Authors: Vanessa Skye
“Ah, yes. The rapist?” Consiglio barely contained a contemptuous snort. “How on earth is a man killed in his own bed in central Chicago related to random truck drivers dumped on various highways, another motorist shot in a forest, and a young runaway?”
Jay and Berg didn’t give an inch, already aware the link would be a hard sell.
“Because they are all linked to hitchhikers in some way,” Berg answered, not letting her temper get the better of her. “Rogers, Taylor, and Williams all regularly picked up hitchhikers. Taylor had a missing hitchhiker’s DNA on him, and we all believe he raped her around eighteen months ago. We also know he raped a number of other women, including two other missing hitchhikers; consensual sex was not his MO. As you were happy to solve the hitchhikers’ disappearances with Taylor’s death, you must agree on this point. Melissa then shows up dead a few days after Taylor in the same area. Winchester had a hitchhiker’s DNA in his car. And Dell raped a hitchhiker. Hitchhikers are the common denominator to all the murders,” she said.
Consiglio snorted. “That’s a leap. It’s certainly not enough to run with. If it was the same hitchhiker—maybe. I need these new investigations to find me more than implausible theories. If you keep this kind of rumormongering up, I’ll take you off the Dell case, too!”
“No you won’t,” Leigh snapped.
“I’ve got another link for you. How to do you explain the stun guns that were used on Taylor, Rogers, Williams, and Winchester?” Jay asked.
The seated officers commenced their murmuring agreement once again.
“As I said, it is a superficial link. Different stun guns were used in each crime. They are a common weapon, and the detail was in the media following Taylor’s murder, meaning the usual array of copycats,” Consiglio said. “And Melissa and your last victim, Dell, had no such marks, which discredits your theory. Again, I need more. The rope was different, the method of torture was different, and cause of death was different.”
“And yet Williams, Rogers, and Taylor were all truckers,” Berg replied.
“There are about thirty thousand truckers in and around this county. And Melissa, Winchester, and Dell were not truckers. I don’t want your hunches. Show me the evidence!” Consiglio pressed his lips together with displeasure before speaking again. “The orders remain as I have outlined. The detectives will work on the cases separately until they are solved. Clear?”
Berg snorted and shook her head.
Jay plowed on. “I want this case solved so the actual killer is brought in. Not some fantasy perpetrators who look good on paper and to the mayor! While it wasn’t the same stun gun, surely it’s more than a coincidence? We have to look at any possible link, no matter how out there. Leave us on the cases and we’ll find the evidence you want. Most victims were motorists on the same stretches of road, dumped in or near forests. The hitchhikers, three were tortured—”
Consiglio made a show of nodding, unsuccessfully trying to hide his growing anger. “Everybody drives on those stretches of road at some point. They’re the arterial highways to the city! And as I said before, the victims all had different causes of death. A serial killer sticks to a strict routine, and even the greenest investigator knows this. These murders are far too frequent and random to be the work of a single killer.”
“We’re finding evidence pointing to a possible accomplice.” Berg glared at the haughty man incredulously and took another step forward. “Dr. Dwight found evidence of more than one assailant on Williams, and we believe Dell’s rape victim was pumped for information by a woman so they could find him—”
“If the new investigative teams find more evidence supporting your theory, then I will admit the trucker murders
may
be the result of a spree killer,” Consiglio spluttered.
“Semantics,” Jay muttered under his breath to Berg.
“Now you listen, O’Loughlin! I refuse to prematurely link all the murders and panic the people of Chicago with some nonexistent serial killer on the basis of your hunches. Do you want to announce to the media that a serial killer has murdered at least six people that we know about and we have no idea why? Do you want to deal with the panic? Do you want to answer the phones when thousands of residents call in because they thought they heard a noise in their basement?” Consiglio yelled.
Several detectives grumbled in agreement.
Consiglio smiled, knowing he was winning them over. “We come out saying there’s a serial killer before we have a suspect in custody and how long do you think it will be before the FBI takes over the precinct, telling you and me how to do our jobs? Or even worse—what if the union starts blocking trucking routes into the area? Jesus! Do you want to explain why the residents of our city can’t get their bread and milk in the morning? There is more at stake here than you can possibly understand, and I can’t risk all hell breaking loose until we are sure.”
Consiglio glared at Captain Leigh, as if it was all her fault.
She glared back.
Suddenly, his anger dissipated as quickly as it arose, and a calculated look crossed his face. “And be aware, detectives, if the media gets wind of this ridiculous theory of yours, then I’ll have your jobs.” He smiled at the thought and stalked out of the room.
“Captain, I—” Jay started.
“Enough. You’ve all got your orders, follow them.” Leigh fled to the quiet of her office, slamming the door behind her.
After a moment of stunned silence, the meeting’s participants stood and headed over to Jay and Berg.
“You have some big
cojones,
man,” one of the officers said, slapping Jay’s shoulder on his way past.
“Hitchhikers. Brilliant!” Arena, who was back from his stint in the Domestic Violence Response Team, said to the pair. “Can’t believe I missed it.”
Hamilton was one of the last to offer support. “Nice one,” he complimented in his usual understated way as he limped by.
The rest of the officers whispered their support to Jay and Berg, but not loud enough to reach Consiglio’s sharp ears. Eventually, the crowd around Jay thinned, leaving him and Berg standing together alone, a fact she was acutely aware of.
“Since when did the police stop actually solving crimes?” Jay muttered, gesticulating wildly.
