by Mark Zubro
Second, he’d gotten violently ill after they’d eaten there that first and only time. Turner hadn’t eaten the grilled cheese sandwich that was delivered burnt with a bowl of tomato soup that was cold and slimy. Fenwick had the All-Spicy-Turkey-bacon sandwich/salad combination.
But it was the third flaw that was the death knell in Fenwick’s pantheon of culinary sins, the choices of chocolate confections were limited and those available days-old and hard as rocks.
The restaurant was in a two-story filth-encrusted, red-brick house just west of Southport on Belmont. The interior was lots of unvarnished wood including the walls, floors, and ceilings. Display cases ran along the wall on the left.
They had brands of soda of which Turner had never heard. Next to them were ready-made salads to go. Today, next to the salads was a half-gone chocolate cake dripping with raspberry sauce. Fenwick considered the addition of raspberry to chocolate, whether it be juice, sauce, berries, or a combination thereof, to be one of the greatest of gastronomic blasphemies. Turner guessed that if Fenwick ever found out the name of the cooking school that had perpetrated the raspberry mixed with chocolate trend, he would launch upon it a massive, destructive attack of shock and awe, little short of a nuclear strike. Certain things were sacred to Fenwick.
Turner tended to agree about the chocolate/raspberry issue but didn’t find himself as fanatic about it as Fenwick. Instead of a nuclear strike, he might suggest a drone attack consisting of vanilla frosting.
The place seemed to attract a younger crowd from the nearby north side branch of Pope St. Agatho’s University. As far as Turner could see, the main draw had to be that the prices were incredibly low. The food was served on mid-seventies floral serving trays. The tables were accented with painted flower salt and pepper shakers along with brown ceramic bread warmers that, as far as Turner could see, warmed no bread.
They showed ID and asked for Hal.
“You gotta talk to the manager,” said an eighteen or nineteen-year-old man with serious acne covering most of his chin.
A few minutes later, a man with enormous ringlets of poofed-out black hair emerged from the back. His name was Stan Javley. His tight jeans and T-shirt covered a well-muscled frame. After introductions and the initial question about Hal, Javley said, “Hal Poutine? What’s he done now?”
Turner said, “We just wanted to ask him a few questions about one of his customers.”
“Who?”
Turner showed him the picture of Kappel on his phone.
“Never saw him,” Javley said.
“We’d like to talk to Hal.”
Hal was outside the back door of the restaurant under a small canopy out of the drizzle. He threw away a lit cigarette as the detectives came through the door. When they showed him ID, he said, “Come on, you’re not going to bust me on that.” He leaned his head toward the smoldering remnants of what he’d been smoking.
Fenwick said, “Not unless it starts the trash in the alley on fire.”
Hal stamped it out with his foot.
“What do you want?” Hal asked. He was tall and lanky with straight, dirty blond hair that hung to his T-shirt collar.
Turner ignored the attitude and showed him the picture on his phone.
“Him.” He snorted with contempt.
“He cause you problems?”
“He was an asshole.”
“How so?”
“He offered me a hundred bucks to blow me. That’s sick, man.”
“It wasn’t a hundred dollar tip?”
“That’s what he called it initially. He said I could get a lot more if I would do a lot more.”
“Did he give you his name?”
“Nope. I didn’t want anything to do with him. I told him to get out of the restaurant. He looked kind of scared and took off. Then he came in again a couple weeks ago. He offered one of the other guys a thousand bucks to suck him off. I hadn’t said anything to anyone. It was too strange, and the manager is kind of an asshole. He might have thought I was supposed to be nicer to a customer. I don’t put up with that.”
Fenwick said, “Were you pissed that he only offered you a hundred and the other guy a thousand?”
Hal looked confused. “No, dude.”
Turner asked, “Who was the other guy?”
“Alfred. He’s on duty now.” They told Hal to wait.
The detectives found Alfred bussing tables. He had an enormous black eye. After ID showing, introductions, and picture displaying, Alfred said, “Yeah, I know the asshole. We chased him out of here.”
