The Third Rail (14 page)

"Their design is the closest thing I've seen to the logo I gave you. I figure what the hell, maybe there's something there."

There was a pause, then Hubert's voice came back down the line. "Old English type and a black train over yellow, right?"

"You pulled it up on the Net?"

"Got it in front of me. You're right. It's close."

"Check out Wabash. See what they did, who they worked with. Maybe you find Transco somewhere in the mix."

"You got it, Mr. Kelly." A pause. "Can I ask a question?"

"Shoot."

"Does any of this tie into our shootings?"

"Not sure yet. But remember, that's not the only game in town."

"So keep digging?"

"Keep digging."

I clicked off, drained my glass of its bourbon, and threw some money on the bar. Channel 6 was breaking in with a special-report banner:
THE MAYOR'S PRESS CONFERENCE, LIVE FROM CITY HALL.
Cue the music. Call in the clowns. I pulled on my coat and left the bar. I had better things to do. Like feed my dog and get some sleep.

T
he kettle began to hum, lightly at first, then a high-pitched, insistent whistle. Rachel Swenson walked into the kitchen, switching off the knob for the gas and running her hands across the counter toward the jar of tea bags. She didn't want to take the pills they'd given her unless she had to. A cup of tea and an early night in bed would do just fine. She reached for a mug in the cabinet and thought about Michael Kelly, unshaven, arms folded, gun on his hip, slouched in the doorway of the hospital's examining room like he owned the place, which, in his mind, he probably did. Michael could be rough around the edges, but he was warm, and he was real. She loved feeling safe when he held her, and despised the danger that gave breath to that need for protection. Rachel sighed, grabbed a mug, and turned back toward the stove. A cool breeze plucked at the back of her neck. The image of an open window flashed through her mind; a premonition tiptoed up her spine. She turned again and he was there, inside her home, closing a hand over her mouth and slipping a needle under her skin.

Somewhere far off, her mug crashed from counter to floor. Then she was looking up and he was over her. She saw the
edge of a knife and tried to speak, but the words tumbled away. Michael's face flashed through her mind again and she felt indescribably sad at what felt like his passing. Then she fell, too, amazingly far, until, finally, she was alone, hiding in the blinding white.

R
achel Swenson woke up in the dark, sitting on a cold floor with one wrist handcuffed to what she guessed was a pipe. She held up a hand in front of her, but couldn't see it. Then she listened. There was the sound of traffic, maybe a car horn, but it was distant, muffled. Closer, she could hear the drip of water. Finally, the scratch of a footstep. First one, followed by a second.

She felt along the ground for a weapon, but found nothing. So she balled her free hand into a fist and waited. The scratching stopped. She lifted her head. The breathing was quick and near. Something clicked, and light splashed onto her face. Then a hand covered her mouth. Another pinned her against the wall. She opened her eyes and saw a young black boy smiling back. Behind him, a second face surfaced. Not much older. He was smiling, too.

"You gonna scream, lady?" The first boy's voice was soft, an edge glittering underneath.

"She's all hooked up to the pipe." The second wrenched Rachel's shackled wrist. She winced, but didn't cry.

One of them slapped his hands against the walls while the other hopped around in front of her. She could almost see the
thoughts speeding between them, the frenzy building. Two kids, about to step into their adult lives.

The second came close again and crouched.

"Don't," she said. He tore her blouse to the waist and punched her hard on the jaw. She hit her head against the wall and slumped awkwardly to the floor.

The first was on top of her, tearing at the rest of her clothes. Then he was gone, thrown into a corner by his friend. The dominant one would go first. His pants were already half undone. He pulled at his zipper and came closer. She was on her back, vision blurred in one eye and bleeding from the mouth.

"We gonna do what we do." The kid pointed behind him. "Both of us gonna hit it. So just let it be."

"No." She didn't know where that word came from or why. But she knew she was good with it.

The boy cocked his head and wrinkled his nose. "That what you want?"

She shook her head and didn't know what she meant. The boy disappeared for a moment. He returned holding a brick.

"You want to feel it or no?"

This time she opened her mouth to scream. The boy lifted his brick and the world went gray.

