt at hiding them, but maybe with all the media coverage and after he was disturbed on Wednesday in the woods… Damn. I thought he was getting cocky but it looks like he’s gone back the other way.” “Shame. I was kind of hoping he’d stopped.” I said. “Other possibility is that he’s been picked up for something else, like indecent exposure or something, and is currently in a lock up somewhere trying to make bail.” “So it could be worth running the print again in case he’s been processed since you last checked?”

“Could be. Hey, you ran off yesterday before I got a chance to ask. Why did you want to know which victims had alcohol in their systems? Is there a connection?” “Not necessarily. It’s just that Richard West’s boss at Leitz...” “Connors?” Scott interrupted. “Yes, Connors. When I spoke to him, he said West was teetotal and that he left the bar at five, heading home. I talked to the bartender at Circle and he said West was drinking vodka and orange with a blonde until they closed.” “Little lie, big lie. What’s Connors covering up? Maybe we should go talk to him again.” “One more thing”, I said. “Susan Peterson was abducted on the Friday night and the car containing her body didn’t show up until Monday. Any theories where she was kept all that time? Or why?”

“Odin says the insulin probably wouldn’t have killed her straight away, but sent her into a coma instead. Without treatment she might last a day or so, then die. It’s why he says she was injected Friday night but didn’t die till Sunday morning. Maybe the killer didn’t dump her straight away because he was worried she might be revived and be able to testify.” “So he kept her somewhere, alive, for a day, and then kept her body for another day, maybe in a stolen car, before dumping it? Sounds too risky for this guy.” “Maybe he has a place nobody goes. Maybe he just left the car in his garage and hoped for the best.. When I catch him I’ll be sure to add it to my list of questions. Do you feel like going to the Corner Pocket again tonight? Our last attempt at a relaxing evening was kind of cut short.”

“I can’t.” I hesitated. “I have a date.” “Yeah?” He sounded pleased for me. It didn’t last. “Wait, no. With Abby Dexter?” “Yup.” “The lesbian?” “The extremely attractive attorney, who happens to like me.” “Where are you taking her?” “Spiaggia.” “Nice. Expensive. Unethical.” “Scott, she’s not involved in the case.” I said, ignoring for the moment my worries about the newspaper article. Scott didn’t need to know a little thing like that. “And, of course, you’re speaking totally objectively about this.” “I know what I’m talking about.” I said, defiantly. “Sure you do,” said Scott. “Sure you do.”

Chapter 32 I pulled into Abby’s road at a quarter after seven and sat in the car across the street from her house. I had had trouble deciding what to do with my guns. The jacket I was wearing hung very well, and the cut would have been ruined had I worn my shoulder holster, so I had to make a choice between safety and style. At around half past six I’d considered buying an ankle holster on the way, but neither a Glock 17 nor a S&W 500 would fit in an ankle holster, so it would have meant buying a whole other gun, and I didn’t have time for that. In the end I just went with my Sundance A25 in its concealment holster on my right hip. I had the Glock in the glove box of my car. Not strictly legal, but I wanted to feel it was

available if I needed it. The next decision was to have the top up or down on the Saab. It was a warm night for late September in Chicago, and the sky was almost clear, so I left it down. After one last look in the mirror, I got out of the car and crossed the street. I felt like a teenager. My legs were unsteady and I was glad when I made it across the street and up the small stoop. I knocked the brass door knocker onto its plate. Almost immediately, the door opened and Abby was standing before me. “Wow,” I said. “I mean ‘Hi’” She was wearing a stunning little black dress, with spaghetti thin shoulder straps. It stopped just above her knees, and looked tailor made. The material seemed to flow and shimmer like liquid. “That’s okay, ‘Wow’ was good too.” she said, smiling. I liked the way it felt when she

smiled. She came out onto the stoop and closed the door behind her. She didn’t have a jacket. She might be cold later. Never mind, I could lend her mine. There’s something nice about a woman wearing a man’s jacket. It says the man cares more about her comfort than his, and it says that the woman trusts him to see she is protected from the elements. She could have brought a jacket, but she knows I will make sure she is alright, I thought. I thought all of this before we reached the car. I opened the passenger side door for her, and she slid elegantly in. “Where are we going?” she asked, when I sat next to her and started the engine. I wanted to say ‘It’s a surprise,’ but I was excited, and for some reason it came out as ‘Spiaggia.’ She said nothing, but her smile broadened, her dimples deepened, and I relaxed

and began to enjoy myself. As we drove I couldn’t help myself looking over at her, stealing glances when I could. She caught me a couple of times. “Your eye looks better,” she said, as we crossed the south branch of the Chicago River. “Sorry?” “Your eye. It was swollen before. It looks almost healed now.” She was right. The cavalcade of colors had stopped, and you could barely tell I’d been wounded now. “What did you do to it?” “Actually, someone else did it.” “Were you fighting for truth and justice?” I nodded. “And the American Way.” I added. As we drove north up Michigan Avenue, alongside Grant Park, I breathed in deeply. I was struck by a wonderful concoction of smells - the

clean air coming off Lake Michigan, the smell of Downtown Chicago, and Abby’s delicate perfume. It was an olfactory Kodak moment. Our table was ready as soon as we walked in. We sat in a high backed booth on the lower level, away from the huge bank of windows, but still with a fantastic view of the lake and Oak Street Beach. On the upper level the pianist played softly on his baby grand while we marveled at the menus. Despite the formal surroundings, Abby seemed relaxed and completely at home. “So, what really happened to your eye?” she asked. “I was warned off a case I wasn’t even working on.” “How did that happen?” “Just unlucky, I guess.” I said, and left it at that. I didn’t tell her I’d probably taken down a

hefty section of the Irish Mob last night. I didn’t want to brag. The waiter appeared, and we ordered the chef’s tasting menu, an eight course selection of traditional Italian dishes with a modern twist. Abby chose the wine, and we started with buffalo mozzarella ‘in two ways’ - with porcini mushrooms and with marinated San Marzano tomatoes. It was amazing. “How did you get into it?” Abby asked. “Get into what?” “P.I. work.” It was something I’d always wanted to do,” I answered, “the only thing, really. Well, when I was young I wanted to be a stuntman, but then I found out you have to be fit, and jump off tall buildings. I’m not keen on heights.” “So what made you want to be a private detective? Did you think about joining the

police?” “My uncle was on the job, but I think he had less influence on me than James Garner.” “James Garner?” “Yeah, Jim Rockford. I grew up watching The Rockford Files, Magnum P.I., Vega$. Bogart films like The Maltese Falcon, and The Big Sleep, led me to books by Hammett and Chandler. Most of my formative years were spent in front of the TV or with my head in a book. I was realistic about it, though. I didn’t think my life was going to be like some hardboiled airport detective novel, but I was always good at solving problems, thinking laterally and logically, and it seemed like something I would enjoy.” “And are you?” she said. “Enjoying it?” “Yes.”

I smiled. “Very much.” I said. The waiter brought the next course, and for a short while, I just sat and watched Abby eat. She stabbed a cheese filled gnocchi, which may well be the best thing I have ever tasted, and added a little pesto to her fork. Her every movement was graceful and economical, always smooth, and never unnecessary. She took a sip of her wine, met my eyes, and smiled. The fabulous aroma from my plate was filling my senses as I looked over at her. I was enjoying myself. Very much. “How about you?” I said. “How about me what?” “What brought you to law?” “I always wanted to be Veronica Hamel from Hill Street Blues.” I wasn’t sure if she was being serious or not, but she couldn’t keep a straight face for

long, and then I knew. I am, after all, a trained detective. “You’re teasing me.” I said, laughing with her. “Sorry. The real reason is that my father was an attorney. A very successful one.” “And you admired him?” “I spent most of my life trying to do something that would please him. No matter how hard I worked at school, it was never enough. I played sports, but he never came to see me play. He was always too busy. I guess I thought he would finally be proud of me if I became an attorney.” “Did it work? Is he proud of you?” “He had a heart attack the Christmas before I passed the bar exam. Died on Christmas morning. He never got to see me in court.” “I’m sorry.” I said.

“Don’t be. I like my life, I’m good at what I do, and I enjoy it.” I nodded approvingly. “He would have been proud of you, you know.” I said, taking a mouthful of risotto. “Yes,” she agreed, “he would.” We worked our way through the remaining courses gradually, talking about everything from religion to our favorite movies. Wood roasted beef with lentils and cotechino sausage gave way to an incredible trio of cheeses with white figs and hazelnuts. Dessert was a beautifully light lemon marmelatta layered with crisp pastry and vanilla cream. “So, how’s your first case going?” Abby asked. “Lousy. I’m running out of people to talk to.” “Are the police getting anywhere? The

media hype seems to have died down a little.” Scott’s voice was back in my head, making me paranoid. ‘What’s with all the questions? Are these questions anyone might ask, or is she fishing for information? Ask her about Grant Foster. How can you be sure otherwise?’ “I think that’s because there have been no murders since Thursday night. What the cops do have is enough forensic evidence to convict, when we do catch him.” “Or her.” “What?” I asked, not sure if I’d heard correctly. “There’s nothing to say it can’t be a woman.” “A female serial killer? I don’t think so.” “What about Aileen Wuornos?” she said, and sat back in the booth, as if she’d won. “Aileen Wuornos was an isolated case.

America’s first and only female serial killer. Besides, she killed a specific type of person. Men who went to hookers.” “Well, that’s because she was a hooker. Men who went to hookers were the people she came into contact with.” “She killed seven men over a number of years, using the same weapon each time. This case is so far removed from that one.” “Surely the one thing Wuornos taught the police was not to rule anything out. Just when you think you have a formula for crime, someone comes along who doesn’t conform.” “Point taken.” I conceded. “The thing is, a couple of the victims were sexually assaulted.” “Any semen found?” She spoke quite loudly. I think one of the couples sitting across from us at the window turned to look. “Yes, actually.”

“Still doesn’t rule it out. That could have been planted.” “It’s a bit of a stretch.” “But it’s possible.” I gave up and smiled. “You’re good at your job, aren’t you?” I said. “Damn good.” At the end of the meal, Abby ordered coffee. I didn’t. “I don’t drink coffee.” I explained. “You did the other day in my office,” she smiled. I think I blushed. “You noticed that, huh?” “I notice everything. Like now, for instance. There’s something you want to say to me, but you’re holding back. What is it?” Wow. She was good. “Okay. I wasn’t going to bring it up, but since you ask… It turns out you did some work

for one of the victims a while ago and I was wondering if you could remember anything about him.” “I did? Who?” “Grant Foster.” “The name doesn’t sound familiar. When are we talking about?” “1997. It was a DUI case.” She shook her head and smiled. “Jake, I worked over 400 cases a month when I was a P.D. You’re going to have to give me something else to go on.” “He was a model for Levi Jeans, and you got him off. He was one of the first people prosecuted after the state limit went down to .08. His was .09.” “I remember,” she said. “He actually had an attorney, but he fired her in court. I think he was hoping to get a continuance, but the judge, Judge

Van Allen I think, appointed me to represent him and gave me an hour to get up to speed.” “And you got an acquittal?” “They had a shaky case. The portable Breathalyzer test, which is inadmissible in court, showed impairment, but there was a delay before he got re-tested at the police station – there’d been a major incident that night as I recall – and he was given a sandwich before they tested his breath again.” “A Budweiser sandwich?” “Peanut butter and jelly I think,” she said, smiling. “The point is, the Breathalyzer test is non-specific for ethanol. Some people show an elevated reading after eating white bread. I simply introduced the evidence and the judge ruled.” “You remember this much about all the 400 cases a month you argued?”

