“Jack, there’ll be plenty of time to beat yourself up later. Come to my house and eat.”
“I’m going to the hospital, check on Latham.”
Herb frowned, but knew there wasn’t any point in arguing. I stuck around for a bit longer, sulking, and then limped out to my car and went to the hospital.
Latham was in Recovery. The doctor said he was still critical, but the outlook was good. I’d found an address book near his kitchen phone and called his parents. They came about an hour later, crying. We all sat vigil late into the night. None of us slept.
At five in the morning Latham’s eyelids fluttered, and he awoke briefly. His gaze met mine.
“I don’t want you here,” he said.
I went back to my apartment.
There was a bottle of whiskey in the kitchen cabinet.
Since sleeping wasn’t an option, I hit the bottle until I passed out.
Chapter 36
I WOKE UP TO PAIN.
Leg pain. Headache pain.
Emotional pain.
One more layer on the shit cake.
It was almost two in the afternoon. My stomach was doing a mambo, protesting all the liquor I’d consumed. I dropped two Alka-Seltzer in a glass of water and drank it before they finished dissolving.
I called the hospital. Latham was stable. His parents didn’t let me talk to him. Couldn’t blame them, I guess. I considered sending flowers, or at least a card apologizing, but they would only be reminders of me, the person who put him through hell.
My stomach settled down some, so I swallowed three aspirin to help with my other aches. I was due for a day off, but didn’t feel that I deserved one. After a shower I scrubbed the bloodstains out of my pants. Then I shelved the guilt for later, and went to work.
Captain Bains wanted to see me. I gave him the blow-by-blow, filled out the requisition form for a new gun, and picked one up at the Armory.
It was homecoming week for the media. The Gingerbread Man’s letter was all over the news last night, as was the discovery of the third woman. The incident at Latham’s fueled the fire. Internal Affairs began conducting an investigation of the loss of my weapon. Bains told me to keep a very low profile, and the word to the world was I’d been suspended pending an inquiry.
Unofficially, I was still on the case. I just wasn’t allowed to be connected with it. We live in a political world.
After working with a police artist to improve our composite photo of the perp, I grabbed a vending-machine ham on rye and went down to the shooting range to try out my new .38.
I spent an hour there, shooting round after round into paper silhouettes, imagining each one was the Gingerbread Man. When I was finished, my gun was hot to the touch and the stench of cordite had penetrated my clothes and hair like cigarette smoke.
When I got back to my office, Benedict was waiting.
“We matched prints off the third Jane Doe. Army record. Reserves. Her name was Nancy Marx. You up for it?”
“Let’s go.”
We took the elevator because I wasn’t anxious to start bleeding again. Benedict drove. Nancy Marx had lived in a townhouse on Troy, off Irving Park Road. Herb already had a search warrant, should there be a need to break in.
There was no need.
“May I help you?”
A woman answered the door. Elderly, gray, wrinkled, someone’s grandmother. My heart clenched.
“I’m Lieutenant Daniels. This is Detective Benedict. Does Nancy Marx live here?”
“Did you find her? I called this morning, but I was told I couldn’t fill out a missing person report until she’d been missing two days.”
“Are you related to Nancy?”
“I’m her grandmother. What’s going on? Where’s Nancy?”
In less than two sentences I destroyed this woman’s life. If there was one part of my job I hated the most, this was it. Herb and I stood there, awkwardly, while she went from shock, to denial, to hysteria, and finally to depressed acceptance, moaning like a ghost haunting an old love.
We took turns trying to comfort her.
After the initial outpouring of emotion, they always wanted to know how and why.
We told her the how. We didn’t know the why.
“She didn’t suffer,” was all we could offer.
The autopsy report had confirmed this. Nancy Marx died from a broken neck. How the ME figured that out from examining an array of body parts amazed me.
“But who did this to her?”
“We don’t know yet, Miss . . .”
“Marx. Sylvia Marx. Nancy’s parents, my son and daughter-in-law, died in a car accident seven years ago. She was all I had left.”
We lost her to sobbing again. Benedict made some coffee in the kitchen, and I sat with the old woman on the couch, holding her hand.
“Mrs. Marx, did your granddaughter have any enemies?”
“None. Not one. She was a good girl.”
“How about a boyfriend?”
“No one steady for a while now. Nancy was popular, she dated a lot, but there hasn’t been anyone serious since Talon.”
“Talon?”
“Talon Butterfield. Didn’t really care for him much. He fooled around on her. They were engaged too. Lived together for a while, and then she moved in with me earlier this year, after she broke up with him. It was nice to have her home.”
Her gray eyes began to blur again.
“Did Nancy know anyone named Theresa Metcalf?” I showed her a picture.
“No. Can’t recall. Is she dead too?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Pretty thing, like my Nancy.”
I had her look at other pictures, of the first Jane Doe, and of the recent composite of our perp.
“I’m sorry, but no. I don’t know any of them.”
“Do you have an address for Talon Butterfield?”
“No. I don’t think Nancy does either. When she left, he moved out of town. They haven’t been in touch, as far as I know. Do you think Talon was part of this?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out, Mrs. Marx.”
