by J. D. Barker
The receptionist stifled a chuckle.
Prescott shot her an angry glance, then stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Mr. Talbot is a substantial contributor and personal friends with your boss, the mayor. They played together just two weeks ago. I don’t think either would be happy to learn two officers were willing to blemish the record of Chicago Metro by threatening civilians simply for doing their job. If I were to call him right now and tell him you were here, preparing to make a scene, he would no doubt refer you to his attorney before he would consider taking the time to speak with you.”
Nash pulled the handcuffs from his belt. “I’m arresting this little shit, Sam. I want to see how well he holds up in the tank surrounded by crackheads and bangers. I’m sure Ms.”—he glanced down at the blond woman’s name tag—“Piper will be more than willing to help us out.”
Prescott’s face grew red.
“Take a deep breath and think carefully about the next thing you say, Mr. Prescott,” Porter warned.
Prescott rolled his eyes, then turned to Ms. Piper. “Where is Mr. Talbot’s party now?”
She pointed a pink-shellacked finger at her monitor. “They just pulled up to the sixth hole.”
“You have video?” Nash asked.
She shook her head. “Our golf carts are equipped with GPS trackers. It allows us to watch for bottlenecks and keep everyone’s game moving efficiently.”
“So if someone is playing slow, you pluck them off the course and take them to the kiddy range?”
“Nothing that drastic. We may send a pro out to give them a few tips. Help them move along,” she explained.
“Can you give us a ride out there?”
She eyed Prescott. He raised both hands in defeat. “Just go.”
Ms. Piper plucked her purse from beneath her desk and gestured toward a hallway at the west end of the building. “This way, gentlemen.”
A moment later they were in a golf cart heading down a cobblestone path. Ms. Piper was driving, with Porter beside her and Nash on a small bench behind them. He cursed as they hit a bump, bouncing him in the seat.
Porter shoved his hands into his pockets. It was cold out here in the open.
“I apologize for my boss. He can be a little . . .” She paused, searching for the right word. “A bit of a mucker sometimes.”
“What the hell is a mucker?” Nash asked.
“Someone you wouldn’t want at your bachelor party,” Porter said.
Nash snickered. “I’m not walking down the aisle anytime soon, unless Ms. Piper has a friend in search of a civil servant who makes a low wage for getting shot at on a fairly regular basis. I also tend to work long hours and hit the bottle far more often than I’m willing to admit to someone I just met.”
Porter turned back to Ms. Piper. “Ignore him, miss. You’re under no legal obligation to set up members of law enforcement with attractive friends.”
She glanced up at the rearview mirror. “You sound like quite the catch, Detective. I’ll reach out to my sorority sisters the moment I get back to my desk.”
“That would be much appreciated,” Nash said.
Porter couldn’t help but marvel at the landscaping. The grass was short and lush, not a single weed or blade out of place. Tiny ponds dotted the course on either side of the cart path. Large oaks loomed over the sides of the fairway, their branches shielding the players from the sun and wind.
“There they are.” Ms. Piper nodded toward a group of four men standing around something that resembled a tall, skinny water fountain.
“What is that thing?” Nash asked.
“What thing?”
Ms. Piper smiled. “That, gentlemen, is a ball washer.”
Nash massaged his temple and closed his eyes. “So many jokes just popped into my head, it actually hurts.”
Ms. Piper pulled to a stop behind Talbot’s cart and locked the brake. “Would you like me to wait for you?”
Porter smiled. “That would be nice, thank you.”
Nash jumped off the back. “I’m calling shotgun for the ride back. The rumble seat is all yours.”
Porter walked over to the four men preparing to tee off and showed his badge. “Morning, gentlemen. I’m Detective Sam Porter with Chicago Metro. This is my partner, Detective Nash. I’m sorry to interrupt your game, but we have a situation that simply couldn’t wait. Which one of you is Arthur Talbot?”