“I’m not great with names, but I remember legal details. It’s the training. Plus, it was a big win for me. I was fairly new at the time and most P.D.s just pled out their DUIs because there was this culture of believing they were usually unwinnable. Still is to some extent.” “Do you remember anything about Foster himself?” “Not really. I only spent a couple of hours with him ten years ago.” “Fair enough. I was sure it would be something like that.” “I understand. With my name linked to two of the victims you had to ask, but you didn’t want to make me feel like you were accusing me of anything. At the same time, you have a job to do.” “I’m having a wonderful time tonight, and I didn’t want to ruin it.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t feel under suspicion.” I sat across from her as she drank her coffee, and for the first time I looked around the room. Most people there were couples, but there were some larger groups of men in suits. The view was magnificent. It was dark outside, and the lake was black, but it only made the lights on Lake Shore Drive show up all the more brilliantly. I registered it, then tuned back inside, and spent the rest of the meal watching Abby. When the check arrived, I did not look at it. I didn’t want the horror to show in my face. I simply put it on my Visa, and tried to overestimate the tip. As it turned out, I was still low. I hoped they’d let me back in if we came again. As I drove her home, Abby was almost purring. She told me several times what a great

evening she’d had, and when we said goodbye underneath her porch light, we kissed. I’m not sure if I kissed her, or if she kissed me, but it was a long, deep, intense kiss that said we would see each other again, and soon. Her body felt warm and firm against mine, and in her arms I felt comfortable. I lost myself in the kiss, in the safety and the danger of it, and then it was gone. Abby whispered goodnight, stepped inside, and closed the door. I stood there, grinning, for a full minute before I felt I’d recovered sufficiently to drive.

Chapter 33 Tuesday morning began with a visit to the theatre. Grant Foster had been rehearsing a play called ‘Persephone’s Desire’ for several weeks before he died. It was due to go on in the middle of October, and they were rehearsing frantically with their new leading man, who, as far as I could tell from listening to the cast and crew hanging around waiting for their scene, had been the prompt up until the middle of last week. Perhaps I should add him to my suspect list. After all, some people will do anything for their big break. While I waited to speak to the director, a guy named Charlie, I watched a couple of scenes from ‘Persephone’s Desire’. I quickly realized that if the prompt had killed to get a part in this

play, he would be able to plead insanity. The story seemed to be that of a female ostrich, presumably the eponymous heroine, whose desire was to fly. Experimental theatre, I think they call it. Maybe Grant had killed himself to get out of it. The theatre was small, maybe a hundred seats, decked out in red velvet, each with a little brass plaque showing who had donated them. The stage was deep, but not very wide, as if it had been installed sideways. I guess it meant they had to be more creative using the space, and so people seemed to enter at the back, in near darkness, and come into the light at the front of stage. Finally, the person with a clipboard that I had spoken to passed on my message to Charlie that I wanted to speak with him, and when the scene ended, he told everyone to take five and

came to join me in the stalls. “Did you write the play yourself?” I asked, after introducing myself. “Yes,” he said. He seemed proud of the fact. Bizarre. “It’s an interesting story.” “Thanks. It represents the struggle in all of us to achieve what we know to be impossible.” “Yes,” I said, “That’s what I figured it represented. I guess it’s a real blow to have lost your leading man at this stage.” “I can’t tell you,” he said, gesturing more than is usual, at least for a man. “It couldn’t possibly have come at a worse time.” “Well, it could have happened the week you were due to go on.” “That would have been perfect!” He said. I must have looked confused because he went on. “Then we could have cancelled the whole thing

out of respect. With a month to go, we had to put it on as a tribute to Grant, and tell people ‘It’s what he would have wanted,’ and ‘The show must go on.’” “Would he have wanted it?” “Maybe. If it were any good. But it’s a pile of crap. We were struggling with Grant in the part of Dionysus, but with Luke, it’s all fallen to pieces.” “Was Grant good?” “Not really. Not anymore. ‘Course, I knew him way back when. In the beginning, when he was young he was something really special. He had this presence on stage that really gripped you, like something hypnotic. It worked on camera too, if you’ve ever seen any of his early stuff, he had a quality, like a young Newman or Redford. I was sure he was going to make it.” “So what happened?” I asked.

“The usual. He got a little money, went crazy, never quite made it back.” “Did he get into drugs?” “I don’t think he ever did. Maybe a couple times at parties, but I doubt he would have paid for them. He got his highs at the roulette table or the track, and that was expensive enough.” “I hear he had a lot of fiancées.” I said, shifting subject matter slightly. “Oh yeah, Grant would ask a girl to marry him after knowing her two or three weeks. If they said no, he left it at that. Didn’t want anything more to do with them. They quite often said yes, though. He was a charmer.” “Would you know how I could get in touch with any of his ex-fiancées?” “I have the addresses of maybe three,” he said, taking a Blackberry from his shirt pocket. “Let’s see, there’s Emma, she’s an actress, I

worked with her while she was engaged to Grant. Not bad.” “Emma McKinley, is this?” “Yes. You know her?” “I’ve spoken to her already. Any others?” “Okay, next up is Camille. Camille Nicholls. Another actress. Not as talented, but more successful. Grant dated her for a while a few years back. Last, but by no means least, going back into the annals of history, is Shelley Ryan. Not an actress, but a photographer. Grant and I did some modeling for her in the early nineties. Hard to believe now, I know, but I used to do some modeling, some acting. Then I came to my senses and concentrated on what I’m good at. She and Grant were really serious for a while. I’ve got her studio address here, she’s been in the same place for years.” “Thanks.” I said, “I’ll let you get back to

Persephone and her Desire. By the way, do you have any theories about what happened to Grant?” “That’s your job, isn’t it? My best guess? Maybe he owed someone money, couldn’t pay. That’s what everything comes down to in the end, isn’t it?” With that, he turned back to the stage, and clapped his hands twice. Everyone looked round with an equal mixture of boredom and annoyance on their faces. I decided not to stick around to see if Persephone ever managed to fly. The address Charlie had given me for Camille Nicholls was out by the airport, and the one for Shelley Ryan’s studio was in the South Loop, so I headed over there first, and figured I’d go to the office after I’d spoken to her, and have some lunch. The entrance to the studio was unassuming

to say the least. If not for the tiny nameplate saying ‘Ryan Photographic’ under the door buzzer, I wouldn’t have found it. Someone buzzed me in without asking who I was, and I was greeted at the top of the stairs by a youngish woman with glasses who looked like she’d been sucking a wasp. “Can I help you?” she said harshly, as though I’d disturbed her in the middle of something far more important. I wondered how Ryan Photographic stayed in business if this was how they treated the lucky few who managed to find their well hidden front door. “Miss Ryan?” I asked, smiling warmly, and failing to get a response. “No, I’m Shelley’s assistant. Do you have an appointment?” “I’m afraid not.” I took out my license, and showed it to her. “But I’d like to talk with her

anyway.” “She’s in the middle of a shoot. She’ll be at least a half an hour.” “I don’t mind waiting.” I cranked the smile up a couple of notches. She remained sour. “I suppose you’d better come in then. Try not to get in the way.” I followed her into the studio, and she pointed towards a large box in the corner, which I duly went and sat on. The room was large, probably forty feet square, and painted stark white. There were no windows, presumably to make it easier to control lighting levels. Maybe twenty powerful lights hung from the ceiling, their cables running along the ceiling until they all met in the corner above me. The bundle of cables, painted white to match everything else, ran down the wall, and into the side of the large metal box I was sitting on, which

I figured must be some kind of transformer. The only permanent fixtures in the studio which weren’t white were mounted on the wall behind me. A fire axe, in a glass case, and an extinguisher. I remembered the newspaper story I’d read about Shelley’s house catching fire, and thought maybe these items reassured her, and so shouldn’t be painted white to camouflage them in the bright room. Aside from the door I had come in, there was one other, which I took to be a darkroom, as there was a light bulb over the door. Against the wall opposite where I was sitting was a pastel blue velvet sofa. Two extremely tall and very pale female models draped themselves across it. They wore flowing garments in various shades of blue and green, and occasionally stopped to add something or take something off. A black male model with his shirt off and a six-pack stomach

sat on the floor in front of the sofa and stared into the distance. He wore only a pair of cream canvas Bermuda shorts and deck shoes. I couldn’t work out if the women were decoration for a picture of him, or the other way round. The assistant who had greeted me so pleasantly rushed around like an idiot, alternately changing the film in cameras, and touching up the model’s make up and brushing their hair. Occasionally she went and sat at her desk to make a note about something in the notepad, or to answer the phone. The focal point of the room, however, was not the sofa, the desk, or the tall models, but the photographer - Shelley Ryan. She was not heavily built, but had a presence that belied her frame. Amidst the chaos, mainly based around her assistant, she seemed an island of calm. She softly spoke her instructions to the models on the

sofa, and they moved accordingly. It was hard not to appreciate the simplicity of her direction. I sat for maybe half an hour, and when she had all the shots she needed, she came over to me. “Can I help you?” They were the same words spoken by her assistant outside on the stairs, but this time there was a sense of welcome in the voice. “You still use film?” I began, pointing at her camera, “I would have thought most photographers work digitally now.” “I do,” she said, “for still life, car brochures, that kind of thing. When I shoot people I always use film. There’s something about film that just brings a person to life. I don’t care how many megapixels you’ve got, you can’t capture the soul on digital. I’m sorry; I didn’t catch your name.” “Jake Abraham. I’m a private detective.

I’m looking into something which seems to be connected to the death of a man named Grant Foster. A man, I understand, you knew.” “Many years ago, Grant and I were engaged.” “What happened?” “Things change,” she said, “people change. We drifted apart.” Her face fell as she looked back on unhappy memories. “I hear he gambled a lot. Did that cause problems?” “When Grant and I met, he was a model. Did you know that? He was a terrific model. I mean, most of them just stand there and look pretty - there’s not much to it.” I glanced over at the models, still within earshot. They did not flinch. “Grant stood out, he had something that made him come alive in front of the camera, like he needed it and it needed him. It was something

I’ve never seen in anyone else. I didn’t before Grant, and I haven’t since. But he and I had a connection which meant neither of us had any control.” “Did the gambling start when you were together?” I persisted. “Grant became famous. This was before every other model was a supermodel. Fame for a model outside the industry was still rare. It changed him. I mean, it changes everyone to some extent, but Grant became a whole different person. Yes, he started gambling while he was with me. At first he tried to hide it, but in the end he just didn’t care any more.” “Can you think of anybody who might have wanted to harm him?” “I haven’t seen Grant in ten years. I don’t know who he knows, where he lives. I saw him on NYPD Blue a couple of years ago, but that’s

it. I really don’t see how I can help you find who did this.” She had a point. I wasn’t sure either. “Well, thank you very much for your time,” I said, “I’m sorry to have bothered you.” I smiled broadly at Shelley Ryan’s assistant as I left.

Chapter 34 On the way from Shelley’s studio to the office, I practically decided there was little point going to visit the other fiancée Charlie had told me about, Camille Nicholls. I figured she would have nothing more to add to what I had already learned. The view of Grant Foster was fairly consistent, a serial monogamist who turned to gambling because he couldn’t cope with fame. However, as promised, Scott had emailed me Calvin Walsh’s old address, and it just happened to be out near the airport as well, so I could do both at once. I typed a quick thanks to Scott, and sent it, and then got up to leave. My computer beeped to tell me I had an instant message from Scott. “Guess what?” It said.

“What?” I typed. The familiar phrase ‘Scott Bales is typing a message’ appeared on the screen, and I waited. “They’re not calling it a serial killer anymore.” “Huh?” “They say it’s not a serial thing because the rules say serial killers have longer cooling off periods between the killings, and always go on longer than 30 days unless they’re caught.,” came the reply after a couple of minutes. Scott was not a fast typist. Neither was I. “That’s crazy. What does it mean?” “They think he’s stopped. They say it’s a ‘murder spree’” “Do you think he’s stopped?” “Spree killers usually kill themselves or end up in a shootout with the cops. Five days isn’t a long time between victims for a serial killer.”