“Who?”
“Me and Hal.”
Hal was summoned.
Hal sulked. “Sure, yeah, I helped chase him out of here. So what? He was a shit.”
Fenwick said, “His name was Timothy Kappel. He’s dead. He was murdered. We’re looking into his life. To those who might wish him harm.”
Alfred said, “We just chased him.”
“How’d you get the black eye?”
“That was last Thursday. I was coming off a late shift and some big, burly guy jumped me as I was walking home. He knocked me unconscious. Didn’t rob me or anything, so it kind of didn’t make sense.”
Turner asked Hal, “Anything odd happen to you lately?”
“My apartment got broken into, but I don’t live in a great neighborhood. My iPod and my computer got smashed, but they didn’t take anything.”
“You guys report this to the police?”
They both nodded yes.
“Anybody see anyone suspicious around your apartment?” Turner asked.
Hal shook his head. He left and went back to work.
Turner said, “Had you ever seen the big, burly guy before?”
“No.”
“You look like you work out. He must be pretty strong.”
“I keep myself in shape. I was in the marines. If he hadn’t blindsided me, I’d have beat the crap out of him.”
“He say anything?”
“Like what?”
Turner said, “We think there’s a connection between the big burly guy, and the man whose picture we showed you.”
Alfred busied himself chucking dirty dishes, napkins, flatware, and glasses into a large gray-plastic container. His level of upset seemed to have trumped his concern for chipping the serving paraphernalia. Alfred glanced over his shoulder.
“I got a shift to finish.”
Fenwick was fed up. He glanced at all the mid-afternoon empty tables. “You got time, now.”
Alfred leaned close. “I don’t want no trouble.”
Turner said, “We’re interested in solving a murder not in bringing trouble to you.”
“I’m not a whore.”
Turner said, “This isn’t the highest paying job in the city. You needed money. You put on a show for Hal of getting rid of the guy, but maybe you made a deal with the man whose picture we showed you.”
Alfred glanced around. None of the other restaurant employees were nearby. He mumbled, “Yeah.”
“What happened?” Turner asked.
Alfred wiped a table with a mid-size hand towel. Tossed it on top of the dirty dishes. He moved closer to the detectives. “Let’s make this quick.” He looked around again and spoke in a rushed whisper. “Okay. I needed money. I met him at a coffee shop. We made a deal.” He hesitated.
“What happened?” Turner asked.
“Nothing. Well, nothing much. We went to my place. I let him do a little.”
Turner said, “Somebody big and burly who knows our dead guy doesn’t come beat up guys when nothing happened.”
“Okay. Okay. Not much happened. I didn’t even get off. Neither did he. I think he felt cheated. Maybe. I don’t know. A few days later, I texted him. I needed more money. I’m broke. This job is for shit.” More glances around the nearly empty establishment.
“How did you get his number?”
“When we set up the first meeting, we exchanged phone numbers. We texted back and forth. I offered
to do more with him. I kept texting over and over. We finally met at my place. He told me to stop texting him. He said he found what we did for the amount he spent unsatisfactory and wasn’t interested in meeting again. Maybe I got a little mad.”
“You beat him up.”
“I may have pushed him around a little.”
Turner remembered the ME didn’t report any older bruises or other signs that Kappel had been attacked recently.
Alfred said, “I didn’t hurt him. He ran out. I texted him to apologize. I really needed money. I guess I was stupid. Then he blocked my number.”
Turner said, “You threatened him with more than physical violence. You threatened to call the cops, tell people he tried to pay you for sex.”
“Jesus, I’m not a bad guy. I just needed money.”
“And you thought you’d make some, and that’s why he came over to your place the second time to try to get you to back off.”
Alfred gave another look around. “After he blocked my number there was nothing I could do. I didn’t know his last name or where he lived.” He leaned close. “Are you sure him and the burly guy are connected? Am I in danger?”
“When was all this?” Turner asked.
