Hush (26 page)

He suddenly pulled over and stopped the car.
He wiped his face, then stared straight ahead through the
windshield. "It was the hockey stick," he finally said.

"He's never done that before. Do you think it
has some significance, or was it simply the right tool for the
job?"

He was quiet a moment, his breathing uneven,
a little ragged, as if he were struggling for control. "Ethan plays
hockey."

Christ. "Okay, let's suppose for a minute
that there is a connection somehow. What's the message he's
sending?"

"He's playing with our heads, that's what
he's doing."

"He's also communicating in his own twisted
way. He's letting us know that he's watching us. The hockey stick
could be purely coincidence, but say it isn't. Then he's telling
you he knows enough about you and your family to know that Ethan
plays hockey."

Max pulled out his mobile phone and dialed.
Moments later, he was speaking to his son. "Ethan? Yeah, I know
it's early. Do you have practice today? A game? No, nothing's
wrong. Okay, I'll pick you up when you get off work. Nine o'clock."
He disconnected. "No practice, no game," he said, sounding
relieved.

"I don't think he'd go after Ethan. It's not
what he's about. Ethan is practically an adult, and he's really
after the mothers anyway. The children are secondary."

"Logically, I know that. But I have this pain
in my chest and throat, and I just realized what it is. Fear. In
all the years I've been in this business, I've never felt
fear."

She could offer him no words of comfort.
There was no greater fear than the fear of a parent for a
child.

"Looks good, don't you think?"

Alex Martin sat at his desk, admiring his
byline on page three of the Chicago Herald.

"Not bad," Maude agreed.

Was that a grudging agreement? Alex wondered.
Was she toying with him? Maybe even teasing him a little? With
Maude, it was hard to tell. She always had a hint of a smirk about
her.

Alex had had a hard time convincing her to
even run it past editorial, but she'd finally relented and once she
made up her mind about something you were pretty much in. She'd
been around so long, and her track record was so good, that no one
argued when she pushed a piece, even one as unusual as Alex's.

Maude left, and he concentrated on the paper
in his hands, reading his article for the third time. . . .

The newspaper was almost ripped from Ivy's
hands as the Green Line train roared into the underground station,
the noise deafening as the back draft tried to suck her closer to
the narrow ledge.

The double doors opened and she stepped
inside. There were two tone-dead dings before a prerecorded
monotone male voice announced, "Doors closing. Next stop is
Pulaski. Doors open on the right."

Ivy dropped into the nearest empty seat,
quickly continuing with the newspaper article.

MADONNA MURDERER STRIKES AGAIN

Early Sunday morning the bodies of April and
Joshua Rodrigez, a young mother and her one- year-old son, were
found in Crocus Hill Park. When asked about the progress of the
case, police refused comment. Investigators involved in the
slayings include Ivy Dunlap, a Canadian academic with a degree in
criminal psychology, and Detective Maxwell Irving, who heads the
case. Detective Irving has an impressive list of solved cases to
his credit, the most famous being the Roth Family Slayings, and the
Child Welfare Poisonings.

An accompanying piece was titled: THE CHICAGO
POLICE DEPARTMENT—HOW MUCH DO CITIZENS HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW?

If police had issued a warning to young
mothers, would April Rodrigez and her baby still be alive?

That was followed by comments taken on the
street "I'm scared," said one young mother of two children. "I'd
just stay home with my doors locked, but I have to work. I have to
take my babies to the sitter."

"I don't think the cops are doing enough. Why
can't they catch this guy?"

"I heard the police don't care because the
victims are unwed mothers."

"I'm thinking about moving. I hate to quit my
job, but my son's safety is more important."

"They don't care. The cops don't care. They
see so much of this. They've become desensitized. They're just
punching the clock, putting in their time like everybody else."

Then came an interview with Darby Nichols,
the girl who had found the body.

Ivy had read enough.

Alex Martin. That little shit. And she'd
thought Irving was too rude to him. Now she knew he hadn't been
rude enough. But the newspaper articles had given her an idea, one
she wanted to run by Irving.

