Winter of frozen dreams (4 page)

Two glasses of eggnog had opened his day. The oatmeal his wife prepared for breakfast was washed down by a six-pack of Old Style. A second six got him through the construction of a bicycle he'd bought his daughter for Christmas. More eggnog for lunch. If it hadn't been so cold, he could have taken the kids sledding or ice skating or had some excuse, any excuse, not to sit in and drink. The hurried cup of coffee when the call came to report to work—pronto—didn't hint at sobering him up.

Hanrahan, the detective who directed the search, told the cop to stay on the couch and not throw up on anything.

None of the crew was exactly sober. The other three hadn't started drinking as early as their compatriot. Their eyes weren't road maps of red and white yet; they could still read, write, conduct the rudiments of a search. One of them could also hear, for he hollered at the others to hush.

"What's the fucking roar?"

"I thought it was inside my head," called a cop from the kitchen.

Hanrahan laughed. The roar was the bathroom fan. They were all so tight the fan sounded like a turbojet, and each man thought it was his own head blasting from booze, the cold, and a homicide investigation that demanded work on Christmas Day.

The air conditioner fan was activated too, Hanrahan noted. Why would a person turn on the a-c fan, which sucked in cold air, and the bathroom fan, which sucked out air, and at the same time burn the boiler at seventy-nine degrees?

One thought was all his headache permitted. The incongruity was jotted down, then forgotten.

The apartment was dusted for latent prints and

checked for signs of blood, with no success. Due to the parameters of the search warrant, the most curious items uncovered in 306 were not confiscated. But they were fun.

In the second drawer of the bedroom dresser, tucked under two plaid blouses, was a box containing flesh-colored rubber dildos of varying size, shape, and thickness, lace panties with a slit in the crotch, and an electric vibrator. A shoe box under the bed held photographs—snapshots of women making love with women—in beautiful Kodachrome. The acts and positions were explicit, and one woman—Barbara Hoffman—along with one or two or three different partners, appeared in every photo.

In the living room Detective Ken Couture knelt at a brick bookshelf half buried by houseplants and remarked that Hoffman's kinky tastes extended to her reading material. Interspersed with the textbooks on chemistry and microbiology were tomes on aberrant sexual practices and clinical studies on deviant psychosexual behavior, sexual taboos, and the sexual revolution of the sixties. There was one volume on poisons and toxic substances. There were also books on autopsies and forensic pathology. None of the books in this strange collection were corralled as evidence, because they weren't covered by the search warrant.

What was collected seemed a paltry haul: an address book, a bag of soiled laundry that could be tested for blood, a few latent prints. There was no indication of a struggle in the apartment—nothing broken, no glass shattered, no liquid soaked into a rug. The apartment was spotless.

Two cops trudged outside to the snowbank adjacent to the Dumpster and searched for traces of blood or hair. Immediately their sweat froze and the wind shivered their flesh. It was a tedious and frigid task. A layer of snow one inch deep was scraped, sifted, and discarded. In the twenty-below-zero afternoon thirty-five inches of snow were tediously removed before the shovel scraped blacktop. No hair, no blood—just snow and frozen fingers and icy curses.

The incinerator pipe on the roof was checked for hidden clothing or a weapon and was found to be nailed shut and undisturbed. The basement was checked. The gas furnace showed no signs of having been used to destroy clothing or any other evidence.

Finished, the cops woke their inebriated cohort, who had been snoring on the sofa, and sealed the premises. An ominous sign warned that the apartment was under police investigation and that anyone making unauthorized entry was subject to arrest and prosecution.

Hanrahan shrugged. They had found nothing of importance. At least none of them had deposited their Christmas joy on the bathroom tiles. Maybe the crime lab technicians would have better luck.

Lulling leaned back in his chair and puffed a cherrywood pipe. His hands were folded on the rise of his belly.

Ken Couture, the detective assigned to work with him on the case, summarized the search of Barbara Hoffman's apartment. No promising leads were discovered. The identity of the dead man remained unknown. The body had been too frozen to autopsy; thus cause of death was also unknown. It seemed there was little more they could accomplish that afternoon, and Couture was anxious to conclude for the day. Christmas Day might have been ruined, but Couture hoped to salvage the evening with his family. Lulling grumbled.

