The Hunting Ground (Deuce Mora Mystery Series Book 2)

by Jean Heller

  “So the next time you use your head,” he said, “your thoughts will be cleaner and more sharply focused.”

  The play was tremendous, if unsettling. The story concerned a woman who learned through disastrous encounters with life how circumstances, impulses, and bad choices conspire to make us mysteries, even to ourselves. And once mired in that quicksand of doubt and disappointment, trying to escape only drives us deeper.

  I felt a connection to the character.

  My private pity party was in full swing when the phone rang. I didn’t know who it was. The number was blocked. To my surprise, it was Phyllis Metzler.

  “Ms. Mora, I understand you want to talk to me.”

  “I do,” I said. “Thanks for calling back. It’s about the same boy again. You probably know by now what happened yesterday.”

  “Yes, I saw it in my case lineup for today. But I’m afraid I’m not allowed to discuss it with you, what with privacy and juvenile laws and such.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “those ‘and-such’ laws are a bitch.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Thinking out loud. Why can’t you talk to me about this? I’m the one who spotted him and turned him in. And I have a history with him.”

  “I understand that. But this time you’re not the aggrieved property owner.”

  “The heck I’m not,” I said. “Ruiz is a public school. I’m a taxpayer.”

  “It’s not the same, Ms. Mora.”

  I felt bad for snapping at her. “I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m just worried. Can you at least tell me the boy’s status? Please. You know I was thinking about adopting him. I need to know he’s safe.”

  “Well, he’s definitely safe,” Metzler said. Then, after a moment’s pause, “It appears nothing is going to happen to him or his two friends. Given the insignificance of what the boys were trying to steal, CPS has no interesting in pressing charges. It’s more time, trouble, and manpower than it’s worth. They have people on staff who can replace the window. So there’s no case. Chicago Public Schools has much bigger problems to deal with, as you know.”

  “What about his future?”

  “Since it wasn’t his fault that he was released prematurely from Faulkner, that will be forgiven as well, and in all likelihood he’ll go back there. Hopefully with more care taken in the future that he isn’t shown the door by accident.”

  Good news. I could feel my energy returning, and I cared again about the question of what Saudi Arabia had to do with child sex trafficking in Chicago.

  I first told Eric Ryland about my call Saturday from Carl Cribben, the retired FBI agent. Ryland looked as if he’d been hit by a cattle prod.

  “Well, that would certainly explain why Jonathan’s friends were so worried about us publishing this,” he said. “The State Department is very protective of U.S. relations with Riyadh. Or more to the point, with Riyadh’s oil.”

  “We haven’t needed their oil for years,” I said.

  Eric nodded. “True. But there could come a day when we’re desperate again. When that day comes, Riyadh will sell us the oil we need because we’re the bank that pays the royal family’s egregiously high bills for conspicuous consumption. At the moment, however, I don’t give a crap about those bills or that oil. At the moment, I want you to find out who the hell is responsible for Ryan Woods. Then we’ll nail their asses to a derrick and let the oil fall where it may.”

  35

  I was walking out of Ryland’s office when my cell phone rang. Caller ID told me it was Tony Donato.

  “Not more bodies,” I said when I picked up.

  “No, thank God,” he replied. “It’s the Carpenters. Malachai’s parents. Sgt. Carpenter got home last night, and media are besieging them, as you predicted. After the Trib released their son’s name, one of the TV stations figured out who the parents were and staked out the house. Now all the vultures are out on their lawn, including one of yours, I presume. The parents asked me what to do. They’re desperate. I told them to talk to you, tell their full story, and then simply let it be known they won’t talk to anyone else.”

  “Thank you, Tony,” I said. “I presume they want to wait a few days, at least until there’s been a funeral.”

  “I thought so too. But they don’t. They want it over. They said they’d talk to you this afternoon.” He hesitated. I waited. “One thing. They want me there, too.”

  I thought about that and decided I had no problem with it. I let Ryland know, grabbed photographer Harry Klein, and headed for the ME’s office. We decided to go in his SUV to be less conspicuous than a three-car caravan.

  The Carpenters lived in a solid middle-class neighborhood in Irving Park, way up on the North Side, in a house with an attached garage. The garage was open and empty when we arrived. Tony drove in, and someone closed the door behind us. It appeared we had made it to the back door without being recognized.

  We were ushered into the kitchen, filled with friends and relatives trying to do something to help. Two were doing dishes by hand. One offered coffee. Another offered lunch. We accepted the coffee.

  A man who identified himself as Malachai’s uncle led us into the family room. Theresa and Christian Carpenter sat together, a huddled mass of anguish on a sofa.

  I saw family photos everywhere. Most depicted three people enjoying life and one another. I paused at one that showed the Carpenters swinging their young son between them as he shrieked with laughter. A perfect family that now was missing a third of itself. Its heart was gone.

  Sgt. Carpenter rose to greet us. His wife had been leaning against him and nearly fell over like a rag doll without a pillow to prop it up. His brown eyes glistened with pain.

