The Chicago Way (17 page)

“Good. Now tell me about our friend Detective Rodriguez.”

“What do you think?”

“Truth?”

Nicole stepped back and gave me a single nod.

“I think he’s the one,” I said.

“How did you know?”

“I just know.”

My friend looked away, out over Lake Shore Drive, into the jeweled and beating heart of the world’s greatest city. Believe it or not, I actually had a handkerchief to offer.

“Thanks. The makeup is going to run.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Happy will do that to you.”

“Yeah, it’s all of that. I never would have believed it. But it’s amazing.”

I gave her a minute.

“Been a long run, Michael.”

“Think it’s coming together?”

“I do,” she said.

We began to walk. Slow and nice.

“By the way,” I said, “Bennett was asking about you. Again.”

“I didn’t see him.”

“Does he know about Rodriguez?”

“He does now.” Nicole smiled. “Bennett’s sweet.”

“Like I said, obsessed. In a good way.”

“You jealous, Michael?”

Nicole tried to grab the back of my tux, but I moved away, drifted down toward the lobby. I could see Rodriguez at the bar and Diane just beyond. I felt relaxed, maybe too much so, and a bit disconnected. I wondered how this was really playing for me. It would be interesting to find out.

“What are you guys doing afterward?” Nicole said.

“Not sure. Maybe a late dinner, drinks. You game?”

Nicole shook her head.

“Vince has got early duty tomorrow and I’m swamped. By the way, I haven’t forgotten about you. I ran a DNA extraction on that shirt. Should have something soon.”

“You have time?”

“It’s a little crazy right now, but I can get it done. Got some strange stuff going on in the lab these days.”

“How so?”

“Some things I can talk about. Some I just can’t.”

I turned to face my friend.

“Go for it.”

“Right now?”

“Why not.”

“Okay. Vince and I did a workup of unsolved sexual assaults over the past five years. We have targeted seven assaults on the North Side, all home invasions, all within two miles of one another.”

“Same MO?”

“Pretty close. Attacker keeps his face hidden, so we have no suspect description. The one you rolled on with me the other night…”

“Miriam Hope?”

“Right. She’s part of the group.”

“DNA?”

“None so far. Miriam’s our best bet. I’m running her bedsheets right now. If the rapist cried, he may have left some tears. It’s a shot.”

“This is just you and Vince right now?”

“Yeah.”

“All right. Now, what can’t you talk about?”

“The twelve-year-old…”

“Jennifer Cole?”

“Yeah. I ran the semen we found in the alley…”

“And?”

“Can’t talk about it.”

“But you want to.”

“I need to.”

“How do we do this?” I said.

“I don’t know yet. Give me a little time.”

I shrugged. Nicole squeezed my hand.

“I gotta run,” she said. “Thanks again for coming tonight. Thanks for the talk. Means everything, Michael.”

I gave her a final hug just as Diane drifted over. We moved through the Drake’s revolving doors and into the October night that was Chicago. I took a final look back and caught my oldest friend’s eye. Nicole began to wave, but a couple passed between us. When the path cleared, she was gone.

I searched the lobby and found her a few feet away, turned at an angle, talking to Bennett Davis. Rodriguez was nowhere to be seen. I smiled. As the Irish say, everyone loves a trier.

I moved onto the street and into a cab. Diane and I had a late dinner at Gibson’s. It was nice but not quite real. We were eating the meal and drinking the drinks, telling the stories and grinning the grins, feeling the part, but not quite.

I had the cabbie drop Diane off at her apartment. Then I went home alone. An hour later I was fighting to stay awake and failing miserably. In that moment of clarity just before sleep, I thought of Nicole, alone in her lab, working through the night and into the next day’s dawn. I wanted to get up, wanted to keep her company. Instead I fell into a cold slumber, a heavy sort of quiet pressing down and stretching toward the darkness.

