Jack Daniels Six Pack (9 page)

“In the master bedroom. It’s down the hall and up the stairs to the right. If you don’t mind, I really don’t want to go in there.”

“I understand.”

Herb gave me a look, but I shook my head, indicating he didn’t have to tag along. I found the bedroom without difficulty. It was large, with two picture windows, a king-size four-poster bed, and a matching armoire and dresser. The curtains, bedding, and carpeting were all color coordinated, tan and dark brown.

The bed was unmade. Next to it was a chair, part of the bedroom set where Mrs. Booster would sit and do her makeup, and where Dr. Booster was bound and murdered. The Palatine PD had taken the twine used to tie him, but the chair remained, still stained with blood. The carpet under it was equally stained, brown and splotchy.

If Booster was found here, chances were good this was where he wrote the prescription. I checked the top dresser drawer.

Sitting on top of some underwear, waiting for me, was a prescription pad and a pen. Using a pair of tweezers I keep in my jacket for this purpose, I picked up the pen and placed it in a plastic bag, which I also keep in my jacket. Then I tweezed the prescription pad, holding it up to the light. The top sheet had indentations on it, left over from the pressure of the pen used to write the previous prescription.

If I wanted to play Sherlock Holmes, I could lightly rub a pencil over the paper. The lead would fall into the depressions, giving me a readable impression of the missing sheet above it.

But the lab boys would have fits if I did that. These days, infrared do-hickies and other complex stuff could read it without getting graphite all over everything. I bagged the pad and went through the rest of the drawers, searching for other clues. I came up empty, but the little optimistic knot in my belly refused to go away.

Downstairs, Herb and Melissa were in a heated discussion about where to get the best chili dogs. I butted in, sharing my discovery and promptly giving Melissa a receipt for the items I took.

“So he was killed for a lousy prescription?” Her eyes glassed over and she began to sob. Two months wasn’t enough time to get over the death of a parent. Some people never get over it.

Benedict, having shared his thoughts on food, now shared a hug with the young woman. She calmed some, and even managed a watery smile in the middle of her tears.

“Please find the man who killed my daddy.”

I could have said “We’ll do our best” or “We’ll stay in touch.” But instead, I nodded and replied, “We will.”

Then Benedict and I got back into my car and began the long and tedious trip back to Chicago.

Chapter 10

A
T 2:35 THAT AFTERNOON THERESA METCALF
regains consciousness.

Then he begins.

He tries many new things.

By 5:15 she can’t scream anymore.

By 6:45 she’s finally dead.

Chapter 11

T
HE FBI WAS WAITING TO SHOW
me more paperwork when we got back to the station. Benedict had deserted me, electing to bring both the lethal candy and the pad and pen to the lab. Occupying my office without permission was annoying enough, but Special Agents Heckle and Jeckle had also appropriated my desk.

“Good news, Lieutenant,” Dailey said. “The ViCAT computer has given us a list of possible suspects.”

I frowned. “That’s my desk.”

They looked at each other, then back at me. I wondered if they practiced that move at home.

“There isn’t any other place to put all of this data.”

I knew a place they could put it, but I played nice and resisted the urge to tell them.

“I need some coffee.” I turned around, intending to leave. There was an excellent coffee place on the other side of town.

“Got some.” Dailey opened his briefcase, on my desk, and took out two polished aluminum canisters. “Regular or unleaded?”

Both Coursey and Dailey chuckled. Exactly three chuckles each, and then they stopped simultaneously. Eerie.

“Regular.” I sighed, sitting in the chair opposite of mine.

Dailey took a Styrofoam cup from his briefcase and filled it with the steaming contents of container number one.

“Cream or sugar?”

I shook my head and forced a polite smile.

“Let’s begin.” Coursey cleared his throat, preparing for lecture mode. “There have been several terminal occurrences over the past ten—”

I had to interrupt. “Terminal occurrences?”

“Murders.”

Jesus.

“As I was saying, there have been several terminal occurrences over the past ten years in the United States that may have possible connections to the Jane Doe found here two days ago.”