“The time between murders does usually get shorter, rather than longer.” I typed. “That’s what they said.” “Who’s they?” “FBI.” “So what does that mean to the investigation?” I had to wait several minutes for the next response. While I waited I flipped on the television and watched the lunchtime news. Unless I’d missed it, there was nothing on the ‘Zorro’ killer. “Sorry, had to answer the phone,” said Scott’s next message when it arrived. “It means they’ve cut our resources. The brass take the Feds at their word that there’ll be no more murders, so it’s not so urgent anymore.” “Do you think you’ll catch him?” “Who knows? They never caught the

Tylenol killer, but we might get lucky. Gotta go. Speak to you later.” “K.” I replied. I sat back, and thought about calling Abby. Maybe it was too soon. I didn’t want to seem needy, but I wanted to speak to her. Or at least let her know I was thinking of her. I looked at my watch, and decided that she would probably be at lunch anyway, and I shouldn’t call just yet. Instead, I found Harrison and Duke’s website, got hold of her email address, and started typing an email to her. Abby, Just wanted to let you know I had a great time last night. Then I got writer’s block. I was going for cool, charming and sensitive, but I didn’t feel I’d

really pulled it off. After trying several different endings, I went with: I hope we can do it again. Love Jake x I sent it, and tried not to think about whether the kiss was too much. I got a hot dog from a street vendor, and ate it on the way to my car. As I drove towards the airport, I thought about Scott’s email, and momentarily considered giving up. If the Feds were convinced the killer had stopped, maybe they were right. If the cops couldn’t catch the guy, what chance did I have? What else did I really have to do after Calvin Walsh’s old

neighbors and Grant Foster’s old fiancée had told me stuff I already knew? That left just a few loose ends to tie up, and I felt like I didn’t have the energy to keep at it. The self doubt didn’t last long - just until around Division Street. Then my ego kicked in, and started trying to convince me I had just as much chance as the cops of cracking the case. After all, I was coming at it from a different angle. Fresh. With fewer preconceptions. Maybe that’s what it needed. If I got nothing from these interviews, I would take a day or two off to relax and clear my mind - no rush if the killings had stopped - maybe see Abby again, and then I’d pick two of the other victims, and learn what I could about them. Perhaps then something would fall into place. And I would keep at it, until it was done. Calvin Walsh’s old place was much like his

new one, but further away from the factory where he worked. I went straight upstairs and knocked on the door of the apartment next to Walsh’s. A man opened the door wearing a Tshirt and shorts and a toweling robe. It was Billy from the factory. He wore the same blank expression he had when he brought Pez and me coffee, and when I had interviewed him. There was no indication in his face that he knew who I was. “Billy, right?” I asked, just to make sure. “Uh huh.” He confirmed. “You remember me, Billy?” “Uh huh.” “Not at the factory today?” I was speaking slightly louder and slower than usual, the way people speak to foreigners in an effort to be more easily understood. “Nope.”

“Why’s that?” “Day off.” “Well, okay then. I can see I’ve disturbed your thinking time, so I’ll leave you to it.” Billy shut the door. The occupant of the apartment on the other side of Walsh’s, was a woman who looked very much like Walter Matthau, but was wearing curlers in her hair, and bedroom slippers. She didn’t want to give me her name. “Why do you want to know?” she asked. Some people, I was learning, have no respect for a Photostat of a P.I. license. I didn’t really have an answer, so I bypassed the question. “Actually, I was more interested in what you could tell me about Calvin Walsh.” “He used to live next door. Now he’s dead.” “Yeah, I know. Did you know him well?”

“He was a bum. He came home late at night, drunk, usually with a girl. He made a lot of noise. That’s all I know.” With that she slammed the door, and probably went back to watching Days Of Our Lives. It was looking more and more likely that I would get those days off. It was a short drive to Camille Nicholls’ apartment, but not knowing the area, I got lost on the way, so it took twice as long as it should. She lived in a first floor apartment in an old brownstone that looked like it could do with some work. What struck me first was how much she looked like Emma McKinley. Her hair was totally different, but the similarity in her facial features was striking. Foster definitely had a type. When I told her why I was there, she invited me in. “Sorry about the mess,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it,” I replied. “This is tidy compared to mine.” She smiled, and sat down, and gestured to me that I should do the same. A cat appeared from the other room, and started brushing up against my legs. “I understand you and Grant were engaged.” I continued. “Three years, almost.” “When was this?” She thought for a moment. “Around Christmas of ’99 to October or so of 2002” The cat leapt on to my lap, and I started scratching him behind the ears. He purred loudly. “What happened?” “I left him.” she said. “But only because he didn’t have the guts to leave me” “Did he cheat on you?” “He might as well have done. The casino

was his mistress, you might say. Half the time I don’t know where he got the money from. The other half he stole from me. He used to drive out to Atlantic City on occasional weekends, then it got to be every weekend, and pretty soon he stopped coming home in the week.” “He drove out every weekend?” “Yeah, at first. Then he had to start taking the Greyhound.” “Why was that?” I asked. “He sold my car.” Camille said. “Wow. That must have pissed you off.” “You know, it really didn’t. I mean, it does now, obviously, but back then I was just so crazy about him, and I felt kind of like I owed him. I was a waitress in a coffee shop when I met Grant. An aspiring actress trying to earn enough money to go and be a waitress in LA while I aspired some more. Grant introduced me to

some people, set me up with a few auditions, and now I’m an actress. I’m not rich, but I make a living at it, which is more than most. If it wasn’t for Grant, I don’t know if I’d be where I am today.” “Do you know if he had more than one bookie he might have owed money to?” I asked. “He probably owed money to everyone he came into contact with, his whole adult life. I know he used to go to the OTB on Jackson, but they don’t give credit.” “Well, I guess that’s all I have,” I said, standing up out of my chair. “Thanks for your time. Sounds like you were right to get out when you did.” She started walking me to the door. “Yeah. It could have been a whole lot worse. I could have ended up like one of his other fiancées.” “What do you mean?”

“The girl he was seeing a couple of years before we got together. After we broke up, a mutual friend told me the story. It seems Grant didn’t have the guts to break up with her either, so instead he cleared out their joint bank account and took off without a word while she was in hospital. “Do you remember her name, by any chance?” “Jeez. Sally something, I think.” she said. “Could it be Shelley?” “Shelley, yeah, that’s it.” “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you.”

Chapter 35 At least two people had been lying to me. Lee Connors and now Shelley Ryan. It seemed she and Grant hadn’t merely ‘drifted apart’. Perhaps that was what led up to Grant leaving with all her money, and not telling her. Perhaps she hadn’t told me because she was embarrassed. Either way, she hadn’t given me the whole truth, and it warranted another visit to her studio. Maybe not right now, though. Parked in the street behind my Saab was a large black Lincoln with tinted windows. Standing next to it was Tattoo, the man who had patted me down at Castelletti’s restaurant. He opened the car door. “Mr Castelletti would like to speak with you.”

“In the car?” He shook his head. “At the restaurant.” “Mind if I ask what it’s about?” He didn’t answer, but his expression said he minded. I got in the car. We didn’t talk much on the ride to Taylor Street. I did my best, but I don’t think we had much in common. Frankly, it was a relief when we arrived and he got out to hold the door for me. We went in through the front door and headed straight for the storeroom. He lifted my arms, took my two guns and put them in his jacket pocket. Then he searched me again to make sure I didn’t have a third. He knocked on the door at the back of the storeroom and we went in. Everything was the same as last time. Same genial silver haired gentleman in the antique leather chair, same large scary gentleman beside the desk.

“Mr Abraham. How good of you to join us. I hope you didn’t mind me sending a car for you.” “Mind? Why would I mind?” “Excellent. I asked you to come here so that I could express my gratitude. You have recently, I believe, been integral in the downfall of a competitor of mine.” “I don’t know what you mean.” I said. I did know what he meant. I hadn’t been integral in that many downfalls. So much for my name being kept out of it. “Come now, Mr Abraham. Let’s not be coy.” “You first.” He glanced at Tattoo, who was now standing guard by the door. “He’s clean,” he confirmed. “Very well,” continued Castelletti. “Thomas

Byrne. He was a thorn in my side.” “Just call me Androcles.” “And, like the lion, I wish to show my appreciation.” “How does Byrne’s removal help you? He was part of a larger organization. Someone else will just take his place.” Castelletti shook his head. “The Irish Mob are smart enough not to involve themselves at that level. Thomas Byrne was an idiot who married well. Mr Coughlin only let him ply his trade to placate his daughter. He played at a level with a high risk and a low return.” “But you’re not smart enough to leave it alone?” “I am infinitely smarter, Mr Abraham. I have never been engaged in the sale of illicit substances. I am merely a financier. An investor. My clients wish to buy in bulk, but do not have

the resources. I provide them, for a small consideration.” “You make loans,” I said. “Of a sort.” “And Byrne going away means your clients can expand into his area.” “Which ultimately increases my profits,” he confirmed, smiling. “Now. There is someone I would like you to meet.” Tattoo opened the door and in came a red haired man who, judging by his nose, had once been a boxer. Maybe he just fell down a lot. Castelletti introduced him as Owen Madigan, and said he had something to tell me. He sure did. “Gregory Patterson was framed.” “What?” “Patterson wasn’t the leak in the department. The leak was Deputy Chief Hennessy.”

“That’s convenient,” I said. “Given that Hennessy’s dead. You know this how?” “I used to work for Michael Coughlin. Hennessy told Coughlin the location of the safehouse. Coughlin had orders to find out where the witness was being held.” “And I suppose you can prove this,” I said, not supposing any such thing. “I have the tape,” he said, like it was nothing. That threw me. “The…” “The tape. Of the phone conversation. The police will be able to verify the voices are Hennessy and Coughlin, and that it hasn’t been tampered with. And I’ll testify about when it was made.” This was too good. Too easy. Something had to give. “Why now? Why didn’t you come forward

with this a year ago?” “If I had, my entire family would be dead. Hennessy was a bad man.” “So now what, you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart? You’re not afraid of Coughlin?” “Sure I am.” He looked at Castelletti. “Mr Castelletti impressed upon me the importance of doing the right thing.” “Meaning he threatened you if you didn’t talk?” “No. He has assured me my family will be protected. That I will be protected. If I cooperate.” I looked at Castelletti. He raised his eyebrows. “It was the least I could do,” he said.

Chapter 36 The phone woke me at nine. I hadn’t set my alarm the night before. It was Scott. “Al says to stop delivering mob informants to our front door,” he said. “We’ve got this serial killer thing going on and we’re kind of busy.” “I’ll see what I can do, but they keep falling into my lap. Did you listen to the tape” “Sounds good. The lab has it now. Have you told Patterson yet?” “Don’t want to get his hopes up.” “Nothing new from ‘Zorro’, by the way.” “It’s been almost a week.” “Well, it was a ‘spree’, remember? Lou says that if we don’t have any good leads in a week, he’s going to start assigning us other cases. Thing is, everything’s going to take longer

now that we don’t have the manpower we did before.” “Did you guys ever talk to Shelley Ryan?” “Let’s see. One of Foster’s exes, right? Photographer?” “That’s the one.” “I think we sent a uniform round there when we got desperate for people to talk to.” “And?” “And what?” “What was the general impression?” “I’d have to check the files. I think it was pretty standard ex-girlfriend stuff. They were going out, then they weren’t, and it was all his fault. Why do you ask? What do you know about her?” “Nothing yet,” I said, “but I’ll keep you informed.” “How did things go with the lesbian?”

“Would you quit calling her that?” I snapped. “Hey, take it easy,” he said. “I was kidding. How was dinner?” “Dinner was excellent.” “And?” “What?” I said, laughing, “I don’t kiss and tell.” “Did you kiss?” “Can’t you tell?” I went to my office and opened some mail. When I booted up my PC I saw that I had an email from Abby. My right hand hovered over the mouse as I prepared myself, and then I double clicked on the envelope. Abby’s reply was short and sweet. “Me too. Call me.”

