by Vanessa Skye
Just a dream. It’s not real anymore . . . the man is dead.
She looked at the clock on her nightstand as she pushed the comforter back and sat up.
4:30.
There was no way she was getting back to sleep so she wandered into her closet and pulled on her long underwear and thick sweats in preparation for a run.
She had run only eight hours ago with Jesse, but another jog was a better plan than lying in bed trying unsuccessfully to forget the past.
Berg tied on her worn running shoes tightly with a double knot and looked at Jess enquiringly. The shaggy golden retriever was still curled up asleep on the unused side of her queen bed.
“You coming?” she asked him.
He didn’t even raise his head off the bed before snorting in her direction, then wriggling his nose under her pillow to hide from the obviously offensive closet light barely illuminating the room.
Definitely a no.
She headed east at a fast pace on West Van Buren, with no particular route in mind. Her breath fogged in the twenty-degree air, but she was thankful it wasn’t snowing as she jumped lightly over the piles of dirty, old, icy sludge in the gutter that were illuminated by the streetlights.
I love you, Alicia . . .
His voice echoed in her head and she wished for a moment that she had brought her cell—she had a Tool playlist on there that could drown out even the most persistent thoughts.
Pulling her hood lower, she ran past the squat, red brick buildings that were characteristic of her end of the street and weaved in and out of the rows of tightly packed parked cars.
Soon enough, the buildings became taller, and the bright skyscrapers and streetlights bathed the still dark road in man-made light as she headed east toward the lake.
Her breathing became harder as she pushed herself faster. Stretching out her legs and taking advantage of her long stride, she huffed over the bridge reaching across the south branch of the Chicago River, through the tall concrete and glass forest, and past the Van Buren Street art nouveau Parisian-style Metra entrance and straight into Grant Park.
Passing Butler Field on her left and the huge Buckingham Fountain on her right, Berg recalled the last time she had been near the large water feature.
Four other detectives from the 12th had joined her and Jay at the scene that night. Cheney, Rodriguez, Abrams, and Connolly had been called out to process the body of a well-known Chicago reporter, Stella Kyrkos. Leigh had later admitted to luring her there and slitting her throat. She claimed Stella’s death had been necessary to silence the reporter once she could trace the leak back to Leigh as the source that ended Chief Consiglio’s police and political careers.
Berg pushed away the guilt she still felt over the young reporter’s death and instead focused on what Consiglio might be doing now. She and Jay had half expected him to come back to his favorite station after Leigh’s death and pick up dictating how to solve crimes to the precinct detectives. No one had seen hide nor hair of him since he had been retired by the Chicago Police Board to a part-time desk job. It was weird.
She was secretly relieved, however, since he had made no secret of his aim to get her and Jay fired. She was certain being out manipulated, particularly by a woman, had truly damaged his seemingly impervious ego. He had left his job and his political dream of becoming Ward 2’s alderman and had never been seen again.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
She turned onto Lake Shore Drive and ran along the bike path intending to loop back around toward Van Buren and then head home.
Only six miles today.
The lake was dark and choppy in the early morning air, the boats in Chicago Harbor bobbing frantically against their moorings as the horizon lightened to a deep blue-gray signaling sunrise was still about an hour away.
She could just make out the single and double scull rowers training as she made her way back to the river and she watched a single rower’s muscles bunch and release under his thick wetsuit as he stroked his way off the lake to the dock. The top of the skiff’s hull appeared only inches above the water level and the craft cut smoothly through the icy river, the splashing of the oars audible in the early morning. His movements were elegant as he guided the craft to the dock with a gentle touch. A familiar pull of desire tugged at her as she watched, but she pushed it aside.
Berg stopped running. “Arena?” She’d said his name more in shock than in an attempt to get his attention. She was mortified she had been checking him out.
He looked up quickly. “Berg? What are you doing out here?” he asked as he pulled the boat out of the water.