  We introduced ourselves and said all the things that, no matter how heartfelt, sounded like trite bullshit that offered no solace at all.

  Harry and I sat in chairs facing the sofa. Tony stood off to one side. Coffee arrived and was placed on a table in front of us. The same table held a photo of Carpenter in full uniform, a powerfully built man whose pose and expression exuded authority and confidence. The man in front of me, dressed in blue jeans, a heather gray t-shirt, and an old pair of Air Jordans, appeared deflated and beaten. A photo of Theresa with baby Malachai in her arms showed her to have been a beautiful woman. She had lost much of her beauty, and I suspected the change was recent. Her unruly nest of hair, the stress lines in her face, the constant trembling and ringing of hands told me she was broken and might never be repaired.

  I was the designated spokesperson for the intruders.

  “Sergeant and Mrs. Carpenter, I’m very grateful you agreed to see us. And I want you to know that if . . .”

  “You’re the one, aren’t you?” Theresa Carpenter interrupted, her voice much stronger than I would have believed from her physical appearance.

  “The one?” I asked.

  “The one who found our son.”

  I glanced at Donato, silently asking if I should answer, and to confirm before I made a terrible mistake that it was Malachai’s bone we found. He nodded.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  “Tell me about it,” she said.

  “A-about what?” I asked. “How we found Malachai?”

  She nodded.

  So I did, softening the story as much as I could without lying.

  When I finished, Sgt. Carpenter was staring at me with hard eyes.

  “So it wasn’t you who recognized the bone as human?” he said. “It was your boyfriend. And he’s a first-responder.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “I’m a sergeant, not an officer, Ms. Mora. No need to ‘sir’ me.”

  “This is your home. I addressed you as I did out of respect, sir.”

  Our eyes caught again, and I thought I saw his soften. He gave me a barely perceptible nod.

  I steered the conversation to Malachai, what sort of child he was, what sort of student he became, his hobbies, his heroes, his dreams.

 
“He wanted to follow his father into the military,” Theresa said. “He so loved seeing Christian in full dress uniform. At first we thought the uniform was the attraction. But as he got a little older, there were other signs that Malachai might fit into a life of service.”

  “Like what?” I prompted.

  Theresa looked at her husband, and he picked up the story.

  “A couple of years ago—I think Mal was six at the time—yeah, that’s right because he had just started the first grade. Two bullies were picking on a friend of his, a boy called Stony who used to live up the street. Mal stepped between Stony and the bullies—both second graders just glad not to be the newbies in the school any more. You know how that is. Mal told the bigger kids to back off. One of the boys pushed him. Mal didn’t respond in kind until the second boy got around him and hit Stony. That’s when Mal clocked ‘em both. The two bullies ran off crying, and Mal marched himself to the principal’s office and turned himself in. He not only stood up for the underdog, he was willing to be accountable.”

  A solitary tear tracked down Carpenter’s cheek. He appeared not to notice. But I heard the soft clicks of Harry Klein’s camera as he recorded the moment.

  Theresa said, “Malachai was so thoughtful. I don’t know where this came from, but any time he went somewhere without me he’d bring me home some little present. Once he carried in a whole bag of popcorn from the movies, and he was mad at himself because he’d let a couple of kernels fall on the sidewalk.”

  She smiled at the memory, but the smile showed no joy.

  “Were there ever any problems on his school bus?” I asked.

  Theresa shook her head. “Each bus has a driver and a shotgun rider who helps keep order. I never heard from Malachai that there were any problems. Never heard it from any other mothers either. I always thought he was safe on the bus.”

  Now she began to weep quietly.

  “Who would do a thing like this? Who would torture and kill my son?”

  The room offered no answers.

  Harry took more photos, including the obligatory one of the parents holding a framed photo of their son when he “graduated” from kindergarten. I asked more questions, elicited more memories, caused more tears. When I came to feel I couldn’t put the Carpenters through any more grief, I called it quits.

  The three of us rode in silence back to the ME’s office.

  I saw my image reflected in the darkened window of the car door.

  Tears tracked down my face, too.

  36

  I checked the Washington Post online every day and saw nothing significant about Saudi Arabia. I grew increasingly impatient.

  The body count at Ryan Woods escalated to twenty-three. Anthony Donato thought his team had found all there was to find, but they weren’t positive. In some cases they found entire skeletons. In others only a half dozen bones that matched. Scavenging animals had carried off a lot over the years. They continued to use ground-penetrating radar outside the original excavation zone. The entire area remained an active crime scene.

  As I reviewed the last conversation I’d had with the medical examiner, a new question came to me, and I jotted it down to ask him later in the day. There was another call I wanted to make first.

  I didn’t tell anyone in our Washington bureau I was calling the State Department. I didn’t need permission. But when I got through to the press office and asked to speak to Eleanor Troy, the assistant secretary for public affairs, the fact that nobody in Troy’s office ever heard of me became an impediment. An introduction from our State Department correspondent might have helped.

  The first person I spoke to was a secretary type who quickly let me know she’d never heard of me.