Alfred gave him the dates and his phone number. They would check the phone log when they got back to the station.
As the detectives prepared to leave, Alfred said, “I’m not going to get in trouble, am I?”
Fenwick said, “If you’re going to be a whore, seems like you learned an important lesson here. Don’t cheat clients.”
The detectives left.
They dashed through the now enhanced drizzle. In the car Fenwick said, “Hal is not a big, burly guy.”
“Kind of skinny, and I bet he doesn’t ride in a limo.”
“But a big burly guy attacked two people who were not nice to Kappel?”
“Neither one of us believes in coincidences. Does this mean Kappel had his own enforcer? So the burly guy wasn’t a threat to Kappel?”
“Then why was he banging on the door?”
“An emergency of some kind? If he was working for Kappel, it would explain him having a key for the underground garage.”
Fenwick opined, “I didn’t like those guys.”
“Hal and Alfred? They were kind of skuzzy.”
“It wasn’t that. As you know I’m not prejudiced. I just don’t see why Hal made a big deal out of what Kappel asked. Just give him a polite no. Maybe it’s odd, maybe even weird, but what skin is it off his nose? A simple ‘no’ and the moment is over.”
“I guess some people don’t handle weird as well as you do.”
“I’m good at weird. And catching criminals.”
“So, Kappel had his own lethal minion,” Turner said. “Maybe the minion turned on him.”
“Kappel, a bishop of the church, turned a guy loose on someone who wouldn’t stop texting him?”
“He was a bishop who got chased down the street. And my guess is Alfred’s threats were out and out blackmail. I suspect he tried that on the wrong victim. Alfred didn’t seem used to pulling off that kind of caper.”
“Neither one of them knew he was a bishop. Didn’t even know his last name.”
“I guess this means that Kappel was not without resources and was capable of getting even on his own terms.”
When they got to the car, Turner called Fong. “Are there any text messages between Kappel and…?”
Fong interrupted. “There are no text messages between Kappel and anybody. He, or someone, erased them all.”
“Can you recover them?”
“I’ll try.”
He gave Fong Alfred’s number. Fong came back on the line in a few moments. “Yep. He called that number, and it’s on the blocked list. He blocked it last Tuesday.”
“Thanks. Please check on recovering the messages.”
“Sure thing.”
Turner reported to Fenwick, who said, “So Alfred may have been telling the truth.”
“Looks possible.”
“We gotta find this big, burly guy.”
“I am open to suggestions.”
But Fenwick had none.
Turner leaned back as Fenwick drove. He closed his eyes and said, “I need more sleep.”
Fenwick braked hard at the entrance to Lake Shore Drive as a delivery van made a sharp left in front of him onto the ramp. Turner took out his phone to check for messages. There were none. He called Ben. All was quiet on the home front.
THIRTY
Monday 8:04 P.M.
Back at the station, Molton said, “I’ve got a strange request here.”
“Stranger than the time—” Fenwick began.
Molton cut him off. “Either of you heard of St. Raguel of Leon church?”
They shook their heads.
“It’s on the near north side. Used to be a huge immigrant parish. Then when the neighborhood changed, it became an activist church for a lot of very good causes.”
“What kind of good causes?” Fenwick asked.
“In the sixties it was Civil Rights, helping poor people, helping the community. They did some good. The same priest ran the parish for ages beyond ages.”
“Isn’t that against diocesan policy?” Fenwick asked.
“What do you know about diocesan policy?” Turner asked.
“I read the papers. Didn’t that priest on the south side who did a lot of good stay on far beyond the term limits they have?”
“Diocesan churches do. I’m not sure churches run by religious orders do.”
“Don’t tell me,” Fenwick said, “This was a church run by the Sacred Heart of Bleeding Jesus Order.”
Turner said, “It was run by the Sacred Heart of Bleeding Jesus Order.”
“How would you know that?” Fenwick asked. “And I said don’t tell me.”
