by Anne Frasier
Now that one of them was a legal American, the family remained in a small farming community where most people chewed tobacco, drove trucks with huge tires, and talked like they were underwater. There, both of Ronny's parents graduated from fieldwork to factory jobs, and they were soon able to buy all of the things that they'd done without in Mexico, from electronic equipment like 35-millimeter cameras and VCRs, to big appliances like washers and dryers. Even more important, Ronny was able to get an American education.
In school he was considered a curiosity. He excelled in sports, so he was accepted into the exalted inner circle made up of the children of rural families.
Ramirez hated it.
He kept thinking there had to be someplace better out there somewhere. There had to be a place that was more than cornfields as far as the eye could see.
His Mexican roots were as foreign to him as they were to the kids he went to school with, yet he never felt he belonged in the farming community where he'd grown up. He was a man without a country.
And then he discovered Chicago.
It embraced him, welcomed him. And for the first time in his life he felt a part of something. He wasn't sure what yet—he'd only been there four years, but the familiarity was comfortable. It felt like home.
The police scanner flashed, the dispatcher announcing a ten-one—a matter of utmost urgency. That was followed by the code for a possible homicide and an address. "Available area units please respond."
Ramirez's reluctant partner for the evening, Regina Hastings, flipped on the lights, then announced to the dispatcher that they were only five minutes away.
Ramirez gunned the patrol car until they were flying down almost deserted streets, Hastings gripping the handle above the door as he took a corner too fast.
"Slow down, will you? Chrissake, Ramirez. What's your fucking hurry?"
But she knew what his hurry was. Ramirez always liked to be the first officer on the scene. It was like a contest with him. A call could be way the hell on the opposite side of Area Five, and he'd haul ass over there like the show couldn't start until his face appeared on the scene.
He shot her a glance over his shoulder, white teeth flashing in his dark, handsome face. He didn't take the next corner any slower.
Tires squealed across dry pavement, and for a brief moment, it seemed that the patrol car might tip up on two wheels.
Prick, she thought. He was one of those pricks who became a cop because he wanted to drive fast and carry a gun, not to mention intimidate people. He had a reputation as a love-'em-and-leave-'em kind of guy. But in all fairness, hers wasn't an unbiased opinion. She'd gone out with Ramirez once—an occurrence she kept trying to scribble out of her mental journal. But no matter how many times she tried to scratch it out, it kept appearing again like the invisible ink she'd played with as a kid, the kind you ran under water to make show up.
She'd been a cop long enough to know she preferred to date cops. They were the only ones who understood the daily stress in an officer's life. Ramirez, on the other hand, wanted to be looked up to. The only time they had what could be called a conversation, he'd confided that he actually liked foot patrol because people could get a good look at him in uniform. She'd laughed, and that had been that.
Nobody laughed at Ronny Ramirez.
The patrol car squealed to a stop in front of a five- story brick apartment building. There were lights on in several of the windows; a cluster of people stood on the cement steps that led to the front door.
"This must be the place," Ramirez said, shoving the gearshift into park and cutting the engine.
"I hope somebody has a sticker to give you for being the first one here," she said sarcastically as she opened her door.
Hastings guessed there were approximately ten people gathered under the porch light. Clinging to wrought-iron railings, rubbing away fingerprints that may or may not have told them something. A compromised crime scene was Homicide's biggest complaint. But cops had no control over what happened before they arrived on the scene, and unfortunately not much control over what happened after they arrived if there wasn't enough manpower to keep the crowd back.
People started talking at once. Words jumped out at Hastings, enough for her to piece together that a young woman was upstairs, and that she was dead.
"Are you sure she's dead?" Hastings asked.
"Dead? No damn foolin' she's dead," a black man told her. "There's blood everywhere."
Ramirez and Hastings waded through the people, telling them to please stay back. Behind them, sirens wailed as an ambulance pulled to a stop in the middle of the street. That was immediately followed by two more police cars.