  “Are you new to the Journal’s Washington bureau?” the woman asked.

  “I’m not in the Washington bureau,” I said. “I’m a columnist in the main office in Chicago. I have a question about the Middle East. I would like to talk to someone who might be able to answer it.”

  “What’s the question?”

  “Are you a Middle East specialist?”

  “No,” the woman said, sounding huffy about my challenge to her gate-keeping authority. “But if you give me the question, I’ll be better able to direct your call.”

  “I’ll say it’s about Saudi Arabia, and you find somebody to talk to me?”

  “There’s no reason to be snippy, Ms. Mora,” she said.

  And she was right.

  “I’m sorry if I sounded that way,” I said. “This is something I’ve been chasing a long time, and it’s wearing me down.”

  “If that’s an apology, consider it accepted. Hold on.”

  There was no hold music. I had no way to know if she was looking for someone to help me or had put me on hold and would leave me there the rest of the day in retaliation for a perceived insult. I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  There was a click and a voice that said, “This is Zack Harrison. I’m the press officer for the Middle East Desk. How can I help you?”

  I started to identify myself, but he interrupted.

  “I know who you are, Ms. Mora. I’m from Chicago. Wicker Park. I always read your column. I don’t have as much time now as I used to, but I go online and read the paper on occasion. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m trying to find out if there’s anything particular—beyond the normal, everyday stuff—going on between the United States and Saudi Arabia.”

  “Stuff?” he said.

  “It’s a technical diplomatic term,” I said.

  “What sort of ‘stuff’ are we talking about?” he asked.

  “I don’t feel comfortable being much more specific. Anything out of the ordinary? Like an investigation?”

  Harrison’s pause said more than his mouth did.

  He finally responded. “That brush you’re using is so broad it could paint the side of a barn in one stroke. Can you narrow it down at all?”

  “Are there any special problems between the two countries?”

  “Well, they want to sell us more oil at higher prices.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “What is this, a multiple choice exam? There’s really nothing I can say, at least nothing I’m free to discuss.”

  “Look, Mr. Harrison …”

  “Call me Zack.”

  “All right, Zack, I’ll start. I know the Saudis, either as a state or as individuals, are under investigation for certain crimes committed in the United States. Both the NSA and the FBI are involved in the investigation, and I’m trying to find out what the State Department can say about it.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Nothing at all. I cannot confirm or deny that what you say is true, and you should infer nothing from my response.”

  “Or lack of same.”

  “Yes.”

  “Would it help if I agreed to go on background?”

  “No.”

  “Off the record?”

  “No. I can’t tell you things about which I know nothing.”

  “Is there anyone you could ask who might know something?”

  “If there’s anything going on, I’m sure the Secretary of State knows about it, but he’s out of the country.”

  “Isn’t he always?” I said. “I believe he’s in Belgium at the moment. And I believe he has good communications there, in case somebody needs to reach him.”

  “It was a pleasure talking to you, Deuce, even long distance. But I need to go.”

  And he did.

  Strike one.

  I picked up the question I’d jotted down earlier and called Anthony Donato.

  “How can I spend taxpayer dollars helping you today?” he asked.

  “I had a thought,” I said.

  “Yeah, I heard today is National Eureka Moment Day.”

  “Funny,” I said. “In all this DNA material you’ve gathered, did you recover any samples that don’t belong to the dead children?”
r />   “Not that I know of. But until we have all the DNA results back, we won’t know for sure. Why do you ask?”

  “Let me ask another way,” I said. “Do you have any DNA on the children’s bodies, or clothes that doesn’t match the DNA from the bodies themselves?”

  “Same question, thus the same answer,” Donato said. “And all the lab results come directly to me; so if there was any foreign DNA found on the children or their belongings, I’d see that right away.”

  “And so far nobody’s found any?” I was thinking aloud.

  “No. Well, yes. There was one sample that came from a coyote.”

  “I was thinking human. Could you check, to be sure?”

  “I could, yes. But finding foreign human DNA would be unusual.”

  “Why?”

  “Because DNA from another person would be in flakes of skin, hair, semen, saliva, or other bodily fluids. The sample might have been on a child’s clothes, or on the child’s skin, or inside the body, embedded in a mouth, a vagina, an anal canal, all fleshy places that degrade quickly when a body is buried unprotected. In other words, by the time we found the body, the foreign DNA would have been destroyed.”

  “Understood. But if you found such a sample, speaking hypothetically, you could determine if it came from a relative or a stranger, right?”

  “We could tell if the foreign DNA is from a relative, yes, or whether it’s from someone unrelated.”

  “And if you found the same DNA on two unrelated bodies, it could point to the killer, couldn’t it?”

  “Deuce, tell me you’re not thinking that a family member killed one child then killed twenty-two more to deflect suspicion. Because that story line is so old and worn they don’t even allow it in bad mystery novels any more.”

  “Well, since you put it that way, no. I was actually thinking of something much more terrifying than a bad book plot. If you do find any foreign DNA, could you screen it to see if maybe the donor could have been Saudi?”