“Ordinarily, we wouldn’t have let her take the call, but the regular aide was off…Two hours later, she’d drowned.”
She handed Thinnes a small, leather-bound book. “Someone sent her this, day before yesterday.”
It was a Catholic version of the Bible. As Thinnes paged through it, a small piece of paper fell out. He retrieved it and read it. “One dies in fire. One dies in water. So do we all belong to death and go to our place.” He held it up. “What is this?”
“Something she told me she found in Gale’s Quotations, a proverb from Togo.”
“It sounds to me like a suicide note.” He read it again and added, “or an epitaph.”
One dies in water.
“You’re a popular man tonight, Thinnes,” the sergeant said, when Thinnes walked into the squad room. “Packages…” He handed Thinnes a messenger service envelope. “Visitors…” He hitched his thumb toward the desk nearest the coffee setup, where Dr. Morgan was sitting, drumming on the desktop with his fingers. Good timing.
Morgan spotted Thinnes. He got up and hurried over with a grim expression. He was carrying a letter-size manila envelope.
“Come with me, Doctor,” Thinnes said. He led the way to the conference room. “You want some coffee?”
Morgan shook his head.
When they were seated at the conference table, Thinnes opened the envelope and took out a letter. Printed. Probably on a laser printer, which made it essentially untraceable. Unsigned. It said, “You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to remove certain obstacles to your success. For a modest additional investment, you can insure your efforts won’t have been for nothing. Page me.” There was a phone number. Also inside the manila envelope was a plain white business envelope with “Dr. Martin Morgan” printed on it above Morgan’s home address. The stamp was an American flag. The postmark was local. Thinnes looked up to find Morgan watching him.
“Someone thinks I’m guilty of something,” he said. “And that I can be blackmailed. I want him caught.”
Thinnes studied the letter. The number was familiar but it took a minute to place it.
“I’m sorry,” Morgan said. “I handled it before I thought of fingerprints.”
“That’s all right.” He opened the messenger envelope that the sergeant had given him. It was from Michael Wellman. It contained a copy of the same “blackmail” letter Morgan had just given him, along with a note to Thinnes stating that this was the sort of “offer” Wellman thought was made by the “wrong element.” Thinnes put it back in the envelope.
“Who’s watching your kids?” he asked Morgan.
“They’re spending a few days with their grandmother. She’s—”
A tap on the window between the conference and squad rooms interrupted him. Evanger was outside, crooking his finger at Thinnes.
“Excuse me a minute, Doctor,” Thinnes said. He brought the letters out to the squad room with him.
As he closed the door, Evanger was telling Oster, “Go home, Carl.” He turned to Thinnes. “What’s this about?” He handed Thinnes a photocopy.
Evanger hadn’t worked nights since the department went to permanent assignments, so Thinnes ignored his question and asked the obvious: “What’s up?”
“Rossi called in sick. “You know anything about this?” He tapped the photocopy he’d handed Thinnes.
Thinnes read it—the photocopy of a letter sent by James A. Caleb, M.D., informing the department that he was resigning as a consultant due to a conflict of interest. Copies to Commander, Area Three Detectives. It had the same font style and size as the two “blackmail” notes.
Thinnes put it together immediately. “Dr. Caleb’s a loose cannon,” he said. “He can’t take no for an answer, and it looks like he’s gone on a little bear hunt with himself for bait.” He handed Evanger the letter Morgan had given him.
Evanger read it and said, “Where’d you get this?”
Thinnes pointed to the conference room window, through which they could see Dr. Morgan.
“Has it been dusted for prints?”
“No need. If it has any, they’re Caleb’s. That’s his pager number. He sent the same letter to Michael Wellman. And I’ll bet he sent it to Limardi, too.”
“Why, for God’s sake?”
“Not God’s sake. For Dr. Morgan’s sake. Apparently they’re good friends, and Caleb can’t stand the suspense of not knowing whether his friend is a murderer.”
“Presumably, when he gets this, the killer will try to pay Dr. Caleb off, or kill him?”
