The Chicago Way (6 page)

Vince’s PDA beeped again.

“That’s the ambulance, Miriam. We’re going to take you to the hospital for the examination I told you about.”

“Will I spend the night at the hospital?”

“Probably.”

“Where’s my brother?”

“He’ll be at the hospital, too.”

“Okay. But you guys have to find my cat. His food is in the kitchen.”

“You got it, Miriam.”

The ambulance rolled out five minutes later. Vince came back into the bedroom. Nicole was just finishing up.

“I called in a couple more techs,” she said. “They’re going to process both bedrooms, living room, kitchen, and laundry room. They’re also going to take that carpet up.”

“What do you think?” Vince said.

“I think he probably used a condom. If he was wearing gloves, he probably didn’t cut himself. But it’s worth a shot.”

“Yeah.”

Nicole pointed to a set of rolled-up bedsheets.

“The victim thinks he was crying. If so, we might have some tears.”

Vince smiled.

“And some DNA?”

“Maybe. I’ll let you know. Okay, I gotta run. I’ll call you.”

“Thanks, Nicole.”

The two shook hands. Very proper and professional. Too much so. Vince turned my way.

“Thanks for staying out of the way. Find it interesting?”

“Very much. For what it’s worth, your guy’s a killer.”

Nicole glanced up at that. Vince cocked his head and gave me a funny look.

“What makes you say that?”

“The way she described him. The guy was on his way. Almost there.”

“You think he was going to kill her?” Nicole said.

I looked at Vince.

“I think it was a close thing. Not sure why he stopped, but you can bet it had nothing to do with Miriam or her stories.”

“Or People magazine,” Vince said. “Come on out here for a second.”

Rodriguez led us through the kitchen and into a small backyard. It was dark now. Pieces of light from the kitchen window cast the scene into silhouette. A clothesline ran off the back of the house. A cop stood nearby. As we got close, I could see why. Miriam Hope’s cat was hanging from the line, stiff in the cold, a length of panty hose cinched tight around its neck. Vince shone his flashlight on the animal, then to the ground.

“We think he took the cat as he left the house. Found it like this. Didn’t want to tell the victim until I got a statement.”

Rodriguez snapped off the light and ordered the officer to cut the animal down. The highway was nearby, and traffic rolled into the night. Some chatter floated in from the open door of a tavern down the street. Otherwise, it was quiet.

“Call me when you work up the evidence, Nicole. Nice meeting you, Kelly. How long you been off the force?”

“Been a couple of years.”

“Well, you still got the instincts. Thanks for the input.”

Then Rodriguez was gone and it was just me and Nicole.

“No, I’m not sleeping with him, Michael. Not yet. And consider it your good fortune he doesn’t have a personal life. First year in Homicide. Probably the only detective in the city that doesn’t know you just got pulled in for some face time with the DA. Now buy me a beer and you can tell me just how much trouble you’re really in.”

W e sat under the El tracks on Webster at an ancient DePaul bar called Kelly’s. I had a can of Bud and a burger. Nicole had a Diet Coke.

“What made you take this gig?” I said.

“The task force?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s not what we’re talking about.”

“I know, but the other stuff will wait. Talk to me about this.”

I tried to hold Nicole’s gaze, but she broke off. I took a sip of beer and waited.

“I went back again,” she said. “Just last week.”

“Why?”

“Why not? It’s where we grew up.”

“You don’t want to forget, do you?”

“What I want doesn’t really matter. Some things just don’t go away. Probably be the last thing I think of when I pass over. First thing I remember on the other side. And that’s all right. I’ve learned to live with it. Learned how to grow strong from it. You should, too.”

“I’m good,” I said. “You know that. I just worry about a scene like tonight.”

Nicole smiled and held out her hand. I took it.

“Michael, you’re always good. Always fine. At least that’s the part we all get to see. Sometimes, though, I wonder.”

I didn’t say anything, didn’t move very much.

“The SWAT team’s a good thing for me,” she continued. “Lets me do something.”

“The empowerment thing?”

“Yeah, the empowerment thing.”

