by Anne Frasier
Using the right bait was everything.
The Manipulator was cruising down Interstate 90, heading in the direction of his house, feeling calm, feeling in control. Everything was falling into place. Everything would be all right.
The streets of Chicago were spread out before him—strings of twinkling lights. Beautiful. Really beautiful.
He'd agonized over how he was going to get the kid to come with him. But in the end, it had been so easy. He'd been following him off and on for a couple of weeks. He knew the way he hung out at music stores. He'd even taken note of his purchases. That was all it took. The record and CD show—that was a gift. The perfect gift.
And now little Adrian was in the trunk of his car, waiting to be reunited with his mother.
They were still alive. Both of them. Their deaths had been faked in order to trick him. That's what had screwed everything up. They were supposed to have been the thirteenth victims. But because neither of them had really died, everything was wrong. That's why he'd always felt there was something missing. Some big hole that was always there, in the back of his brain. And whenever he turned his thoughts toward it, trying to look at it, trying to see what was whispering to him, annoying him, he could never turn his head fast enough. He could never see it.
But now everything made sense.
He wasn't crazy.
"He was more like ... I don't know . . . skinny. He was one of those skinny white guys."
"So, he had a thin face?" asked the sketch artist.
"Yeah."
"How about the forehead?"
"Big. He had a big forehead."
"Eyes? Were they big, small, average?"
"Average."
"Facial hair?"
"Did he have any? No, but he had these little dark lines above his mouth that he needed to shave."
"Mouth. Big? Little? Average?"
"Big."
They went on and on.
The sketch artist deftly filled in short dark hair. She changed the shape of the jaw a couple of times until the drug dealer was finally satisfied. "Yeah, that's the guy."
Max, who'd been sitting quietly at a desk in the corner of the room, now came forward. "Was there anything else about him that stood out? The way he talked? The way he dressed? Mannerisms?"
"He had no sense of style."
"What do you mean?"
"His clothes were dull. He had no sense of style, man."
"Anything else?"
"He talked like a college-educated white guy."
"How's that?"
"I don't know. He didn't use any street language."
"What about tone of voice? Was his voice deep? High?"
"He had a soft voice. Talked like this: 'How much do I owe you?' " the informant said in a smooth, low voice. Then he laughed. "Yeah, that was it. Just like that. “How much do I owe you?” He laughed again.
Ivy pushed the print button at the computer where she'd been sitting, taking notes. The printer spewed out a copy of the description, which they put with the composite, faxing and e-mailing both to the papers.
Ivy and Max followed up the faxes with phone calls to make sure they would make the morning editions. While she had the assistant editor of the Herald on the phone, she got home phone numbers of coworkers who might have information on Alex Martin.
"Maude Cunningham would be your best bet," the editor told her. "She was his desk advisor."
After hanging up, Ivy gave Maude a call. "Can I come by and talk to you?" Ivy asked. "I know it's late, but—"
"Come over," Maude cut in. "I won't be doing any sleeping tonight."
While Max tied up loose ends at the task-force office, Ivy caught a cab to Maude's Lincoln Park address.
Maude reminded Ivy of Bette Davis toward the end of her career. Tough, dignified, and a little scary. She smelled like whiskey and cigarette smoke.
"Come on in," Maude said, standing in the doorway of her apartment, the ceiling light casting a yellow glow above her head. Behind her, a cat meowed. "I don't want Miss Kitty to get out."
Ivy stepped inside, and the woman closed the door behind her. The entryway walls were covered with framed newspaper photos and articles. "Is this you?" Ivy asked, pointing to a beautiful young woman standing next to the Queen of England.
"Yeah, believe it or not, I used to be good-looking. She used to be good-looking too." She let out a cackle.
Ivy didn't even attempt a response. "What can you tell me about Alex Martin? Do you know why he went to the cemetery? Was he meeting someone?"
