Hush

by Anne Frasier

  He was drunk. Not sloppy drunk, but sad, weighted- down-by-life drunk. It was one of the few conversations they had during her years of exile, but it had taken only a couple of broken sentences for her to understand just how far-reaching was the madness and damage of a human predator.

  Her flight's luggage wasn't yet on the carousel. They waited in the crowd of people. They waited along with a mother and her two tired, whimpering children, businessmen and -women, cowboys in their tight Levi's, pointed boots, and big shiny buckles.

  Ivy directed her gaze to the chute where the luggage would soon appear. Deliberately not looking at Abraham, she said, "I want to be the bait."

  She heard his quick intake of breath, felt his fingers wrap around her arm as he dragged her away from the crowd. Like loose sand, people quickly tilled in their vacated spot.

  When they were in their own private huddle, Abraham put his face very close to hers and whispered, "We don't even know if it is the Madonna Murderer."

  "If you use me for bait we'll find out."

  "Absolutely not."

  "I'm not afraid."

  "I know. That's what worries me."

  "Use me. That's why I came."

  "That's suicidal."

  She shrugged and smiled. "Kamikaze."

  "You've changed."

  She knew he meant that she no longer did whatever he told her to do, without question. "I've found my calling, that's all."

  "I'm beginning to wish I'd never telephoned you."

  "What choice did you have? You promised."

  "I didn't know you had a death wish."

  She was close enough to see fine perspiration collecting at his hairline and steel resolve in his eyes. And she knew there was no use in arguing. Not at this point anyway.

  Gone was her friend. Gone was the sad, lonely man who'd drunkenly phoned in the middle of the night. This was Superintendent Abraham Sinclair talking to her, the tough, hard, won't-take-any-shit cop.

  "You're much bolder than I remember. If you think you're going to be running the show," he said with conviction, "then you may as well recheck your luggage and get back on a plane to Canada."

  Ignoring his threat, she wrapped her hands around his arm. "I never used to be bold enough."

  He moved past their argument. "I've arranged for you to stay with someone who used to work for the CPD. Her kids are in college, she has an extra room, and she won't ask questions."

  "I appreciate it, but I prefer to have a place to myself. I'm hoping to find something today."

  "Are you sure? I thought you might be more comfortable with people around."

  "Thanks, but I really prefer my own space."

  "Okay, but I'll leave her number with you in case you don't find a place, or you change your mind." He pulled a portable phone out of his pocket and punched in a number. "Max? Abraham. I'm heading in your direction and I wanted to make sure you were going to be around. I've got a meeting with the mayor in forty-five minutes. On my way downtown, I'm going to drop off Ivy Dunlap at your office."

  Ivy detected a muffled reply, but couldn't make out any words. Abraham disconnected and slipped the phone back into his pocket. "Max Irving," he said by way of explanation. "I'll tell you about him on the way."

  Chapter 4

  The woman sitting on the wooden bench outside Max's office wasn't what he'd expected. Then he decided she had to be someone else entirely until she stood and introduced herself.

  "Hi, I'm Ivy Dunlap." She extended her hand.

  Now he could see that she was of medium height and was as compact as a ballet dancer. She wore a light skirt that fell neatly over curved hips and flat stomach to flutter in colors of red and black and burgundy around her knees. Her top was a black, slightly fitted T-shirt, on her feet a pair of running shoes. Over her shoulder was a green canvas backpack.

  He didn't know why, but for some reason he'd expected her to be on the far side of middle age, rapidly flying toward retirement and winters spent on the Gulf Coast. Turned out she was probably close to his age. Well, according to some—Ethan, for instance—that could be considered old. Funny how one's perception of age changed over a life span.

  He shook her hand and studied her at the same time. Her hair was red and straight, and she had those kind of short, Audrey Hepburn-waifish bangs. Her cheekbones were dusted with the same pink as her nose, making her look as if she'd been working in a garden all day. She reminded him of somebody. . . . Who? And then it came to him. Ethan. The coloring. Her blue eyes. Her cheekbones, the shape of her face.