And then she’d made a little smiley face with a semi-colon and a close brackets sign. What did she mean? Call me now? Call me at some point in the future? When had she sent it? I looked at the ‘Sent’ line. 09/25/07 16.27. Yesterday. Was she expecting me to call that night? Would she assume I hadn’t got her email? I didn’t know what she would think, so I called her at work. I got her voicemail. I don’t leave messages. Not on voicemail, answering machines, answering services, or with seemingly helpful flatmates, who promise they are writing it down. Not because I have some phobia of machines, or that I don’t trust the flatmates. It’s just that I don’t like leaving it up to other people when they call me back. Even so, I left it until the very last second before putting the phone down on Abby’s voicemail.

I walked from my office to the photographic studio, and when I buzzed, the voice on the intercom was Shelley’s, not her assistant’s. As I reached the top of the stairs, she was standing in the doorway to the studio. There were fewer lights on inside, and the blue sofa was gone, but otherwise it looked as it had the day before. Shelley sat in the chair behind the desk. I stood. “How can I help you today, Mr Abraham?” she asked. I didn’t want to launch straight into ‘why didn’t you tell me Grant walked out on you when you were unconscious’, so I started her off with a few easy questions. “There’s just a few details I forgot to clear up yesterday, I’m afraid.” “Fire away.” “While Grant and you were engaged, did he

used to go to the OTB on Jackson Boulevard?” “OTB?” “Off Track Betting shop. A bookies.” “I don’t know, probably. I think he went anywhere they’d take his money.” “Seems like he had an addictive personality. Apart from the gambling, did he drink? Take drugs?” “No. He smoked, which annoyed the hell out of me, because it made the whole house stink, but he just drank socially and he couldn’t afford drugs on top of everything else.” She smiled. “He used to say he spent ninety-five percent of his money on gambling, and the rest he wasted.” I smiled back. It made it easier to segue into the next question. “You said yesterday that you drifted apart. I understand you were in hospital when Grant

actually moved out.” Her face hardened. “That’s right.” she said. “Mind if I ask what you were in for?” “I had a house fire. I breathed in a lot of smoke, got burned.” “And that’s when he left you?” “The nurses said when I woke up that he’d come to visit, to make sure I was alright, but I never saw him again.” “You must have been devastated.” “Like I said, we’d been drifting apart. It was a shock, but it was all for the best.” I thanked Shelley, and left as quickly as I could while trying not to appear rude. I wanted to get back to the office to check something. I knew what I was looking for, and where I would find it. It didn’t take me long to leaf through my file on Grant Foster, and there it was, just as I remembered it. The first line of the

newspaper article about the fire at Grant and Shelley’s house: “An unattended cigarette ignited a couch and sent flames racing through a Westchester home early yesterday morning.”

Chapter 37 “You see, we have these rules,” Scott explained to me, in his best patronizing voice. “They’re very complicated, but the general gist is that we should rely more on evidence than on guesswork.” “But just look at it,” I said, placing the printout of the article on his desk. “A cigarette. The first words. Shelley said Grant smoked, and it annoyed the hell out of her. Meaning she didn’t, or it wouldn’t have bothered her.” “So?” “What do you mean ‘So?’? So he burned her house down with her in it. Her house. After I visited her, I checked the property records at county hall. The house was all in her name. Then, when she was unconscious in the hospital, he

went to see if he’d finished her off. When he saw he hadn’t, he took off with all her money. I figure that’s when he went to Atlantic City.” “All very well,” Scott said, “but it’s guesswork. All of it. Maybe they’d had friends round that evening who smoked. The article says he wasn’t home when the fire department arrived, right? Maybe he wasn’t there all evening. Maybe she was having an affair with someone who smoked. Maybe that’s why he left her.” “My maybes are just as valid as yours.” I pointed out. “Even if that were true, we can’t arrest people on maybes.” “You can question them.” “You know who Shelley Ryan’s father is?” Scott asked. “What does it matter who her father is?” “John Ryan.”

“As in Senator John Ryan?” “As in.” Scott nodded. “So does that mean she can do what she likes? Does it mean she has some kind of diplomatic immunity by proxy?” “Means we can’t go around accusing people of anything when we have shit for evidence. Ryan already has it in for the Department. He’s trying to cut our budget even more. We really do not need to piss him off right now.” “So she gets away with it.” “Listen,” said Scott, firmly, “if she did anything, she will be arrested, tried, and convicted. Meantime, let me point out the many and varied flaws in your argument. One: evidence. We’ve been through that already, but it seems I need to repeat myself. Two: she’s a she. Shes don’t do serial murder.”

“I thought it was a ‘murder spree’.” I interrupted. “Shut up. Three: even if he did burn her house down, or if she blamed him for an accident, or whatever. Even if that were considered a motive, it was ten years ago.” I leapt on that. “Yes, look at the date. Exactly ten years. The house was torched on September 14th 1997, and the first victim, Walsh, was killed on September 14th 2007. That’s some coincidence.” “That’s exactly what it is. A coincidence. It also happens to be very close to the sixth anniversary of 9/11. You’ve seen too many Friday the Thirteenth movies. People don’t commit murder on the anniversary of a traumatic event. Not in real life.” “Look,” I said, calmly, “I’m not saying she definitely did it.”

“That’s a relief.” “I’m just saying that it’s worth looking at. Maybe she had a motive.” “Okay, since we’re compromising, I’m not saying she absolutely didn’t do it. I just don’t see it myself. Feel free to check it out, but do not harass her. I swear, if we all acted like Columbo, we’d spend half our lives fighting harassment claims. Anything shows up, you let me know.” “And you’ll listen?” “Oh, I’ll listen. Can’t guarantee I’ll agree with your interpretation of the evidence, but I’ll listen.” We were interrupted by a uniformed officer dropping a small FedEx package on Scott’s desk. He opened it and tipped it up and a small audio tape fell out, like the ones in answering machines. After a brief search for a machine, Scott played the tape.

“Yeah, this is Calvin. I’m not in right now. You know what to do.” The machine beeped. Everyone in the room held their breath. “Walsh? This here’s Leon Walker. I know you been seeing Loretta. I warned her, now I’m warning you – you stay away from her or I’ll kill you. I swear, I’ll beat you to death with my bare hands.” “Who the fuck is Leon Walker?” It was Scott that asked the question, but it was pretty much what we were all thinking. Whoever he was, he sounded pissed. Freedman was heading for the White Pages; another detective was already on the phone to the DMV. Within a couple of minutes we had an address and the Lieutenant was calling for backup. Scott took me

to one side. “You can’t come along on this one. We might have to go in hard. Anything goes down, it’s not going to look good that a P.I. was tagging along on a major bust.” “Okay,” I said, “But you’d better tell me what’s going on as soon as you know.” “You bet.” I left the Station excited, but aware that this new lead could take us nowhere. Since there was nothing I could do about Leon Walker, in the meantime I decided I would work on the basis that Shelley was a suspect, and see what else I could find out about her. I’d probably be proved wrong, but maybe it would turn something else up. I headed back to the office and phoned Carlton Pepper to make an appointment, claiming someone owed me money. He said he

could fit me in that afternoon. I checked my email, and found a request from an executive at a local corporation asking whether I could handle a case involving computer fraud. Two weeks ago, I would have said yes immediately, done some reading around the subject, and learnt a new skill while earning a few bucks, but I had a little too much to deal with right now. I sent an email back with the name of a P.I. Hayes and Co. used to use when their computing expertise was found wanting. I asked the executive to let him know who had referred him, in the hope he might send some work back my way when I needed it. With a couple of hours to go before my appointment, I went shopping. After a few minutes browsing in the true crime section of a bookstore, I came out with a book about female serial killers. I then spent a lot more time and a lot more

money on a digital camcorder. I figured that I would be able to use it for surveillance in all kinds of cases and I would be able to pay for it out of the money I’d earned on this one. I quickly totaled up in my head how many days I had been working on it, and I worked out that I’d earned an extra thousand bucks on top of Gregory Patterson’s retainer. Not bad considering I used to work for a little over minimum wage at Hayes and Co. By four o’clock I hadn’t looked at the rest of my files, and I hadn’t switched on my PC, but I had a ten minute film of the interior of my office, which included sequences in black and white, and in sepia, and some very detailed close-ups of my bookcase. For a while, I thought that maybe I should film a promotional piece to advertise the agency. ‘If you’ve got a problem, if no-one else can help,

and if you can find him...’ Then I thought maybe not. Carlton Pepper’s office was above a dry cleaners on Delaware. He was indeed large, tanned and bearded, just as described by Grant Foster’s neighbor, but his head was bare, revealing a shiny dome I had to make a conscious effort not to stare at. “So, how does this work?” I began, realistically nervously. “I can do this one of two ways. Either I collect the money for you and take a commission, or I buy the debt off you and your debtor then owes me the money. The second option costs you a little more, but it does mean you get the money here and now and you can forget all about it.” He seemed to have it all worked out and, despite his immense muscles, was not coming across as an unmitigated thug.

“Okay. Say I pick the first option and the guy doesn’t want to pay.” “Common problem. Why you’re hiring me, right?” I smiled and nodded. “Ninety percent of cases a guy looks like me turns up on their doorstep is enough to make someone pay up. If the guy’s a real hard-ass I might have to make some threats.” “What about using force?” “I’m not sure what you’re asking Mr…” he checked the notepad where he’d written my name during our phone call. “…Mr Spenser”. “It’s just that the guy who owes me money likes to think he’s tough. He might give you a few problems and I just want to make sure you can handle it.” Pepper smiled as if he’d handled a thousand guys who thought they were tough. “I assure you Mr Spenser, I can handle him. As far as force

goes, I’m not going to do anything illegal, but if they start something I can finish it.” That sounded ominous. “What kind of money are we talking about here?” “Sixteen and a half thousand dollars,” I decided. “Now if I sold you the debt, there’d be more incentive for you to get the money back. Would that alter your methods?” “I’m not sure how that’s any of your concern,” he said, frowning. He seemed to be getting suspicious. “I’m just curious how far you would go.” He took a deep breath. Was he going to throw me out or offer to kill the guy for a price? “Mr Spenser. Please don’t take offence, but it sounds to me like you’re maybe interested in seeing this man get hurt. If that’s the case, then I think you’d better find someone else, because I can’t help you. Now if I’m wrong, and it is the

money you want, then we can talk about my commission.” “How dare you!” I said, indignantly. “I refuse to sit here and be accused of soliciting anything illegal. I’m leaving.” And I did. I took my files home with me, with the intention of looking them over while I cooked my dinner and charged my camcorder battery. Dinner was simple - just a pork chop and some boiled potatoes, and I picked at it while I gave the files most of my attention. After two hours, I had in front of me one sheet of paper, with a section highlighted in yellow, and two cold potatoes. What had been bugging me, even before I talked to Scott, was that nothing connected Shelley Ryan to any of the victims apart from Grant. If he had been the only victim, then I could have made some kind of case for Shelley being

the killer, but the rest of it just didn’t add up. The same was true of the other people I could loosely describe as suspects. Dr Parker had had an affair with Susan Patterson, and maybe Susan had threatened to tell. Vittore Castelletti had threatened Calvin Walsh, and maybe Calvin hadn’t taken it seriously enough. Carlton Pepper had assured me he wouldn’t do anything illegal to collect my money, but maybe he was playing it safe in case I was wearing a wire or trying to set him up some other way. In any case, Grant owed him what was probably a lot of money and Pepper didn’t get paid by killing the people who owed him. Unless he was making an example of Grant in order to score a bigger payoff. But even then, I’d found nothing to suggest any of the other victims owed money. As for Leon Walker threatening to kill Walsh, who knew what his story was? I hadn’t heard from Scott and he

wasn’t answering his cell. Until now, there had been nothing to suggest that either Shelley or any of my other suspects had any connection to any of the other victims before, during or after their murders. Until now. I had highlighted two words on a page I’d printed off the Internet after Scott and his partner told me about the Tylenol case. Two words from the list of possible sources for cyanide. Film processing. Okay, so it was circumstantial at best. At worst it was just a tiny coincidence, but it had caught my eye sufficiently to add it to my list of things to tell Scott. Shelley had her own darkroom, so it was conceivable that she had cyanide somewhere amongst her chemicals. If it was the same stuff that was used on Julie Campbell, then it was a direct link to not just one, but seven of the eight murders.

