Random Victim (5 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

A Call in the Night

The phone rang just as Martin Walker had finished snorting a line. The rush made him feel so much more capable and on top
of things, especially when he had mundane tasks to do, like cutting and bagging the rest of the stuff he’d gotten from Nuke.
He had to step on it heavily, to make up for the exceedingly larger cuts he was taking for his personal use each time. But
no matter. The morons at the firm probably wouldn’t know the difference if he slipped them granulated sugar. Just so he had
enough for his special “guests” when he needed it. The loud ringing continued, breaking his trend of thought.

Dammit, who could be calling him? he wondered as he stared at the tray with the mannitol, coke, spatula, and envelopes in
front of him. Gently, he pushed the tray back and got up. The main supply of his stash would be safe enough in his secret
hiding place, he thought, then laughed as if the phone had eyes. Things were so much simpler when you were just a little bit
smarter than everybody else. And right now he felt a lot smarter.

“Hello,” he said, picking up the phone as he fumbled with his caller ID box. He saw the number was blocked. “Hello,” Walker
repeated.

“Marty, old buddy, how are you?”

It was Connors. Walker’s brow furrowed slightly. He hated to be called Marty.

“Richard? What do you want?”

There was a pause on the line, then Connors’ voice came back.

“You watch the news lately?”

“What?”

“Television,” Connors said. “The fucking news. Did you watch it today?”

Walker sighed heavily into the receiver, demonstrating his irritation. “I generally wait till ten,” he said. “Why? Look, is
this really necessary, because I’m right in the middle of something.”

“Are you alone?”

“Richard, I’m getting tired of this game.”

“Just answer my fucking question,” Connors repeated.

“Yes, I’m by myself. Now what is it?”

“All right, listen up. You’re probably going to see the new task force they created to look into Miriam’s death on the news
tonight.”

Martin Walker felt a momentary chill, as though someone had just touched an ice cube to his balls. But he knew the cocaine
was making him react more than he should.

“So, is that something I should be concerned about?” he asked.

“Just relax,” Connors’ voice said. “I’ve got everything under control, just like always. We’ve got nothing to worry about
as long as nobody panics. You’ll probably be getting some visitors eventually, though.”

Connors’ tone did little to reassure Martin, who suddenly felt the high turning sour.

“Who? Nuke and his stooges?”

“No,” Connors said, the irritation obvious in his tone. “The police. The new investigators. If they come to see you, just
stick to the story. Nothing has changed, only a few faces, that’s all.”

“So you’re saying that I shouldn’t have to worry about some dumb cops?” Martin asked, his voice raising a few octaves at the
end of the sentence.

“Just stick to the story,” Connors repeated.

“The beauty of that is it’s practically true,” Martin said, trying unsuccessfully to sound more confident than he was feeling.
It was the coke. That damn Connors had called at precisely the wrong time to take the edge off. Now he’d be going through
the wringer instead of riding high.

“You’re not coming apart on me now, are you?” Martin heard Connors ask.

“I’m fine,” he said quickly. “I’m fine.”

“Don’t try to change anything.”

“I know. I won’t.”

After another pause, Connors asked, “So how’s everything else?”

Walker knew that this was a veiled code used to inquire about his investments.

“You’re set to have a very profitable quarter,” Martin said. “I’m ready for some more deposits.”

“Okay, great.” Connors said. “And, Marty, don’t start sweating over this new task force thing, okay? My source tells me that
we’ve got nothing to worry about. It’s all smoke and mirrors.”

“All right, Richard. Good night.” He hung up the phone and began exploring his ambivalence about Con-nors, and how their symbiotic
relationship had developed.

Strangely enough, they’d met in high school. Not that they were friends back then, or anything. No, far from it. Martin had
been the bespectacled, nerdy, smart kid, in charge of all the scholastic things, and Connors the school troublemaker. The
only passion they shared at the time was the chess club. And Martin had been astounded at Con-nors’ proclivity for the game.
He seemed to always be thinking one or two moves ahead. But Connors dropped out of the club late junior year shortly after
turning sixteen and getting his driver’s license. He bragged to a select few that he was helping his brother run drugs up
from Florida on the weekends in a beat-up old van. Then, news spread the next fall that during the summer the pair had been
stopped and arrested somewhere downstate. Connors’ older brother got stuck with the brunt of the charges due to Connors still
being a juvenile. He was absent for most of the term, but somehow managed to graduate, the line
Most Likely to Deal
printed under his yearbook photo.

The next time Martin happened to see him was at their ten-year reunion, where Connors, looking flashy and tan, pulled up in
a silver Corvette with a girl who looked like a movie star on his arm. He explained his dark complexion as the result of some
“Florida investments,” and handed out tips to the waiters and bartenders that left little doubt in Martin’s mind what that
meant.