  He was in control of the handshake. He was always in control of the handshake. When meeting a man, his grip was firm and strong, held just long enough to be polite without seeming too chilly. When meeting a woman, his grip was firm but nonthreatening.

  He released her hand.

  As he looked into her eyes, he felt a weird jolt of surprise, or possibly recognition, even though he was certain he'd never seen her before. Her eyes—they were old. Not old, as in the old he'd expected, but sad. When she looked at him, there was no shrinking away, no slow closing of the eyelids, no pretense. Just that bold, straightforward sorrow. And yet it was more than sorrow, as if she'd moved past the pain and could now face anything. In his job as a detective, he'd seen such eyes before. Like the faces of concentration camp survivors, they always belonged to someone who had lived through the horrendous.

  For some reason he couldn't explain, the sight of her made him all the angrier. Christ, he was going to be baby-sitting. He didn't have time for this shit.

  He wanted to grab her and shake her and ask her what the hell she was doing there. Instead, he managed to tamp down his reaction, to pull a mask over the most rampant of his feelings. Rather than attacking her directly, he said, "You know, there are people out there being murdered." He wanted to make her understand this wasn't a game.

  He'd expected her to recoil at his straightforwardness, at the hostility in his voice.

  Her eyebrows lifted slightly. "I know," was all she said.

  I know! Didn't she get it? She was in the way! She was in the damn way!

  She pulled a file folder from her backpack and handed it to him.

  "What's this?"

  "A profile."

  "I've already seen it."

  "Not this one."

  He held up the folder, trying even harder to keep his anger in check. "This is your profile?" he asked in disbelief. The woman was incredibly brazen. Her putting together a profile and expecting him to take it seriously was like telling him she was a brain surgeon even though she'd never had any schooling or been in an operating room.

  "What if we're dealing with a copycat killing? Then your profile doesn't mean shit."

  "Do you think it's a copycat?"

  "Maybe." He felt no compulsion to fill her in on his theories.

  "You need to read my profile. I'm interested in hearing your comments."

  He shoved the folder back at her until she was forced to take it. He had to stop this now, before it went any further. And he had to let her know who was calling the shots. "I'm gonna be straight with you," he said. "Because I don't have time for bullshit. You can tag along. It'll be a pain in the ass, but I've got my orders. You can get me coffee, get me newspapers, food. You can do research when I ask you for it. But nobody said I have to play cop with you."

  "You're not going to read it?"

  "Hell no, I'm not going to read it."

  "Then I'll tell you what it says."

  She began spouting off the profile. She had the damn thing memorized.

  "The killer is male, most likely of European descent, in his early to mid-forties. Graduated from high school. Went to college, most likely intending to major in mathematics, but flunked out due to an inability to focus and excessive time spent in fantasy. He lives with a relative, most likely his mother. As a child, he lacked a male role model and exhibited traits that make up the homicidal triad: bed-wetting past a nor-mal age, fire-starting, and cruelty to ani
mals. As you know, the most common motivators for serial killers are domination, manipulation, and control. This man is a loser who feels society has screwed him. He will come across as extremely confident, but in actuality he feels inadequate. His murdering of women is a redirected hatred of his mother. The babies are simply innocent victims. Killing them makes him feel as if he's not only getting back at her, he's saving himself at the same time. In short, his overriding fantasy is to rid himself of his domineering, abusive mother." She stopped. "There's more, but that's probably enough for now. I can see I'm boring you."

  Boring? "Hardly that."

  What the hell was Abraham thinking? And the weird way she'd delivered "her profile" only reinforced his idea that he was dealing with some wacko.

