by Vanessa Skye
Chapter Eight
All you ever wanted
was someone to treat you nice and kind.
–The Black Keys, “All You Ever Wanted”
“Hey, Berg,” Detective Pete Smith greeted her at the station the next morning.
His words were light, but they carried a heavy aura of sadness that now shrouded him like a cloak. The aura had become a mainstay following the death of his CPD partner of more than twenty years, Detective Tony Hamilton, during the course of the Leigh investigation.
Every time Berg saw the unashamed sadness on Smith’s face she felt a deep twinge of culpability. A mistake had led to Hamilton becoming a suspect in the killings of the truckers. A mistake that had been based in fact—someone from inside the CPD had indeed been involved, as they had suspected, but it certainly hadn’t been the heavyset detective and Vietnam vet with the pronounced limp. But the mistake had caused Hamilton to become a fugitive, and he eventually plowed his car into a tree on the way to his and his partner’s marijuana plantation in the middle of an Illinois forest.
A mistake that belonged to her and Jay.
“Hey, Smith. How’s things?” Berg asked, flashing him a smile that didn’t even touch her insides.
She never stopped hoping he might snap out of his funk, but if anything, the opposite happened. Rather than break in a new partner and start again after Hamilton’s death, Smith had elected to man a desk during the hours of nine to five, taking tip line calls, shuffling paperwork, and completing other trivial tasks that were insulting to his many years of experience.
“Oh, you know, dull,” Smith replied with a wan smile. “But there’s a bright side, only four hundred and eighty-seven working days to retirement.”
“Wow, that all?” Berg asked dryly, wondering if he had a calendar on his wall at home that he marked with a big red X at the end of each day.
Smith snorted softly. “Anyway, been manning the phones since your victim’s family put up the reward, and I might have something.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. It’s an odd one. The tip actually came from an out-of-state lawyer. Said he has a client who forwarded him some information about the potential offender—real specific information it is, too. But the tip was only supplied with a guarantee of anonymity. Apparently, he fears reprisals.”
“Well, anonymity is often a caveat for information. What’s the info?”
“The informant says a guy named Jon Buchanan matches the CTA footage. Here’s an address,” he said, handing a slip of paper to Berg. “He’s a gamer freak and violent as hell. Apparently, we should search dumpsters near his home for the evidence we need.” Smith raised his eyebrows and looked at Berg, curious about her response.
“Interesting . . . we’ll follow the lead and see if it pans out,” Berg replied. “Thanks, Smith.”
Smith replied to Berg’s efforts to be nice with a sour look of sarcasm. “Sure. If there’re any other hunches you’d care to disregard, don’t hesitate to let me know.” He shuffled off as Berg sighed in defeat.
“We’ve got a possible lead into the Young attack,” Berg said to Arena’s back as she sat down at her desk quickly.
Arena turned and Berg waved an apology as she saw that he was on the phone. “We’ll be right there,” he said and hung up. “Sorry, it’ll have to wait. There’s been a shooting at the golf club.”
“Fuck,” Berg spat, grabbing her purse out of her bottom drawer.
* * * *
Five minutes later, as Arena guided the speeding police sedan toward the scene, Berg spoke over the blaring siren, “Let me guess, Lauren Wesley’s dead.”
“The paramedics are at the scene, but it doesn’t sound good.” The veins on Arena’s hands bulged as he grabbed the steering wheel hard.
“Fuck.”
“Yep.”
“We should have insisted on protective custody! She deserved our help,” Berg yelled.
“Yep. But she didn’t want it, so—”
“We totally underestimated Feeny! I thought killing his wife would be where it ended. I had no idea the guy was capable of going serial,” Berg said.
They drove the rest of the way in silence, both clearly contemplating how they could have avoided what looked to be the loss of yet another innocent life.
Twenty-five miles later, they turned off the quiet outlying suburban road lined with spindly, bare trees and onto the pristine dark charcoal asphalt of the golf club’s drive. The sprawling white, two-story homestead that served as the clubhouse was crowded as groups of early-morning golfers mingled around the front chatting softly, unable to tear their eyes away from the scene in front of them.
Berg turned left and parked on the edge of the parking lot. She and Arena leapt out of the sedan just as paramedics were loading Lauren into the rear of an ambulance.
One uniformed medic administered chest compressions while the other stood at her head squeezing a handheld oxygen bag periodically. He stopped breathing for her long enough to drop the gurney, get it loaded with a third paramedic’s help into the back of the bus, and resumed both chest compressions and puffing air to her lungs. His partner slammed the rear doors and ran for the driver’s seat, already alerting the nearest hospital that they were coming in hot.
Berg heard the siren start to wail as they hit the road.
“She going to live?” she asked the remaining paramedic as he packed the medical gear into a second ambulance.
“I doubt it,” he said, shaking his head quickly. “We’ve been working on her for more than thirty minutes.”
“What were the injuries?”
“She was riddled with bullet wounds—hits to the neck, chest, abdomen—she’s Swiss cheese,” he said.
“Anyone else injured?”
“Nope. We’re treating a few for shock, though. She was shot in broad daylight, in front of witnesses.”