Dailey jumped in. “Serial or recreational killers usually have distinct patterns and modus operandi that make it possible, with the help of Vicky—”

“Vicky?” I asked.

“The ViCAT computer.”

“Ah.”

“That make it possible, with Vicky’s help, to find links between victims.”

“You mean terminal occurrences,” I corrected.

“Exactly.”

I sipped my coffee, and noted with annoyance that it was very good.

“You read through our report on why we believe the perp is organized rather than unorganized, correct?”

“Absolutely.” I recalled dropping it in the garbage on the way to my car.

“Here’s another report, a list of related crimes that Vicky has linked with the pattern established by our RK here.”

“RK?”

“Recreational Killer.”

“Ah.”

I wondered if there was a special branch of the FBI whose sole function was to make up acronyms.

“Vicky has also listed probability percentile rankings.”

Dailey nodded smartly, as if waiting for a cookie or a pat on the head. They must have taken my silence for deep thought, because they waited patiently for me to say something before they went on.

“Mmm,” I said.

They went on.

“There are seven possible connections on this list.”

“We’ll give them to you in ascending order of probability.”

“First, on May first in 1976 in Hackensack, New Jersey, there was a double shotgun homicide where the suspect was unknown.”

I wouldn’t be baited.

“What’s the connection, you’re thinking?” Dailey asked.

Actually, I was thinking that once, when I was younger, I had actually considered joining the FBI. We’re all entitled to moments of stupidity, I suppose.

“The connection is that after the murders, the bodies were mutilated,” Coursey said.

“With a fork,” Dailey added.

“Six point three percent probability it’s the same guy.” Coursey nodded smartly. I think they practiced nodding smartly in the mirror.

I rubbed my eyes, getting some eyeliner on my fingers. For what I paid for eyeliner, it shouldn’t come off that easily.

“Gentlemen, I have a lot of work to do. If you’ll just leave the paperwork, I’ll go over it as soon as I can.”

“Your captain assured us that you’d give us your full cooperation, Lieutenant.”

“And I intend to, Agent Dailey.”

“I’m Coursey.”

“I intend to, Agent Coursey. But my captain also expects me to have all of my reports done on time. I have a backlog of six cases I still haven’t transferred, and there were two more shooting deaths in my district last night that need to be attended to.”

“Were those shotgun deaths?” Coursey raised his eyebrows.

“No. Now thanks for your help, but right now I’ve got other things to do.”

I stood up. Dailey and Coursey did their looking at each other thing, and then got to their feet as well.

“I just hope we treat you with greater courtesy when the jurisdiction for this case is turned over to us.” Dailey nodded curtly.

Coursey added a curt nod of his own.

“I’m sure you will.” I walked around my desk and sat down in my chair, which was unpleasantly warm. They gathered up their respective papers and headed for the door, but a lingering thought made me stop them.

“Guys—your computer, Vicky, does it handle more than just terminal occurrences?”

“Yes. It is also a nationwide database for felonies such as rape, arson, and bank robberies.”

“How about poisoning? Product tampering?”

They nodded as one. I told them about the package I’d gotten earlier, ending the story by showing them the lethal X ray.

“Would your computer be able to locate other tamperings like this one?”

“I believe so. Can we keep this?”

I nodded, giving them directions to the lab so they could check out the goods themselves. Maybe, for the first time, the FBI would help out rather than get in the way. Hope springs eternal.

I wasn’t lying about the backlog of cases, and after making a few calls and filling out a few reports, I transferred them all so I could devote my full attention to the Jane Doe murder. Going over the case again from the beginning didn’t yield any new information, but it helped me organize the info I did have.

Lab report pending, I was 99 percent sure that Dr. Booster and our Jane Doe had been killed by the same perp. He was calling himself the Gingerbread Man, and after forcing Booster to write him a prescription for Seconal, he used it to abduct Jane Doe.

The note and the cookie were messages to the police, and there was a good indication that there would be more deaths. Sixty mls of Seconal was enough to knock out twenty to thirty people. Why ask for that much if he didn’t intend to use it?