She glanced up in time to see the redbrick
building with the tarpaper roofs and JESUS SAVES sign warning that
her Central stop was coming up. She tucked the paper under her arm,
grabbed a handrail, and got to her feet along with about ten other
people. Above the opening double doors was a sign that said: MOVE
TO ANOTHER CAR IF YOUR IMMEDIATE SAFETY IS THREATENED.

Ivy was living in a fishbowl. The Police
Department had relocated her neighboring tenant so they could set
up shop in the apartment next to hers. Two officers were stationed
there at all times, keeping their eyes on monitors feeding back
images of every outside door in the building, the hallways, and
stairwells, plus the door to her apartment. Ivy couldn't pee
without someone knowing about it.

She stepped off the el, aware of the weight
of the fourteen-ounce Chiefs Special revolver and mobile phone Max
had insisted upon in the messenger bag that lay snuggly against
her, the strap crisscrossing from right shoulder to left hip. She
took paint-peeled metal steps to street level, where she
sidestepped a dead, flattened rat, then hurried to catch her
connecting bus to Area Five.

"Anybody seen Irving?" she asked when she
reached the task-force room. She wanted to run her idea past
him.

It looked like they were holding a telethon.
Phones were ringing, and the new recruits Max had ordered weren't
enough to keep up. They would have a lot of bullshit to sort
through, and now, with the new articles written by their buddy,
Alex Martin, they would also have to waste time dealing with the
outraged public.

Ramirez, a phone to his ear, called to her,
"He was here a while ago, but left, saying he was going to see
Superintendent Sinclair."

Max dropped into the leather chair with a
sense of defeat. "Nothing like having the press on your side," he
said sarcastically.

Abraham was semi-reclined in his office
chair, balancing a pen between the fingertips of both hands. Spread
out on top of the desk was the article by Alex Martin. "I knew that
little runt would be trouble. But you didn't come here to talk
about him, did you?"

Max rubbed his face and distantly noticed
that he'd forgotten to shave again. "Ethan found out about
Cecilia."

"Oh." Abraham let the information sink in.
"That has to be tough."

"And now he wants to find his birth parents.
I told him I'd help him."

"Haven't you tried before?"

"Yeah. I thought it would be wise to have the
medical history of his parents. Ran into a dead end."

"I know a guy who's really good." Abraham
flipped through his Rolodex, quickly copied down a name and number,
and handed the paper to Max.

"Thanks." Max pocketed the slip. "I'll give
him a call. But that isn't what I came to talk about either." He
got straight to the point. "I don't know if I can do this anymore,
Abraham."

"What do you mean? You want out of Homicide?"
Abraham asked, clearly stunned. "What else would you do? It's not
that easy to walk away from."

"There was a hockey stick left at the crime
scene yesterday."

"Oh, shit." With Abraham, there was no need
for Max to explain his anxiety.

"I can't put Ethan's life in danger."

"He's just messing with your head."

"It's working."

Abraham leaned forward, elbows on his desk.
"Have you talked to anybody down in Stress Management? They turned
Detective Blackwell around."

"I don't need a shrink. And Blackwell.. .
He's still going to snap. Haven't you seen that weird gleam he gets
in his eyes? The man's hanging by a thread. The only difference is
that now he doesn't know it."

"How about if we put you down for a temporary
leave of absence once this case is over? A sabbatical, if you
will."

"I don't know if that will do the trick." Max
got to his feet and Abraham followed.

"Think about it, will you?" Abraham
asked.

"Yeah. Sure."

"I quit once," Abraham told him. "It didn't
do me any good. In fact, I got worse. Started drinking more. Had
some pretty good blackouts. I had to pass my unsolved cases on to
CHESS. The problem is, there's no closure when you quit. You're
left with an open wound of what-ifs."

"We're all victims," Max said. "You, me,
Sachi Anderson and her baby. Darby Nichols, even Ethan indirectly.
All victims. All touched by the hand of a murderer."

Max's phone rang.

It was Ivy.

