The Chicago Way (10 page)

Jennifer looked down at her arms and shook her head.

“Who did that to you, Jennifer?”

She shrugged her shoulders and wiped her nose.

“My dad gets mad sometimes.”

“How mad, Jennifer?”

“Pretty mad, mister. Pretty fucking mad.”

I laid a business card flat against the Plexi.

“Jennifer.”

She looked up.

“You see this number?”

She nodded.

“Remember it. Call it anytime you have a problem. You understand what I mean?”

She nodded.

“You got the number memorized?”

She nodded again.

“Say it back to me.”

She did.

“Good. Remember the number and get through today. Tomorrow gets better.”

I left the girl the way I found her and walked to the front of the building. Nicole had just arrived.

“Your vic’s in the cruiser,” I said.

“Thanks. They told me you were here. That’s two assaults in two days. How did that happen?”

“Luck, I guess. You think they’re related?”

Nicole shrugged.

“Probably not. Both attackers used a knife to subdue. But this one was bold. Broad daylight on a busy street. Besides, this one killed.”

“Assault victim’s a kid, Nicole.”

“I know. We’ll get her some help. Where’s Vince?”

“Upstairs with the body. Victim says she scratched the guy and bit him on the hand. Might want to look for blood.”

Nicole shook her head.

“No blood yet. But we did find this.”

An evidence tech handed her a Baggie. Inside was a used condom.

“Where?”

“Back of the alley.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” I said. “The kid says she fought him off.”

“You mean she wasn’t penetrated.”

“That’s what I mean.”

Nicole handed the evidence back to her assistant.

“Happens a lot. These guys put on the condom before they attack. Then they get excited during the struggle. Lose control.”

“You think that’s what happened?”

Nicole shrugged.

“Could be. Good news is we get a profile to run through our database. See what comes back. Sounds like our victim’s a tough kid.”

“Don’t think she has much choice,” I said. “Check out the bruises on her face and neck.”

“From the assault?”

“From her old man. Sounds like he’s using the kid as a punching bag. Anyway, she’s scared of him.”

“We’ll look into it.”

“What does that mean?”

Nicole lifted her chin and folded her arms across her chest.

“It means Family Services will talk to her parents and do what they can. That’s all we can ask for, Michael.”

I didn’t see the point in pursuing it so I didn’t.

“Okay, I gotta run.”

Nicole wanted to say something more, but I was already out of the alley and across the street. They had strung out some crime-scene tape, and a small crowd was beginning to form behind it. Just inside the tape, a female cop was talking to a man in a cashmere overcoat.

“Yes, sir,” the cop said. “Your daughter is fine. She’s being examined right now and then you can see her.”

He was early forties, receding hairline, well on his way to a comb-over. A big guy but soft. Middle-class soft. Too many nachos, too much time on the couch. The coat, however, looked nice.

“You listen here,” he said. “My kid is back there. They tell me she was attacked. I want to see her, and I want to see her now.”

As he spoke, the man jabbed a fistful of fingers into the cop’s protective vest. The officer caught his hand and turned it in on itself. The man’s knees gave a bit. The cop spoke quietly and quickly.

“I understand you’re upset, sir. I understand that’s your daughter. But you’re going to play by the rules here. Rule number one. You touch me or any other officer again and we put the cuffs on you. Put you in the back of a cruiser. Are we clear?”

The cop didn’t wait for a response, didn’t need to. I moved up as she walked away. Jennifer’s father was still shaking his hand and mumbling to himself.

“Fucking bitch.”

“Excuse me, sir.”

I flashed what might have been a badge but wasn’t.

“What do you want?”

“You’re the victim’s father?”

“You going to let me see her?”

The arrogance was gone. In its place, the instinctive wariness of a coward.

“Take a walk over here, sir.”

I moved him away from the crowd, back under the elevated tracks. In just a few feet we were alone, at least alone enough.

“What do you want?”

Up close, his face was as soft as the rest of him. A part of me felt sorry for the man, for what he was about to endure with his child. That part of me, however, wasn’t part of this conversation.