Hastings relaxed a little, relieved that they had backup to control the crowd.
"The baby," a woman in a pink nylon nightgown said. "Did you tell 'em about the baby?"
Hastings hesitated. In front of her, Ramirez stopped and turned around, their eyes meeting in silent concern. From deep inside the dark heart of the apartment, someone was wailing, a high, keening, anguished sound.
The woman finished her contribution to the story. "Baby's dead too."
Baby's dead too.
That single statement set off a network of phone calls.
Protocol dictated that in the event of an unusual murder—mass shootings, serial killings, execution killings—certain measures were to be implemented. On the night Ronny Ramirez and Regina Hastings got the call that sent them racing to Mulberry Street, several more units were dispatched in hopes that the killer was still in the area. Like a well-oiled machine, everybody did his or her part, with everything falling into place. Within ten minutes, there were six officers strategically stationed around the apartment building, another twenty setting up checkpoints at intersections. When all protocol was initiated, a call was put in to the head of the homicide squad.
"Get a containment perimeter set up," Max Irving said, the portable phone gripped between his ear and neck as he pulled on a pair of jeans. "The perpetrator could still be in the area. And cordon off the crime scene." He buttoned and zipped his pants, then reached for his shoulder holster, slipping it on over a white T-shirt.
"Done," said the officer who'd introduced himself as Ramirez.
"I'll be there in a half hour."
Immediately upon ending the call, Max punched number nine on his speed dial: Chicago's mobile crime lab.
Jeff Ellis was having sex for the third time in one night with the blonde he'd met at Nightlife, a club just off Michigan Avenue where all the cool people hung out. He liked to go there wearing his dark suit, trench coat, and black sunglasses because women got off on that. For some reason, death and a trench coat turned women on.
When he was out, he would have people guess what he did for a living. FBI was what he got most of the time. But when he went on to explain that he was a mobile-crime-lab technician, they usually liked that just as much.
He'd tried to get into Quantico, thinking it would be about the coolest thing to be an FBI agent, but his application was always turned down. Not his fault, he was damn sure of that.
He was beginning to ejaculate when the phone rang near his ear. Without pausing in his stroke, he picked the black portable off the bedside table and put it to his ear.
"Yeah!" he shouted.
The woman under him grabbed his hips and lifted herself to him. Flesh slapped flesh.
"We need the mobile crime lab at—"
"Hang on a second." He pushed mute, dropped the phone on the bed, then thrust himself deep into the woman—he couldn't remember her name—his semen finally spilling into the rubber wrapped around his engorged cock. When he was done, he pulled out, rolled to his back, and grabbed his cell phone.
Once again he pushed the mute button. "Yeah?" Dead silence. Then he realized the mute button must not have engaged the first time. "Shit." He pushed it again. "A little unfinished business," he said breathlessly into the receiver. "If you know what I mean."
"Get your ass over
to 2315 Mulberry Street on the northwest side."
Detective Irving. A pissed-off Detective Irving, but then Irving was always pissed off about something. "What have you got?" Ellis could be called in on anything from a hit-and-run to undetermined death.
"You'll see when you get here."
Which meant it was something Irving didn't want to talk about over the phone, in case the call was intercepted. "Homicide?" Ellis asked, playing dumb.
"Just get your ass over here."
Ellis and Irving had never gotten along. Irving was so damn serious and had an attitude that rubbed Ellis wrong. And Irving had trained at Quantico. He wasn't FBI, but he'd still spent time in the FBI Academy program. It was a tough, eleven-week course for law enforcement officers from all over the world. Ellis had applied too, only to get passed over year after year. He asked Irving to put in a good word for him, but Irving spouted some bullshit about making it on his own merit. Ellis had hated the bastard ever since.
In the bathroom, Ellis flushed the rubber down the toilet, then got dressed. Since it was the middle of the night, most technicians would have shown up at the scene in anything they could throw on. Not Ellis. He always wore his suit and trench coat. No matter what. No matter how hot or how cold the weather, no matter if it was day or night.