“Running. You row?”
“Well,” he replied with a booming laugh, “you don’t get guns like these playing golf.” He flexed his prodigious biceps. “You’re running out here, in the near-dark, alone?”
“Of course,” Berg replied. She had never had any trouble or felt unsafe on her runs, particularly first thing on a winter’s morning. She was pretty sure even rapists had better sense than to lie in wait for lone runners on a glacial street.
“You got a death wish?” Arena shivered. “Wait up a sec. I’ll give you a ride. Just let me lock this away and put some dry clothes on.” He ran up the shore with his boat and oars, disappearing into the clubhouse, only to reemerge a few minutes later wearing sweatpants, a thick, dry sweater, a beanie, and with a gym bag slung over one shoulder. “This way,” he said, indicating they needed to walk back the way she had come.
“It’s okay, I’m happy to run,” Berg said.
“Forget it. You’re begging to become a statistic.”
She could tell by the set of his mouth he wasn’t going to relent, and as she was starting to feel chilled from inactivity, she reluctantly agreed.
They walked in silence down to the parking lot on lower Randolph.
“So where on Van Buren do you live again?” Arena asked as they climbed into his old black Range Rover.
Berg wrinkled her nose—the car smelt of sweat and takeout—and opened her mouth to tell him her address. Suddenly, the thought of heading back to the scene of her nightmare filled her with dread. “Actually, do you want to have an early breakfast?”
“Hell yeah,” Arena replied, smiling, as he steered the car west. “Heard anything about how Emma Young’s surgery went?”
Berg shook her head, remembering the conversation with the Young family the prior afternoon as ICU doctors had wheeled Emma down the hospital corridor.
Arena had printed off the image of Emma’s suspected attacker and they had taken it to the hospital with the hope one of her family might recognize him. They had waited patiently as the doctor had spoken in a soft voice to Emma’s parents. He’d explained that Emma was in a deep coma, her scans showed no brain activity, and he considered brain surgery at this stage to be pointless as there was just too much damage.
The Youngs had stood their ground, however, and insisted the doctors give Emma the surgery anyway.
Berg had shown the picture to her parents, then Elizabeth, as Emma had been prepped.
Elizabeth had stared at his picture for a long time before she answered. “No, I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”
Berg had nodded as the nurses had clicked up the metal rails on the side of Emma’s bed, transferred her life-support system, and had hung her various IV bags on a mobile unit.
They had smiled at the family wanly as they wheeled Emma out of the room.
Berg was startled from her reverie as Arena’s SUV clipped the gutter while pulling into the familiar deli’s rear parking lot.
“Again?” Berg said, exasperated.
“Hey, if it ain’t broke and all that,” Arena replied. “I don’t know about you, but I could murder a salami three-egg omelet.”
They walked into the deli and stood in line. Even though it was early, the counter was bustling with customers. Arena ordered his omelet and Berg got a poached egg with a side of corned beef hash. They sat down at a table with
their coffees while they waited.
“So Emma Young was definitely raped. But the good news is we’ve got lots of DNA to work with,” Berg said.
Arena nodded as he tucked into his overloaded plate of food.
“Anything on Feeny?”
Arena shook his head as she chewed. “Dead ends all round,” he mumbled.
They ate in silence for a while.
“I didn’t know you were a rower,” Berg said when they had finished.
“That’s ’cause you never asked,” Arena said. “You’re so hung up on your ex-partner, you know nothing about your current one.”
Berg sighed. “Fine. Tell me about Detective Arena,” she said, sitting back with her coffee. For once she was happy that she didn’t have to think.
Later that morning, the detectives pulled up at the small home of the neighbor who had found Emma Young’s beaten body.
Yellow and black crime scene tape still surrounded the front porch and garage of the house next door, and Berg knew Emma’s parents hadn’t been back since the night of the attack, not even to collect clothes. Instead, a patrol officer had escorted Elizabeth into the home to gather some belongings for her family while they had remained camped out at the hospital waiting in vain for good news.