The gun found with Julie Campbell’s body, Calvin Walsh’s gun, had been used to shoot Melissa Adams. His shotgun dispatched Stacey Lloyd. His fingerprints were on Ray-Bans in Richard West’s car, Susan Patterson was found in Walsh’s VW, with his insulin in her system, and the hair found in the VW matched the semen on Linda Kramer’s leg. Grant Foster was the only one not directly linked by the evidence to the rest, and the only one with whom Shelley had a history. For now, I had no more files to read, and no more people to talk to, so I decided I would spend the following day staking out Shelley’s studio. After all, I had to justify buying the camcorder somehow.

Chapter 38 I was in place by eight a.m., parked in a side street across from the studio on South Plymouth, doing my trick with the mirrors again. I considered charging Gregory Patterson extra for getting up this early in the morning. The camcorder was plugged into the cigarette lighter socket in my car, and was focused on Shelley’s front door. I sat it on the dash, facing through the back window, and left it recording. I had almost filled two tapes before anything happened at all. Then Shelley’s assistant showed up. “The time is 10.13 a.m.” I said out loud, for the benefit of the tape. “The woman now entering the front door of Ryan Photographic is Miss Ryan’s assistant.” I felt like Jack Webb. Shelley arrived about five minutes later, and

I did my bit of commentary on her. She got out of a green BMW, which she parked right outside the studio. Once she was inside, I left the camcorder running and crossed the street. I wrote down the license number of the Beemer, and then went around the corner to pick up a sandwich. When I got back to the car, I sat back in the passenger seat, rewound the last few minutes of tape, and played it back to see if I had missed anything. I hadn’t. For the next hour I sat, watching the door. Occasionally my mind wandered, and I would start watching people going by, or turn the radio on. At one point a patrol car glided by, and I pretended to be asleep so that they wouldn’t stop and ask what I was doing. It seemed to work. Scott still hadn’t called. I knew he was on

shift but he wasn’t answering his phone, and I even left a message on his cell to call me back. Soon after twelve, while I was changing tapes, a couple arrived at the door. They looked like models. The tape engaged and I managed to record the backs of their heads for a good two seconds before they disappeared into the building. The evidence I’d acquired on videotape so far was hardly damning. It occurred to me that I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d been expecting. Someone delivering her monthly copy of Murderers’ Digest, perhaps? I supposed that at the very least if a murder was committed that day, I’d know where she had been. Who knows, if I followed her after she left the studio, she might return to the scene of one of the crimes. In the meantime, I took my cell phone from my pocket and called Lucy. I gave her Shelley’s

name, work address and car registration, and asked for a full background check. While I was reading out the details, Shelley’s assistant came out of the front door of the building. She returned less than five minutes later with a couple of brown paper bags, presumably containing lunch. I called Abby. She sounded cheerful when she recognized my voice. “Hi Jake, how are you?” “I’m good thanks, and you?” “Oh, you know. Snowed under here. Did I mention I had a great time on Monday?’ “I think you may have said something about that.” I said, smiling. “How goes the case?” “Interesting, actually. I kind of have a suspect. I’m surveilling them now.” “Anyone I know?” “No. The cops aren’t quite convinced.

Come to that, neither am I. Everything I’ve got so far is circumstantial.” “Still useful in building a case.” Abby said. “Yes, but I need something concrete before the cops will move on it. They’re being extra cautious. For political reasons.” “Well, I’m sure you’ll convince them. You seem very persuasive.” “Could I persuade you to have dinner with me again?” I asked, seamlessly. “How about tomorrow night?” “Perfect,” I said. “Why don’t we make it my place this time? I also cook, you know.” “It doesn’t surprise me in the least. Your place it is then. Shall we say 7.30?” “I’ll look forward to it. Goodbye Jake.” I said goodbye, and sat in my car smiling for a while. I tried Scott again. No answer.

I watched the door for as long as I could stand it, and just as my head was about to explode from boredom, I made a bid for freedom. I took out my book on female serial killers and began to read. It would seem I had a lot to learn. Aileen Wuornos was not America’s first female serial killer as I had thought. What she did appear to be, was the first female serial killer in America who worked alone, and didn’t know her victims prior to the murders. Not counting the ones working as part of a killing team, like Mickey and Mallory in Natural Born Killers, America has experienced thirty-six female serial killers in all. Something moved in my peripheral vision, so I looked up. The models were leaving. I looked at my watch, and worked out that they had been in there for a little over two and a half hours. Nothing happened in the next five minutes,

so I went back to my book. Over a third of these women were ‘Black Widows.’ Women who systematically murder multiple husbands or people they have a personal relationship with. Of the rest, almost all killed relatives or people they were employed to care for. Most interesting were the methods favored by these psychopaths. Poison was overwhelmingly the most common, with others choosing to use suffocation, or shooting. But the only killers to have used methods which varied from victim to victim were those who killed with a male partner in crime. I thought about that. Lone female serial killers picked a method of death, and stuck to it. No exceptions. I began to wonder if it was Shelley, who her partner could be. Maybe that’s what my surveillance would provide an answer to. As if on cue, Shelley came out of the

building. I grabbed the camera from the dash and held it up to my eye. She moved towards the BMW, and I struggled to keep the camera focused on her as I fumbled my key into the ignition. A plume of white smoke rose up from her exhaust as she started up. I turned my key. Nothing happened. When I say nothing happened, I don’t mean it quite literally. Some things did happen. For example, Shelley drove away. What I mean is, nothing good happened. Nothing like my Saab chugging into action, me following Shelley, unnoticed, to her secret lovenest, where I would find her with a male psychopath and a stash of guns. Nothing like that happened at all. The reason for this, I realized almost immediately, was the several hours I had spent draining the car battery to run the camcorder. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

While I waited for Triple A to arrive and rescue me, I got a call back from Lucy.

Chapter 39 Scott came to see me in my office after his shift. I had my notepad open where I had written what Lucy had discovered. I decided I would tell him all of it, and leave the one interesting part until last. “Good day?” He asked. “Not really. I had to call Triple A out.” “Car trouble?” “No, I said, without missing a beat, “sometimes I call them out when I’m a man short on a poker game. Most of the mechanics play. It’s part of their extended service. For an extra fifty bucks they’ll come round if you’re just lonely.” “You could have just said ‘yeah’.” “Where’s the fun in that? Now tell me, what

the hell is going on? I’ve been trying to call you since yesterday afternoon.” “Yeah. Sorry man, I’ve been kind of busy. Pulled a double shift yesterday, crashed out for a couple of hours and started early today. I’ve literally just finished up.” “So? What happened?” “Looks like it was Leon Walker.” “Start from the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.” “Well, millions of years ago, the Earth…” “Alright, you can leave some stuff out.” “Okay,” he said. “So we knock on Walker’s door and there’s no answer, but there’s this smell. We all know what it is straight away, so Al kicks the door in and we storm the place, guns out.” He paused for effect. “And?” “There he is, lying against the wall, Calvin

Walsh’s Ithaca in his mouth and the back of his head missing. Man, it’s a mess. Anyway, I turn around and see, on the wall, no, covering the wall, is newspaper clippings about the murders. All neatly cut out, pinned in place. This took him a long time. We found a note, too. Just said ‘Sorry’.” “And you’re sure he did it?” “Looks that way. African-American male, 36 years old. His hair is consistent with the one found in Walsh’s car, and his blood type matches the semen on Linda Kramer. It’ll be a few days before we get the DNA back, but I’m thinking it’s gonna match. His fingerprints were all over the FedEx box with the tape in it, and on the thumb tacks holding the clippings up. Handwriting analysis says he wrote the note. We know he called the first victim and threatened to kill him. We talked to the wife, Loretta, and she

said she walked out when he threatened to kill her and Walsh. She’s been living in a motel for three weeks, hasn’t seen him since. He’s unemployed, and we can’t find anybody who can give him an alibi for any of the murders.” “So he kills Walsh for banging his wife, then what? He snaps and kills seven strangers?” “Seems so.” “Then he sends proof of a threat to the cops, writes an ambiguous note and kills himself?” “It’s not inconsistent. Spree killers often kill themselves. Andrew Cunanan shot himself in a boathouse the morning he killed Versace.” Scott did not look happy to have solved the murders, or even relieved. I thought I knew why. “You’re not 100% on this, are you?” I asked. Scott shrugged. “I don’t know. Something

just doesn’t feel right. The evidence says I’m wrong. I’m pretty sure he did it. It’s just that…” “What?” “Well, the fingerprint on the shotgun shell, from DuPage. It doesn’t match Walker. That doesn’t mean anything. The gun could have already been loaded when he took it from Walsh’s place. I just can’t shake the feeling that the whole thing could have been staged. We’ve been thrown off track by this killer planting evidence before.” He paused again. This time it wasn’t for effect, but to try and convince himself they’d got their man. “I’m sure I’m wrong. The DNA will be back soon and it’ll tie Walker to two of the crime scenes, which I’m sure lead indirectly to more. Anyway, as far as the brass is concerned, it’s case closed.” “I may have an alternative scenario,” I said, boldly. “I’ve been checking into Shelley Ryan.”

“This again?” “You promised you’d listen,” I reminded him. “Okay, what have you got?” “First of all, she’s loaded. She has a dark green BMW with vanity plates, stocks and shares, she owns her studio outright, has for years. She has a plane. A light airplane. She has a private pilot’s license. Daddy taught her to fly, supposedly.” “None of this surprises me. Do you have any idea how rich Daddy is?” “Okay, I’ll cut to the chase. She has a life insurance policy. A cool million. Our friend the Senator is the beneficiary.” “So?” asked Scott. “Until ten years ago this month, the beneficiary was Grant Foster.” “Interesting, I’ll admit. But it’s still

circumstantial.” “There’s more.” I said. “There is?” “Yes. A little more. Shelley’s a photographer.” “My god, you’re right. Why didn’t we see that? She is a photographer. You truly are a great private detective.” “And one of the chemicals photographers use in the developing process is potassium cyanide.” Scott didn’t laugh. He sat and thought for a few seconds “I know I mentioned this before, but... she’s female. Female people do not do this kind of murder.” “Actually, I’ve been doing some reading...” He interrupted “Even if your ‘theory’ about the motive was correct, what about the other

seven?” “Well, I’ve got two theories on that,” I said. “One is that she has a partner. Maybe even Leon Walker.” “And the second theory?” asked Scott. “You remember when you told me about the Tylenol case? That there were a few copycats?” He nodded. “Well, there was an insurance salesman in Seattle. He wanted to kill his wife, and make it look random, so he put cyanide in Excedrin tablets in local shops, and then fed some to his wife. She survived, two other people died, and he got caught.” “So you’re saying Shelley Ryan, or her and Walker, killed seven innocent people to avoid suspicion?” “Eight, if Walker is another victim. I’m saying it’s a possibility. Covering up a crime is a motive for murder.”

“That number of murders would seem excessive though.” “It had to be enough that you guys are sure the motive isn’t personal. Any suspects with a motive to kill one of the victims but no connection to the others wouldn’t be looked at as hard as if there were only a couple of victims.” “What about the assault? Presumably you’re saying Walker did that?” “Maybe. Or Shelley herself. The semen could have been planted. I don’t need to draw you a diagram to show you how she could have made it look like rape.” “Why would she do that?” asked Scott, without thinking. “To make everyone assume the killer is male. If you got a search warrant, and got some of her cyanide from her darkroom, could your lab guys match it against the stuff found with Julie

Campbell?” “Doesn’t matter,” he replied. “The case is closed. Even if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t get a warrant on what you have.” “Don’t you think it’s worth looking into?” “Based on what you have, no, I don’t. At best we have a ten year old motive involving a fire which the fire department called an accident, not arson.” “What does it take to convince you?” I asked. “Evidence. That’s all.” After Scott left to go and sleep, I spent the afternoon formulating two ideas of what I should do next. I called them, provisionally, Plan A and Plan B. Plan A involved me visiting Leitz Futures Inc. first thing the following morning and asking to speak to Lee Connors.