"A technician from the crime lab is on his
way here," she told him. "He has some results for us."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes."

When Max reached Area Five, the technician
was already there.

"Tox screen on the baby is back," the
technician said. "Our guy used the same stuff as before."

"Anything else?" Max asked.

"The tattoo is real."

That announcement brought about a mixed
reaction. Some people laughed, some cheered, and some just shook
their heads.

"That's not all," the crime-lab technician
said, apparently saving his best for last. "The tattoo isn't
new."

"What do you mean, 'isn't new'?" Ivy asked,
getting up from her desk and moving closer.

"I mean it's been soaking in formaldehyde for
a long time. Possibly years. We won't have a definitive answer
until we run more tests."

"Care to make an educated guess?" Max
asked.

"Ten years old at least."

Somebody whistled. "So this guy cut off his
tattoo years ago and put it in formaldehyde," Ramirez said.
"Why?"

"Because he's crazy," Hastings said.

Everybody moaned at her lame joke.

"He could have cut it off because he decided
he didn't like his mother anymore," Ramirez volunteered.

"Or he could have cut it off because someone
saw it and he was afraid that person would use it to identify
him."

That observation came from Hastings.

"We were looking for a guy with a tattoo.
Guess now we're looking for a guy with a scar," Ivy said.

"What about DNA in the tattoo?"

"We put an urgent priority on it. It's
unlikely we'll get anything, but we should have an answer for you
in a few days."

"Even if DNA can be extracted, it probably
won't do us any good," Max said. "I'm guessing we won't find a
match in any of the databases."

"He's getting more daring," Ivy said. "I'm
afraid this might be a sign of escalation."

"I agree," Max said. "He's getting bold. He's
gotten away with it so many times that he now thinks he's
invincible. He may be escalating, but he may also get sloppy and do
something stupid. We have to be vigilant."

Regina Hastings stood up and stretched,
motioning to the ringing telephone. "Be my guest. Somebody.
Anybody."

Ivy sat down and began taking calls.

Evening rolled around, and Ivy still hadn't
run her idea past Irving. She finally caught up with him at
Sully's, a local bar where a lot of the cops went after their shift
instead of going home. At Sully's, they could be with people who
knew what it meant to be a cop in Chicago.

She found Irving there, playing pool.

His jacket and tie and dress shirt had been
discarded, so that all he wore was a white T-shirt, silver watch,
and dark dress pants. He chalked his pool cue and bent down to make
a bank shot. Yellow striped nine ball in the corner pocket. Under
the rectangular beer light that hung from chains above the green
felt of the table, cigarette smoke collected. The darkly paneled
room was enveloped in an eye-burning fog.

He made the shot, missed by a fraction of an
inch, and laughed. While his opponent moved in with his stick, Max
perched back on his bar stool as if he and the stool were old
friends.

Ivy moved through the haze of smoke and took
the seat beside him. "I've been looking for you," she said.

In front of him were three empty shot glasses
and three beer bottles.

"Can I get you something?" the bartender
asked. She was one of those hard, tough women who looked older than
she probably was. Someone who wouldn't take anything from
anybody.

"Coke."

Max's opponent landed the eight ball in the
side pocket. He picked up the pile of wrinkled bills from the edge
of the table, asking, " 'Nother game?" He was small and wiry.
Probably somebody who made a living playing pool.

Before Max could answer, Ivy did it for him.
"No. Not now."

"This your wife?" the man said with a grin.
"You in a shitload of trouble?"

"No, she isn't my wife," Max said, turning
his back on the pool table and motioning for the bartender to give
him another drink.

The bartender placed Ivy's Coke on a square
napkin and poured Max a shot of gin. Then she fished in the pile of
bills in front of Max and pulled out what she needed.

"Take her Coke out of that."

He downed the gin as if it were medicine,
then grabbed the beer for a chaser. "In the South," he said, "they
call everything a Coke. So if you say you want a Coke, you then
have to specify if you want a Pepsi Coke, or a Coke Coke."

"What about Sprite?" Ivy asked. "Or Mountain
Dew?"