  Yet he couldn't deny that it bore an uncanny resemblance to the profile put out by their own guy. Had she somehow gotten a copy? That would explain things. That and the fact that ever since retired FBI Agent John Douglas began writing his profiling books, everybody wanted in on the game, and everybody thought he, or in Dunlap's case, she was an expert. But let Ms. Dunlap get a good look at a violent crime scene and she'd be out of his hair.

  "And you came by this knowledge . . . how?"

  While he spoke to her, Ivy was intensely aware of his presence in the crowded hallway, but also the presence of people she couldn't even see. They filled the building, sitting in offices, riding elevators, flowing out the double glass doors to board buses on the noisy Chicago street.

  The city of Chicago housed millions of people. She could feel those people. She could feel their pulsating presence, smothering her, suffocating her. And not only feel the people who were there now, but also the people who had been there before.

  "I have a degree in criminal psychology and have been studying psychopathic behavior for the last ten years."

  "That doesn't necessarily make you an expert. Have you had any actual field experience?"

  She let out a heavy sigh. "Listen, I don't want to argue. I'm tired, and I still need to find a place to stay. A place that allows cats."

  Cats?

  He looked past her. Now he could see that under the bench where she'd been sitting was a gray plastic animal carrier, the kind people used on airplanes.

  She'd brought her damn cat with her.

  Ivy knew that coming back to Chicago would be one of the hardest things she'd ever done. She'd mentally prepared herself. She'd pulled in, shut herself off, focusing on her immediate problems—finding a place to stay and dealing with the man in front of her.

  Interacting with another human being was the last thing she felt like doing at the moment, especially one as irascible as this one.

  "A cat?" he asked, his voice echoing her own disbelief.

  Indeed, why had she brought poor Jinx here?

  "You brought your cat?"

  Detective Irving wore black dress pants, a rumpled white dress shirt, and a tie that had been yanked open at the throat. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, and he was sweating. Behind her, in a dark corner where the wax on the linoleum had turned a yellow brown, an oscillating fan blew stagnant air in their direction.

  Click, half circle, click, return.

  "I didn't have anybody to leave him with," she said.

  One hand at his waist, elbow out, he scratched his head with his free hand, completely at a loss. In that moment, she allowed herself to feel a little sorry for him. For a fraction of a second, she wondered what his home life was like. It could be bad. Really bad. She thought of several combinations of bad scenarios, then let it go.

  Abraham hadn't given her any personal information on Max Irving, only saying he was the best at what he did, going so far as to relate a case where Irving had used hypnosis to aid in an investigation.

  As she looked at him now, she was surprised to distantly note that some women would probably find him attractive, with his short dark hair that was as boyishly rumpled as his shirt, with his distracted air, piercing brown-green eyes, skin that looked as if it had been dusted with gold.

  "Okay," he said, seeming to arrive at some kind of decision. "Come into my office."

  Once inside, he grabbed a phone book that was so big she would have had to hold it with two hands. He dropped it on his cluttered desk and began tearing through the pages.

  "What's your price range?"

  She mumbled a figure she thought adequate.

  "Not in this city," he said as if to further underscore how little she was in touch with the real world.

  She knew that the building they were in wasn't all that old, having opened in the early eighties, when Jane Byrne was mayor. But for some reason his cramped office had the feel of all old buildings—of being a little off-center, a little warped by time, a place where eras collided. Chicago had witnessed the rise and fall of Al Capone, who, when compared to the sick, twisted Madonna Murderer, seemed almost a nice man just making a living.

  While Ivy was dwelling on Chicago and how much it had seen, Max Irving was barking into the telephone, jotting down numbers and addresses on a yellow tablet. He hung up, tore the top sheet from the tablet, and announced, "Found you a couple of places. Rent by the week. You can have a pet, but it'll cost extra."

  She put out her hand for the paper, but he ignored it. "They're not far from here. I'll take you."

  "That's totally unnecessary."