Chapter 40 After a phone conversation far too long to inform the receptionist that Lee Connors was in a meeting, I was told that he was in a meeting. I looked at my watch, and worked out that I had nearly ten hours to kill before I was due to meet Abby. I told the receptionist I would wait. She went back on the phone, and after a few more minutes, I was informed that Mr Connors would be in meetings all day and would not be able to see me. I smiled, and said that I would wait anyway, in case Mr Connors found five minutes between meetings, or he broke for lunch. I also mentioned that in the meantime I would occupy myself by asking anyone I saw in the lobby if they had any information about Richard West.

Within two minutes, Lee Connors had managed to find time in his schedule for a short meeting. “I really must protest, Mr Abraham,” he said, as he lunged into the lobby, “at your hostile manipulation tactics.” “Listen Mr Connors, I know you’re a very busy man, so let’s not waste time protesting. Shall we do this in your office?” He looked around at the faces of his employees. “Follow me,” he said. When we reached his office, he sat down behind his big desk, interlaced his fingers, and raised his huge eyebrows expectantly. He said nothing. “I’d like you to take a look at something.” I said, and took out a picture of Shelley Ryan. I had captured a still image from the video footage of Shelley leaving her office and then, based on

the information from the bartender at Circle, I had colored her hair blonde in Paint Shop Pro. “Do you recognize this woman?” I asked. “Of course not, why should I?” “Mr Connors, I know you lied to me about where Richard went that night, and I think I know why. Marie West doesn’t need to know the details, but the pain she’s feeling at the moment, not knowing why her husband died, is just as bad as any pain you are saving her from by lying to me and to the police. I’ll ask you again. Do you recognize the woman in the photo?” He took a deep breath. “She looks a little like a woman Richard got talking to in the bar that night,” he said, his whole body slouching in despair. “Was it her?” I asked “I can’t be sure. It could be. She looks

similar. It was dark, I’d been drinking. I didn’t stay long.” “Were they still together when you left?” He hung his head and nodded. I left Connors slumped in his office chair, worrying about Marie West. What he told me backed up what I suspected, but wasn’t usable. He just wasn’t sure. I took the photo round the corner to Circle, and showed the same bartender I had spoken to almost a week before. He said the woman in the photo might be the same one who had bought Richard West’s drinks that night, but he couldn’t swear to it. I asked him to imagine her with long hair, but it didn’t help. I had no more luck with Angel DeMarco, who I showed another version of the photo, one in which I had made Shelley a redhead. Angel said she hadn’t paid the woman much attention, and that she wished she could be

more help. I showed her the blonde version and the original, unaltered photo, but it was no use. Nobody could positively identify Shelley as being with either Susan Patterson or Richard West on the nights they died. Plan B. I swung by the office and picked up the set of lock picks I’d been given when I left Hayes & Co., then I walked to a hardware store and bought some disposable latex gloves. Shelley Ryan’s green BMW was parked outside her studio in the same place as it had been the previous day. If she kept to the same schedule, I had at least three hours. Shelley’s house was a three storey Victorian gray stone building in Wicker Park, which must have cost a couple of million bucks. It looked empty from the street. I parked a block away and found a baseball cap in my glove box

that I figured was better than nothing as a disguise, though I felt like I should really be wearing black for breaking and entering. The street wasn’t busy, but the house overlooked the park, so there were people milling about, walking dogs and so on. I felt like they were all watching me as I climbed the stoop and pushed the buzzer. Nothing. While I waited I checked out the lock. It was an electronic keypad - no keyhole, so no chance of being picked. I headed round the back. The rear door had a regular lock. Nothing fancy by the look of it, just a basic $12 lock – the same kind, as far as I could tell, as Shelley had on the door of her studio. I glanced around, but the back yard was quite private thanks to a canopy of trees at the border. I took a few deep breaths, removed the lock picks from my jacket pocket and set to

work. I inserted the tension wrench, my hand shaking slightly, and put just a tiny bit of pressure on it, ready to turn as the tumblers fell into place. With my free hand I took out the half-diamond pick and pushed it into the lock and slowly drew it out, raking the tumblers as I went. I put a bit more pressure on the tension wrench. Then a bit more. But it didn’t budge. Odd. The guy in the YouTube video made it seem much easier. I knew the theory, I’d looked at cross sections of locks and it all made sense. I’d read how-tos and watched video tutorials, but practice, I guess, is a different animal. I tried again, from the top. I kept trying for about twenty minutes, but each time I ended up on the wrong side of the door. The lowest windows were eight feet off the ground, so I looked for something to stand on. I chose a black, City of Chicago garbage cart, which looked like it would take my

weight. The window was locked, as I suspected, and I wasn’t going to learn much from the room inside. It was just a regular dining room. A bit brightly colored for me, with canary yellow walls and purple drapes – the kind of thing a real estate agent would call ‘vibrant’ – but nothing incriminating. No jars of body parts. No wall of news clippings like at Leon Walker’s place. From my vantage point I could see the other side of the back door as well, and I saw that I’d been wasting my time. Even if I’d managed to deal with the lock I would have been defeated by two large vertical bolts at the top and bottom of the door. Shelley sure was security minded. I didn’t remember seeing such vigilance at her studio. Maybe the house was where she kept all the good stuff. I climbed down from the garbage cart

dejected, ready to leave empty-handed, then I had a thought. I opened the cart and there were two large black garbage bags inside. You can learn a lot by going through someone’s garbage. I headed back to the car swiftly and purposefully, trying hard to look as though nothing was quite so normal as a man heaving two large garbage bags into the trunk of his car. I told myself I was taking some old clothes to donate to Goodwill and hoped that the charity showed in my eyes.

Chapter 41 I drove back to my apartment via a Home Depot, where I bought a large plastic dust sheet and a $12 lock. I cleared a space in the living room and laid out the dust sheet before bringing the garbage bags in from the car. It didn’t seem to matter much which bag I picked first, so I just chose one and ripped the top open. The stench was what you might expect from a bag of garbage several days old, so I had to leave the room for a moment. I found some Vaporub in the bathroom cabinet and rubbed some on my upper lip the way I’d seen pathologists do in the movies. It helped a lot. The bag’s contents emptied onto the dust sheet, I started to dig through it looking for useful stuff. After moving the same chicken bone three

times I hit on a new plan. I picked everything up in turn and assigned it to a pile on the edge of the sheet – food items in one pile, paper and card in another, plastic and cellophane in a third, and glass and metal in a fourth. I had planned on a fifth pile for miscellaneous items, but almost everything fitted into the first four. Shelley was not a big recycler. There were no surprises. A few wine bottles, empty cereal boxes, potato and carrot peelings, yogurt pots, balls of aluminum foil, a couple of magazines, plastic trays that once held meat, six banana skins, a pair of laddered pantyhose, the remains of a roast chicken, a carton of cream that was past its expiration date, a small stack of unopened junk mail, some candy wrappers and a few pieces of bad fruit. The second garbage bag, I would say, was older. The smell was certainly worse, and the banana skins

(only five this time) were in a worse state. There were a lot of duplicated items – more wine bottles, more junk mail, foil and so on. A pizza box and a couple of half-full Chinese takeaway containers suggested she’d had less time to cook earlier in the week. The big find in the second bag was a large ball of shredded paper. I cleared everything else away and folded the dust sheet in half, so as to avoid kneeling in food gunk while I went through the long strips of paper. After some futile attempts at figuring out which bit went next to which, I divided it up by color. About ninety percent of it was white, some pink, some kind of cream and there were some glossy promotional flyers that I guessed had been pushed through the door or left on her windshield. The clock on the wall told me it was nearly five. In two and a half hours I had to be at

Abby’s front door with a bunch of flowers and a bottle of wine, and I should probably take quite a long shower first. There was no way I’d be able to sort through all the paper in time, so I started on the smaller piles. The cream strips of paper slowly became an old bank statement, a quote for home insurance and two envelopes. The pink pile was slightly smaller and was easier to separate out because the two items were very different thicknesses. The thicker of the two, almost card, was an invitation to a photography exhibition that was happening in a week’s time. The thinner was a receipt for a month’s rental on a 10’ x 20’ unit at an establishment called Cal City Self Storage. It was dated September 15th. It had taken a while to piece together what I had, so I left the large white pile of paper for another time, and thought about what I’d found while I scrubbed away the smell of rotting fruit

and old chicken in the shower. September 15th was a Saturday. The day Richard West was killed. The day after Susan Peterson was abducted.

Chapter 42 Abby greeted me at the door looking incredible, as usual. I’d made sure to choose flowers with a strong scent, to mask any residual odor from the garbage. She took them from me and kissed me. My stomach did that thing stomachs do when a lift goes down too fast. Abby went to check on dinner and I wondered around her living room, checking out the photos of her family on the mantelpiece. “Is there anything I can do?” I asked, still in the living room. I wondered if she was the kind of hostess who wanted to keep the kitchen off limits to guests or if she was more relaxed. “You could open the wine”, she said, popping her head round the door. I went in and found she had everything completely under

control. When I cook, which is quite often, every available surface is covered in pans, chopping boards, flour tubs and so on. Abby’s granite worktop was sparkling clean. She had a couple of pans on the stove and a small tub of green beans ready to add to one of them. It was like a cookery show on TV. She registered my admiration. “I clean as I go”, she said, modestly, and then whispered “most of it’s in the dishwasher already”. She handed me a bottle opener and I found the wine I had brought in the icebox. I’m not a big wine drinker, but social constraints prevented me from bringing a six pack of beer instead, so I chose a mid-price Pinot Noir and hoped for the best. I poured two glasses and asked her about her day. “I’m trapped in voir dire on a manslaughter case. You know what voir dire is?”

“Jury selection, right?” “Right. Picking the twelve good men and true who get to decide the fate of my client. Weeding out prejudice and bias unless it’s in our favor”. “You sound a little cynical.” “Hard not to be after a while, I think,” she said. She put the beans in one of the pans and gave it a stir, then came over to me and put her arms around my shoulders. “It was a Chicago lawyer who said ‘A jury is made up of twelve people who are too stupid to get out of jury duty’. Only I don’t believe that. Sure, some of them are dumb, but I do believe there are people who take their civic duty seriously. They believe in our system of justice and are proud to be a part of it. If I could get twelve like that I’d take it every day of the week and not worry about whether they once got beat up by a black man or

whether they work for minimum wage and might resent a baseball player for how much he earns.” “So you’re defending a black ballplayer accused of manslaughter?” She smiled. “I’m speaking hypothetically. We’ve got one juror – let’s call him Dave, who campaigns on environmental issues in his spare time. My second chair thinks he will convict our client of manslaughter because he drives an SUV. Dave seems like a sensible, law abiding guy. I think he’ll weigh up the evidence and argue strongly in the jury room for whichever side makes the most compelling case”. “Which will be you, of course.” “Of course.” “So maybe you’re not so cynical as all that. Dave stays?” Abby nodded, like she was making the decision there and then. “Dave stays,” she said,

and visibly relaxed. Then she kissed me and took a sip of wine. Dinner was venison, slow cooked in a white wine and mushroom sauce. It was as good as anything we’d had at Spiaggia. “So, are you working on anything new?” Abby asked, popping a forkful of green beans into her mouth. “Nope, still the ‘Zorro’ case.” “Oh. Didn’t the police find the killer? It was on the news.” “Well, they found someone. I’m not convinced.” I listened to myself, and felt the need to add “I’m not some kind of conspiracy theorist or anything, there’s just some things that I think bear further investigation.” “Tell me.” I laid it all out for her. The 10 year old arson, the lies about Grant and Shelley’s break-

up, the life insurance policy, the cyanide connection, the Excedrin theory, the possible but not definite I.D. from the Circle bartender and Lee Collins, the bathtub drowning theory and finally the Calumet City storage unit rental. I glossed over the fact I’d been knee deep in garbage that afternoon, and completely missed out my total failure to break and/or enter. By the time I finished we were on to dessert, a homemade blueberry cheesecake that was just the right combination of sweet and sharp. “It’s interesting. Based on what you have, I don’t think a DA would mount a case, and if they did, a good defense attorney would shoot down the individual elements one by one and would have a very good chance of getting an acquittal.” “So you think I’m wrong?” “I didn’t say that,” said Abby, smiling. “Usually, the law isn’t about what happened, it’s

about what you can prove happened. Outside of a courtroom, you make a compelling case. So, you think she was working with this Leon Walker?” “I don’t know. Maybe. If I’m right, she’s very good at manipulating people. Maybe he was just a pawn.” “And this storage unit. It’s in Cal City?” “154th Street,” I said. “Where does Shelley live again?” Abby asked. “Wicker Park.” “That’s a good half hour drive. There must be ten self storage places nearer to home.” “What makes this one special, you mean?” “Exactly.” “I’m heading down there tomorrow morning to see if I can figure that out,” I said. Abby lifted the wine bottle to pour me another glass.

