The Chicago Way (12 page)

“And this time?” I said.

“She was raped.”

“Yeah, she was. Feels it like it was yesterday.”

“That can be a dangerous thing.”

“I know,” I said. “Gibbons was working her case when he was killed.”

“How did you inherit his client list?”

I moved my shoulders. Up, then down. Maybe half an inch. Diane let it sit for a moment, then shifted the conversation.

“I heard the DA’s office had you in for a chat.”

“You heard that?”

“I did.”

Diane checked her watch.

“I also heard they no longer consider you a suspect.”

“Does that kill your big story?”

“You tell me.”

“Still got a murder,” I said. “Still got an old rape to solve. If you want to tag along, might be kind of fun.”

“Is that all you got?” she said.

“What else is there?”

“Right before I left the newsroom, a call came across the police scanner. They found a woman’s body at Gibbons’ old place.”

“And?”

“I made a call. It was his landlady. A woman named Edna Mulberry.”

Diane took a sip of her whiskey, pulled her coat tight against her body, and looked out the window. On Halsted Street the snow fell, thicker now, wet and heavy.

“Hard when death gets so close,” I said.

“I talked to her two days ago, Kelly.”

“I saw her myself yesterday.”

“She didn’t help much.”

“I know.”

I wasn’t sure if I was playing poker or consoling a friend. I figured it was safer to assume the former. At least until further notice.

“Are you being straight with me, Kelly?”

“Maybe. How about you?”

“I’m a little shaken.”

“It’s called death. Used to get me right in the spine. Turn me cold all over.”

“You ever get over it?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Take it from me, you’re better off feeling sick to your stomach. Shows you’re human.”

Diane pushed her drink away and put on her gloves.

“You live near here, Kelly?”

“About a mile.”

“Is it warm?”

“I can try,” I said.

“Let’s go.”

We headed out of the Shamrock and into some sort of relationship. Short term, I was looking forward to things. Long term, maybe not so much.

I fell asleep with a woman beside me, yet woke up alone. The phone rang and I picked up the receiver, expecting to hear Diane Lindsay explain why. Not quite.

“I’m twenty minutes from your house. Might be a good idea if I come up for a chat.”

His voice was flat. It reminded me of long afternoons in a dark saloon. The patrons drink in cheap liquor and recycled smoke. Each stares straight ahead into his respective past. In other words, it didn’t sound good. At nine in the a.m., especially so.

“And a good morning to you, Detective Masters.”

“Yeah. You got coffee?”

“There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts on Clark and Belmont. Pick up a couple. I take mine Boston-style.”

The detective hung up before I got to tell him that was with cream and sugar. Maybe he already knew.

I rubbed my face in the glass of the bathroom mirror, took a minute, and put away the night before. She had asked why I kept my shirt on. I told her I was modest. She thought that was cute. The truth, however, stared at me in the mirror. Two bruises, small punctures where a killer had used me for a pincushion.

By the time I showered and dressed, Masters was leaning on the doorbell. He wasn’t exactly smiling, but he did have the coffees and a bag that looked full of what I suspected were doughnuts. We sat down at the kitchen table, split up a half-dozen honey-dipped, adjusted the coffees, and got down to business.

“Let me ask you something, Kelly. Do you work at being a fucking jag-off? Or is it something genetic?”

I took a sip of my coffee and contemplated the moment. It’s important to contemplate the moment when it’s a good one. Once I opened my mouth, the moment would change into something else. Maybe better, but probably worse.

“Exactly what’s the problem, Detective?”

“You know what the problem is. What the hell you doing over at the evidence warehouse?”

“Working a case.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

I dunked a doughnut but kept it in the coffee too long and lost half of it.

“Goddamn it,” I said. “Hate when that happens.”

“Jesus H. Christ.” Masters made a move to go. I stopped him.

“You want a shot of something in that coffee?” I said.

“You want to quit fucking around?”

I nodded. The detective drained his cup and held it my way.

“Keep the coffee and just pour the shot.”

