Authors: Charlie Newton
And now I remember.
The night I heard about the murder…I’m four years and one day past motherhood, four years and one day out of Roland’s hands. I’m living on the street, drinking myself into Old Crow oblivion nightly. It was the night after my son’s birthday—I’m drunk in the Riptide Lounge, sharing a back booth with two sixteen-year-old junkie prostitutes. I remember standing and cheering, twirling like a top, and being thrown out into the alley…
VOID is written at the bottom of the page. M.E. page 2 is a duplicate of page 1, except the box for the victim’s name is corrected to read: BURTON E. OTTSON.
I jump back to the dicks’ report, skipping to page 5. The victim was misidentified for three days as Roland Ganz, then correctly ID’d as Burton E. Ottson, age forty-one, proprietor of Burt’s Big & Tall, a Calumet City clothing store. I remember unscrambling that the victim was Ottson, not Roland Ganz, but it was a year later, after I was sober, after I’d run away from the Salvation Mission. Somehow Roland’s "death," then celebrating on the bar table and being thrown into the alley had led to the Mission—sick, weird bastards too, but no sex, just piles of religion. I sobered up there, faced where I was, and ran as soon as I could.
I found my first job the day after I ran from the Mission—animal control officer trainee in South Holland. And I liked it, but they fired me for driving the animals I caught into the better neighborhoods and setting them free. From there I took the CPD exam, left those "gaps" in my history, and didn’t look back. Until today.
Take a breath. And another. One of my hands has stopped trembling. The dick’s file has Burton E. Ottson’s history:
Relationship to foster home: None direct.
Relationship to Roland and/or Annabelle Ganz: Attended same church—Redeemer Methodist, same stockbroker—1st National Bank of Calumet City. Both men had given money to The PTL Club in 1987, as well as the Republican National Committee, and the local mayoral candidate. Both had taken separate trips to Branson, Missouri.
A note in the margin is dated 6.5.03 but has no initials:
January 2003, Jim Bakker opens religion-based radio show in Branson, the Studio City café
. I blink, then shut my eyes again, seeing Reverend Jim and Tammy Faye on the TV, Roland pretending to preach to me while he…
The page flutters to the floor. I need to get the fuck out of here.
Seventeen years of cop intercedes.
Wait: Why was someone working this file in 2003?
That little puzzle helps; so does the sound of Little Gwen’s voice still in my ear.
The next page is more history: Both Ganz and Ottson filed extensions on their 1986 federal income taxes. Neither had a criminal record. No pornography was found in either residence. There’s another margin note but in different ink—no date or initials:
Ganz and Ottson signatories on an assumed-name safety deposit box (emptied October 20, 1987) at the Grand River S&L in Berwyn. Grand River failed following year
.
So?
Next paragraph. Ottson’s bank accounts were interesting. He’d given half his 1987 salary to PTL—I’m starting to sweat again, but it quickly registers that I don’t know Ottson, have never seen him; he never touched me. I hear the wall clock tick for the first time and keep reading. Ottson’s checks bought "life partnerships" to PTL’s Heritage USA pentecostal resort in South Carolina. There’s another note dated February 1989:
Jim Bakker stepped down from PTL re Jessica Hahn. 3/19/87
. Reverend Bakker’s sex scandal.
A search of Ottson’s lake cottage produced exactly one hundred photos of Tammy Faye—all signed and inscribed to him. The handwriting was different on several. I flash on page 2 of the detective’s report and flip back to it.
"Male Caucasian clad in black-colored rubber panties. Single GSW to the upper right chest. Tattooing and powder burns around the entrance wound. Lipstick applied in an irregular pattern. Makeup applied to the entire face. Body encircled by a white powdery detergent-like substance in a heart-like pattern. Trauma to the groin area. A baseball bat recovered six feet northeast of the body."
There was lipstick on the mirror; the face is smeared with it too…Are we making a Tammy Faye?
Man, I gotta go; this is gonna kill me. It is, I know it.
A minute of blank turns into five. I roll my shoulders, look everywhere but at the file, say fuck it, and press on. The numbness from my hand has moved to my head and lungs. I feel better.
There’s a signed statement from a neighbor.
"The foster family watched PTL with the father every day. EVERY day—he was a good, God-fearing man. Same with Wall Street Week every Friday at 7:30, but Annabelle, God bless her, was never home for that—she and I went to vespers, it was a special time just for the father and the children."