My friend looked empowered, almost too much so.

“You sure?” I said.

“Yes. Besides, it gets too rough, I got you around.”

“Whether you like it or not.”

“Absolutely. But let me ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

Nicole lifted her glass and talked around the side.

“How exactly you going to save this poor black girl if you’re sitting in a prison cell?”

“I guess it’s time for my story.”

“It is.”

And so I told her. About Gibbons and Elaine Remington, the print and Diane Lindsay.

“You sleeping with her?”

“No.”

Nicole rolled her eyes.

“Matter of time. I know Diane. She does some work at the Rape Volunteer Association.”

“And?”

“You’re in over your head.”

“Never stopped me before.”

“Really? When was the last time you slept with a woman?”

I shrugged. Nicole cut right to it.

“I’m going to guess there’s been no one since Annie. And that’s been…”

She counted on her fingertips and looked toward the ceiling.

“…over a year.”

There had actually been plenty of women since Annie, but it was all playacting, dipping a toe in the water. I had a feeling Diane Lindsay would take me to the deep end and that, as my friend hammered home, might be a problem.

“Simple fact of life, Michael. What’s done is done. You gotta move on. Hard as it is, everyone else already has.”

“Let’s try one thing at a time,” I said. “Right now, she’s a journalist and I’m a potential story. As in ‘murder suspect’ sort of story.”

Nicole sat back, dragged a straw idly through her drink, and looked into its caramel-colored depths. I took another sip of beer and studied the nearest EXIT sign. Sometimes friendship can be hard. Especially with me on the other side. After a while Nicole shrugged and let it go.

“Have you talked to Bennett?”

“Yeah. He says to just lay low. Whole thing will blow over.”

“Bennett is usually right,” Nicole said.

“True. By the way, he asked for you.”

“Bennett’s a sweet guy.”

“Yeah. And still a little obsessed.”

“I told you we talked. Straightened that all out. Long time ago.”

“The boy is only human, Nicole. Just another face in the fawning crowd.”

“Whatever. Now get yourself another beer and give me the dirt on Diane Lindsay.”

I didn’t have any dirt, or anything else to offer, on our local news celeb. So I made up a few things, which seemed to make Nicole happy and, of course, is the American way.

I left Kelly’s at a little after ten p.m. and parked on Addison, just around the corner from my flat. I needed a smoke, shrugged into the night, and walked north along Southport Avenue. A half block from the Music Box Theatre, I brushed shoulders with the past. Annie was walking out of the old-time movie house and she was with someone, a tall, probably good-looking someone. He leaned over to speak at a crosswalk. She laughed into his chest, slipping a hand around his waist in a way I preferred not to remember.

The light changed and the couple approached, arms now linked, strides matching perfectly. A friend once told me that was a sure sign a couple was having sex. I leaned back, into the shadows of a convenient Chicago alley. They floated past. I caught a glimpse of her hair, maybe a cheekbone washed over in the pale reflection of neon. Then they were gone.

I moved into the slipstream and followed for another block or five. Her scent was there. Or maybe it was just me. Anyway, I followed, feeling more than I wanted. Nicole was dead-on. It shouldn’t be that way. But it was.

After a while, I had my fix and dropped off the pace. Nearby, an Irish bar named Cullen’s beckoned. I wandered in and ordered a pint. Then five more.

Four hours later, they announced last call. A half hour after that, a more than nice waitress offered me a lift home. I took it. We made time for a bit in her car, but she had to get up early. I said okay, went inside, and fixed a cup of tea. I thought about taking a look at the report on Gibbons’ homicide but knew I was drunk. Instead, I watched late-night Chicago flow past my window. After a while, I finished my tea and lay down, promising myself to fall asleep before the memories arrived.

T he next morning was Chicago cool, a slippery slope in late fall that could quickly deteriorate to cold, freezing cold, arctic cold, and why-the-fuck-would-anyone-live-here cold.