"He didn't mention the cemetery to me at all." Maude shook out a filterless cigarette and lit it, blowing out a cloud of smoke. "I think he thought he was going to get a scoop, and didn't want me to butt in. If he'd told me it had to do with the Madonna Murderer, I wouldn't have let him go." She pulled a piece of tobacco off her tongue, then examined the lit end of her cigarette. "I'd been bragging to him about getting the story, no matter what. It was kind of exciting having somebody that young around who looked up to me and wanted to listen to my bullshit. Alex was a nice kid, but I had to edit the hell out of his stuff. He'd go off on tangents that had nothing to do with the subject matter. But he was good. Just needed some restraining, that's all. He was after a Pulitzer, you know that?" She let out a sad laugh and shook her head. "Poor kid."
Chapter 39
The Chicago Herald and the Chicago Sun Times ran the sketch along with the identifying characteristics of the Madonna Murderer on the front page, right under an article about international terrorists. The fact that the Madonna Murderer's first victim had been buried in the Catholic cemetery where Alex Martin's body was found had quickly gotten out, and that knowledge now figured prominently in all media coverage.
When the paper hit the stands, task-force members were waiting to read it and pass it around. Some had come in early. Others, like Max and Ivy, had stayed the night in their second-floor home away from home.
Shortly past daybreak officers hit the streets in pairs, recanvassing all the former patients Regina Hastings had visited, beginning with the interviews that had been written by someone else's hand.
A brief lull gave Max the opportunity to call Ryan Harrison's house to check on Ethan.
"He isn't here," Judy Harrison said. "Wait. Let me see. Maybe he came over after I went to sleep."
The receiver clattered in Max's ear. He heard her walk away, then heard her come back and pick up the phone. "He's not here," she said firmly. "He and Ryan went to the music show downtown yesterday. Ryan came home in the afternoon, but Ethan stayed. He decided not to spend the night here, and said he'd catch a ride home with you."
"Thanks." Max hung up, then immediately dialed home.
There was no answer.
"Did anybody take a call from my son yesterday?" he asked the room of burnt-out, half-asleep people.
That question was followed by a lot of head shaking.
"I'll check the books." Ivy uncurled stiffly from the couch where she'd spent the last hour with her feet tucked under her, trying to stay awake. Two others jumped up to help.
Every phone call was entered into a logbook, with the time, subject, and caller ID. In a matter of minutes, they were done.
"Nothing here."
Max tried calling home again. Again there was no answer. He called Ethan's hockey coach. He called the homes of several of Ethan's buddies. He called the bagel shop, hoping to find that Ethan was filling in for a sick coworker at the last minute.
Nobody had seen or heard from him.
Feeling sick to his stomach, Max put in a call to the crime lab's fingerprint expert, Joel Runyan. "Get any prints off that hockey stick?" he asked.
"Three different ones," Joel said, "but so far we haven't found any matches in our database."
"I've got a print I'm going to fax you. I want you to see if it matches anything you lifted from the stick. And Joel, I need those results immediately. Drop whatever else you're doing." After hanging up, Max hurried to his office and pulled a set o
f fingerprints from his desk. He enlarged them on his copy machine, then faxed them to the lab. He was heading out the door when Ivy caught up with him.
"I'm going home," he told her without stopping.
She fell into step beside him. "Is something wrong?"
"I can't get in touch with Ethan."
“I’ll come with you.”
Traffic wasn't bad, and they made it to Max's in less than forty minutes.
At the house, there was no sign of Ethan. "I don't think he's been here since yesterday," Max said, panic beginning to grab him by the throat. He called Ryan's house again. They hadn't heard from him.
"Let me talk to Ryan," Max said.
Ryan was put on the phone. "I'm sorry, Mr. Irving. I tried to talk him into coming home with me, but he wanted to stay."
"Did he say where he planned to go, what he planned to do after he left Navy Pier?"
"He was going to call you, or catch the subway to your office. That's what he told me, I swear. I swear."
"I believe you." Max hung up, then quickly gathered some recent photos of Ethan. "Come on."