“I never liked the boy, but he wasn’t a killer. He loved Nancy. He just couldn’t keep his drumstick in his pants.”
Benedict brought us coffee, and we asked a few more questions. After they yielded nothing, we got permission to search Nancy’s room.
It was small, modest, and neat. Her drawers held no secrets. There were no letters, no appointment books, no bills, no canceled checks, nothing at all.
It occurred to Herb that maybe Nancy’s things might be somewhere else. Not too many people did all of their paperwork in the bedroom. We decided to ask Sylvia. She was in the den, petting a white cat, staring at a framed picture of her dead grandchild. The cat jumped off her lap and fled when we approached.
“Mrs. Marx, did Nancy have a checkbook?”
“She kept it in the kitchen, in the utility drawer.”
“Canceled checks as well?”
“Nancy had one of those cards. Like a credit card, but it drew from her checking account. The bank keeps the canceled checks.”
“How about an address book? Or credit card statements? Or personal letters?”
“She has a box of papers that she never unpacked after moving in. It’s in the closet there. Did you find anything from Talon?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. Nancy gathered up everything, pictures, gifts, cards, and threw it away when she left him. But I was thinking. If you want to find out about him, you could ask that private detective.”
“Ma’am?”
“Nancy hired a private detective to spy on Talon when she thought he was being unfaithful.”
My heart rate went up.
“Do you remember his name?”
“Let me think. Nancy actually went out with him a few times, after Talon. She brought him to the house once, and he pinched my bottom.”
Sylvia Marx giggled, tears still in her eyes.
/>
“Henry, was it? Henry McGee. No, McGlade. Henry McGlade?”
“You mean Harry McGlade?” Benedict asked.
“Yes, that was it. Harry McGlade.”
Jackpot.
Chapter 37
HE HAS TO GET RID OF the truck.
That isn’t part of his plan. His fingerprints are all over the damn thing. Even if he spends an entire day wiping it down, he’ll never clean it completely.
And his fingerprints will lead them to him. He’s never taken the pains to establish a new identity. He never thought that they’d get close enough for it to be necessary.
He goes over it all again in his head, goes over what they have.
They know his face now. But with some hair dye and a shave, that can be changed. There’s nothing connecting him to the truck; he stole it in Detroit and put stolen Illinois plates on it. He has no business license. His driver’s license is current, but shows an old address, and he never bothered to update it after getting married and moving.
But there are some links to his present address. The phone company and the electric company. The IRS. Credit cards. The bank. If the cops get his name, they’ll be able to find him without much trouble. And once they find him, they’ll be able to convict. In his cockiness, he’s giving them his DNA. Not the smartest move, in hindsight.
He has to move quickly, establish a new ID. Maybe even go to one of those doctors who can laser away your fingerprints. He’ll disappear, resurface someplace else. Maybe even leave the country. There were plenty of women around the world to have fun with.
But first he has to finish the job here.
He takes a bus back to his house after ditching the truck in an all-night parking garage. Jack isn’t on his mind for the moment. All of his focus is on the last victim. She’ll be the easiest of all. No stalking necessary. No need for the truck. If he plays it right, he won’t even need the Seconal.
He picks up the phone, no longer worried about telephone records or paper trails. It will all be over by tomorrow.
“Hello?”
“Diane? This is Charles.”
“Charles?”
“I know you’re surprised to hear from me. We didn’t split on the best of terms. How are you?”
“Good. I’m doing good. I’m seeing someone.”
“Good for you. I hope he’s treating you well. Look, I’m calling because my therapist . . .”
“You’re in therapy?”
“Yeah. For about six months now. She’s helping me deal with my anger.”
He tries to keep the smile out of his voice.
“Well, good for you, Charles. I’m happy for you.”
“I need a favor, Diane. After you left me, I did a lot of soul-searching. My therapist says I’m a different man now, but I still carry a lot of guilt over how I hurt you. As long as I have this guilt, I won’t be much good for anyone, myself included.”
He was reading out of a notebook filled with chicken scratches, sentences rewritten over and over until they sounded right.
“I need to see you, Diane, to apologize in person. If I know you’ve forgiven me, then I can get on with my life.”
“I forgive you, Charles.”
“Then let me say it in person. Please. You don’t owe me anything, but we were in love once. It’s the final step in my recovery. Please. Let me see you once more.”
He holds his breath, waiting for her answer.
“Fine. When?”
“What are you doing tonight?” the Gingerbread Man asks.
He grins. He’ll finally get to use that soldering iron.
Chapter 38
I WANT MY LAWYER,” SAID Harry McGlade.
He sat in interrogation room C, in the same chair Phin had yesterday, Benedict and I standing over him. I had a car pick McGlade up and bring him here after we left Mrs. Marx. So far he was the only link between the two identified victims. I wasn’t about to set foot in his apartment ever again, so questioning him here was the logical course of action. I suppose the intimidation aspect was also a factor.
But McGlade was not easily intimidated.