F ingers of gray light crept through my window and across the bedroom floor. Outside and below I could hear the small voices of morning: a door slamming, then a garbage truck as it moved through an alley. I thought about getting up, maybe a cup of coffee and the paper. The truck shifted gears and moved off, its rumble drifting me back to sleep. Then the phone rang. Caller ID said ILLINOIS STATE POLICE LAB. I picked up on the third ring.

“Hello.”

“Michael, it’s Nicole. Did I wake you up?”

“Just getting up. Why are you down there so early?”

“I couldn’t sleep last night, so I came down to the lab. Thought I’d work on your samples before anyone else got in.”

“Probably not a bad idea.”

“Definitely not.”

“Why?”

“We got a profile.”

“From Elaine’s shirt?”

“Yes.”

I could feel a tingle at the back of my neck and a bit of heat moving up toward my temples.

“Can you identify it?”

“I ran it through CODIS at a little after three this morning. Got a match.”

I was already half-dressed and reached for a pen and paper.

“I’m on my way. Give me the name of the guy.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“How do you mean?”

“Remember last night when I told you about Jennifer?”

“You didn’t tell me anything about Jennifer.”

“Yeah, well, all the stuff I didn’t tell you about, it just got a whole lot worse.”

“Because of Elaine’s shirt?”

“Michael, you better get down here. Right now.”

I got to the lab at a little after seven a.m. Parked in a lot that was empty save for Nicole’s silver Cherokee. The front doors were locked. The lobby beyond appeared to be empty. I tried Nicole’s cell phone but got no answer. Shit. I moved around the side of the building, wondering if there was another entrance. Nothing.

I walked along the back of the building now. The El ran close by. I tried Nicole’s cell again. Still nothing.

My heart rate ticked up a bit, and I felt for the gun clipped to my waist. A line of dark red streaked along the cement to my left and up into a rusted set of girders. I knelt down and ran my hand across the stain. Still wet.

In the distance I could hear the rumble of an approaching train. I moved underneath the tracks. Quickly now, the rumble grew. The ground shook, the approaching train threatening to block out any other reality. I swung between a second set of girders.

Nicole was lying on her back, head tilted, mouth open, the only sound the train as it roared overhead. Around her throat was a necklace of bright red, sweating heavily every time she took a breath, soaking the University of Chicago sweatshirt she wore underneath. I knew enough to know it was arterial blood. Probably a straight razor, used from behind. I knew enough to know that no tourniquet, CPR, or first aid would save my friend’s life. Instead I just held her close. Her eyes tracked mine. She didn’t try to speak, just focused on me, accepted her fate. Within a minute or so, the light began to fade. She squeezed my hand once, then slipped away, quietly, in the early morning, under the El tracks.

I placed her back down on the ground and thought about all the times we never had, all the things I never said, all the things most people probably think of- way too much to contemplate and way too late in the game. Then I pulled out my cell phone and punched in 911. I held Nicole until I heard the first ambulance. Then I put her down for the last time, walked away, and wondered when I was going to cry.

T hree hours later I was in my office, door locked, shades drawn. I had my feet up on the desk, looking straight ahead at nothing. My cell phone chirped. I ignored it. The office phone rang once. Again. Ignored that. Then I heard footsteps in the hall and a knock at the door.

“What do you want?” I said.

It was Vince Rodriguez, standing over me, looking like he needed instructions on how to live the rest of his life. Like most cops, however, he was used to putting things away, and that’s what he did.

“Tell me what happened?”

“I gave them a statement at the scene,” I said. “Tape recorded it, so you can listen along if you want. They took my shirt, photos of my hands and arms. Probably looking for the slash marks that would show how I cut Nicole’s throat. You want a drink?”

I pulled the Powers from my desk drawer. Rodriguez took off his coat, hung it on a hook, and sat down.

“You didn’t kill Nicole,” he said. “I know that. So does Headquarters.”

“I’m impressed.”

“What I don’t understand is why you were down there.”

I poured a bit of whiskey, neat, into a chipped coffee mug and offered it to Rodriguez, who took a pass. I swirled the brown liquid around and then set the mug down.