“Your daughter, sir. She seems more scared of you than she does the man who just attacked her. By my way of thinking, that makes you one of two things. A pedophile or just another asshole who likes to punch up his kid. I’m voting for the latter, but what really matters is…what do you think?”

The guy could go one of two ways. Fear followed by denial. Or rage followed by denial. I wasn’t entirely surprised when he swore and made a lunge for the collar of my coat. He missed and fell to the pavement. I followed him down, slipping my left hand up under his neck, pulling him to his feet, and pinning him to the side of the building. With my right hand I flipped open the snap on my holster and took out my gun. I held it close between us. His eyes widened when he felt steel pressed against his body. I could smell urine and took a step back.

“Glad we got your attention,” I said. “I’ll make this real simple. They are going to put you in a room with some people from Family Services, DCFS, all that bullshit. Tell you how you need to control your temper around Jennifer, especially after all this trauma. You listen, don’t listen. I don’t give a damn.”

I tightened my grip a bit. His breath shortened to a wheeze, his eyes fastened on the black end of a nine millimeter. From the corner of my eye, I could see a part of the crowd, outside the tape, peeking at us through the girders. I moved my body between him and any potential audience.

“You hearing me?” I said. “Don’t speak, just nod.”

He popped his head once.

“I’m going to check up on Jennifer from time to time. See how she’s doing with school. You got any problems with that?”

A shake of the head.

“Good. I hear anything from her. Tomorrow, next week, next month, five years from now. Anything from Jennifer and I come find you. We talk again. Except this time, you eat a bullet. Tragic suicide. Chicago-style. You think it doesn’t happen in this city? Think again. Now get the fuck out of here and go make your daughter feel better.”

I dropped the guy where we stood. He fell to the ground and tried to cover up the suit he had already soiled. Then I walked back through the girders, down the alley, and under the crime scene tape.

Most people would say it was just a couple of bruises. I was out of line, overreacted, did more harm than good with the rough stuff. Most people, however, have never walked in a cop’s shoes. Never seen a ten-year-old sold by her pimp on a street corner, then stripped naked and beaten with a hot hanger. Or an eleven-year-old boy, chained to a radiator by his mom and fed dog food for kicks. Or a girl, all of thirteen, handcuffed to a mattress and forced to service men until she is so torn up inside, she dies on the way to the hospital. Most people don’t see any of that. Even a little bit of what adults can do to kids. So most people don’t overreact.

I found my way inside the El station, slipped through a turnstile and onto the platform. A couple of girls stood nearby, teenagers, listening to their iPods and talking at the same time. It was empty talk: school, boys, clothes, boys, movies, boys. I sat and listened. Never had anything so stupid sounded so good.

T he next morning Jennifer was big news. Page one of the Chicago Sun-Times. Twelve-year-old assault victims, especially white ones, will do that to a newspaper.

William Conlan was in there, too. Three sentences, five paragraphs into the story. Apparently old guys who live alone don’t rate so high.

I shrugged and sipped my coffee. By week’s end, both would be forgotten, swept away by the clutter of fresh crime, fresh bodies, fresh story lines.

Just after eight o’clock, I got in my car and headed south on Racine. I took a right at Fullerton and worked my way west toward Humboldt Park. The sun was out, bright and hard. Still not too cold, but there was a bite in the air. Snow by nightfall.

I parked a block from John Gibbons’ apartment, popped the trunk on my car, and pulled out a soft leather duffel. If Gibbons was looking at Elaine Remington’s rape, he should have had a working file in his room. Maybe the landlady knew where it was. Maybe not. Either way, it was probably somewhere in the house. Hence, the duffel bag.

Inside were two pairs of latex gloves, a flashlight, some rope, and a set of picks. I had noticed an index card tacked to the bulletin board in Mulberry’s office. It was for an appointment with a doctor. This morning at eight-thirty. I put on the gloves, zipped up my coat, and checked my watch. Eight forty-five. Time to go.