A tall man in his early fifties with short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair cocked his head slightly and offered what Nash liked to call a politician’s grin. “I’m Arthur Talbot.”
Porter lowered his voice. “Could we speak to you alone for a moment?”
Talbot was dressed in a brown windbreaker over a white golf shirt, brown belt, and khakis. He shook his head. “No need, Detective. These guys are my business partners. I don’t keep secrets from these men.”
The older man to his left pushed his wireframe glasses up the bridge of his nose and flattened what was a promising start to a comb-over against the thin breeze. Anxious eyes locked on Porter. “We can play on, Arty. You can catch up if you need a minute.”
Talbot raised a hand, silencing him. “What can I do for you, Detective?”
“You seem very familiar,” Nash said to the man on Talbot’s right.
Porter thought so too but couldn’t place him. About six feet tall. Thick, dark hair. Fit. Mid-forties.
“Louis Fischman. We met a few years ago. You were working the Elle Borton case, and I was with the district attorney’s office. I’m in the private sector now.”
Talbot frowned. “Elle Borton. Why do I recognize that name?”
“She was one of the Monkey Killer’s victims, wasn’t she?” the third man chimed in. He had begun fiddling with the ball washer.
Porter nodded. “His second.”
“Right.”
“Fucking crazy bastard,” the man with glasses muttered. “Any leads?”
“City transit may have clipped him this morning,” Nash said.
“City transit? A cabdriver turned him in?” Fischman asked.
Porter shook his head and explained.
“And you believe it’s the Monkey Killer?”
“Looks like it.”
Arthur Talbot frowned. “Why are you here to see me?”
Porter took a deep breath. He hated this part of his job. “The man who was killed, we believe he was trying to cross the street to get to a mailbox.”
“Oh?”
“The package had your home address on it, Mr. Talbot.”
His face went pale. Like most of Chicago, he was familiar with the Monkey Killer’s MO.
Fischman put his hand on Talbot’s shoulder. “What was in the package, Detective?”
“An ear.”
“Oh no. Carnegie—”
“It’s not Carnegie, Mr. Talbot. It’s not Patricia, either. They’re both safe. We stopped at your residence before driving out here. Your wife told us where to find you,” Porter said as quickly as he could, then lowered his voice in an attempt to calm the man down. “We need your help, Mr. Talbot. We need you to help us determine who he took.”
“I’ve got to sit down,” Talbot said. “I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
Fischman glanced at Porter, then tightened his grip on the man’s shoulder. “Arty, let’s get you back to the cart.” Moving away from the tee box, he guided a white-faced Talbot to the golf cart and lowered him into the seat.
Porter motioned for Nash to stay put and followed the other two men back to the vehicle. He sat beside Talbot so he could speak quietly. “You know how he operates, don’t you? His pattern?”
Talbot nodded. “Do no evil,” he whispered.
“That’s right. He finds someone who has done something wrong, something he feels is wrong, and he takes someone close to them. Someone they care about.”
“I di-didn’t . . .” Talbot stammered.
Fischman dropped into lawyer mode. “Arty, I don’t think you should say ano
ther word until we have a moment to talk.”
Talbot’s breathing was heavy. “My address? You’re sure?”
“It’s 1547 Dearborn Parkway,” Porter told him. “We’re sure.”
“Arty . . .” Fischman muttered under his breath.
“We need to figure out who it is, who he took.” Porter hesitated for a moment before continuing. “Do you have a mistress, Mr. Talbot?” He leaned in close. “If it’s another woman, you can tell us. We’ll be discreet. You’ve got my word. We only want to find whomever he has taken.”
“It’s not like that,” said Talbot.
Porter put a hand on Talbot’s shoulder. “Do you know who he has?”
Talbot shook him off and stood. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone, crossed to the other side of the cart path, and hammered in a number. “Come on, answer. Please pick up . . .”
Porter stood and slowly approached him. “Who are you calling, Mr. Talbot?”