Couture had been a detective for all of three weeks, and he had been warned about Chuck Lulling. The department preferred to view criminal apprehension, arrest, and conviction as a team game, with the various elements of the law enforcement community operating in unison. Lieutenant Detective Lulling was feisty, obstinate, individualistic. According to those who worked with him, he rarely shared information. He seldom wrote police reports,

and when he did he said as little as possible. Many believed that he didn't operate according to standard procedure; he'd been around before the book on standard procedure was written. He went on his way, conducting his own inquiries in his own manner. One didn't work with Lulling on a case; one worked for him, Couture had been cautioned.

"You eaten dinner yet?" Lulling asked.

"Not had a chance."

"We'll grab a bite on the way," said the older detective. "You and me are going to Park Ridge, Illinois, and visit Miss Hoffman for ourselves—see just what this lady is made of."

Couture was puzzled. To confront a murder suspect without knowing the identity of the victim, with no evidence, with no conception of what had happened, seemed unsound strategy. He voiced his concern. Lulling was unfazed.

"Maybe we should wait till she returns," Couture suggested, "watch her patterns, see if this is connected to anyone more than these two. Right now she doesn't know we've found the body. We can detain Davies. And what happens if she doesn't cooperate? She can fight arrest with extradition proceedings because she's in Illinois, and it would give her time to construct a defense. Going down tonight is risky."

"Hell, yes, it's risky. But Davies could barely sit in the chair to spill his guts, what guts he didn't spill in the wastebasket or the bathroom. How tough can she be? We go to Illinois and I squeeze that girl's balls, and I'll have a confession by midnight."

Lulling paused for a draw of tobacco.

"Nobody interrogates like me. We go to Illinois tonight, Ken, and you can celebrate Christmas tomorrow."

Since Couture had been a detective for twenty days, and Lulling for more than twenty years, the rookie didn't pursue his objections. From material found in the apartment he got Hoffman's parents' address. He phoned the Park Ridge police, enlisted their cooperation, and com-

pleted the appropriate paperwork. Faced with icy roads and a three-hour ride, they decided to use Lullings Buick rather than one of the department Dodges. The sky had faded gray to black when the Buick fishtailed out of the basement garage and headed for the interstate south to Chicago.

Park Ridge was an exit on Chicago's northwest corridor, a suburb of single-family homes replete with two-car garages, sidewalks that were shoveled, front lawns with lopsided snowmen, and blinking strings of Christmas lights. There were shopping centers and drive-in banks. The police station was cinder block and inconspicuous, the type of one-story structure that could house a hardware store or dental offices.

Good news greeted the Madison detectives at the station sometime after 9:00 p.m. A message from the MPD stated that the body dug out of the snowbank had a name.

On Lullings suggestion, missing-person reports had been checked. A woman had called earlier in the day and said her brother had failed to attend Christmas dinner, which was at noon, and his absence was highly unusual. He was a bachelor with no other family and very few friends. A drive to his residence indicated no one was at home. Mail and the evening papers for the last two days were uncollected on the porch, and the woman was worried.

The physical description—5'9" tall, 160 pounds, graying hair cropped short and balding, age fifty-two years— matched the corpse. He wore no jewelry, no gold chains, no rings, nothing except a quartz wristwatch the woman and her husband had given him last Christmas. It was requested that she or her husband drive to Madison immediately. The husband, Glen Hanson, viewed the body and made a positive identification.

The dead man was Harry Berge. Berge was born in the Koshkonong River valley on a farm outside Edgerton, Wisconsin. He had moved to Stoughton, a small town twenty miles south of Madison, a dozen years ago and

worked at the UniRoyal Tire Plant. Both parents were dead. His sister, with whom he'd enjoyed Christmas dinner for the past fifteen years, was the sole surviving relative. Berge was a loner and had very few friends, the brother-in-law confirmed.

Furthermore, Lulling learned that the coroner had an early prognosis. A cursory examination indicated Berge had been bludgeoned to death with a blunt instrument. A minimum of four blows were administered to the skull. The severe battering of the genitals probably anteceded the head contusions. An autopsy would be done in the morning.