He was double-checking the items in his technician's case when he remembered the blonde. He glanced up to see her pouting at him from the bed, the sheet pulled up to her waist, her breasts large and unnaturally round and high.
"You have to leave." He pulled a twenty from his billfold and tossed it on the bed. "Call a cab."
At first it seemed that she was going to say something. Then she pressed her lips together and snatched up the money.
He made a helpless gesture with one hand, shrugging his shoulders at the same time. "Hey baby, that's the way it is."
Reminding her of his important occupation softened her. "Did somebody die?" she whispered.
His eyes were on his open case, mentally cataloging equipment. Powders: white and black metallic. Brushes. Magnetic pencil Forms. Camera. Film. Flash. Black Magic Markers. Paper evidence bags. Then there were the things that weren't issue, that he'd added himself. Baggies. Flashlight. Measuring tape. Tweezers. Scissors. Extra dress shirt. Black cloth for photo backdrop. Surgical-paper shirt and pants and shoe covers.
He was always adding to his collection.
"Homicide," he said, snapping shut the case, experiencing some satisfaction at passing Irving's veiled information along to a total stranger.
"Oh my God," she said with a mixture of awe and horror, pulling the sheet up over her breasts.
"Get up. Get dressed," he said.
"Why can't I wait here until you come back?"
Now that the sex was over, he wanted her out of there. "You don't want to be here when I get back," he said. "You don't want to see me when I get back."
Her eyes grew big and her collagen lips formed a circle. "Will you have blood on you? The victim's blood? Like on your shoes or something?"
"Maybe. I never know. But it's more my frame of mind," he said, injecting his voice with a touch of pathos, wondering why he bothered when he didn't give a shit about her. "I'm just really . . . down after spending a few hours at a crime scene. I need to be alone. You can understand that, can't you?"
The truth was, he didn't feel anything. He never had. Never. No, that wasn't exactly true. He sometimes felt a sense of disgust—not directed toward the killer, but the victim. Somehow, it always seemed they got what they deserved.
Chapter 13
A phone rang out in the darkness, making Ivy's heart race in sleep-drugged panic. At first she thought she was home, in St. Sebastian, and that Abraham was calling to tell her there'd been another murder. But then she remembered where she was: Chicago. Dark, haunted Chicago. And the phone was still ringing.
Disoriented, she fumbled in the dark, stubbing her toe, finally finding the screaming phone.
"Hello . . . ?" she mumbled, bent at the waist to keep from dragging the phone to the floor. The receiver smelled like grease and plastic, and her own voice echoed back at her.
"There's been another murder," Max Irving announced without preamble.
She straightened and the phone slid from the small table, crashing to the floor while she still held the receiver to her ear, the curled, sticky cord stretched taut. Jinx, who'd been sleeping near her pillow, disappeared under the bed.
"Thought you might want to know."
She shut off the ceiling fan, killing all extraneous noise. "Where?"
She listened intently, chest rising and falling, heart hammering, ears picking up the sound of a far-off siren. Nearer, possibly in the same room with Irving, was the sound of indistinct conversation. Her mind shuffled through various backdrops, finally settling on the homicide, realizing he was already at the murder scene.
"No need for you to come out in the middle of the night," Irving said.
Was she imagining it, or was there a challenge, a dare hidden behind the smoothness of that delivery? Perhaps he wanted to be able to tell Abraham that she couldn't be bothered to leave her bed.
"I'm coming."
She picked up the phone from the floor. With the receiver to her ear, she reached for her backpack on the floor near the bed, finally snagging it with her toe. She dragged it to her, then dropped to her knees, digging until she found her stenographer's notebook and pen.
She uncapped the pen with her teeth. "Give me the address."
Surprisingly, he didn't argue. He gave her the address, then said, "Call a cab. It's not far from you, only a few miles."