“About two years ago when Consiglio’s career stalled and he set his heart on local politics—didn’t you get the memo?” Berg could still see the steam coming out of Jay’s ears, despite her attempt at levity. “Hey, you’re the one who told me not to let him get to you, right?” she asked. “Don’t worry, we’re not giving up. We’ll find a solid link and the truth will come out. He’s panicking. The media’s already all over the trucker murders, and I am dodging Stella’s calls almost hourly.”
“You’re defending him?” Jay’s eyebrows almost disappeared into his dark hairline. “You think he set you up!”
“Of course I’m not defending him. Just telling you what’s happening. Fuck! Either way, there’s not a hell of a lot we can do about it, is there? In case you hadn’t noticed, we are less popular than Al Qaeda right now. So, unless you want to chat to—”
“No. Back off, Berg,” Jay said.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
To alleviate Jay’s anger, not to mention their discomfort with each other, the detectives decided to get Karen to identify her dead rapist.
The air in the car was thick with things left unsaid. When they arrived at the hospital, they caught the elevator up to the third floor and strolled into Karen’s room.
Berg noted Karen had been given no flowers or cards, and there was no evidence of any visitors.
Karen looked at the detectives quizzically as Berg got out her cell and brought up an image of Mark Dell she had snapped in the morgue with the inbuilt camera. A head shot only, it hid the grisly details of his death.
“Is this him?” she asked Karen, passing over her cell.
Karen took the cell in a shaky hand and stared at the image on the screen before handing it back to Berg.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Did you catch him?” There was hope in her quavering voice.
“No, but somebody did,” Berg answered. “He’s quite dead.”
Karen’s face showed no expression before the dark veil that had been sitting over her features lifted. “How?”
“Nastily,” Jay replied.
Berg watched as Karen’s face as human decency versus revenge flashed across her features. She recognized Karen’s inner fight as it played out. Revenge won as she knew it would. Karen looked satisfied before nodding to herself. “Good.”
Berg would never admit it aloud, but she was happy, too. One less scumbag for her to worry about.
“He can’t do this to anyone else. I hope you use this as a reason to give yourself the best life you can. You deserve it,” Jay replied, not looking at Karen, but at Berg.
Berg stared at Jay for a long moment, then smiled.
Karen’s bottom lip wavered before she broke down in tears. Grabbing a handful of tissues from the drawers near her bed, she looked at the detectives. “No trial?”
“No trial.”
“Thank you,” she said through her tears. Karen continued crying for a few minutes before taking a deep breath and blowing her nose. The action elicited a yelp of pain, and she scrunched her eyes shut as the wave of agony passed and the painkillers drained the last twinges away. “I forget that my nose is broken until I do that,” she said. “But at least it’s better since they put it back in place.”
Jay smiled as he stood to leave the room. “Take care and good luck, Karen.”
Berg followed after her partner.
“Thanks, I needed that,” Jay said to Berg as they walked down the hall.
“It still broke my heart.”
“Why?”
“She had no flowers, no cards, no family there. No one cares. She’s so young. Shouldn’t somebody care?” Berg sped up so Jay wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. She made for the sliding front doors, noticing on her way that Jay stopped at the gift shop.
Picking out the largest bunch of flowers, a stunning arrangement of roses, irises and lilies, Jay paid for them and had them sent to Karen’s room.
Berg stared at him in surprise. “Thank you,” she whispered, delighted by his kindness. She couldn’t have been any more thrilled if he had sent the flowers to her. She hoped they would make Karen’s breaks and bruises feel slightly better.
Breaks
. . .
“About last night . . .” Jay said once again.
Her head down, Berg didn’t answer, lost in her own thoughts.
“Berg?”
Still giving no response, Berg continued to the exit.
Jay jogged to catch up to her and touched her on the shoulder.
“What?” Berg asked, looking around, startled. “Oh, sorry. What were you saying?”
“Nothing, don’t worry about it,” Jay replied. “Where were you?”
“Something Karen said . . .” Berg continued, almost to herself. “About her nose. It just stuck with me for some reason . . .”
“What about it?”
“Something in the back of my mind—about it being put back into place . . .”
“It really, really hurts and makes you feel like your eyeballs are going to explode and your teeth will drop out?” he joked.
Suddenly Berg got it, taking out her cell and pressing the speed dial.
“What?” Jay asked again, exasperated.
Berg held up a finger to shush him as the person picked up the line on the other end. “Dr. Dwight? Melissa’s nose—was it a bad enough break to have required it to be set by a doctor?” She listened and then smiled. “Thanks.”
Jay looked at her smile, raising his eyebrows as if to say
what gives?
“Melissa’s nose was set. She would have had to go to a hospital after Taylor raped her, because when we found her body, it was healed all in place.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Three hours later, the detectives were sifting through a pile of file copies supplied by the duty nurses of three of Chicago’s largest emergency rooms. While the city had a number of other general and private hospitals, as well as medical centers, they figured the public emergency rooms were the best place to start their search for Melissa.
Berg sat with Jay in the on-call lounge of the medical complex, ignoring the frenetic bustling of the hospital staff around her and trying to put the smell of the industrial antiseptic out of her mind. But she struggled to concentrate. The smell seared its way through her sinuses, bringing with it an automatic sense of helplessness and fear.
Unwanted memories of her childhood flashed through her mind, as if she were watching an old newsreel in a dark theatre: coming home from school to find her mother unconscious on the couch or floor after one of her “spells,” the efforts to rouse her with shouting and cold water, usually to no avail. There were also the memories of the inevitable phone call to the paramedics, who would bundle her mother up under sterile-smelling blankets and take her still form off to the nearest emergency room, and of Berg riding along in the back of the ambulance.