At their fifteen-year reunion, Connors literally bumped into Martin at the bar after making another equally splashy entrance.
A short-tempered glance immediately softened when Connors looked at Martin’s nametag.

“Marty, old buddy,” he’d said. “Still playing chess?”

Martin replied that he hadn’t much time for that now, as a CEO for a large savings and loan. Connors’ eyebrows raised.

“Really?” he said. “We’ll have to get together for a drink sometime.” And they’d exchanged cards. That was the beginning of
it. Martin began assisting him in “flying under the radar” to launder the very large sums that Connors made from his “business
dealings” ever since. In return, he supplied Martin with a retainer fee, as well as the other perks when he found out more
about him. The man had contacts everywhere, and for Martin, whose burgeoning aberrant appetites had begun to reassert themselves
as his relationship with Miriam began to fail, these contacts were heaven-sent. These perks most recently had included a cut
rate on an unlimited supply of cocaine, ecstasy, or virtually any other drug Walker had a yen for trying out as well as fodder
for his “other sexual tastes.”

But most of all, Martin owed Connors for so deftly solving the “Miriam problem.” His wife had walked in on him during one
of his special sessions with young Raul. The bitch. Why hadn’t she stayed out that night like she’d said? He knew she’d been
fucking someone on the side. But after the cat was out of the bag, Martin had little choice but to go to Connors for help.
Exposure in some messy divorce case would have meant a disaster for both of them. Especially if Miriam had hired someone to
check into his financial dealings a little too closely.

Connors had told him that Nuke would handle it. “Just go to your meeting for your fraternity reunion dinner, and it’ll get
done. Then all you have to do is report her missing in the morning.”

It had all worked according to plan. The alibi, the disappearance, the body’s discovery, it was like some bad dream remembered
in a fog. And the best part of it was that he was in the clear. There was no way they could connect him to anything. Or so
he hoped, as he began to gather up the rest of his stuff and resealed the baggie. He placed it all in the hollow section of
the bronze statue of a satyr playing the flute. Satisfied it was packed solidly inside the base, he twisted the upper part
of the figure back in place, inspecting it as always to assure himself that no one would be able to surmise what treasures
it held. It’s the perfect hiding place for an intellectual giant like myself, he thought. So why should I be concerned about
a visit from some stupid cops? Especially with Richard having someone on the inside.

Martin looked at his reflection in the mirror above the statue and tried to smile confidently. But it looked weak and he knew
it. Glancing downward, he caught a glimpse of the satyr. The lecherous goat-man stood in silent vigilance, his cold, metallic
eyes seeming to twinkle with mischief as Martin looked on.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Morass

Leal set the empty Styrofoam cup down on the counter and slowly crushed it in his fist. He’d tried to go over the file the
previous night after he’d gotten home, but the beers and the way the unexpected events had played themselves out sapped all
his powers of concentration. Despite repeated attempts to make sense of things, he found himself dozing as he sat at his desk.
So he’d gone to bed, deciding to get up early and take another shot at it. Now, after several cups of strong Dunkin’ Donuts
coffee, he’d gone through it and found himself agreeing with Ryan. The trail was cold. The case wasn’t just complicated and
confusing, it was a morass.

Leal knew that the peak time for solving any homicide was in the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours after the crime. In
some cases it might be extended to a week or so, but after that the solvability factors all dropped signifi-cantly: evidence
perished, witnesses disappeared, recollections grew hazy. He reviewed the facts from the original case reports, trying to
set the sequence straight in his mind.

Miriam Walker had left her board of directors meeting at the Women Against Domestic Violence coalition at six thirty. She’d
gone to a restaurant in south suburban Justice, and paid with her American Express card. From there, she’d effectively disappeared
until her badly decomposed body was found in a pond adjacent to some Forest Preserve woods. The summer drought had caused
a recession in the waterline, and two young boys looking for frogs had discovered a large trunk in the water. They attempted
to pull it out, but the weight and terrible smell stopped them. The father of one of the boys had stuffed body bags during
the Gulf War. When he went back with them to the pond, he knew the smell.

An entire alphabet soup of police agencies was called, and the case was initially assigned to the Forest Preserve police.
Their detectives dutifully processed the scene, photographing and retrieving the trunk. The preliminary autopsy by the medical
examiner revealed that it was the body of a Caucasian female between the ages of thirty and fifty. The corpse’s dental records
and fingerprints were cross-checked with the reported missing persons in that category, and the dental records provided the
matchup. Miriam Walker had been found.