I drop the pages;
enough
. A paperclip and a loose card fall out. It has a shop name and a Tarot symbol. It says, "Tom, re: October 19. It’s a Roman Empire holiday honoring the god, Mars; it celebrates the Armilustrium; when the weapons of the soldiers were purified and stored."
Faint memory. Have I heard that before? The door opens again; it’s Detective Barnes.
"We done?"
I fake a human being’s calm. "Not quite. Few more minutes, I’ll yell at ya."
"Better yell at your superintendent too. His office just called up front." Barnes’s grin is either a leer or his toothpick’s heavy. He shuts the door.
I stand, hoping my knees hold, thinking I’ll need to pace. And I do as I turn on my phone and punch Chief Jesse’s number, no idea what I’ll say or what he’ll ask.
He answers, "Smith."
"Hi. It’s me."
"I can see that."
"Sorry that I hung up. I—"
"How much trouble are we in, Patricia?"
He only uses my name like that when he’s being fatherly. It doesn’t last long, but it feels like fortress safety. I’d hug him unconscious if he were here. "Oh, I don’t know. Not much, so far."
"TAC officers don’t hang up on the superintendent of police in the normal course of their day."
"Yes sir, I’m sure that’s true. I mean, I know that’s true. Sir."
"Let’s have it, the story on Mr. del Pasco and his relationship to you."
Deep breath. "Not really…ready to report. Sir." I can see Chief Jesse nodding through the phone. "But I will, if you just give me a day or so to prepare."
"A day or so?"
"Sir, I’m in Calumet City reviewing the ’87 homicide file right now. So far there’s nothing in it that matters. But there’s a lot to look at and I plan on staying as late as they let me. If I could get some sleep after, then write it up—"
"And bring it to my desk tomorrow morning by 0-9:45. Is that what you want?"
I lean into the wall. It’s a reprieve, not a pardon, but it’s something. "Oh, yeah, that would be golden. Sir."
"0-9:45. IAD wanted you today. I pushed them off until 0-10:30 tomorrow. The FBI was not as generous and made a formal complaint to me, the State’s Attorney’s Office, and the mayor."
"Special Agent Stone?"
"Special Agent Stone. He’s asked the U.S. Attorney to charge you with obstruction."
"Danny D knew nothing about the ASA kidnap. The union will eat the G’s eyeballs, Chief. Sir."
"Maybe so." Chief Jesse doesn’t sound all that confident. "Read that file carefully, Officer Black. Write two reports—one about it and one about you. Understood?"
Big swallow. "Yes, sir."
Click.
There’s a whole box to look at, including all the history on Roland and Annabelle. I’m not up to reading it, not here, and take the pages out to a secretary for copies. She does them while I wait, smiles like she knows me, and asks how’s it going.
How’s it going? It’s like going to hell in house shoes.
Back in the room I stuff the copies under my shirt, then skim the evidence summary on why the teenage boy was considered the prime suspect. His name is right there, Richard Rhodes, but with no middle initial. What I read seems too flimsy to juice a grand jury, let alone an ASA looking to try a winner.
And that’s strange, given what Chief Jesse said about Richard Rhodes still being a suspect after eighteen years. The photograph file is next and hasn’t gone away in the last hour. I reach for the tab, but my fingers slip off. My hand hesitates, any reason not to open it is a good one, then I use both and the folder slides out with no effort. Right there. Flat in front of me.
You could leave
.
Get another job. Let Roland own you again. Let him…preach…to Gwen’s little boy
—I grit my teeth and open a vampire’s coffin not a folder.
The first photo is an 8 x 10, face-on from directly above the corpse, a harsh black-and-white like a million others I’ve seen and not much different than what’s on the TV shows. Same with the second one shot in color—neither shows much of the room and I don’t hurt yet. I focus on the corpse, a middle-aged guy shot to death. He’s painted like a clown. The next two glossies pull back and away, showing the white heart on the floor. Something clicks deep in my stomach. And my hand numbs again.
The next photo is from the left and I recognize the chair, the upholstery pattern, the—
I realize it’s not the chair, not the carpet I recognize. It’s the death scene itself. I’ve seen it…before. Live.