“I told you, you don’t need a lawyer, McGlade. You’re just answering some questions. You aren’t being charged with anything.”
“So what’s with the media circus? What do you think that’s doing for my reputation?”
Before Harry arrived, I left anonymous tips with several individuals involved in reporting the news that a suspect was being brought in. They kindly waited in front of the station and took three thousand pictures of Harry as he entered. I figured it would help make McGlade cooperative.
And if I could admit to being small, I also thought it was damn funny.
“Do you recognize this woman?” Benedict held up the photo of the first Jane Doe.
“How many times do I have to say it before it sinks into that Pillsbury Doughboy head? I don’t recognize her. I knew Theresa because she hired me. I knew Nancy because Theresa introduced her to me. I dated Nancy a few times.”
“How did Theresa and Nancy know each other?”
“I think they went to the same health club.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know. Look, Nancy came in one day, said she wanted me to follow her boyfriend, said Theresa referred her to me. I didn’t pursue it.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to check your cereal box?”
Harry made a sour face and picked some crud off his jacket. There were so many wrinkles in his suit that he gave the impression of just crawling out of a washing machine, save for the fact that he was covered with stains.
“I don’t know how they were connected, Jackie. But I do know a few big-city lawyers who get their rocks off suing cops for defamation of character and false arrest.”
“You’re not under arrest, McGlade.”
“Then I can leave.” McGlade stood up.
I got in his face, glaring. “Don’t you care about these women?”
“That’s not the point. This treatment is unnecessary, and I’m getting pissed off. All you and Tonto the Wonder Chimp had to do was drop by my office. But instead you drag me here, and I get my name splashed all over the news in connection with your lousy case. Would you hire a private investigator who was a suspect in three serial murders?”
Of course I wouldn’t. That was the idea.
“If you cooperate, Harry, I release a statement saying you helped us catch the guy. That without your valuable insight and expertise, we never could have cracked this case.”
McGlade batted this around between his ears. After a few seconds, his face split into a big-toothed grin.
“Smooth, Jackie. It’s about time you learned how to play hardball. You were so straightlaced back when we were partners.”
Benedict jerked his thumb at Harry and gave me the eyebrow. “He was your partner? That’s awful.”
“Thanks for the sympathy, Chubbs, but it wasn’t so bad. I got razzed a lot, getting paired with a broad. But in the end, it all worked out okay. Didn’t it, Jackie?”
McGlade winked, then blew me a kiss.
I made a fist, and Herb had to pull me away before I broke the little wiener’s nose.
“Don’t let him rattle you, Jack.”
But Harry did more than just rattle me. Much more.
When we were partners, I actually thought he was an okay guy, hygiene aside. He pulled his weight, watched my back, and we had one of the best arrest records in the district.
This was right after my promotion to detective third class, and I was out to prove to the brass that I could play with the big boys. I worked twice as hard as the men, for only half the respect. To compensate for this, whenever I had any downtime, I worked cold cases. Murder had no statute of limitations, and unsolveds were never officially closed.
A particular case commanded a good deal of my attention; the rape/ murder of a fifteen-year-old girl in Grant Park. Witnesses claimed to have seen her talking with a homeless man in a red baseball cap
half an hour before her death. This angle had been extensively followed up, and led nowhere.
I chose to look closer at her ex-boyfriend. Straight-A student, no record, plenty of friends. His alibi for the night of the murder was shaky, but no one could believe he was a killer.
He did, however, collect baseball caps. He had samples from every team in the Major League, with two notable exceptions: Boston and Cincinnati. I thought it a little funny, that an avid collector would be missing the only two hats in MLB that were red.
It took a year, and cost me my marriage, but I pieced together a good case against the kid. Before I sought a warrant, I shared my findings with my partner, to get his opinion.
Harry repaid my trust by getting a warrant first, then arresting the suspect himself on my day off.
Not only did Harry get credit for the collar and a subsequent promotion, but when I complained to my lieutenant, McGlade trumpeted that he made the arrest to protect me.
“He was a dangerous murderer. Sending a woman after him would have been really stupid.”
The department rallied around him, and the chauvinism in my department plumbed new depths. All of my hard work, all of my fighting to be treated as an equal in a male-dominated profession, gone because my partner was a sexist, backstabbing jerk.
It was years before I earned back the respect of my squad. But I couldn’t ever forgive Harry.
I took a deep breath, unclenched my fist, and put on a big smile.
“Remind me again why you were kicked off the force, McGlade.”
His smile lost some wattage. “I wasn’t kicked off. I quit.”
“You mean you quit after you were forced to take a leave of absence. Something to do with taking bribes, wasn’t it?”
“I wasn’t on the take. Someone set me up.”
“And who’d want to do that to a sweet guy like you?”
He frowned. “Was it you, Jackie?”
“No, Harry. But I wasn’t too sad to hear about it. Whatever happened to those bribery charges?”
“Dropped when I left.”
“Isn’t your PI license up for renewal soon?”
McGlade folded his arms and scowled.
“I take one bust from you fifteen years ago and you want to mess with my livelihood?”
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