Even after her surgery, Emma’s condition had not improved. She was still on life support, and according to her doctor, her score on the Glasgow Coma Scale was only three. Patients with a score of three weren’t expected to survive. The best the Youngs could hope for was a permanent vegetative state—which was not much to hope for.
Arena rapped lightly on the front door.
A few moments later a middle-aged woman with short, peppered gray hair and watery gray eyes answered the door of the home, which was a carbon copy of the Youngs’, apart from the color scheme. Where the Youngs’ home was cream and white, this home was white and gray.
Berg and Arena held up their badges.
“Detectives,” she said with a nod.
“Mrs. Bernie Keating?” Berg asked. “I was wondering if now would be a convenient time for you to answer some questions?”
“Of course, anything I can do. Have you heard anything?” she asked, looking hopeful before waving them inside.
“No, sorry. Emma’s still in a very critical condition,” Berg replied.
Mrs. Keating nodded as if she had suspected as much.
“Can you tell us about the night she was attacked?” Berg asked.
The woman motioned for them to sit down, then went over and stoked her wood fire, adding another log. “I smelled the smoke. At first I thought it was my fire here, but the smell became bad, like plastic and chemicals. I thought it might be vandals at the elementary school across the road again, so I looked out the window. The smoke was coming from the Youngs’ house. I tried to call them, but I got no answer. So I went over and looked in the windows of the front room. It looked like there were flames everywhere. I came back here, called the fire department, and then grabbed my key.”
Berg gently reprimanded the woman. “It was dangerous for you to enter the home, ma’am.”
“Yes, I know, but I was worried someone was trapped in there. The fire was burning in the living room, but nowhere else, so I managed to get to the bedrooms. Then I found what I thought was Emma in the garage . . .” She dabbed at her face with a tissue she pulled from the sleeve of her thick cream sweater. “The fire department had arrived by then and they called the paramedics.”
“And you didn’t see anyone else at the scene or fleeing the home—either before or after?” Arena asked.
“No, nobody.”
“You see anything suspicious recently?” Arena asked. “Anything. Someone loitering around the house or street, maybe a car that seemed out of place?”
“No, nothing like that, sorry.”
“I understand you and the Youngs are close?” Berg said.
“Yes. We’ve lived together on this street for nearly twenty-five years. Two of the few original neighbors left. I’ve known those girls since they were born.”
“Emma ever confide in you at all? Tell you of any boyfriends, troubles at work, anything like that?”
“No, sorry. I am really closer to Elizabeth than to Emma. Lizzy comes over here to keep me company for a few hours in the evening most weeks. She’s been a real lifesaver since my poor Oliver died. She’s got a kind heart.” Mrs. Keating smiled slightly then frowned. “It’s unfair this happened to them.”
“Oliver? Your husband?” Arena asked while making sure his recording was working.
“My cat,” the woman replied, pointing to a framed picture of a very average looking tabby on the mantle.
Berg caught the sarcastic look that briefly crossed Arena’s face and frowned at him in warning.
Arena rolled his eyes back at her and winked.
Berg held out her card. “Well, if you think of anything at all, even if it seems insignificant, please call me.”
The woman took the card and nodded. “I’m praying for them.”
They walked back outside and Mrs. Keating shut the door quickly behind them.
“Oh no, poor Oliver the cat!” Arena wailed. “How will I go on without you?”
“Shut up, Arena. Give me the keys. I feel like driving.”
Arena shook his head. “I’ve got it. Besides, it’s icy . . .”
“So?”
Arena opened his mouth to speak just as he looked up and saw Berg’s expression. His jaw closed, opened, and then closed once more.
“If you want to live to see the afternoon, don’t speak. What fucking century are you from?” Berg asked incredulously.