With one finger, she ended the call, then quickly put in another to Yellow Cab. After hanging up, she grabbed the clothes she'd taken off just hours earlier—jeans and a T-shirt. Probably not professional crime-scene attire.
Into her canvas backpack, she jammed the notebook and pen. Then, slipping her bare feet into a pair of clunky-heeled leather loafers, she grabbed her apartment keys and headed out the door.
Downstairs, she waited just inside the double doors that locked automatically whenever someone came in or out of the building, straining to see the street through a narrow strip of beveled glass.
In the distance, she finally spotted distorted headlights. On the roof was the lighted cab logo. She watched as the vehicle pulled up next to the curb in front of her building.
Fresh, cool air hit her in the face as she stepped outside. The moon was almost full, a few of the brighter stars visible past the glare of light pollution.
She slid into the backseat of the cab and gave the driver the address.
They floated through the surreal cityscape, stopping at traffic signals that continued to function even though most people were in bed asleep. As they drew closer to the crime scene a roadblock consisting of a single police car with a flashing red strobe stopped them. A uniformed policeman shined a powerful flashlight inside the cab, first at the driver, then at Ivy. She lowered her window and pulled out the temporary badge Abraham had issued to her. The policeman took it from her, examined it with his flashlight, handed it back, and let them pass. Two blocks later, they were at the scene.
She paid the driver. Too distracted to mentally compute the tip, she gave him what she thought was adequate. It must have been too much, because his bored-out-of-my- mind attitude vanished and he flashed her a big grin before she stepped away.
It was a poor neighborhood, with converted three- story houses that came almost to the street, all looking alike, with hardly enough room for a person to squeeze between them. Most were shingle-sided with tar-paper roofs, but the apartment building Ivy was looking for turned out to be brick. People gathered on their front steps, watching, whispering. Some of them must have been there awhile, because a few yawned and shuffled back into their homes.
Just another homicide. Go back to bed.
In the yard of an adjoining house, a pit bull barked deeply in its barrel chest and lunged at a chain-link fen
ce, its feet and nails stirring up a cloud of dirt as it continued its display of aggression. Yellow crime- scene tape surrounded what there was of the yard, taking in the entire sidewalk and part of the street where more patrol cars pulled up, lights flashing, strobing off the apartment windows, giving the area an even weirder, unreal carnivalesque feel.
One uniformed policeman stood where the yellow crime tape wound around a streetlight.
He took a step toward her, his expression stern. "No press allowed."
Once again, she pulled out her temporary badge. "I'm not press."
He squinted at the badge, then straightened, his shoulders relaxing. "Oh, yeah. Detective Irving said you might be coming."
She clipped the plastic photo badge to her T-shirt, then lifted the crime-scene tape with one hand as she ducked underneath.
A policewoman was stationed at the door. Other officers were scattered about, tablets in hand, interviewing people, hoping to find an eyewitness.
"Second floor," the policewoman said.
"Thanks."
Even though the building looked to have been built about the same time as Ivy's, it was in much worse condition. Names had been carved into the plaster walls with a sharp knife. Behind a dark-stained door with dripping, yellow varnish, a woman sobbed uncontrollably while someone in a low voice tried to comfort her.
Ivy's heart hammered as she moved up the flight of stairs. She put her hand out to steady herself, grabbing the sticky railing; it shifted precariously and she let it go.
Up, up, her footsteps echoing.
It was eerily quiet inside the building except for the fading sound of muffled crying.
The apartment door stood open, another policeman stationed there. Once again, she gave her name and lifted her badge. The policeman nodded.
Just inside the door was a combined living room and kitchen. The wooden floor was scuffed. It creaked when she moved across it. On the wall above the couch was a watercolor of a Japanese garden, in one corner a small rock fountain flowing with soothing contentment. Next to it, on the floor, was a tiny bonsai tree, spilled, its roots exposed, black dirt in a little pile next to it. From the ceiling hung a beautiful lantern made of rice paper. Letters had been cut in the lantern. They probably meant things like "happiness," "prosperity."