I made myself a cup of coffee and listened as the weather banged against my windows. Then I did what most runners do. Ignored the elements, got my running stuff on, and headed to the lakefront. A mile later, I felt loose and warm. The wind was steady and in my face. I kept my head down and plowed through. At four miles, I turned away from the lake, felt the breezes shift at my back, and let them chase me home. When I was done, I sat on my stoop as the sweat dried and the endorphins flowed. I’d be a little sore later on, but it was worth it. And would be worth it again. Tomorrow.

After the run, I showered, dressed, and found my car on the street. I headed west, through a light dusting of local traffic and into a dowager of a Chicago neighborhood near Humboldt Park. I parked in front of a Ukrainian church with a Madonna icon that used to cry but now just looks at you. Still, the people come. Still, the people leave money.

I got out of my car and stretched my eyes down the street. To my left a row of graystones marched into the distance. To my right a car parked at an angle to the curb. Two figures sat in the front seat. One drummed his fingers along the dashboard. A bass line growled from a pair of speakers in the back. I stepped close to a two-flat to read its number and stepped back. A stone gargoyle, face rubbed and smooth with age, smiled from its rooftop perch.

Halfway down the block I found the address I was looking for. In the last months of his life, John Gibbons had taken a room here. At least that’s what he’d told me. Like the rest of the street, it wasn’t much. For a man in the supposed prime of life, it was even less. For me, it was a place to start.

I walked across a shabby lawn to an even shabbier porch. As I walked, I felt, then heard something. A scattering of Kibbles ’n Bits crunched underfoot. I should have taken it as an omen. I didn’t.

The door cracked open a couple of inches, then maybe four more. The pointed face of a woman peeked across the threshold.

“Hello there,” I said.

The woman shifted and pale light washed over us both. Her face carried a bit more oval that I’d first thought, with high cheekbones and deep shadows underneath. The hair was thin, diluted by time and a lack of sun. Thick glasses sealed up small brown eyes pinpricked with black. They crawled over me and then beyond.

I thought maybe she hadn’t heard me and was about to speak again when the woman gave forth with a noise, somewhere between a squeak, a grunt, and a snicker. Then I heard the shifting of feet inside.

“I’m a friend of John’s,” I said. “John Gibbons, that is.”

I moved one foot onto the threshold, just inside the doorjamb. The heavy maple door crushed my big toe.

“Keep your foot back there,” she said through the now-closed portal.

I hopped lightly and pretended it didn’t hurt.

“You caught my foot there, Ms…”

I looked at the mailbox name above GIBBONS.

“Ms. Mulberry.”

I swore I heard a cackle although I’d be hard pressed to say I knew exactly what a cackle sounded like.

“Serves you right there, Mr. John Gibbons’ friend. What do you want?”

“Nothing, Ms. Mulberry. Just some back rent I know John was owing. I wanted to make up the difference…”

The big door suddenly swung open, and an interior light clicked on. Through the screen I could see a woman, ageless in the worst way possible. Maybe sixty, maybe eighty, she was too dusty and out of focus to get a handle on. Perched on each shoulder was a calico cat, entwined around her legs four or five others. Kittens and cats lounged on the stairs behind her. Some of them wore miniature ice bags strapped to their little cat heads. Mulberry must have caught me staring.

“They have migraines. From the heat, you know.”

“But it’s October.”

She flashed me a look, magnified by the Harry Caray glasses.

“Never mind,” I said.

I was inside the house now, inside a sitting room stuffed with felines and their respective droppings. I managed to get a handkerchief close to my face and found a spot on the sofa. To my left was a small alcove. Inside it, a desk littered with cuttings from newspapers, plates of half-eaten food, and an ashtray filled to overflowing. On the wall was a bulletin board with Post-it notes and index cards skewered with thumbtacks. Mulberry pulled a ledger out of a gray filing cabinet she kept next to the desk and laid it flat between us. The entries were handwritten in ballpoint, and immaculate. The landlady admired her handiwork for a moment, then looked up.

“Bring a check?” she said.

Her eyes fastened on my hand as I reached inside a coat pocket.

“Actually, Ms. Mulberry, I have something better than that.” I flashed my investigator’s license.