The front door was a lot easier the second time around. In less than a minute, both locks slipped free and I was inside. Morning light filtered through trees and threw patterns across the walls. I flicked on a flashlight and moved through the sitting room, toward the alcove where the old lady kept her records. The door to the alcove was closed. I pushed it open.

Mulberry was sitting in an old-fashioned swivel chair behind her desk. She was wearing a blue dress with a green brooch. Her hair was pinned up, and high heels hung off her feet. Mulberry was dressed for her appointment. The landlady, however, had no need for a doctor. Now or ever again.

I took a closer look at the face. Her eyes had bulged a bit. The mouth was slack. There was blood crusted under each nostril, on her lips, and chin. I nudged the body an inch or so with my foot. One leg crumpled against the other, revealing a mass of white flesh, spider veins, and just a hint of lividity underneath. The landlady had been dead awhile.

I moved away from the body and cast my light around the room. The filing cabinet was open, contents pulled out and strewn about the floor. I didn’t see anything worth touching or taking. I eased around and nudged open the desk drawers. Nothing there, either. I pulled back, felt a tingle, and looked behind me. A pair of eyes gleamed in the darkness. Oskar moved softly onto the landlady’s shoulder. Mulberry’s body shifted again. The cat jumped lightly to the floor. I noticed, for the first time, two puncture marks surrounded by a bruise high up on the landlady’s arm. I played my light on the sleeve of the old woman’s dress and saw two corresponding holes. The typical Taser delivers fifty thousand volts of electricity in five-second intervals. Enough to knock you to the ground but not kill you. Apparently, someone forgot to tell Mulberry. I turned off the light and decided to take a look upstairs.

Gibbons’ old room was to my left. A floorboard creak, however, pushed me to the right. At the end of the hallway were two doors. I turned the doorknob on the first and inched it open. No light on the other side. I reached in and felt the floor. Cold. Probably a bathroom. I moved across the threshold, maybe half a foot. I heard a ping, felt a sting in my left shoulder. Almost immediately, I knew what it was, knew what was coming, and then felt it.

The first jolt did its job as I went to my knees. I was halfway up when the second blast hit. I felt my chest tighten and my heart accelerate. Another blast and I was on my back, unable to breathe with a Volkswagen on my chest. My final thought before I blacked out was that a heart attack was one hell of a way to die.

I woke up on the floor. The lights were still out, the house quiet. I could hear a truck grinding its gears down the block, felt a breeze from an open window, and saw a sliver of sunlight bouncing off a vanity mirror. I got up slowly and took inventory. Some burns for sure, and my shoulder was tender from the Taser. I was alive, however, and that put me one step ahead of the corpse cooling a floor below. I threw some water on my face and took a walk over to the window.

This is where my guy had gone out, probably along the roofline and then dropped down into the yard. Why he didn’t kill me, I didn’t know. Maybe he thought he had. What he was after was an even better question.

I went back downstairs. A clock on the wall told me it was late afternoon. I’d been out more than a while. I tiptoed through a half-dozen cats and back into the dining room. Mulberry was still sitting in the alcove, still very much dead. Oskar glided past me again and jumped up on the desk. He stared at his owner for a moment, then started to lick at the blood on her face. I figured it was time to go.

Two blocks later I pulled into a White Hen and bought some aspirin, water, and coffee. Then I drove another couple of blocks, found a pay phone, and called in the body.

As I drove home I thought about the landlady, the touch of greed behind her eyes, and wondered if she didn’t invite death across her threshold. Then I pulled a phone number from my pocket. My head hurt, but not too bad. It had already been a long day, and no one was waiting at home to cook me dinner or bandage my wounds. I figured a drink could only help. And I knew just the place.

T he bar was warm with wood and light that drifted softly into corners. A woman in a Burberry tweed and a man in a peacoat huddled close by a fire, seasoned with just a touch of peat. On the other side, an old man in a watch cap pulled on a pint while his pal produced a bodhran from its case. A third joined him with the squeeze box. The pint drinker held a fiddle across his lap. Now he took it in one hand and a bow in the other. It appeared a session was in order.