Authors: Vanessa Skye
They took the elevator up to the third floor and walked around through the maze of nurses and medical equipment—there seemed to be no logical order to the rooms—until they found fourteen.
They pushed the privacy curtain aside. Karen was on a wheeled gurney, a white sheet pulled up to her chest, and appeared to be sleeping. The only patient in the room, she looked small and alone in the large space.
While Jay’s notes said she was twenty-two, she looked to be no more than in her late teens, just over five feet tall with straight, dyed red hair and freckled, fair skin. She had many small cuts and abrasions on her face and arms, two black eyes, and livid purple bruising around her neck.
“Karen?” Berg whispered, not wanting to startle her.
She slowly stirred to life, fighting the effects of the painkillers she’d been given by her doctor. She sat up on her elbows and blinked her eyes, peering at Jay and Berg suspiciously.
“I’m Detective Raymond and this is Detective O’Loughlin. How are you feeling?”
Karen tried to clear her throat, wincing in pain from the effort. “Okay . . .” she said with a croaky voice. “You guys are cops?”
“Yes. Are you ready to tell us what happened?” Jay asked, once again flashing his badge so the groggy woman could see it.
Karen hesitated a beat. “Uh, sure, I guess so.”
“If you are uncomfortable having me here, I can leave the room and wait outside,” Jay said. “I know it can be difficult to talk about this kind of stuff with a male officer. I promise not to be offended.”
Karen nodded her thanks, and Jay stepped out.
Berg joined him no more than fifteen minutes later.
“She was hitchhiking home at around one in the morning and got a ride from a delivery driver on the Eisenhower near Oak Park,” Berg said, reading from her notebook. “The driver was a young guy, aged around twenty-five, dark hair and eyes, tanned skin, shorter and skinnier than you. The vehicle was a pizza delivery truck belonging to a Charlie’s or a Chappie’s—she’s not sure which. Last two digits on the plates are an
A
and an
O
.”
Jay nodded, making a note of the names himself.
“He pulled off the highway, she doesn’t know where, and into some kind of a playground. He groped her in the van; she got out and ran, tripped in the dark, and fractured her leg. He beat her, breaking her nose, and then raped her. He tried to strangle her, but she played dead and he let go.”
“Bravo to her,” Jay said.
“Yeah, I told her the same. The fact that he didn’t know how long it takes to successfully kill someone by strangulation means he’s new at this.”
“Yep.”
“She dragged herself out to the highway after he drove off, and flagged down a motorist, who brought her here. The hospital has done a rape kit,” she said in an almost whisper. Berg felt tears threatening to form behind her eyes.
“You okay?” Jay asked, puzzled.
Berg nodded, biting her lip. “It’s just . . . she feels like her life is over now, like he somehow stole her soul as he raped her . . . you wonder how you can ever be the same again . . .”
Jay frowned, but stayed silent.
“I didn’t know how to tell her that when something as horrible as this happens, we owe it to ourselves and the women who didn’t make it to get on with our lives. She’s been given a second chance at life. But if she spends the rest of her life blaming herself, then he keeps on raping her. She can still choose how her life turns out, but it’s hard to remember that when everything seems bleak.”
Jay touched her shoulder. “You slipped into the first person there, Berg. Anything you want to tell me?”
Berg pulled away. “No.”
Jay looked at Berg thoughtfully, then took her hand. “Why don’t you go and tell her what you just said? I’m sure she would like to hear it,” he said softly.
Berg shook her head and extracted her hand. “Not my place. Although you’d think the counselor they sent her might have said something helpful, but apparently not. They’re fucking hopeless.”
A nurse walked up to them briskly, shifting a foot-high pile of files to her hip. “Ah, the detectives, I presume? I hope you got what you needed. The rape kit has been sent to your lab.”
“We did, thanks. And could you ensure this victim sees another counselor? The last one was terrible, apparently,” Jay said.
“Counselor?” the nurse replied, puzzled and searching through her paperwork. “The rape counselor has not been here yet, according to her file.”
“Oh. Well, maybe it was the meds. She seemed a bit groggy,” Berg explained.
The nurse smiled in understanding. “Of course. Don’t worry, we’ll ensure she gets the help she needs. Thanks, detectives.”
Jay and Berg thanked the nurse and headed back to the parking lot.
“Berg . . . did something similar happen to you?” Jay asked quietly as they walked. His question hung in the air.
Berg pursed her lips and looked away. “Don’t be ridiculous, it’s just Victim Support 101. Let’s go.” She opened the passenger-side door quickly and climbed in.
Jay frowned, and climbed in after her and started the car. The radio flicked on with the ignition, the news broadcast breaking the unpleasantly cool silence.
“Chief Consiglio, what do you have to say about reports there’s a serial killer on the loose in Chicago?” a male voice asked.
“Thanks to recent media stories, it’s clear that the area in and around the tollway is becoming a frequent spot to dump bodies. As distasteful and disturbing as that is, there is no evidence that all of these crimes are the work of a single killer,” Consiglio replied.
“How do you think having a serial killer in your city will affect your election campaign?” Stella Kyrkos asked, her familiar voice lucky enough to be the one to rise up over the loud babble and shouted questions from the assembled reporters. “Can the community feel confident electing you to one of our largest wards if you can’t find the person responsible for an epidemic of murders in the area?”
“The people of this great city can rest assured we are doing all we can to find the perpetrators, and have a number of solid leads,” Consiglio replied in his more reassuring tones, his voice a smooth as honey. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, working round the clock to ensure the safety of the community affords me no breaks.”