  He still wouldn't give her the paper with the addresses. Five minutes ago, he'd seemed eager to get her out of his hair. He would have been ecstatic if she'd told him she was leaving the country. Now he was going to help her find an apartment. Why?

  "I'll fill you in on the case on the way."

  She gathered up poor Jinx, who was still in a highly sedated state from the drugs the vet had given Ivy.

  "Pretty mellow cat," he said, looking at Jinx lolling in the corner of the cage.

  "Isn't that what they always say?" she asked. "He seemed like a nice guy. Quiet. Kept to himself."

  At first she could see that he didn't know she was kidding. Then he smiled even though it was fairly obvious he didn't want to. "You Canadians think you're pretty damn funny, don't you?"

  She shrugged. "Best comedians come from Canada."

  He was thinking about arguing, but then she saw defeat cross his features.

  She smiled back at him. Americans had a hard edge. Interacting with them was like remembering how to ride a bike. You might be a little wobbly at first, but you could pick it up again pretty easily.

  Max gathered up the Sheppard case file in its brand- new, stiff and slick manila folder, complete with eight- by-ten color photos of the crime scene, then grabbed the Madonna Murders file in its soft-sided, fingerprint- stained folder, wound a huge rubber band around both, latching them together, then tucked the whole mess under his arm.

  "No suitcase?" he asked Dunlap, looking around the hallway, not seeing anything.

  "Left it at the front desk."

  "How long have you known Superintendent Sinclair?" he asked as they walked down the hallway. He should have offered to carry the animal crate, but he'd be damned if he was going to trot around with a cat.

  "A long time," she said.

  An elusive answer. "Years?"

  "Yes."

  "Where'd you meet?"

  "I can't remember. It seems I've always known him. Have you ever felt that way about someone?"

  Max didn't answer. Besides, it was a rhetorical question.

  They passed the front desk where phones were ringing, people were conversing, computers were humming. A prostitute in handcuffs was led past them. A street person was crying, begging to be allowed to go home and feed his cats.

  "In just a minute, Mr. Van Horn." The clerk looked up at Max and his companion, and shot Max a questioning look. Max just shrugged and rolled his eyes.

  "This yours?" Max asked, indicating a black, canvas suitcase with a paper airline tag around the handle.

  She nodded, and he picked it up.

  His goal was to get D
unlap out of the building before he had to introduce her to anybody. His instincts told him she was too fragile to handle such a difficult investigation, and there was no sense in wasting time introducing her to people she might never see again.

  Crime-scene photos used to be black and white, the argument being that they were less disturbing that way. But there were a lot of things that didn't show up in black and white, so now they were always in color. Color was good. Color weeded out the people who couldn't hack it.

  The lobby was where the press waited, hoping to get an unauthorized scoop. So far, the Sheppard murders hadn't been publicly connected with the earlier homicides. There were around four hundred murders a year in Chicago, down from an all-time high of eight hundred. If the victim wasn't famous, the homicide didn't attract attention, and was only given a few lines in the Herald. But let somebody make some sort of comparison and the lobby would soon be swarming with camera crews.

  Max spotted Alex Martin, a fairly new reporter on the police beat. New reporters had it tough. Most police officers trusted and worked with only a few journalists. The others they ignored, so it was hard for anybody starting out to get a fresh story.

  But Alex was young and ambitious, energetic and relentless. He had so much energy it was exhausting to spend five minutes with him. He jumped up from where he'd been sitting scribbling notes.

  "Detective Irving!"

  Leaving his sandwich and wrapper on the bench, he hurried up to Max, looking like he'd stepped right out of a Gap ad with his khaki pants, his wild tie, his leather sandals. "Detective Irving! May I talk with you a moment?" He glanced in Dunlap's direction, a brief question bringing his dark eyebrows together, quickly dismissed her as nobody important, then focused back on Max.

  "About this murder." With the skill of a desperate man, he stepped in front of Max, blocking his path. "The Sheppard case. Any leads?"