The Forest Preserve police, barely able to conceal their glee, immediately turned over the case to the sheriff’s department,
since it was the primary agency investigating the original disappearance. The Walker case quickly turned into what was known
in the vernacular of homicide investigations as “a heater.” The preliminary investigators had gone through all the standard
motions: speaking with the husband (a prominent corporate attorney and CEO for a savings and loan), and questioning the rest
of the victim’s family, friends, business associates, and colleagues. No one could shed much light on any possible reasons
for her death. Although a few friends mentioned that her marriage had been less than blissful of late, they also mentioned
she had seemed quite happy recently and was totally devoted to her work both as a judge and an advocate against domestic violence.
Martin Walker vehemently denied that he and his wife had been anything but totally happy, and embraced the role of the grieving
widower, and promised to donate a hefty portion of her life insurance payment to the Coalition of Women Against Domestic Violence.

Leal flipped the file closed and looked up to see the young waitress standing over him with the glass coffee pot.

“Guess you need another cup, huh, mister?” she said. He looked down at the crushed white fragments protruding from his fist
and shook his head. Standing, Leal left her a tip and went out to his car. It was eight thirty, but he was just a few blocks
away. Ryan had said nine and that still gave him plenty of time. When he got to their temporary office in room 110, he saw
Ryan sitting at one of the desks, carefully sipping a large cup of steaming black coffee. He looked up and flashed a weak
grin.

“You look raring to go,” Ryan said.

“Yeah, that makes one of us.”

Ryan shook his head slowly, as if it hurt to move.

“Oh, fuck me,” he said. “The girlfriend ended up working late, and I kept drinking till she got to Heaven and joined me.”
His fingers massaged his temples. “We ended up closing the place down.”

Obviously a match made in heaven, Leal thought.

“Then today the bitch calls in sick,” Ryan said. “Shit, that’s what I should’ve done.” He took another small sip of the coffee.

The door opened and Hart came in wearing a tan pants suit with a white blouse. Leal nodded to her and smiled.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Maybe for you it is,” Ryan said. “You seen Smith?”

“No, Sergeant Ryan,” she said.

“Oh, Christ, Hart,” Ryan said. “Don’t start with that ‘Sergeant Ryan’ shit this early in the morning.” His vocal cords stretched
for tenor as he mimicked her voice.

Leal watched Hart’s face redden.

“Hey,” he said, “lay off my partner.” She glanced at him, her cheeks still showing circular red patches on each cheek. “Don’t
mind him. He’s just extremely hungover.”

Hart looked away without saying anything and Leal wondered if he’d done the wrong thing sticking up for her. Maybe she has
to learn to hold her own around here, he thought.

Ryan had procured an electric coffeemaker that was still half-full. Leal grabbed the pot and a paper cup, refilling Ryan’s
before pouring his own. Just as he did this, the door flew open and Joe Smith hurried in, nodding and smiling. He looked sharp
in a lightweight dark suit and pale blue shirt. His unknotted tie was draped around his lapels.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “My wife’s pregnant and I thought I was going to have to take her to the hospital this morning.”

“False alarm?” Leal asked.

Smith nodded again.

“Fabulous,” said Ryan. “Now why don’t we all sit down and decide how to proceed with this cluster fuck.” He drank some more
coffee and closed his eyes.

They each sat at their respective desks, turning the chairs so they faced each other.

“Well, hopefully everybody’s had the chance to review the file. Any ideas?” Ryan looked at Leal first.

Leal shook his head, holding his hand out for the others. At this point he was content to be a counterpuncher, seeing what
the rest of them had to offer.

Smith leaned forward and smacked his file into the palm of his hand. “It’s a cold trail, Sarge. The way I see it, she could’ve
been a random victim. Somebody after her purse, her ride, or maybe even her. Maybe she got jacked, and it went too far, so
they killed her and dumped the body.”

Ryan stopped massaging his temples and looked up.

“All right, I’ll buy that so far, but if it was just a simple car thief, why wouldn’t he have just followed her and ripped
the ride when she went in the restaurant? Or if it was a carjacking, why not just dump her on the road if the killer did ice
her on the spot. Why take the chance of riding around with a dead body on the seat next to you?”

“Well, she was dumped in the pond,” Hart offered.

“Yeah, in a fucking trunk,” Ryan said. “How many carjackers carry one of those around?”

Hart sat back.

“So you’re ruling out robbery then?” Leal asked.

Ryan scratched his cheek, then reached in his pocket, withdrawing a pack of cigarettes. He stuck one in his mouth and lit
it, exhaling a stream of smoke.

“As big as this case is, we can’t afford to rule out anything,” Ryan said. “It could have been that she was targeted for a
crime—robbery, rape, whatever, but we need to explore motives and figure out how they mesh with the facts we got.”

“What about the husband?” Leal asked. “I remember something about them having a bad marriage.”

Ryan wrote that down on his pad.

“It’s definitely something we should check out,” he said. “But he also supposedly donated half the insurance money, didn’t
he?”

Leal nodded. “Who was originally assigned to the case?”