“I shouldn’t,” I said. “I’m driving.” She tilted her head down a little and looked at me from under her brow, which had the effect of making her eyes look even bigger. “You don’t… have to drive anywhere,” she said, coyly. “You could stay here tonight.” “On the couch?” I asked, and instantly berated myself for looking stupid and prudish in my attempt not to presume. “Sure,” said Abby, more confident now. “We could start on the couch.”

Chapter 43 We lay together, naked, on Abby’s bed, getting our breath back. We had eschewed the couch for greater comfort. The covers lay in a pile on the floor, alongside our clothes. The lights were on and her body, glistening now, looked every bit as perfect as I had imagined. Soon the air conditioning made us cooler and Abby pulled the covers off the floor and over both of us. She turned out the light, snuggled into my arms and made a happy sound. We didn’t speak again until morning. I woke to the sound of the shower running in the en-suite bathroom. It turned off and Abby came into the bedroom in a white toweling robe, her wet hair swept back and dripping slightly. She leaned over the bed and kissed me. It was a

good way to wake up. “Sleep well?” she asked. I showered and we ate breakfast together. Conversation was easy and playful over croissants and juice. We agreed to get together again on Monday and then she had to go to work. I had somewhere to be too. Back at my apartment for a change of clothes, I remembered I still had a pile of shredded white paper to go through. I also wanted to check something in my notebook. Talking to Abby last night had triggered a memory and after leafing through the pages for a moment I found it. 154th Street. The street where Cal City Self Storage stood was the same one where Susan Patterson’s cell phone had been on Saturday morning, the last time it was switched on. The same day Shelley Ryan rented a storage unit big enough to hide a Volkswagen

with a half-dead body in the trunk. Abby had made a good point. Why go all that way when there are plenty of Self Storage places nearer. I wanted to get over there, but I also wanted to sort out the strips of paper. The paper won. Two hours later I had a pile of pages, the strips held together with Scotch tape, and a smaller pile of strips I just couldn’t match up to anything. I hadn’t learned much. There were quite a few envelopes, a grocery list, three pre-approved offers of credit cards, a letter telling Shelley she had won a million and a half Euros in a Spanish lottery and all she had to do to collect was send them all her bank details along with her date of birth and mother’s maiden name, a hand written list of twelve phone numbers and an electricity bill. The list of numbers intrigued me, and I considered waiting until I was back in my office

to plug them into the phone disc, but curiosity got the better of me and I hit on a quicker way to find out who they were. I called them. The first answered quickly and professionally. “Affordable Self Storage, Tim speaking, how may I help you today?” “Sorry Tim, wrong number.” I said. Working down the list, I found each one was a storage company. Cal City was number nine. I really needed to get over there.

Chapter 44 According to Earl, the man behind the desk at Cal City, his was quite a small facility. He started it with his brother three years ago, their minimum rental term was a calendar month and no, I couldn’t take a look in someone’s unit. Not without a court order. “I can show you an empty one. See what they’re like.” I couldn’t see how this would help, but it was something to do while we talked, so I agreed. “Before we go, though,” I said, “could you look up which unit is rented to a Miss Shelley Ryan, please?” I figured I could at least look at which one was hers. He typed the name in, then shook his head.

“R-Y-A-N?” he asked. I nodded, trying to picture it spelled another way. “Nope. Nobody named Ryan has a rental right now.” He chewed gum while he talked. I took out the taped together receipt from my pocket and handed it to him. “Can you figure it out from this?” He typed again. “Invoice number comes back to unit 16D. Rented to a Dr Matthews. Paid in cash.” “Man or woman?” “Doesn’t say. You wanna see a unit or not?” While we walked I showed Earl the photo array of Shelley with her hair colored differently in each shot. He didn’t recognize her and didn’t recall anything about Dr Matthews. Cal City Self Storage was basically four rows of single story garage units with up and over

doors. Some were wider than others, and most were sealed with identical padlocks. The one Earl chose to show me was within sight of 16D. He lifted the door and we walked into a windowless, featureless box about the size of a station wagon with the doors open. I made appreciative noises and as he was closing up I wandered over and took a closer look at the padlock on 16D. It was the same as the others. It didn’t look unbreakable. “You sell these?” I said, pointing at the lock. “Yeah. People like to feel they own the lock that keeps their stuff safe. That way they know they have the only keys.” “Are they good? They look pretty strong.” “They do the job,” said Earl, with a shrug. “Not top of the line, but they keep the door shut. Besides, anyone gets through the lock will set off

the alarm.” “Alarm?” So much for sneaking back later and breaking in. “Each unit is alarmed. Then there’s Heinrich and Wilhelm.” “Security guards?” “My brother’s big-ass dogs. German shepherds. They have the run of the place at night, and they’re trained to attack. Well, they’re not trained, exactly. They’re just vicious bastards. So, this chick you’re after? What she do?” “We think she stole a car. Beat up old blue VW.” “And you think it might be here?” “Possibly. Are you sure I can’t just have a quick peek in 16D? It sure would save me a lot of trouble.” “Sorry. We don’t offer much here, but we

do offer peace of mind. When you store something with us it stays stored until you say otherwise.” “Understood,” I said. Earl was firm on not letting me in. “Say, Earl, there’s one thing I can’t figure out. Maybe you can help. This woman drove a ways to get to your facility. Anything you can think might have made her choose you over some of the other places nearer by? What makes you stand out?” “Price, probably. We’re one of the cheapest self storage locations in the South Chicago area. I like to call it a no frills service. Some other places have the fancy extras – climate controlled units, 24 hour electronic access, security cameras…” “Wait,” I cut in. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it before. “You don’t have security cameras.”

“That’s right. We just got the locks, the alarms and the dogs. Cameras are expensive, then you got to pay someone to watch ‘em all day and night. It’s one of the ways we can keep our costs down and provide a low budget alternative to…” “The other self storage places have security cameras.” It was more to myself than to Earl, but he felt the need to answer anyway. “Yup. Most of ‘em anyway.” “Do people ask about your security features before they rent units?” “Some do. I guess some just figure we’re secure. There’s a leaflet at the desk explains everything. Some read it while they’re waiting.” “How about by phone? Anyone ask about security cameras on the phone recently?” “Not often. Had one woman call about ‘em a couple weeks ago, but usually they’re just

asking about opening times, availability of units and such.” “This woman. Was it a Saturday morning she called?” “Who knows? Could be. I don’t remember.” Shelley had been smart. She’d found a place she wouldn’t be caught on tape, used an androgynous fake name, paid in cash. I guess another advantage of coming so far out of her way was that she was less likely to be seen by anyone she knew. If I hadn’t found the receipt in the trash nobody would have ever known she was here. On its own, though, it still didn’t prove anything. The connection to Susan’s phone records, along with all the circumstantial evidence, might possibly be enough to convince a judge to issue a search warrant for the storage

unit, if the case wasn’t already closed. I was going to need more.

Chapter 45 It was Saturday, and I wasn’t surprised to find that Shelley’s BMW was not parked outside her studio when I drove past on my way home. I could only think of two things left to do. One was to break into the studio to look for evidence. The other was to go to Shelley’s house and ask her a loaded question about the storage unit, then wait to see what she did. Nothing like stirring a pot to get things going, and at the moment she was probably feeling fairly comfortable, given that the cops had closed the case. I would probably end up doing both, but, since confronting a serial killer head on is something you don’t want to rush into, I chose the other option first. Remembering my first break-in attempt, and always one to learn from

mistakes, I went home to prepare. I took out the lock I’d bought from Home Depot the day before and taped it to my desk, and locked it with the key. Then I found my lock picks and set about the business of trying to unlock it without the key. The first time the lock clicked open, I felt incredible. The fact that it had taken half an hour, quite a long time if you’re trying to break in somewhere, didn’t bother me as much as it should have, and I started again immediately. My time almost halved on the second attempt, and went on improving with each successive break-in. After two and a half hours, my average time was just under a minute. Still a long time to be standing outside someone’s door, fumbling with the lock and trying not to look suspicious, but I had two times under twenty seconds, and I was feeling lucky.

This time I changed into my dark suit. I still felt black was appropriate for breaking and entering, and though it wasn’t even dark outside It would probably help to feel as though I looked the part. There was a spot of blood on the lapel from where Byrne and Dugan attacked me, but it hardly showed, and I wasn’t planning on being seen, let alone inspected for cleanliness. I buttered a hunk of bread, and wolfed it down with a Coke, then I left. My heart was pounding, and I waited a full five minutes in the car across the street from the studio before I got out. This was the front door on a downtown Saturday, not the secluded back door on a Friday lunchtime in Wicker Park. As I crossed the street, I felt like everyone was watching me. I could see no obvious police presence, and so I made my way to the door. I pushed the buzzer and waited, but there was no

reply. As nonchalantly as I could, I removed the lock picks from my jacket pocket, and set to work. I tried to look like I was just having a bit of difficulty with my key and occasionally, as people walked by, I would mutter something like ‘Goddamn key,’ under my breath. I have no idea how long I was standing trying to pick the lock. It felt like hours, but nobody stopped me or asked me what I was doing, and when the lock finally sprang open I was inside in a second, breathing hard and putting on my latex gloves. The door at the top of the stairs also had a lock, but fortunately I tried opening it before I got my picks out again. It was unlocked. When I got inside the studio, and the door closed behind me, I was in total darkness. At first I cursed myself for not bringing a torch, but then I realized that nobody would be able to see the lights outside, since there were no windows, so I

fumbled for a light switch. The one I found turned all the lights on full, and the situation went from one extreme to the other, the white walls and floor reflecting back nearly all the light from the ceiling rigs. I made my way through the blinding whiteness to the door with the light bulb over it. The switch I found just inside bathed the small room in red light, and the bulb outside the door added some more white light to the studio. The light sources all mixed together as I left the door ajar to look for my evidence. Photographs were hung up to dry in racks, and I couldn’t resist leafing through them. Shelley was good. Even better than I would have guessed from watching her work. It didn’t take long before I’d found which cupboard she kept the chemicals in, and what I had come for. I picked up the jar of potassium cyanide.

I knew what I was doing wasn’t legal. I knew that it couldn’t be used in court. I knew that if the police used it as the basis for a search warrant, anything they found would probably be inadmissible. But I had a plan. If I found something incriminating I would leave it in plain sight – somewhere it couldn’t be missed, then call the police and tell them, anonymously of course, that I had just seen someone breaking into the studio and that they were still inside. The police, naturally, would rush to the scene and find the intruder gone, but if they saw some evidence in plain sight they could act on it. The cyanide was good, if it could be matched with the stuff that killed Julie Campbell, but it probably wasn’t enough to launch an investigation, so I kept looking. I turned to leave the small room, and something else caught my eye. On the counter top, next to a sort of

chopping board, and a paper guillotine, lay a small craft knife. Shelley must have used it for cropping pictures. Amongst other things, perhaps. I reached out for the knife, but for some reason, I didn’t pick it up. For some reason, I chose to lay down on the floor instead, bleeding and unconscious.