“Thanks.”
Arena was already interviewing mingling groups of golfers, and he nodded occasionally as he made notes.
Berg avoided the rapidly congealing pools of blood on the asphalt and walked over to a middle-aged woman, who was sitting on the curb of the parking lot with her head between her knees. A medic hovered protectively over her.
“She okay to talk to us?” Berg asked the man softly.
“Should be,” he replied. He placed his hand gently on her shoulder and knelt close to her. “You okay to have a quick chat with the police?”
She looked up and nodded, tears streaking her heavy mascara down her rouged cheeks.
“I’ll be at the bus if you need me,” he said calmly and nodded quickly at Berg.
The middle-aged woman took a big, shaky breath and looked at Berg. Obviously trying to make an effort, she pushed her hands through her coiffed, blond hair and wiped her cheeks only to smear the black streaks down her pristine beige golf pants.
“I’m Detective Raymond,” Berg said.
“I suppose you want to know what happened?” the woman asked, looking at Berg.
“Yes, please,” Berg replied.
“I was standing right next to her, not two feet away—”
“Next to Lauren Wesley, you mean?”
“Yes. I parked near her, and we were walking to the golf house together, just chatting about our weekends, that kind of thing. We’re friends . . .”
“Can you tell me anything about the assailant?”
“It was just a gun sticking out the window of an SUV.”
“Any idea of the SUV’s color, make, model?”
The witness shook her head. “It all happened so fast. We were talking, I heard a loud engine and squealing tires, then a black SUV roars past and a hand sticks out holding some kind of black gun. There were too many gunshots to count and then it was gone. Just like that. I wasn’t two feet from her,” she repeated.
“Did you see anyone in the car?”
“The windows were too tinted. It all happened so fast I didn’t even think to get a license plate. Nothing. I
was right next to her, I should be dead . . .”
Berg decided not to press the obviously distressed woman, instead taking her name, address, and number and promising to contact her later.
She called Arena over. “Professional hit. They were only interested in one target.”
“A professional hit at a golf club? Wow, someone’s ticked over their tee-off time,” he replied, raising his eyebrows.
Berg walked over to the group of forensic technicians processing the scene. One was photographing shell casings on the ground, while another was waiting to bag and tag them. She bent down to examine a shell, careful not to disturb it, and then left them to it.
Walking up the driveway of the parking lot, she called over the head of forensics, Nick Halwood.
He nodded and wandered over to Berg, removing his latex gloves so he could take an old-fashioned silk handkerchief out of his pocket and blow his cold, red nose heartily.
“The SUV left some rubber here. See if you can get a sample and some pictures of the tread,” Berg said in greeting.
“Will do, Detective Raymond,” he replied in a friendly fashion, tucking his hanky away and running his hands through his thinning, light brown hair. “I’ve got the team taking photos and collecting shells—thirteen so far.”
“Make sure you get all of them,” Berg said. “From what I can see of the shells, the weapon appears to be a nine mil—possibly the same gun that killed Feeny’s wife.”
Halwood nodded. “I’ll process them,” he said. “There’s not much else here, I’m sorry to say.”
“I know. Let’s hope the witnesses give us something. We don’t have any traffic cams out here, and I don’t see any parking lot surveillance.”
Arena wrapped up his preliminary interviews and joined them. “All we have is a dark SUV, no plates, with heavily tinted windows, automatic gunfire, dead girl, and that’s it. Really professional hit. They made no mistakes,” Arena said grimly.
“Where the fuck is Feeny?” Berg asked angrily. “Get with NYPD. I want that asshole back in Illinois and in a cell, now!”
“I’m betting he has an alibi. He was probably out in full view of the public, laughing, and having a great old time while his girlfriend was being murdered,” Arena replied.
“I don’t care. Arrest him and get him back here.” Berg watched as an older woman with shoulder length, dark brown hair, surrounded by her country club peers, glared at Arena with venom. “I’m guessing that’s your golf friend. I think your cover is blown,” she said, nodding toward the woman.
“Yeah,” Arena sighed. “Sad . . . she was fun. And a good meal ticket. She took me to almost every single five-star restaurant in the city this past week, on her dime. I never ate so well.”
“I’m sure you’ll find another rich cougar. Let’s go ask management if there’s any surveillance of this are—hey, is that smoke?” Berg pointed southeast over the golf course.
A plume of thick, black smoke was rising higher and higher into the still blue sky, the volume increasing exponentially until it resembled a column of angry storm clouds.
“Looks like it’s coming from a lane behind the course.” Arena was already running toward the sedan.
Berg drove the two minutes around the course to the lane while Arena called the fire department. Parking well north of the blaze, Berg climbed out and watched as a black SUV with heavily tinted windows went up in a furious ball of orange flames. Neither detective attempted to approach the vehicle—the accelerant-fueled flames burned far too hot.
“Goodbye, evidence,” Arena said. “Thank God there’s no foliage to catch.”
Berg quickly dialed her own cell as well. “Halwood?” she said, her voice rising over the surprisingly noisy crackling and popping of the flames. “The getaway vehicle is behind the course—follow the smoke. See if you can get anything from the car once the flames are out; there may be tire prints from the pickup vehicle.”