I rustled up a bottle and poured him a dose.

“I went over and talked to Goshen about Elaine Remington’s rape. Just nosing around.”

“What did you find?”

“Nothing,” I said. That was a lie. It happens sometimes.

“The DA no longer considers you a suspect in the Gibbons thing,” Masters said.

“I know. It helps to have evidence.”

“Some things just need to play out, Kelly. You know how that goes.”

An image of Gerald O’Leary came before my mind and I nodded.

“No hard feelings?” the detective said.

I shrugged.

“Good. Let’s talk about Mulberry,” Masters said.

I raised an eyebrow and hid the rest of my face behind a doughnut.

“Look, Kelly, I know you talked to the landlady. I have a feeling you might have even found her body. So let’s talk.”

“Mulberry’s dead?”

Masters shifted in his seat, took a deep breath in, then out. He was fishing and we both knew it.

“Yeah, she’s dead. Whoever killed her tore the place up pretty good. We figure robbery. If you figure otherwise, now would be a good time.”

The detective sat back, sipped at his Jameson, and waited. I took a minute I didn’t really need. Then I spoke.

“I think Gibbons gave her something or left something behind in his room. Whatever it was, it got them both killed.”

“Let me guess,” Masters said. “You also think it has something to do with the Remington thing?”

“I do.”

“The one you went to the evidence warehouse on.”

“It’s a theory.”

“Why?”

“Gibbons worked that case as a patrolman,” I said. “Remington tracked him down and asked for his help in clearing it. Then he got himself dead.”

“That’s it?”

“So far.”

Masters looked at me like he’d rather not. He siphoned off the last of his whiskey and stood up.

“I’m going down to the autopsy. You want to come along?”

“No thanks.”

“What are you going to do?”

I plucked a volume of Cicero off the corner of the kitchen table and held it up in the morning light.

“Read,” I said. Masters took a look at the title, shook his head, and left.

I let Cicero drop back onto the table and pulled up an old homicide file I had stashed by my feet. The El rumbled nearby, a horn honked, and a hint of thunder echoed in the distance. I didn’t notice. Instead, I turned the pages and read.

T he package had arrived via FedEx just before Masters did. I knew Mulberry wasn’t what you’d call generous by nature. If she’d sprung for special delivery, it was probably worth a look. And not with a Chicago cop looking over my shoulder.

The landlady didn’t include a note or any explanation. Just an old police file. Back in the day it would have been called a street file. Chicago cops were famous for them. A duplicate copy of everything in the official file, and a few things maybe the defense didn’t really need to know about.

Got a print that doesn’t make sense? Open up a street file.

Blood work you don’t want to see in court? Throw it in the file.

A potential witness that’s going to mess up your case? Bury him in the street file.

Keeps things moving along once you get to trial. Of course, it’s illegal, immoral, and causes innocent men to go to jail. But hey, in the big city, that’s just the way it goes sometimes.

This one consisted of ten pages of material: pink carbon copies, typed undoubtedly on one of the Selectrics I saw at Town Hall. Elaine Remington’s name was on the first page, an incident report filled out by none other than Patrol Officer John Gibbons. The rest didn’t seem like much. A report from the medic who worked on Elaine at the scene, the ER nurse, and a follow-up from a second cop, cosigned by Gibbons’ commanding officer, Dave Belmont.

I flipped to the last page, this time a green carbon, from the prosecutor’s office. Again, routine stuff: “Unknown assailant attacks white female. No usable forensics. No known suspects. Will monitor. Signed Bennett Davis, Assistant District Attorney.”

Bennett was three years into the job in 1997. Already a star. The name Elaine Remington probably meant nothing to him, but I made a note to ask.

I went back to the top of the file and began to read. Across the better part of a legal pad I scratched out every piece of potential information in the street file, reorganized it all, and tried to see the connections. Besides Davis, there were at least four names on my list, people I needed to talk to. I picked up the phone and began to dial.