Arthur Talbot swore and disconnected the call.
Fischman walked over to him. “If you tell them, you can’t untell them. You understand? Once it’s out there, the press could get wind. Your wife. Your shareholders. You have obligations. This is bigger than you. You need to think this through. Maybe talk to one of your other attorneys, if you’re not comfortable discussing this matter with me.”
Talbot shot him an angry glance. “I’m not going to wait for a stock analysis while some psycho has—”
“Arty!” Fischman interjected. “Let’s at least confirm it on our own first. Let’s be sure.”
“That sounds like a great way to get this person killed,” Porter said.
Arthur Talbot waved a frustrated hand at him and hit Redial on his phone, the anxiety growing on his face. When he disconnected the call, he tapped the screen so hard that Porter wondered if he had broken it.
Porter signaled Nash to approach, then: “You have another daughter, don’t you, Mr. Talbot? A daughter outside your marriage?” As Porter said the words, Talbot looked away. Fischman seemed to deflate, letting out a deep breath.
Talbot glanced at Porter, then Fischman, then back to Porter again. He ran his hand through his hair. “Patricia and Carnegie know nothing about her.”
Porter stepped closer to the man. “Is she here in Chicago?”
Talbot was shaking, flustered. Again, he nodded. “Flair Tower. She has penthouse 2704 with her caregiver. I’ll call and let them know you’re coming so you’re able to get in.”
“Where’s her mother?”
“Dead. Going on twelve years now. God, she’s only fifteen . . .”
Nash turned his back and made a phone call to Dispatch. They could have someone at Flair Tower in a few minutes.
Porter followed Talbot back to the golf cart and sat beside him. “Who takes care of her?”
“She had cancer, her mother. I promised her I would take care of our daughter when she was gone. The tumor grew so fast; it was over in just about a month.” He tapped the side of his head. “It was right here. They couldn’t operate, though; it was too deep. I would have paid anything. I tried. But they wouldn’t operate. We must have talked to three dozen doctors. I loved her more than anything. I had to marry Patricia, I had . . . commitments. There were reasons beyond my control. But I wanted to marry Catrina. Sometimes life gets in the way, you know? Sometimes you have to do things for the greater good.”
Porter didn’t know. In fact, he didn’t understand. Was this the 1400s? Forced marriages were long gone. This guy needed to grow a spine. Aloud, he said, “We’re not here to judge you, Mr. Talbot. What’s her name?”
“Emory,” he said. “Emory Conners.”
“Do you have a photo?”
Talbot hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. “Not on me. I couldn’t risk Patricia finding it.”
10
Porter
Day 1 • 9:23 a.m.
“Carnegie and Emory? I’m buying this family a baby-name book for Christmas,” Nash said. “And how the hell do you hide a daughter and your girlfriend in one of the most expensive penthouses in the city without your current wife catching on?”
Porter tossed him the keys and rounded his Charger to the passenger door. “You drive; I need to keep reading this diary. There might be something helpful in it.”
“Lazy bastard, you just like to be chauffeured around. Driving Ms. Porter . . .”
“Fuck you.”
“I’m lighting the apple; we need to make good time.” Nash flicked a switch on the dashboard.
Porter hadn’t heard that term since he was a rookie. They used to call the magnetic police light on undercover cars apples. In today’s world they were long gone, replaced with LED light bars so slim along the window’s edge, you couldn’t see them from the inside.
Nash dropped the car into third without letting up on the gas and steered for the exit gate. The car jerked and the tires squealed with delight as power surged through them.
“I said you could drive, not play Grand Theft Auto with my wheels.” Porter frowned.
“I drive a 1988 Ford Fiesta. Do you have any idea what that’s like? The humiliation I suffer every time I climb inside and pull that squeaky door shut and fire up that monster of a four-cylinder engine? It sounds like an electric pencil sharpener. I’m a man; I need this every once in a while. Humor me.”