“Like I told the police, Nicole and I were going out for breakfast. Check her phone records. She called me an hour or so before I found her.”

“I don’t need to check the records,” Rodriguez said. “Nicole called me directly after. Told me she was going to meet with you. Didn’t say what it was about, but she sure didn’t mention breakfast.”

I expected Rodriguez to come by. Sooner or later. He seemed too smart not to. It wasn’t even a bad thing. Nicole was dead. Just as dead as Gibbons. Just as dead as Gibbons’ landlady. Maybe Rodriguez could help.

“What’s the working theory downtown?” I said.

Rodriguez folded back into his chair.

“Wrong-place, wrong-time bullshit. Nicole was working late, decided to take the El home. Nicole was working late, decided to go out for a smoke.”

“She doesn’t smoke, and her car was in the parking lot.”

“Like I said, all bullshit. But really, where else can they go?”

“Someone had access to the crime lab.”

“Already checked. Nicole’s was the only key card used last night. So unless her killer came in with her, Nicole had to have been attacked outside.”

“Doesn’t play, Rodriguez. At six in the morning Nicole had no reason to leave the building. I talked to her. She was expecting me and should have been down in the lobby.”

“Which brings me back to my question. What did you have her working on?”

It was better than even money that I had somehow signed my friend’s death warrant with my DNA request. If I could take it back, I would. If I could take her spot on the coroner’s gurney, I’d do that, too. Instead, I would try to make her death matter.

“She was running some tests for me.”

“On the old rape you told her about? She shared some of the details.”

“Yeah, I figured she would. I gave her a piece of evidence. A shirt from the victim.”

“Where’d you get that?”

“For right now, let’s just say I acquired it.”

Rodriguez nodded. I continued.

“When she called this morning, she told me she had gotten a profile. Told me it had come back as a match in CODIS. She said it tied in to some results you had gotten from the attack on that kid.”

“Jennifer Cole?” Rodriguez said.

“Yeah.”

“Nicole said that?”

I nodded. Rodriguez clasped his hands on top of his head and looked up at the ceiling.

“What’re you thinking?” I said.

“I’m thinking she made a connection.”

“One that got her killed,” I said. “What happened with Jennifer?”

“Leave that for now. We need to figure out what Nicole got off your girl’s shirt. Where is it?”

“Nicole kept it in the lab,” I said.

“Shit. Her workstation was clean.”

“What about her computer?”

“Nothing there but her assigned cases.”

“Whoever killed her got inside,” I said. “Took everything with them.”

“Maybe not. Let me use your computer.”

Rodriguez slid behind the desk and fired up my Mac.

“Nicole didn’t trust her boss,” the detective said. “Thought he was working with the DA to bury cases that deserved to be investigated.”

“Sounds like Nicole.”

“Yeah. Anyway, she wanted to build a case. Created her own private backup system.”

Rodriguez pulled a thin black object from his jacket pocket and slid it into a slot on the side of my computer.

“I pulled this off her key chain at the scene. It’s a memory stick. The question for us is, did she have time to run a backup?”

“Have you taken a look?”

“No. She trusted you. Figured I’d wait.”

I offered a small toast with my mug.

“Thanks, Detective. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I did. If we get a lead, this goes off the books. You and me. Once we find him, whoever killed Nicole isn’t getting a trial. You understand?”

I understood and told him as much. The detective gave me a short nod and dropped his eyes.

“Good.”

V ince clicked on a blinking icon, and Nicole’s memory stick opened up. I was immediately lost. Fortunately, Rodriguez seemed to know his way around.

“The latest file on here was updated this morning. That means she probably ran a backup to whatever she did for you.”

“Can you find it?”

Vince opened up what looked like a spreadsheet and began to read.

“This is it,” he said. “Elaine Remington. Is that your client?”

I nodded.

“See these bar graphs in green?”

I nodded again.

“That’s the DNA profile from her shirt.”