M
aybe you did shoot him and you just don't know it."

"Fuck you, Rodriguez."

The detective grinned and kicked his feet up onto his desk. It was 6:30 in the morning and we were holed up inside Area 3 on Chicago's North Side. A recap of Mayor Wilson's press conference from the night before played on a TV in the corner. I looked idly for Katherine Lawson, but couldn't find her in the cluster of suck-ups standing behind His Honor.

"What do you want from me?" Rodriguez said and clasped his hands behind his head. "I don't know who killed the guy."

"Question is: Do you care?"

"It's the feds, Kelly. Besides, I got a stack of fresh murders piled up and getting colder by the minute." Rodriguez gestured toward the tube. "If the mayor says one of the good guys took him out, who am I to argue?"

"What else did you work up?" I said.

"Case is closed. Bad guy shot in the head."

"What did you find?"

Rodriguez sighed and pulled his feet to the floor. Then he opened up a file and slipped on a pair of glasses.

"When did you start wearing glasses?"

"Fuck off." He shoved a report under my nose. "Guy's name was Robert Robles. Chicago native. Born in a toilet at the old Greyhound station. Mom left him there for the cleaning crew."

"Not exactly the way you want to come into the world."

"No. DCFS bounced him all over the place. A few juvie offenses, but nothing too bad. Kid turned eighteen and decided he wanted to see the world. Two years in Somalia with the Eighty-second."

I flipped through his service record, lingering on Robles' photo, dress greens with beret cocked to one side, lips parted, eyes trying hard to make a killer into a soldier.

"Guy knew how to shoot," I said and turned the picture over.

"Yeah. He did another two years in the military when he got stateside. Looked like a lifer. Then he receives a general discharge. Not really sure why yet."

"And after he got out?"

"Don't know. He had no family that we know of. Work records show him in Seattle for six months, working a construction gig. Then he disappeared."

"Until he reappeared and started lighting up Chicago."

"Pretty much."

"I don't know this guy, Rodriguez."

"I sort of figured that."

"So why was he so interested in me?"

The detective shrugged.

"What else you got?" I said.

"We found his rifle, a Remington 700 just like the Loop shooting. He dumped it along with a camera and some other items in a duffel bag near the scene. Also got a trace on both
weapons." Rodriguez pushed across another piece of paper. "Fifty 700s were clipped from a warehouse outside Hammond two weeks ago. These are the first two to surface."

"Meaning whoever lifted them might have forty-eight more," I said.

"Always the optimist, Kelly. Feds sent a team down there last night. The locals had a tip on a lukewarm suspect, but were sitting on it. Lawson suggested they expedite things."

Rodriguez turned over a picture. The man was middle-aged, maybe Russian, with a flat nose, heavy forehead, and black tongue hanging past his chin.

"They found this guy, strung up by a wire in his bedroom closet. Been there awhile."

"Robles didn't like a trail?"

"Apparently not."

"What else?" I said.

Rodriguez pulled out a second file.

"A maintenance worker found her yesterday morning, dumped alongside an auxiliary line of tracks in the subway."

I ticked open the folder and picked up a crime scene photo. The woman I'd seen wrapped in plastic was named Maria Jackson. She was black, early twenties, with her throat cut to the bone. I ran my eyes across the police report.

"We figure it's gotta be connected," Rodriguez said. "Coroner says she'd been dead six, eight hours."

I looked at the photo again. Cracked glass for eyes and the smile, wicked and deep, yawning just beneath her chin.

"So Robles, or his accomplice, cuts her throat somewhere else and dumps her."

"According to the feds, there is no accomplice," Rodriguez said.

I looked over the top of the file. "Who is she?"

Rodriguez turned up a booking photo of the victim, throat intact, body warm, blood still pumping nicely through her veins.

"Jackson was a working girl. Vice says she could usually be found on a corner near Cabrini-Green. What's left of it, anyway."

Rodriguez produced a street map of the area around Clinton and Congress.