Porter waved him off. “We told the captain we’d call him back after we spoke to Talbot.”
Nash tugged the wheel hard to the left and raced past a minivan dutifully driving the speed limit. They drew so close, Porter spotted Angry Birds on the iPad screen of a little girl secured in the back seat. She looked up and grinned at the flashing lights, then went back to her game.
“I shot him a text back at Wheaton. He knows we’re going to Flair Tower,” Nash said.
Porter thought about the little girl with the iPad. “How do you hide a daughter for fifteen years in today’s world? It can’t be easy, right? Birth records aside, how do you keep that secret online? All the social networks? Press? Talbot’s on the news all the time, particularly since he started that new waterfront project. Cameras follow him around just waiting for him to fuck up. You’d think someone would have caught a picture or something.”
“Money can hide a lot of things,” Nash pointed out, squealing around a hard left back onto the highway.
Porter sighed and returned to the diary.
11
Diary
The summers on our little piece of earth could be quite warm. By June I would find myself spending most of my time outside. Behind our house there were woods, and deep within the woods was a small lake. It froze during the winter, but during the summer its water would be the clearest blue and the most soothing temperature.
I liked to visit the lake.
I would tell Mother I was going fishing, but truth be told, I wasn’t one to fish. The idea of piercing a worm with a hook and tossing the creature into the water only to wait for something to come along and nibble at the creepy-crawly did not appeal to me. Did fish eat worms in the wild? I had my doubts. I had yet to see a worm enter the lake of its own accord. As I understood it, fish ate smaller fish, not worms. Perhaps if one were to fish with smaller fish in hopes of catching a larger one, one would be more successful? Regardless, I never had the patience for such silliness.
I did enjoy the lake, though.
So did Mrs. Carter.
I remember the first time I saw her there.
It was June 20. School had been out for seven glorious days and the sun was high in the sky, smiling down upon our little patch of earth with bright yellow love. I walked to the lake with my fishing pole in hand and the whistle of a smart tune on my lips. I was always such a happy child. Right as rain, I was.
I plopped down at my favorite tree, a large oak looming with the kind of size that can only come with age. I imagined if I sliced the tree’s belly and counted the rings, there would have been many, perhaps a hundred or more. Years c
ame and went as the oak stood its ground and looked down upon the rest of the forest. It was a fine tree indeed.
As the summer progressed, I wore a nice little spot at the base of that tree. I always placed my fishing pole to my left and my lunch bag (containing a peanut butter and grape jam sandwich, of course) to my right. Then I would pull my latest read from my pocket and get lost within the book’s pages.
On this day, I was researching a theory. The month before in science class, we had learned that Earth was 4.5 billion years old. We’d previously learned the human race was only 200,000 years old. After I’d heard these factoids, a thought raised its hand at the back of my mind. Hence the reason I had picked up this particular book from the library the day before—a book about fossils.
You see, objects embedded in rocks are “fossilized” and stay that way for . . . for—I don’t know, but it’s a very long time, millions of years, in the case of dinosaurs. And most animals don’t even become fossils at all. After all, an animal would first have to get trapped in the rock to become fossilized. If the elements destroyed it before that could happen, the evidence would disappear without a trace.
The month before, I had killed a cat and laid the stiff body out at the edge of the lake to see what would happen.
Don’t worry, it wasn’t someone’s pet, only a stray cat. A little tabby that lived in the forest. At least, that is where I found it. If the animal did, in fact, belong to someone, it did not wear a tag. If it was a pet and they allowed it to roam free without a tag, any blame for the creature’s demise should fall upon the careless owners.
The cat did not look well. It hadn’t for some time.
The remains smelled something awful the first few days, but that quickly passed. First the flies came, then the maggots. Something larger may have picked at it some night during those early days. Now, though, after only a month, nothing remained but bones. Wind and rain would surely take those. Then it would be gone.