“Yeah. And I’m pretty sure that’ll be Limardi.”
“Well, throw a net over Dr. Caleb and talk to the state’s attorney about getting a warrant for Limardi before he kills someone else.”
Thinnes tried Caleb’s pager first—the number on the “blackmail” notes. He didn’t really expect an answer, but he left his cell-phone number anyway. He called Caleb’s condo and left a message on the answering machine, then called his office. He got the answering service number from the answering machine’s recorded message and called the service. If this was an emergency, they could page Dr. Caleb or Dr. Fenwick. “I paged Dr. Caleb already,” Thinnes told the woman. “Give me Dr. Fenwick’s number.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t—”
“I’m a police officer and Dr. Caleb may be in danger,” Thinnes told her. He gave her his star number and told her to call him back at Area Three detective headquarters. After a few minutes, she did. Her standard procedure was to page the doctor, which she’d done as soon as Thinnes called. Dr. Fenwick had not returned the page, so under the circumstances, she agreed to give Thinnes his number.
Thinnes called. Dr. Fenwick didn’t know where Caleb was either, but he did know his partner’s plans for dinner. Thinnes had to threaten to send a squad of uniformed cops to interview everyone in the restaurant in order to confirm that Caleb had been there and to get Caleb’s waiter on the line, but it was worth it. The waiter was able to say that Caleb had been paged during dessert and had ordered a cab. He even saved Thinnes the hassle of trying to track down the cabby—he’d heard Caleb tell the driver where he was going.
Oster was still there—sitting at his desk in a haze. When Thinnes hung up, Oster came out of it and said, “What’s up?”
“Dr. Caleb may have just caught our tiger by the tail.”
Oster wiped his face with his hand and yawned. “Where’re we going?”
“Sears Tower. It has to be Wellman’s office.”
“What about him?” Oster hitched his thumb toward the conference room.
Through the window Thinnes could see that Morgan had put his head on the table and apparently gone to sleep. Thinnes hurried in to wake him. “Doctor, go home.”
Morgan stared at him and stifled a yawn. “Did you find him?”
“Who?”
“The blackmailer?”
“Not yet. You go home. We’ll be in touch.”
Out in the squad room, Oster was bringing Evanger up to speed. “…Caleb went to the Sears Tower. He may be in trouble…”
Morgan obviously heard. He stopped.
Thinnes said, “Good-bye, Doctor.”
Morgan walked out without arguing. But when Thinnes pulled the Caprice out onto Clybourn Avenue, a white Volvo wagon fell in behind.
Sixty-Seven
Caleb arrived at the Sears Tower and bypassed the desk. The security guard on duty apparently didn’t think a well-dressed man a threat, because he didn’t challenge him. The elevator let him off on a deserted floor and he followed the numbers to Wellman’s offices. He knew the developer slightly, having met him at various social functions. He would not have guessed Wellman was a killer.
Fridays most people left early, and this late on any evening one would expect the office floor to be deserted. The door to Wellman’s suite was closed but not locked, the reception area empty. Caleb called out; he got no answer. He played the cat, silently prowling the carpeted hall. The door at the end of the hall was open,
and he stepped into Wellman’s private preserve. It had a spectacular view of Grant Park, the lake, and Lake Shore Drive. Wellman, himself, was sitting propped in his chair behind the huge table that functioned as his desk. His pupils were dilated, his breathing dangerously slow. Caleb felt for a carotid pulse and found it weak and irregular. As he reached for the phone, he caught a movement off to his side.
“Don’t touch that!”
Caleb turned to see the speaker, a blond man with pale blue eyes and a deep tan. The impression made by the expensive suit and haircut was unmade by the pistol he was pointing.
“Mr. Limardi, I presume,” Caleb said. He turned so that his right side was toward Limardi and he could keep an eye on Wellman, to his left.
“Who the hell are you?”
“A friend of Dr. Morgan’s.”
“Where is he?”
“At home with his family.”
“How did you find out about me?”