An hour and a half later, I knew more and understood less. I had started with a phone call to a friend in the Illinois secretary of state’s office. For ten dollars you can get a copy of anyone’s driver’s license, which happens to include their home address. The process usually takes two weeks by mail. My friend does it over the phone and under the radar.

The first name I got back was Gibbons’ old boss, Dave Belmont. He stopped renewing his license in 2004 when he died of a massive heart attack. Made sense to me.

Next were Joe Jeffries and Carol Gleason. Jeffries was the EMT who worked on Elaine. Gleason was the ER nurse. According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, both moved out of state: Jeffries to California, Gleason to Arizona.

I jumped on the Internet and Googled their names. Nothing. Ran a few variations with different search engines. Still nothing. Then I dove into Nexis’ database of newspaper clips.

In 2003 the San Francisco Chronicle ran two hundred words on a local named Joe Jeffries who took first place in a halibut tournament. The picture was of a ten-year-old holding a fish bigger than he was. Wrong guy. In 2004 a Carol Gleason wolfed down thirteen hot dogs in three minutes to win Tucson’s Labor Day Dog Wars. Sounded like it could be my gal. I pulled up a little bio and discovered Carol was a homemaker and lifelong resident of the desert. Scratch the hot dog queen.

Then I accessed a part of the paper where everyone gets a turn: the local obits. Jeffries took about an hour. The EMT died in 2000 in a hotel room near Fisherman’s Wharf. Paper said suspicious circumstances and let it lie. I printed out the notice and got to work on Gleason. She took a bit longer, but I finally found her in a clip from The Arizona Republic. One paragraph. Retired nurse, former Chicago native. Age forty-three. Shot dead during a home invasion in 2002. There was a picture of her in surgical scrubs, smiling. The copy said she left a husband, four children, and would be missed by all. End of tragedy. Move on to the next.

The only other name on my list was Tony Salvucci, a desk jockey who processed Gibbons’ John Doe suspect. He was easy to find because he was still on the force, made it all the way to lieutenant before he was shot. Twice in the head in 2004. In an alley on Chicago’s South Side. I knew the area. Not a great place to die. Not that I ever found a spot I’d consider good.

I looked up the number for Phoenix’s murder squad and put a call out to the desert. I told a woman I had information about an old murder, gave her Carol Gleason’s name, and waited ten minutes.

“Detective Reynolds, how can I help you?”

He sounded old and weary, a cop with neither kith nor kin, ridden hard, put away wet, and not happy about any of it. In other words, exactly what I was looking for.

“Michael Kelly. Private investigator out of Chicago.”

“We’re all happy for you, Kelly. What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to get some information on a cold homicide. Victim’s name is Carol Gleason.”

Reynolds didn’t miss a beat.

“We got these new phones, Kelly. Took me a week and a half to figure out how to answer the goddamn thing. Anyway, they have this big screen that comes with the phone. Tells me who I’m talking to. I guess in case I was some kind of asshole who would forget that. Also tells me who’s on hold and why they want to talk to me. So I’m looking at my screen and it says ‘Kelly, Michael. Claims he has information on Carol Gleason murder.’ The operative phrase there is ‘has information.’ Not ‘wants information.’ Has it. Because if it said ‘wants information,’ you can be damn sure I’d have never picked up the call. So what is it, exactly, I can do for you?”

“Sorry, Detective. Must have been a computer error.”

“Uh-huh. Fuck the computer.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Listen, if you give me just ten minutes…”

“You have half that.”

“You remember the case?”

“I worked the original crime scene. Must be four, five years ago. Shot once in the chest. Never solved. Tell you the truth, it was a little strange.”

“Strange how?”

“Well, we put it out to the press as a break-in, robbery-gone-wrong sort of thing. For me, it never really played that way.”

“Why not?”

“You know what, Mr. Kelly. Would you mind telling me your interest here? Before I get too far down the road, that is.”

I explained to him who Carol Gleason was, in another life, in another time.

“So she was the attending nurse in this sexual assault?”

“Correct.”

“And her name is in your old file?”