Barbara Hoffman and her two sisters were in an upstairs bedroom at their parents 7 home, catching up on each others lives. The youngest of three Hoffman children lived in and attended school in Chicago. The eldest was a social worker in Boston. They were gathered around a Scrabble board, but conversation and gossip held far more interest than the game. Downstairs in the den, their parents watched TV. It was after 9:30 when the doorbell rang. Robert Hoffman answered and was surprised to find two Park Ridge policemen.

They asked for Barbara. Giving the excuse of an accident concerning a friend in Madison, they asked if she'd accompany them to the station. Any information she had regarding the person would be helpful. Barbara declined her fathers offer to drive her and accepted the police escort.

Lulling nudged Couture, sizing up his prey as Barbara Hoffman entered the station. It would be Coutures first questioning of a homicide suspect. For Lulling it would be the last.

— 10 —

Barbara Hoffman walked into the interrogation room and sat in a wooden chair. She glanced at the Madison detec-

tives from behind tortoiseshell glasses that obscured half her face. Her thick lashes blinked once. Her eyes shined as brightly as polished mahogany. Her skin gleamed smooth, soft, unburdened by lines of worry. Her nose was small. Her lips were thin etches of pink. She appeared lithe yet not frail, slender yet not slight. A blue sweater with pearl buttons covered small breasts and bony shoulders. Her hands lay in the lap of her jeans.

Couture had expected someone painted and perfumed. The woman posed before him was cut from marble. She was natural and cold. Her features were delicate but not fragile, and where one anticipated warmth—in the skin, the eyes, the mouth—there was a clarity edged with hardness.

Shifting the pipe to the corner of his mouth, Lulling introduced himself and Couture. He paused to see if Barbara's curiosity or guilt would initiate the exchange. It didn't.

"We met a friend of yours today, Miss Hoffman," said Lulling, "and we had an intriguing chat. Jerry Davies told us about the night of December 23rd and the early morning of the 24th."

Barbara Hoffman stared at him, as uninterested as if he had recited what Santa Claus had brought him for Christmas.

"We also met your friend, Mr. Berge," Lulling continued. "Harry didn't have much to say, except that you bashed his skull and bashed his balls." Lulling smiled and withdrew his pipe. The sweet scent of his tobacco filled the room. "Would you care to tell us about it?"

"Fuck you."

Lulling flinched, as though she'd spit in his face. "That kind of attitude isn't going to do you any good," the detective warned.

"I want to talk to a lawyer."

"Detective Couture can take you to a phone, but Jerry Davies talked for four hours this afternoon. We'd like to have your statement about Berge's body, about how Mr.

Berge came to be bashed to death in your apartment."

"Am I under arrest?"

"No," Lulling said, "you're not under arrest."

"Then I'm going home."

"I'd advise you to show up in Madison tomorrow, with your lawyer and with a statement," Lulling said.

"Merry Christmas," Barbara Hoffman said, and she strode out, leaving behind an astounded Couture and an angry and defeated Chuck Lulling.

— 11—

Al Mackey liked to drink. According to colleagues in the legal profession, he had a good heart and sincere intentions and both were subverted by a weakness for alcohol. When Mackey wanted shoptalk, he could pace from his law office in the Carley Building to the Pinckney Street Hideaway or the Inn on the Park, where lawyers and government bureaucrats imbibed. For a different flavor he might hustle over to the Fess Hotel, where young professionals sipped white wine, discussed pop psychology and adulterous relationships, and boasted of their rapidly ascending careers. For fun and nostalgia he could frequent the student end of State Street and the taprooms of his undergraduate days, where kids in painters pants and flannel shirts slugged down the suds as easily as they ogled coeds.

But on Christmas night Mackey would probably be drinking alone. He had plenty of excuses to indulge. He was forty-six years old, and things were in shambles. His law practice was faltering. His domestic life was a mess. Although on respectful terms with his ex-wife, Al Mackey had not adapted well to divorce. Some men never adjust to life alone. And there was a daughter he missed and never enough time.

A phone call interrupted Al Mackeys Christmas night. It was Barbara Hoffman. The call was long-dis-