I scribbled a note to myself to call the DEA and check to see if they had any stats on Seconal ODs. I also wanted to call up Vice and see if Seconal had been used in any recent rapes. Jane Doe may be the first murder, but she may not be the first person our perp used Seconal on.

I picked up the packet of pictures from the crime scene and looked through them for the hundredth time. Something in my subconscious made me linger on a photo of the girl in the garbage can, her rear end sticking out. I studied it further. There was garbage covering almost the whole body, except for the buttocks. But why so much garbage, if it hadn’t been in the can for more than an hour or two?

Maybe he arranged the garbage like that. Almost as if he were saying that he threw away a piece of ass. The FBI called it posing, and I was surprised I hadn’t received a lecture on that as well. Positioning the body like this was the perp’s way of showing how clever he was, and how much contempt he had for the victim. So did he take the time to do this in plain sight, or . . .

I picked up the report with the itemized list of all the garbage found in the can with the body. Mixed in with the cans and bags and wrappers and bottles were twelve receipts. The prices on the receipts were noted on the list, but not what I was after.

I picked up the phone and called Evidence.

“Bill? Jack Daniels.”

Bill had been caretaker of the evidence room since I was a rookie. He was older than God.

“Jack? How are you? I was thinking about you this morning, in the shower.”

“You should be ashamed, a man your age.”

“Chris is on his break. You could come down now. We’ll go behind the storage lockers.”

I laughed. “You’re too much man for me, Bill, but I could use a favor. I need you to look up something from case 93-10-06782. Receipts that were found in the garbage can with a body.”

“That the Jane Doe got all cut up?”

“Yeah.”

“Hold on.”

He put down the phone, and I heard the sliding gate unlock and imagined him walking through the aisles of shelves in the evidence room, looking for the proper case number. I finished my coffee while waiting, then regretted my haste because now I’d have to drink the awful station slop. Eventually I would break down and get a coffeemaker, because the stuff from the vending machine tasted like brewed sewage.

I put off getting more coffee and looked at the latest sheet the Feebies left. Their number one suspect match had a 48.6 percent probability rate that it was our guy. The murder and mutilation of three women with a hunting knife was unsolved, and I was ready to call the Feds and ask for more info on this case when I noticed it took place in 1953. In Nome, Alaska. I filed the paper, throwing my empty coffee cup in after it.

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Ooohh, your voice makes my toes curl. I found the receipts for you, lamb chop. What do you need?”

“Look at one. Other than the date, does it have numbers in the upper corners?”

“Yeah. Two. The left-hand corner, 193, the right one 277.”

“Try another receipt.”

“Left 193, right 310.”

“Keep going.”

He read all twelve receipts, and the number in the left-hand corner was 193 in eleven out of the twelve. On the odd one, the number was 102.

“Can I do anything else for you, honey? Anything at all?”

“That should do it. Thanks, Bill.”

“My pleasure.”

I got on the horn with Information and was charged thirty-five cents to get the number for the 7-Eleven on Monroe and Dearborn. I already had the number somewhere, but like all public servants I’d been rigorously trained to waste taxpayers’ money at every opportunity.

“Seven-Eleven,” answered a voice with an Indian accent.

I found the deposition on my desk of the manager who’d been watching television while the Jane Doe was dumped in front of his store.

“Mr. Abdul Raheem?”

“No. This is Fasil Raheem. Abdul is my brother.”

“This is Lieutenant Daniels, Chicago Violent Crimes. I’m sure your brother told you about the body discovered in your outside trash.”

“He has not stopped talking about it. Is it true he chased the murderer away by showing him karate moves he learned from Van Damme movies?”

“I believe he was watching TV the whole time.”

“I thought as much. What can I do for you?”

“Tell me what the two numbers are in the top corners of your receipts, please.”

“Simple. The top right-hand number is the order number. The top left-hand number is the store number.”

“Are you store number 193?”

“No, Lieutenant. We are store number 102. I believe store 193 is on Lincoln and North Avenue. Let me check the book.”