No way
. I splash two of the remaining photos—
see, never seen that, never seen that either
. But I have, I’ve seen it. All of it; every bloody, twisted inch.
No. No way. I didn’t live there then. I was four years gone. How…?
I push the photos away like distance will help. We ain’t going there, sister. No fucking way we’re going there. I stare at the wall and feel the tears on my cheek. All I see is white. Bright white. Everything blurs; then my feet are running. I’m sucking for hothouse air that isn’t there.
Blackout drunk—three;
The stock market crash—two;
My son’s birthday—one.
Oh, my God
. I’ve known all this time.
Patti Black. Murderer.
Old Crow. Jack Daniel’s.
Tony’s Liquor store. The parking lot’s half full, same as the Whiskey Barrel lot I escaped five blocks back. Both hands are fists. My rearview mirror wants me to take a good look—the Old Crow sign in my windshield says I don’t have to, Tony’s got my answers inside. My .38’s in my lap; I’m either gonna shoot myself, or the sign, or the next voice that speaks. This is…not possible. My fish. The strays I saved. The people I helped.
It can’t come to this? I’m not a killer.
No?
Look in the fucking mirror—
long enough to SEE. Look in the liquor store window, asshole
. Patti Black. Murderer. She walked into that house blackout drunk on her son’s birthday, shot a complete stranger, and beat the rest of him to death with Richey’s bat.
I jam the ignition, hit the gas without looking, and don’t care if the curb breaks the axles. I’m doing 65 when I blast through the first light and hit 80 by the second. The on ramp to I-94 is bumper-to-bumper; I veer to the shoulder doing 100. Patti Black painted his face and drew the heart on the floor. She’s just as crazy as Roland; just as fucking dangerous. Cars blur. Patti Black, murderer.
Somehow I don’t die in the Dan Ryan’s traffic, a coughing metal congestion buffer between new reality and crumbled fiction. Numbness fills my car and pins my shoulders to the seat. Two hands that belong to someone else steer through dusky headlights to Wrigley Field. Horns push me up the street to the L7. I feel a spit line caked on my lips; I’m in the Twilight Zone again, only this time it’s real. Then I’m at the bar ordering a double Old Crow, neat. The glass is in my fingers and feather light and I can taste the bite as the whiskey approaches my lips.
"Oh, damn. Sorry."
The Old Crow sloshes the bar and my arm. The channel changes and I’m not in the Twilight Zone. Julie McCoy is on the stool next to me, waving at the bartender for a bar towel.
"’Nother bad day?"
"Huh?"
Julie pats my shoulder and straightens my cap. The bartender arrives, does the wipe-up, and reaches for more Old Crow to pour my refill. Julie shakes her head and says, "Two waters, no ice," then looks at me. "Eighteen years is a long time sober. Whatever today was, it’ll be different tomorrow."
She nods at the autographed motorcycle wreck that spans the back bar. All I can do is keep my teeth together.
"Cello was everything I had, every day since I could remember, all I worked for and wanted to do. And I threw it away riding a Ducati, showing off for a French girl whose name I can’t remember."
The bar audience laughs at a joke from the stage. How’d I get here? A girl comedian with a saxophone is pointing at her head and hips. Julie wraps my arm through hers. There’s a business card between her clear-lacquer fingernails. The rectangle reads
Confidential Investigations
and has a Chicago phone number. The name at the bottom is Harold J. J. Tyree.
"This clown’s been by twice."
I’m coming to in a manner of speaking and touch the bar coping to make sure it’s there. My clothes smell; my left hand’s attached to my arm. The mirror has the same bleary image that all of them do. The bartender brings the waters and looks at me semi-sideways, then at Julie and says hello to someone beyond her. My neck hurts. I remember to breathe.
Julie wags the business card. "Been by twice. You hear me?"
"Ah, yeah," I blink her into focus. "And he said…?"
"That you and he should talk. About R and A and Calumet City."
I look at the card again, concentrating this time. "How did, ah, Harold know I was here?"
Julie shrugs. "Drink your water. There’s something I want to show you."
Outside, night has come to the Northside; the air’s cool. Julie talks about Saturday’s rugby match against BASH, something that may have been hugely important to the old me. The new me is using more sidewalk than necessary. Julie seems to notice but she doesn’t comment. She keeps talking about BASH.