“Roberts and Murphy,” Ryan said. “Roberts is out with a heart attack and Murphy’s been transferred to the State’s Attorney’s
investigation section.”

“We should talk to them,” Leal said. “See what ground they already covered. Figure out what we might want to look at again.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” Ryan said, bringing the cigarette up to his lips again. “You got any more ideas on this, Frank?”

Leal noticed that Hart was leaning way back, as if the cigarette smoke were killing her. He thought momentarily about telling
Ryan to put it out, but then remembered he shouldn’t be fighting any battles for her. He set his coffee cup down.

“It’s been my experience that we’d have a lot more evidence if she was a random victim. Those types of crimes are usually
based on opportunity, and a lot of unexpected things always go wrong. They throw the offender off his game. Cause him to make
mistakes, drop the ball.” Leal held up his hand and made a chopping action. “But this one’s almost too neat. The car disappearing,
the body being placed in a trunk, the trunk being dumped in a pond…It shows planning, not quick scrambling.”

“You’re right,” Ryan said. “It’s too nice a package.” He blew twin plumes of smoke from his nostrils. “I was thinking along
those lines myself.”

Leal noticed both Hart and Smith looking at him. He continued. “And most of these planned things are engineered by somebody
who knew the victim. Somebody had a reason, either monetary or emotional or both to kill her.” Leal paused. “You always hurt
the one you love.”

Ryan drew deeply on his cigarette and blew the cloud of smoke up toward the ceiling.

“So you think it was the husband?”

“Alibi,” Smith interjected. He smiled sheepishly when everybody looked at him. “Sorry, Sarge. But what I mean is, don’t the
file say he was at some kind of dinner or something?”

“A meeting for his fraternity reunion,” Leal said. “But what I’m getting at is, what did he stand to gain from his wife’s
death?”

“He gave away half the insurance settlement to her abused women group, didn’t he?” Ryan said.

“Supposedly,” said Leal. “Anybody verify that? And the reason might not have been financial, either. We can’t afford to rule
anything out at this point.”

“In other words he could have had ulterior motives and hired someone to do it,” Hart said.

“Whoa, Iron Maiden,” Ryan said. “Before we go jumping to conclusions, let’s huddle. One thing’s for sure, if we’re gonna be
taking on some executive with a law degree, we’d better be sure we’ve got all our bases covered. I’d better run it by Brice,
too.”

“And shouldn’t we rule out the random victim theory first?” Hart asked. “I mean, if we can definitely eliminate it…”

“Then it’ll point to a suspect familiar with the victim,” Ryan said. His voice had an almost petulant edge to it. He took
one more drag on his cigarette, then dropped it in his paper coffee cup and swirled it around. “Got to remember to get an
ashtray for in here tomorrow. Everybody bring your own coffee cup, too.” He tossed the cup into the trash can. “Okay, here’s
what we’ll do. Joe, you run downtown and check out all the victim’s associates, other judges, clerks, deputies, secretaries
…anybody who remembers anything about her, especially how she was acting right before she disappeared. Write it all down,
get names and phone numbers in case we have to follow up. Frank, you and Hart can check with the ME and see if he has anything
to add as far as the autopsy. Then we’ll start backtracking on the victim. Let’s compile a list of people we should talk to.
See what else she had going.” He glanced at his watch. “We might as well get started and compare notes tomorrow at nine.”

Ryan had obviously done his homework, Leal thought. He had it pretty well planned out for a guy who claimed to be as hungover
as he looked. But he also had the luxury of reviewing the file before any of them.

“Getting close to lunchtime,” Ryan said, grinning as he glanced at his watch. “An early lunch. Give me a buzz if you come
up with any brainstorms. Otherwise, I’ll see you all tomorrow. This is our first day, so let’s all hit the ground running,
as they used to say in the army.” He stood and plucked his jacket off the back of his chair.

Leal concealed his displeasure with the rather lackadaisical approach. It was a step in the right direction, but a small step.
If he were running things he would have really hit the ground running, not be going for an extended lunch break right off
the bat. But then again, he wasn’t.

Better not rock the boat at this point, he thought. Besides, if I get something good, I can always follow up on it myself.
Or with my partner, he thought as he looked at Hart.

“You want to wait to eat?” he asked, “until after we get back from the medical examiner?”

“Oh, whatever you want,” she said. “I’m just going to have salad anyway.”

“Ever been to the morgue?”

She shook her head.

This could be a good character test, he thought. See how tough she is. See if she loses her cookies once she smells that smell.

She was his partner, so he knew he had to find out sooner or later. Better that it was sooner, just in case. She was a rookie,
and totally unproven in his eyes. That would have to change if this partnership was going to work. Of course, she might have
reservations about me, too, he thought. But still…

“Let’s eat first,” he said. “I know a place on the way.”