Chapter 46 When I woke up, I was more than a little disoriented. My breathing was labored, I couldn’t see anything very clearly, and my left foot was warm, wet, and painful. I raised my head, and saw a figure crouched down by my feet. In as swift a movement as I could manage, I raised my right knee up to my chest, and kicked out at the head of the figure. As they fell away, out of my field of vision, I put my hands to my face and felt plastic. I felt down to my neck, and discovered that the polythene bag that had been placed over my head had been taped down at my neck to prevent me from removing it. I could hardly breathe at all, and I was beginning to panic. I clawed at my mouth, trying

to break the polythene. It was too thick. I started checking my pockets. My right hand stopped on a shape in my jacket pocket, and if I could, I would have breathed a sigh of relief. I removed the switchblade I’d taken off Dean Dugan a week before, opened it, and cut a hole in the bag over my head. I sucked in air like a baby taking its first breath, and felt light headed. Before I knew what was happening, Shelley Ryan was on top of me, and lifting the craft knife high over her head in her left hand. I managed to catch her wrist before the knife pierced my chest, and with my other hand, I plunged the switchblade into her thigh. I twisted it so that the wound wouldn’t close, and shoved her off me. My hand went inside my jacket to my gun. It found nothing. It had no better luck looking for my backup on my belt. Then I saw that Shelley was holding my

Sundance. Bad move. She should have picked up the Glock. From the fact that she didn’t I inferred that she didn’t know much about guns. And that she probably wasn’t a very good shot. I made my decision to act. I leapt towards the wall, and smashed my fist into the glass cover of the box containing the fire axe. As my feet left the floor, I heard a shot, and simultaneously felt a hot pain ripping through my side. I fell to the ground holding the fire axe in both hands, its metal head over my heart. Shelley took aim again, but her stance was terrible and her hands were shaking. I hoped she might miss. She squeezed the trigger, and the gun clicked. It jammed. I was so glad I hadn’t bought a revolver for a backup. Shelley threw the Sundance across the room, and it skittered on the floor. I made a mental note of where it ended up, while Shelley

turned around to look for the Glock. I looked at the distance between us. Too far. Instead, I swung the axe as hard as I could. I severed the bundle of cables coming from the ceiling just above the point where they entered the electrical box. Everything went black. There was no light from outside the door, no light from anywhere. Shelley had found the trigger on the Glock, and fired at me, but I was no longer there. I had rolled away. I tried to stay as silent as possible as I assessed my damage. My foot was bleeding from a cut. She must have thought I was already dead, or wouldn’t last long. My hand was cut, but I didn’t think it was broken, and of course, I had a small hole in my right side. I located the hole, and started looking for an exit wound in my back. I found one.

It was a clean hole, and the fact that it was there at all was a good sign. At least the bullet hadn’t lodged in anything important. Trouble was, with two holes, I was losing blood fast. My shirt and jacket were soaked in blood, and I didn’t see how I could put pressure on both wounds at once, so I needed to get to a hospital quick. Assuming I could get out of there at all, of course. I wondered what time it was, and if I would ever see Abby again. I found the wall, and started moving along it, staying close to the floor. I figured if I moved around the outside of the room, I’d eventually find a door, and be able to escape. Neither of us said a thing. I listened for her breathing. I could hear something, but I couldn’t work out what direction it was in. I tried to keep my own breathing as shallow as possible.

I hadn’t been crawling for long when my hand touched something metal. It was my Sundance. Now I was armed too. Admittedly, I only had a .25 caliber pistol against a 9mm, and even with my extra clip I had twelve good rounds versus Shelley’s sixteen, but it was a start. I eased the dud round out of the chamber, and jacked another in to replace it. I did it as quietly as possible but you can’t unjam a handgun without making any noise. I rolled again, and heard another shot but didn’t feel it. When I found the door, I reached up and grabbed the handle. It rattled slightly, and straight away a bullet slammed into the wall by my shoulder. The door was locked anyway. I decided my lock-picking skills definitely weren’t advanced enough to escape silently in pitch darkness, so I moved on. I decided that if I could get Shelley talking, I‘d have more chance of

hitting her. I also realized that she would have more chance of hitting me if I spoke, but I was definitely a better shot. “Big mistake, Shelley.” My voice sounded as loud as a gunshot in the darkened quiet room. She said nothing. “You could have just shot me when you came in,” I said, making myself as small a target as possible and trying to keep moving. “You could have claimed I broke in.” “You did,” she said. Her voice was loud, clear, and coming from about ten feet to my left.

Chapter 47 I found myself waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Of course, they couldn’t, because no matter how large my pupils became there was no light at all in the room. It was still way too dark to figure out exactly where Shelley was standing. “So why all this?” I asked her. “Why the ‘Zorro’ routine, when you could have just shot me as a burglar?” “Maybe I didn’t want anyone else poking around the place. I dump you somewhere, you become just another baffling corpse. The police would stumble over each other again once a new body was discovered.” “I see you’ve been following the investigation.” As I crawled along, my head hit

something wooden and movable. It was the desk Shelley’s assistant had sat at to make notes and phone calls. A bullet shattered the silence, and the leg of the desk. “Well, I do have a vested interest,” said Shelley, as if she hadn’t just shot at me. She seemed eager to talk. I was certainly eager to listen, but I had something to do first. Sitting under the desk, as if it offered some protection, I took my cell phone from my trouser pocket. I covered the large LCD screen with one hand and, with the other, dialed Scott’s number as best I could in the dark. Once the LCD faded I placed the phone on the floor and moved away from it. To cover the sound, however quiet, of Scott’s answer, I thought of something else to say. “Okay Shelley,” I said, trying not to make it too obvious, “I understand why you killed Grant,

but why the others?” “You’re so clever, you figure it out.” She was trying the same trick as me. Trying to make me talk to help her with her aim. She didn’t seem too shabby as it was, so when I answered, I kept it brief. “My opinion? The others were a diversion.” Shelley went quiet. Quieter than before. Perhaps she was trying again to locate me. She finally spoke. “I’m impressed,” she said. In the dark, I looked smug. No-one saw. “Nine innocent people?” “Ten, counting you,” she said, and another bullet sped past my ear and thunked into the wall behind me. “Besides, they weren’t all innocent.” “Leon Walker?” She laughed. “That idiot? He never did anything. I took Walsh’s answering machine tape

because I’d left a message on it. When I played it back I found his phone call, so I tracked him down. He was so easy to seduce it made me sick. He cried when I put the shotgun in his mouth.” “Who then?” Suddenly the light bulb came on over the door to the darkroom. It was the brightest thing I’d ever seen, and it burned into my retinas. Before I could recover, I was on the floor, bleeding from a new hole in my left shoulder, and swearing. I started rolling, and I counted three more shots as they ricocheted off the hard cement floor. I got to my knees, and couldn’t see Shelley. Couldn’t see much of anything except the bright, bright light. I started firing my .25 in its general direction. Within a few shots, the light went out. I rolled again, so I wasn’t where Shelley had last

seen me, and heard two more rounds from the Glock. In my head, I tried to count. I made it that she had six shots left, and I had one or two before I would have to reload. I didn’t want to wait until I had run out, so I swapped the full clip in my holster for the one in my gun. It occurred to me how lucky I was that Shelley had left the clips in the holster. Shelley continued as if nothing had happened. As far as I could tell, she wasn’t even breathing hard. “Grant was not innocent. He deserved everything he got..” “Oh, that’s right. He left you. Yeah, that’s a good reason to kill someone.” I was living dangerously, but I figured I didn’t have much time left before I had to make my move. She didn’t answer straight away. I thought I heard a footstep to my left.

“He killed my baby,” she said. I hadn’t expected that. “It was the night I told him I was pregnant. We had a fight because he’d just beaten a drunk driving charge and I told him he had to be more responsible now. After I’d gone to bed he set my house on fire. Tried to kill me. I lost the baby. When he found out I was still alive he took all my money and disappeared. They would have found me eventually. This way, by the time Grant was dead, the investigation was already well underway. An investigation where the narrow minded police immediately ruled out all women. I waited until the time was right, then all I had to do was distract the police with some other bodies.” “And you had no trouble killing all those people?” “Not at all. If I was caught for Grant’s

murder I would have been facing the death penalty, so I had a choice to make. My life, or the lives of eight people I’d never met. The men were easy, and the cop’s daughter, I seduced her too. The others I had to take by surprise.” She was gloating and I wanted to know more, but my time was running out. I stayed on my knees, closed my eyes, and held my gun out at shoulder height. I listened for her breathing. It was not enough. “Why the Z? On the feet? What does it mean?” I said. I heard another shot, but nothing hit me. “Nothing. It’s arbitrary. All I needed was something to connect the bodies. If people agonized over what it meant, so much the better. I meant noth...” Before she could finish, I turned my upper body towards the sound of her voice, and fired

five times. “Ow, you bastard!” Shelley said. “You shot me. You fucking shot me.” “Hurts, doesn’t it? “You bastard. You’re fucking dead. You’re...” I emptied my last three rounds at the voice, and it stopped. No more yelling, no more swearing, no more shooting. No more breathing, from what I could hear. The room became silent and black again. There was an eerie calm to it. I slumped on the floor and lay there until I passed out. Then I lay there some more.

Chapter 48 I thought I was still in Shelley’s studio when I woke up. The walls and the ceiling of my hospital room were also painted white. Various parts of my body were bandaged, and when I tried to sit up in bed, the pain in my side stopped me short. “Hey buddy,” Scott’s voice said from the end of the bed. “How you doing?” “Great,” I said. “Just great. Have you filled in my menu card yet, only I want extra Jello.” “That was some stunt you pulled.” “If the next words out of your mouth are ‘It could have gotten you killed’, I’m going back to sleep.” “Okay, I won’t say it. But I do have to read you your rights, I’m afraid. I hate to have to do it,

but you did kill someone.” I lifted my head, and looked at his face. I couldn’t tell if he was joking. So I asked. “Are you joking?” “Jake, you shot her six times.” Not bad, I thought. Six out of eight, when I couldn’t even see the target. “This is crazy.” I said. “Perhaps you’d like to speak to your attorney.” “I don’t have an attorney.” “I took the liberty of calling one for you.” “Scott, look...” I stopped when he gestured towards the door. I turned my head, and my left shoulder urged me to stop moving. Standing in the doorway was Abby. She was smiling her bright smile. Despite my shoulder, I turned to look at Scott. He was smiling too. Grinning actually.

“You bastard.” I said. Abby moved towards the bed. “I wouldn’t worry, there’s a chance we can plead selfdefense,” she said. “By the way, I may have to take a rain check on dinner tonight.” “Well, when you get out of here, I might give you another chance.” She kissed me. I felt a whole lot better. Who says laughter is the best medicine? “Shelley Ryan checked out, by the way.” Scott said. “We matched her thumbprint to the shotgun shell in DuPage woods, we found carpet fibers in her apartment that placed her at several of the scenes, and sneakers consistent with the footprint at the Kramer crime scene. Looks like she planted Walker’s hair and semen. Along with the tape of your conversation with her, once you corroborate it with a statement, that means case

closed.” “Well,” I said, “I hate to say I told you so...” “No you don’t,” said Scott. “But I can take it. You did good work.” “I got lucky.” “You call this lucky?” asked Abby. I started to laugh, but it hurt. A lot. Definitely not the best medicine. A figure appeared at the door and I slowly moved my head to see who it was. Gregory Patterson stepped into the room and nodded hello to Scott and Abby, who said they’d be outside if I needed anything, and left. “Detective Bales told me what you did,” he said. I could smell the bourbon on his breath, but he seemed sober. Maybe the smell was on his clothes. He smiled. “I was rehearsing what I was going to say to you the whole way over here, but

I can’t remember any of it. I guess I just want to thank you. I don’t even know where to start.” “No problem.” I lied. “I was shot once. Hurts like a son of a bitch for a few days but the pain goes away pretty quick after that. I guess some things take longer to heal than others.” He shook my hand and left, and Abby and Scott stayed and made me laugh some more.

###

Table of Contents Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16

Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35

Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48