They ran outside and dove into the car. Max took off, tires squealing as he made a U-turn, heading back in the direction they'd come.
"Maybe I should drive," Ivy said, clinging to the door as he swerved in and out of traffic.
"I'm okay."
"Are you thinking Ethan's disappearance has something to do with the Madonna Murderer case?"
"I didn't want to hear those word spoken out loud."
He pulled sharply into the right lane, cutting off a white Taurus. The driver honked and threw him the finger.
"You're jumping to conclusions," Ivy reasoned. "Ethan was probably hanging out with some friends, maybe got drunk, and was afraid to come home. Didn't you tell me he's done that before? Didn't you say he's under probation for drinking?"
"Yeah, but he's been doing so well."
Max rubbed his forehead. Sweat trickled down the side of his face. "You're probably right. My brain is foggy. Too many sleepless nights. I'm overreacting, that's all." But he didn't stop sweating, and he didn't stop cutting people off.
Max's phone rang, and he quickly answered it. It was Joel Runyan from the crime lab.
"The set of prints you faxed matched one of the prints found on the hockey stick," Joel said.
Max's throat tightened and his stomach knotted. "Are you sure?" Max asked, his voice strained. "How many points?"
"Fourteen."
A fourteen-point match was nothing to dispute.
"Who do the prints belong to?" Joel asked.
Max swallowed. When Ethan was little, he used to like to have his prints taken. Max had a drawer full of them. "My son," he said. "They belong to my son."
"Have you seen this kid?"
"Have you seen this kid?"
Separately, Max and Ivy moved quickly from one vendor to the next, showing Ethan's school photo as they went.
There were hundreds of vendors, and as they worked their way forward with no results, Max's panic grew.
Finally a guy with a nose ring grabbed the picture from Ivy and stared at it. "Yeah, I saw him. He bought a My Bloody Valentine album from me."
"Max!" Ivy could feel her heart thudding in her stomach.
Let him be okay. Let Max's son be okay.
Max turned toward her. Walking sideways, he backtracked, cutting through the mob to reach her side. "You've seen him?" Max asked. "When?"
"Yesterday. I saw him a couple a times yesterday."
"Have you seen him today?"
The vendor shook his head. A woman showed up and slipped behind the table, dropping a copy of the Chicago Herald on top of some boxed and sorted CDs. "Here's your paper, hon."
"He was with a guy who looked kinda like that," the vendor said, pointing to the sketched face looking up at them from the paper.
Ivy thought Max was going to pass out.
He swayed a little. He squeezed his eyes shut. He pulled in a shuddering breath, then brought a closed fist up hard against his mouth, as if to keep an anguished sob from escaping. And he just stood there, for the longest time.
Ivy grabbed his arm. "Come on, Max," she said softly. He didn't move, so she grabbed him by both arms, shaking him firmly, saying, "Max. Don't fall apart. Not now. You can't fall apart now."
He let his fist drop away from his face. Bloodshot eyes stared hard at her, as if trying to figure out who she was, and what she was doing there. Then she saw the recognition, saw the detective taking over for the father who couldn't function. He straightened. Side by side, they hurried from the building, heading for his car and Area Five Headquarters.
His dad would find him, Ethan told himself. His dad would find him, and when he did, he would beat the holy shit out of the guy who'd done this to him.
Panic flooded through him, and a sob would have escaped if his mouth hadn't been covered with duct tape. He couldn't feel his hands or arms anymore; they were bound tightly behind him. He couldn't feel his feet, which were tied at the ankles. His hair was stuck to his head, and he knew he'd been bleeding.
He was lying on the floor in a dark room. He had no idea how long he'd been there, because he'd been unconscious. The son of a bitch had hammered him, knocking him out.
The smell.
The smell was so bad that he kept gagging against the tape. And what terrified him so much was that it smelled the way Max sometimes smelled underneath the lemon shampoo.