"There's a parking lot under the highway, next to the Blue Line stop. City actually owns the property. CTA keeps a maintenance access door right here." Rodriguez tapped at the access door I already had a key to. "It's a half mile or so from the street to where the body was actually found, but that's the closest entry point to the subway."

"Forensics?"

"Our guys found trace evidence of blood on the door frame. Preliminary match to the victim."

"Anyone in the neighborhood see anything?"

"Bus station's a block away. Not exactly the best spot to pick up a reliable witness. Otherwise, the block's full of factories. We figure he dumped her at night. Place would have been like a ghost town."

Rodriguez flipped the files shut, put on his watch, and drained his coffee. "Course, none of this matters much. We got the guy who killed Maria Jackson. Or, rather, you got him." The detective smiled, cocked his finger, and shot me.

"What are you doing now?" I said.

"I'm about to get rid of you. Why?"

"I told Hubert Russell I'd meet him later this morning. He's been working the stuff I gave him."

"I just got some paper on him." Rodriguez picked through the pile on his desk.

"Hubert?"

"Kid was leaving a party in Boystown last week. Car followed him down the street. Couple of guys got out and pushed him into an alley."

"Tough guys, huh?" I began to read through the report Rodriguez had handed me.

"Witness said it was a green Camaro. Said they came out of the car with what might have been a baseball bat. Owner is an asshole named Larry Jennings. Been arrested twice on similar assaults."

"You guys get a tag number on the car?"

"Back of the initial report."

I turned the report over and saw the number, along with Jennings' phone and address on the Northwest Side.

"So why didn't you pull him in?" I said.

"Hubert wouldn't cooperate. Refused to ID his attackers. Claimed he tripped and fell on the way home that night. Hate Crimes guys said it's not unusual. Kid just doesn't want the hassle."

"Or his name in the paper."

Rodriguez shrugged. "Maybe."

I sighed and flipped the file shut. "Can I keep this?"

The detective waved his assent. "So what is the kid working on? Oh yeah, your train crash from the seventies."

"Eighties."

"Whatever."

"You want to take a ride over later. See what he's got?"

"We got time for breakfast?"

"I told him I'd swing by around ten."

Just then Rodriguez's phone rang. He picked it up and grunted. I walked out to get some coffee. When I returned, the detective was tugging at his tie.

"Got a visitor out front. Rita Alvarez."

"Who's that?"

"You read the papers, Kelly?"

"Sure."

Rodriguez smoothed out the lapels of his jacket. "She writes for the
Daily Herald
. Smart, tough."

"And I assume good-looking?"

"You assume correctly."

"Pretty early for a reporter. What does she want?"

"Don't know. Something about the case."

"Guess she doesn't realize it's closed either. Mind if I stick around?"

Rodriguez shrugged and led me down a small hallway, then through a maze of cubicles. On the way, I dialed Rachel's number.

"Damn."

"What's that?" Rodriguez said.

"Tried Rachel twice this morning."

"No answer?"

"No."

"It's barely seven. She's probably sleeping in. After yesterday, I can't blame her."

"Yeah, but she usually picks up the phone."

The detective stopped and turned. "You worried?"

"I just wish I'd stayed at her place last night."

"Why didn't you?"

"Stupid."

Rodriguez shook his head. "You don't take care, you gonna lose that woman. Come on, it's this way."

R
achel lay at the bottom of a deep well, cool air flowing over her skin. She wanted nothing more than to rest, slip into the comfortable black that pressed down all around her. Then the darkness began to lighten. The low buzz above her became distinct sounds, voices. Rachel opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was the brick used to hit her, a foot from her head. Beyond that, the empty face of the boy who'd used the brick. He was lying on his side, eyes open, throat gashed. The boy blinked once, a bubble of saliva at the corner of his mouth, and issued a low groan as his lungs emptied. Then he was dead. Rachel inched back from the widening pool of communal blood. To her left was the boy's flashlight, throwing crazy shapes up on the walls. From the right came sounds of a struggle. Then another body hit the floor. It was the second boy, tumbling out of the shadows and smiling vacantly at her for a moment before a hand grabbed his shoulder and flipped him back into the darkness. The man who'd brought her to this place picked up the flashlight and shined it in her face.