Arena reluctantly handed over the keys. “Excuse me for being concerned about your welfare,” he mumbled as he climbed into the passenger side.
Berg didn’t wait for Arena to fasten his seatbelt before she screeched away from the curb and performed a skidding U-turn that sent the rear of the car fishtailing wildly.
They traveled back toward the station in silence, Berg trying to ignore Arena’s general idiocy.
Eventually, Arena’s head nodded forward and he closed his eyes.
“Tired?” Berg practically shouted, starting him awake. “The rowing too much for you?”
Arena snorted. “I’m not tired from that. I’m tired from last night’s . . . activity . . . if you get my meaning.” He wiggled his eyebrows and grinned.
Berg resisted the temptation to call him a douche. “Arena, it’s great that we bonded this morning and I know all about your two older brothers and your pasta chef mother who now lives in Wisconsin—obviously a very patient woman if your brothers are anything like you—but my interest in your sex life is less than none. Keep the bragging to yourself.”
“You sure about that? I mean, you turned up at the dock this morning, and I saw you checking me out . . .”
“It was a coincidence, Arena. Don’t fool yourself.”
“ ’Cause I could squeeze you into my schedule, you know, if you need a good—”
“Arena, I’m sure this won’t come as a surprise, and undoubtedly you’ve been called one before by women less discerning than me, but you’re a massive douche.”
“That’s not a no.”
“Yes it is. It is most vehemently a no,” she said slowly accentuating each syllable. It was conversations like this that reminded her just how charming Jay’s come-ons had always seemed, yet Arena’s were plain vulgar.
I miss him . . .
“You pull that shit again and I’m requesting a new partner,” she said, facing as much out the driver’s window as she could while still watching the road.
“Fine. Whatever.” Arena folded his arms and went back to sleep.
Chapter Five
I’ll break you down.
I’ll take you down, down.
Fill you with sadness,
Make your life madness.
I’m having a hard time,
I’m making you do the hard time, too.
–Fauxliage, “All The World”
“Fuck!” Arena slammed down the phone, causing his desk to shudder.
Berg looked up from her screen. “Problems?”
It was the first they had spoken to each other since the drive back. As far as partnerships went, this one appeared to be doomed.
“Feeny’s dodging us.” Arena raked his fingers through his hair and shook his head. “I’ve been trying to get him to come in for further questioning over his wife’s murder, but he’s refusing. Says he’s answered our questions, and he’s on his way out of Illinois on business, and gave me the direct any further inquiries line.”
“Lawyered up already, hey?” Berg smirked. “That’s a sure sign we’re on the right track.” She sat back in her swivel chair and thought for a moment. “This morning . . . you mentioned golf?”
Arena nodded.
“Do you actually play?”
“Of course. I’m good, too. Got a six handicap. It’s just, you know, it doesn’t really get the blood pumping. You want to play a round sometime?” he asked.
“No, I was actually thinking Feeny’s club might yield some new leads.”
“Ah. You want me to play a few rounds at the Cook County Golf Club and nose around a bit.”
“Exactly.”
“It’s a private club—you have to be invited by a member,” Arena replied, frowning.
“It’s full of desperate, rich, middle-aged housewives with philandering husbands. I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” Berg said. “Or are you not the lothario you claim to be? Plus, I guarantee those nosy women will know something about who Feeny’s fucking.”
Arena nodded. “Okay, Feeny’s headed to O’Hare in the morning for a flight to New York, so I’ll head to the course at the same time. What are you going to do?”
“I’ll do more research into Feeny’s business affairs. Later on I’ll go see the Youngs again. I’ve also been handing around the Metra surveillance shot of the suspect to other precincts and a few CIs, hoping to get a hit. I’ll keep at it.”
“We may have to release the shot to the media,” Arena said.
“Yeah.” Berg stood, scooping up her phone and notepad. “If I get no new leads, we’ll make that call tomorrow. Let’s go see Emma Young’s boss.”