The broadcast moved on to the next topic as the detectives smiled at Consiglio’s discomfort.
Chapter Twenty-Four
They hit their computers as soon as they got back to the precinct, Berg looking for pizza places in the city that delivered and Jay searching local satellite maps for parks where the rape may have happened.
It was getting later in the day, but neither one suggested the search for a violent rapist wait until the following morning.
“I’ve got two Charlie’s and a Chappie’s Pizza Place. Chappie’s delivers, as does one of the Charlie’s,” she said.
“There are a few playgrounds that might be the crime scene. It’s a bummer it’ll be dark soon. The search will have to wait until first light,” Jay replied.
“Let’s check out the pizza places and see if we can find the right one.”
Berg made a note of the addresses before grabbing her coat and pulling it on. She had taken a leaf out of Jay’s book and decided that casual was better for regular hikes through the woods. Also, it felt nice to be out of her boring suits for a change.
The pizza places were at opposite ends of the city, and they opted to check out Chappie’s first in the south.
A dingy hole in the wall designed to cater to the university kids, Chappie’s consisted of a glass counter that had various congealed slices on display, slices that looked to Berg like they had been there for at least a week. The beleaguered cook turned around when they rang the bell, abandoning the dough he was kneading with bare hands complete with dirty fingernails.
“What’ll it be?” The cook sighed, as if making them a pizza would be some kind of medieval torture.
Berg noted his face was deeply etched with displeasure, as if disappointment had been his main emotion for fifty years. “Just information, thanks.” Berg secretly thought it would be a cold day in hell before she’d sample the pizza he specialized in: salmonella and E. coli topping with year-old moldy cheese. She flashed her shield as Jay did the same. “We want to know about your delivery guys.”
“What about him?” The cook turned back to his dough, kneading it with his grubby fingers.
“Any of them driving a delivery van late last night near the Eisenhower?”
The cook snorted. “Vans? We don’t have vans here. I have one guy and he uses a bike. I barely make enough to pay him, let alone run a van.”
Berg considered telling him that if he washed his hands and used toppings bought this century, business might improve. “Okay, thanks for . . . whatever that was.”
She and Jay turned and left.
“Hey, remind me to give the health department a call first thing tomorrow,” Jay said.
Berg nodded and guided the car north. Forty minutes later, they arrived at Charlie’s, a large, traditional Italian pizzeria. They lucked out and found street parking just down the road and walked briskly to the restaurant.
The place had a curtained shop front and a few canopied outside chairs and tables covered with the predictable gingham cloths. The tables were already full of families enjoying a dinner of pepperoni with cheese and garlic baguettes. Jay’s stomach rumbled in protest.
The detectives again flashed their badges and asked the counter assistant for the manager. The pair waited a few moments, savoring the delicious aromas of sausage and cheese, before the manager, a short, balding man who looked to be in his mid-fifties, wandered out.
“You’re police? How can I help you?’ the manager asked.
He was friendly enough, but clearly wary.
“Detectives Raymond and O’Loughlin,” Jay said. “And you are?”
“Jackie,” he replied, brushing back his sparse, graying hair with a latex-gloved hand. “Jackie Bacic. I own this place.”
“Mr. Bacic, do you have delivery vans?” Berg asked.
“Yeah, one, for the larger orders that can’t be done on the scooters.” Jackie pointed to the line of shiny, brightly colored scooters out the front of the restaurant. “I get a lot of group orders from all the office buildings nearby. Why?”
“Is your van white and was it used last night, near the Eisenhower?”
“It’s white, yes. And it is used most nights. We deliver twenty hours a day, seven days a week.” Suspicion was creeping into Jackie’s suddenly unhappy voice.
“Which employee was driving it last night?” Jay asked.
“This is the second time today I’ve been asked about that delivery. What’s this all about? Why do you want to know?” he asked, voice rising in panic.
“We have reason to believe your van was used in a crime last night, Mr. Bacic,” Berg said, losing her patience. “We’d like to talk to the employee who was driving it. Now.”
Jackie’s breath exploded angrily out of his lungs, and he ushered them through the restaurant and out the back into a sparse hallway. The clangs of metal in the kitchen almost drowned out Bacic’s panicked tone. “That son of a—” Bacic rubbed his face. “He’s not here. I knew hiring him would be trouble. That’s the last time I do a favor for a friend!”
“Who is he and why would hiring him be trouble, Mr. Bacic?” Jay asked.
Bacic sighed. “A friend of mine, John Dell, wanted me to hire his nephew, Mark, who was fresh outta the slammer, but the guy swore he didn’t do it and needed a job.”
“What didn’t he do, exactly?” Berg questioned.
“Some statutory rape thing. Said it was consensual but the DA wanted to make an example of him.”
Berg felt her temper rising.
Another example of our fantastic justice system at work.
Don’t rehabilitate the criminals, just make them worse.
“What did the SOB do?” Bacic asked, getting more agitated by the second.
“We’d prefer not to get into that until we’ve had a chat with your employee. Do you have his address?” Jay replied.
Bacic scrunched up his face. “You guys got a warrant or something? Doesn’t seem right for me to just hand over personal info.”
Berg doubted he was concerned about his employee’s privacy so much as his own possible liability. “Look, Mr. Bacic,” Berg said coldly. “You can either help us out now and we’ll be on our way, or we can get you that warrant, shut down your business, and impound your van while we carry out our investigations that would almost certainly take at least a few months with the case backlog we have. During that time, I can’t guarantee that your decision to hire a rapist to work in a family restaurant won’t make it onto the front page of every local newspaper. Which would you prefer?”