He tried to pray, but kept forgetting the words. He kept thinking about all the horrible stories he'd heard, not from his dad, but from some of the officers at the police station. Ethan used to go down there when he was little. He even had a cop uniform. Different officers would sit him on their desks where he would swing his legs back and forth and fiddle with his pretend badge, thinking it looked real, thinking it was real. And if he asked an innocent question, the officers would tell him the answers with stories he hoped were made up. He would go home and have nightmares, worrying that someone might come in and steal him during the night, or cut out his liver and eat it. He used to become so terrified that he made his dad keep the hall light on all night.
He couldn't quit thinking about those stories he thought he'd put away along with his pretend police uniform, his pretend badge. Stories about predators, about evil people who had no conscience, who enjoyed making people suffer before finally killing them by strangulation, or bludgeoning, or cutting off piece after piece until the victim bled to death or died of shock or both.
He whimpered in terror. If he was going to die, he wanted it to be fast, to be over as quickly as possible. He didn't want to be tortured.
Don't torture me. Please don't torture me.
He wanted to just close his eyes and disappear. Just close his eyes and no longer exist.
Where was his dad? Was he looking for him? No. Probably not. He thought he was at Ryan's. Max probably didn't even know he was gone.
Please come. Please find me. Don't let him cut me up. Don't let him hurt me anymore.
He wished he could shut off his brain, but he couldn't, and his thoughts just kept moving forward. His breath was coming in short little puffs. In his panic, he began to hyperventilate.
After he was dead, Ruby would peel off his skin and use it to make lamp shades. He would cut him up and put him in a suitcase. He would dump the suitcase in the water somewhere, weighting it down with cement blocks. And Ethan would sink down, down, down. . . .
"Music," Ivy said from behind the wheel of Max's car, driving as fast as she felt was safe. "What if it's not mathematics, but music?"
Her words finally sunk in, with Max slowly responding from another realm. "Music?"
"We've been looking for someone who deals with numbers, but what about music? Pythagoras was one of the first to point out the close relationship between math and music." She sensed that Max was listening, so she continued with her theory. "He also believed in what he called the table of opposites. Light and dark. Good an
d evil. He went so far as to say that math and music have connections internally and externally, affecting the currents of our souls and the structure of the universe. I think it's significant that Ethan may have been picked up at a music show. Is Ethan the type to just hop in the car with a stranger?"
"No."
"So he had to use bait. What's bait for Ethan?"
"Music."
Max was sounding better, stronger.
Ivy cut into the Area Five parking lot, and Max jumped out and ran inside the building. He took the stairs up two flights and down the hall where he burst into the task-force room.
"Go through the reports again," he said, gasping for breath.
Phones were ringing, but no one was answering. Mouths hung open. All eyes were on Max.
"Run cross-references on our databases. Go through the canvassing reports again, but look for a man who's involved in the music field."
He turned to Ramirez. "Any matches yet?" he asked, unable to keep the desperation from his voice. Records was doing a nationwide search, trying to match the face to someone who had a criminal record.
"No, nothing," Ramirez said. "But it can take a long time. Days maybe."
"We don't have days," Max said. "He's got my son.
Chapter 40
"Okay," Ramirez said from his computer terminal. "Got a couple of matches. One guy was a music major at Chicago School of Music, but never graduated. "The other has been in a band off and on. Both spent time in mental hospitals." He pushed print, then handed the two addresses to Max.
The task-force room was chaos. Every phone was ringing, most of the calls from people who'd seen the composite in the paper.
In the last year Chicago had expanded its SWAT team, hiring twenty additional officers, most of them deputized so that they could follow a maneuver to the end. The increased manpower and broader scope of skills gave them the advantage of splitting up if necessary. Max put in a call to Commander Richard Miller, ordering the deployment of two teams. They would be in position in thirty minutes.
Max hung up, continuing to bark out orders. He sent one pair of detectives to the Elgin Mental Hospital, another to South Side Chicago Mental Hospital.