“It didn’t take too much effort.” Caleb kept his right hand at his side, where Limardi could see it, and reached into his suit-coat pocket, with his left, for his cell phone. He slid the cover up and pushed the on button, then pressed *999. He’d practiced this for the odd emergency until he could do it with either hand. “Mrs. Morgan was in real estate,” he said, by way of a distraction. “Someone profited from her death or her silence, and it wasn’t her husband.”
“No, it was Wellman here.”
“I think not. I think she knew something about you that made her a liability.”
Limardi seemed shaken. “Do the police know this?”
“I have to believe they do. Collectively, they’re at least as able to make an inference as I.”
“Too bad for you. What have you got in your pocket?”
Caleb let go of the phone—carefully, so as not to inadvertently turn it off—and took hold of the other item he was carrying. He switched on the tiny pocket tape recorder as he pulled it out and held it where Limardi could see it.
“So this wasn’t about blackmail after all,” Limardi said. “You thought you’d trap me.” Caleb said nothing. Keeping the gun on him, Limardi glided forward and snatched the recorder. He shut it off and put it in his pocket. “He who rides the tiger…You have as long to live as Wellman here—until he stops breathing. That should be very soon.”
“What did you do to him?”
Limardi smiled. “He’s taken an overdose of Valium. Washed it down with too much Chivas. Too bad.”
“The police will trace the pills.”
“Oh, it was his own prescription. Bought so long ago the pharmacist’s delivery boy won’t remember him. He’s used it to kill a number of people.”
“Who?”
“Let’s see. There was Brian Fahey and his buddy Terry, and his fucking sister, and old man Ronzani. Ronzani had some property Wellman wanted. And he got it.”
“What did Mr. Wellman do to you?”
“Not what he did. What he didn’t—acknowledge my existence. He was too good to even pick up the car he bought from me—he sent a flunky. He could’ve been my partner…” He waved the gun impatiently. “How did you find out about me?”
“Helen Morgan.” It was from the newspaper account of her death, actually, and what he’d overheard at Area Three but…
“Why would she tell you?” Limardi demanded.
“You think you were the only one she was fooling around with?”
That got to him. His jaw clenched briefly.
“Why did you kill her?”
“The faithless slut thought I was going to marry her. After cheating on a man she’d been married to for fifteen years, she honestly thought I would trust her to be faithful to me!”
Both of them looked at Wellman. He took a deep, hiccupy breath and expelled it.
“Why did you kill Brian Fahey and…Terry, was it?”
“Brian was an incompetent fool! I sent him to eliminate Nolan and he killed some woman, instead. Terry fucked up, too. The greedy bastard hijacked a truck. And he expected me to help him hide it!”
“I see.”
“You have no idea what this is about!”
“It’s about power, isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
Caleb waited, let the suspense of his silence drag the answer from the man.
“I could cheerfully burn down this whole fucking city.”
“Why?” He said it softly.
“Complete combustion yields heat and light and clean elements.”
Or what seems like elements, Caleb thought. Fire as Kali, goddess of destruction. Very Jungian. And the aftermath of fire is a new start, rebuilding, redevelopment.
“My sister died in a fire,” Limardi said. “The Our Lady of Angels fire—December first, 1958. I was five. She was in eighth grade. And just ten years later, the ’68 riots, I watched Watts and the west side burn.”
From the safety of his parents living room, no doubt.
“Look at the west side now!” Limardi grinned. “Rebirth!”
Caleb ventured a glance at Wellman—pale, but still breathing—barely.
Fire was the rapid oxidation of a combustible material, releasing energy that could be used for good or evil. There was terror as well as attraction in the idea of controlling something so powerful. It paralleled the child’s love/hate relationship with his omnipotent parent, or in this case, a God that failed. “What happened to your sister?” Caleb asked.
“The blessed nuns. Not a competent adult among them. They let her burn. They prayed the rosary when they should have been doing something. They put their faith in God—there is no God! No! I’m God. I have the power of life and death. I control fire.”