“We’re working this one case,” Turner said. “Why else would the Commander be bringing us this call?”
Fenwick snorted. “Show off.”
Molton said, “Paul’s right.”
“What did the caller say?” Turner asked.
Molton said, “You can find information about the bishop’s death if you call at the rectory.”
THIRTY-ONE
Monday 8:22 P.M.
After he jammed on the brakes to avoid a bus at Congress and Dearborn Fenwick said, “You know what worries me?”
“That the brakes will fail?”
Fenwick snorted. “I don’t expect physical danger from these desperately sad old men, but I get an uneasy feeling when I’m around them.”
“They aren’t that much older than we are.”
“It’s like Drake did all that fist smashing on Molton’s desk, but the one I’d be worried about is Pelagius. Not a frontal assault, something sneaky, devious, and vicious.” He shook his head as he maneuvered around the bus. “Graffius is pretty old, but I mean they seem that way. They talk and act like they’re in their 90’s and from medieval times.”
“How did people talk in medieval times?” Turner asked.
“Like these guys.”
“You really worried about danger from them?”
Fenwick said, “Somebody got violently murdered and there’s all these pompous guys blubbering or blustering. You’d think they were Republicans. Anybody is capable of violence. One of them is a murderer. They could afford to hire minions. And Kappel seemed to have his own private minion.”
“Like the Spanish Inquisition?”
Fenwick emitted a grumble and a fart at the same time, a sure sign to Turner, who was all too aware of his partner’s peccadilloes, that Fenwick was upset. They took Wacker Drive to the Chicago River and crossed onto Orleans Street north toward the rectory.
Fenwick asked, “What real threat are these people to us or to each other?”
“Obviously someone was or there wouldn’t be someone violently dead.”
“No, I mean, sure you violate some ecclesiastical law, but who really cares?”
&nb
sp; “Yeah, but we’re getting more than hints of scandal and money. Anyone can screw up either to cause a problem or take advantage of it. Maybe both perpetrator and victim were trying to or needed to cover up something or get away with something. A whole lot of time, as we both know, we’ve found money as a motive. Or maybe Kappel asked a whole bunch of waiters and busboys and hired help for sex and finally some homophobe beat him to death. It happens.”
“I know that.”
“We’re kind of testy with each other tonight.”
“These shits are lying to us. They’ve spent their whole lives lying to themselves, each other, and the world at large. I’ve met liars, but these guys are pros. I’m feeling out of my league and out of sorts.”
Fenwick turned left on Erie Street and pulled up to the rectory. A slight breeze off the lake annoyed the leaves in the gutters.
Fenwick adjusted his bulk in the seat and said, “At least I hope the lies we get from this guy are plausible.”
“You know we were followed here.”
Fenwick didn’t even bother looking in the rearview mirror. “Black town car, picked us up a block from the station, license SHBJO1, didn’t turn onto Erie Street with us? Didn’t notice a thing.”
Turner didn’t need to key in the acronym to recognize it was from the Sacred Heart of Bleeding Jesus Order. “Makes no sense. If they wanted to lure cops to a secret rendezvous to do us harm, just make a bogus call. Or maybe this was a bogus call.”
“Why follow a couple Chicago cops?” Fenwick answered his own question. “To see where we go. To set up a trap for us.”
“Like to a secret meeting at an old rectory.”
“Like that.”
“But then half the planet knows where we were going.”
“Setting up the guy at the rectory?”
“They think we’re that stupid and wouldn’t notice? It’s full daylight in a big city. And they’re tailing cops? Are they amateurs? They think there’s a point to it? They think we’re not on alert and being careful?”
“Never underestimate the stupidity of a criminal or the desperation of a killer.”
The short street ended in a half block where part of the old public housing project had been torn down. The urban renewers hadn’t rebuilt the area yet. Weeds and trash nestled comfortably in every leftover nook or cranny. The rectory was a two story Italianate villa, orange-stucco, red-tile roof edifice that would have been at home on a hillside in Tuscany.