They watched as the flames reached a peak, then started to recede slowly. Eventually, they heard the whine of the fire department vehicles over the roar. Three engines screeched to a halt and the SUV was drenched in foam seconds later.
Berg looked through the canopy of bare trees. Even in late winter, the greens were immaculate—not an errant blade of grass or pile of snow marred their manicured perfection. The sand traps were raked, the paths between holes neat and crisp with just a hint of ice around the grassy edges. She wondered what other seedy business went on behind the scenes of the seemingly idyllic, coveted course.
Chapter Nine
I think you know that you are more than just
some fucked up piece of ass.
–George Michael, “Flawless (Go to the City)”
Berg sped to Chicago’s south side without a single complaint from Arena.
The atmosphere simmered with tension as Berg rebuffed Arena’s stilted attempts at conversation. He eventually gave up and stared out the window.
Berg smiled slightly as she remembered similar silent drives with Jay. But unlike Arena, those drives always simmered with a different kind of tension.
After what seemed to be an interminable amount of time later, they pulled up to an apartment block in Clearing, parked on the street, and leapt from the car. They moved swiftly up the three flights of stairs to apartment 3D, checking their weapons on the way.
Berg rapped three swift knocks on the door. “Mr. Jon Buchanan?” she called loudly in an effort to be heard over the thunder of an overhead plane from the nearby Chicago Midway International Airport. “CPD! We’d like to ask you a few questions. Open up, please.”
The pair braced themselves, expecting violence.
Instead, they heard nothing for a moment then some shuffling headed toward the door.
Out of habit, the detectives moved away from the front of the door and listened intently for the sound of a weapon being cocked.
The door swung open and a medium-height, pale, thin young man with dirty brown hair that hung lankly across his eyes blinked back at them.
“Come in,” he mumbled, leaving the door open, and walked back over to his old Formica kitchen table to sit down in front of a state-of-the-art Apple laptop. He stared intently at the large screen.
Berg and Arena cautiously followed him into the studio apartment and watched as Buchanan played what looked like some kind of online fantasy game. He seemed completely unaware of what their presence meant.
Berg looked around the apartment. The computer was the only thing worth any money in the otherwise crappy and dilapidated space that smelled like unwashed laundry and body odor.
Buchanan had the one table and chair by way of furniture, and an old mattress lay in the corner covered with yellowing sheets. It was freezing in the tiny space, and there appeared to be no heating.
“Mr. Buchanan?” Berg repeated. “Could you turn that off so we can ask you a few questions?”
Buchanan shut the laptop and looked at them.
“Can you tell us where you were between the hours of six and eight the evening of February fifteenth?” she asked.
Buchanan looked off to his left and his eyes squinched up as he thought hard for a moment. “I rode on the train,” he said. “Did you know that Chicago has one of the oldest transport systems in the world?” he asked, looking animated for the first time since their arrival at his door.
Berg and Arena looked at each other in confusion before pressing on.
“After you rode on the train, did you follow a girl to her house?” Berg asked. She couldn’t work out if he was high on drugs, playing them, or had some kind of mental issue.
Buchanan scoffed. “Not a girl, the Orc Queen. She escaped Bleeding Nest. I had to best her to complete the quest and send her back to her own realm. She was a threat to the mortals.”
“You have the right to remain silent . . .” Arena’s voice rose as he repeated Buchanan’s Miranda rights.
Buchanan flinched at Arena’s hostile tone. “She couldn’t be allowed to s
tay in the mortal realm,” he repeated earnestly. “The Spirit Fairy will heal her. I look forward to besting her again in future quests.”
“What the fuck?” Arena whispered to Berg as he dragged Buchanan to his feet. “Hands behind your back, nutbag!”
Berg shrugged, unclipped a plastic tie from her belt, and asked Buchanan to turn around. “You’re under arrest for the rape and attempted murder of Emma Young. Your rights have been explained to you, do you understand these rights?” She secured his hands behind his back.
He didn’t resist—instead looking even more confused, like a lost puppy.
They walked him down to the sedan and put him in the backseat. He looked around the vehicle with interest, as if they were on a field trip.
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Arena said dryly.
Buchanan was still in Interview Two later that afternoon, consulting with his appointed lawyer.
“His public defender’s insisting he’s not even competent to stand trial.” Illinois’s newest assistant state’s attorney, Carla Maroney, flung her long blond hair back over her jacket in irritation and folded her arms. “Thank God he has no money, so he can’t hire a decent lawyer or any experts to back up this crackpot defense. I’m sending in my own expert to see if the claim has any basis.”
“Hey, Maroney!” Cheney called as he wandered down the hallway. “Looking good, babe!”
Carla went from a pouting, petulant child to stunning flirt as she flashed him a bright smile.
Berg was furious, with the ASA and the situation. “Not competent? That’s bullshit. He’s clutching at straws because Buchanan gave us a full, voluntary confession! He may be a little slow, but all we have to prove is that he is able to distinguish right from wrong and can stand trial!”