We all try to master our fates. “Your sister was very important to you.”
“She was more a mother to me than my mother ever was.” Limardi smiled. “Fire’s more powerful than God! I control fire. That makes me more powerful than God!”
Sixty-Eight
When they pulled up outside the Franklin Street entrance to the Sears Tower, Thinnes was afraid they were too late. The backup he’d called for was parked in front with Mars lights blazing. Thinnes pulled behind them, and they ran inside. The lobby seemed to be filled with cops and security guards—people with radios milling around near the elevators. With Oster in tow, Thinnes pushed his way to the center and flashed his star. “Thinnes, Area Three. Where are we?”
A patrol sergeant answered. “We had a *999 call in from here before you called, and we’d already started looking for the caller. Can we assume it’s your guy?”
“Phone registered to James Caleb?” The sergeant nodded. “It’s him.”
The security supervisor, ID clipped to his lapel, said, “Mr. Wellman’s up there. I sent someone up when we got your call. When he saw a man up there with a gun, he called down for backup. He’s been keeping an eye on the suite entrance.”
“Let’s get up there,” the patrol sergeant said.
“Let’s get organized first,” Thinnes said. “We haven’t got a clue what we’re going to find, and we don’t need any bystanders getting hurt.” He tried to recall the layout. “Is there a back way up?”
One of the security men reversed a form on his clipboard and sketched the floor plan of Wellman’s suite. The inner office was L-shaped, and if you stood against the outside wall, you could see the whole room. Not much chance of a surprise attack. Trying to come up with something, Thinnes looked around. He spotted Martin Morgan coming through the door. The doctor stopped just inside. Thinnes pointed him out to one of the uniforms. “Get that civilian out of here.”
The copper walked over and started to push Morgan out. Morgan resisted. “I want to help, Detective,” he shouted. “My friend’s up there.”
The cop looked at Thinnes. Thinnes got an idea. “Let him come,” he told the cop.
“You fuckin’ nuts?” Oster demanded.
“We need a diversion. Dr. Morgan can call Wellman and raise hell over the phone while we get in posit
ion. If he can get Caleb on the line, maybe he can let us know what’s going on.”
“I’ll get more backup,” the patrol sergeant said, “and clear the street in case somebody decides to start shooting.”
The phone had been ringing for five minutes when Caleb said, “They know someone’s here. If we don’t answer, they’ll just come up.”
Wellman was still breathing—barely.
“Answer it,” Limardi said. His grip tightened on the pistol. His hand shook. “Be careful what you say.”
Caleb picked up and said, “Hello.”
“Jack, is that you?” Martin’s voice.
Caleb said, “Yes,” cautiously.
“Thank God you’re alive.”
“Who is it?” Limardi demanded.
“Martin Morgan.”
“Is there someone up there with you?” Martin asked.
“Michael Wellman.”
“What’s he saying?” Limardi growled. He cocked the gun.
Caleb put a hand over the mouthpiece. “He wanted to know if anyone else is here.”
“Tell him no. Ask him what he wants.”
“Tell him,” Thinnes said, “That you figured out who killed your wife and you want to talk to him about it. Tell him you’re on your way up.”
The security guard on lookout greeted the reinforcements like the Bulls welcoming M.J. back. Thinnes sent him down to the lobby. He left Dr. Morgan by the elevators with orders to stay out of sight. “Give us two minutes, then call and say the outside door is locked.”
Thinnes, Oster, and the two uniform coppers slipped into the suite and took cover in the reception area. After what seemed like forever, the phone rang in Wellman’s inner office.
It stopped ringing. Nothing happened for a full minute.
When the door at the end of the hallway opened, a man was silhouetted in the doorway, backlit. Jack Caleb! Behind him, parts of the room were visible in reflection from the wall of windows. Eddie Limardi was out of Thinnes’s direct line of fire, but Thinnes could see his blurred image in the distorted mirror of the windows. Thinnes aimed beyond the silhouette of Caleb and said, “Hit the floor, Doctor.”
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