by Jack Kilborn
“Your father is an excellent speaker.”
To Theena’s credit, she seemed completely at ease. As if suddenly being forced into conversation with a complete stranger was normal for her.
“He believes all Greeks should be outspoken; the result of seeing Zorba too many times.”
Unlike her father, Theena didn’t have the slightest trace of an accent. Her voice was low, but soft in an undeniably feminine way.
“He does remind me a bit of Anthony Quinn.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that; he’d be insufferable. I’m to understand that you’ll begin your investigation tomorrow?”
Bill nodded. “It’s not an investigation, really. All I do is review your testing and give a preliminary report to the committee.”
“But you have the power to stop the process before it gets to that, correct?”
“Yes.”
She took a sip of wine, leaving the tiniest trace of red lipstick on the glass. The rim had a complete circle of half moons around it, like a deliberate design. Bill thought of his own wine, back at the other table. A nice Merlot would take off the edge.
“I’ve seen Dr. Nikos lecture before, but this was the first time he introduced Manny. It’s incredible.”
“Yes, we’re all terribly excited. Manny especially. This drug has done wonders for him.”
“Was he the first human test subject?”
Theena’s demure expression flickered.
“Actually, no. There was someone else who began the program at the same time as Manny. But there were… complications.”
“Something to do with the drug?”
“No, nothing like that. It was a personal matter. The N-Som worked fine.” Theena smiled. “I hope you aren’t ignoring Mrs. May to be sitting here with me.”
Bill automatically looked at his wedding band.
“She… died last year.”
“I’m so sorry. Was it sudden?”
Bill almost blurted out a yes. He caught himself in time.
“She was sick for a long time.” The image of Kristen, lying in the hospital bed, filled his mind. “And you? Is Mr. Boone off mingling?”
Theena wiggled her large diamond ring. It caught the light and winked.
“Last I heard he was in Texas. I kept the name because anything is preferable to Stefanopolous. So, how does one get a job at the FDA?”
Bill thought about the long, boring version. After completing his studies at the University of Chicago and his internship at Rush-Presbyterian, Bill was undecided between a residency or private practice. He’d known from a young age that he’d be an M.D., but when the day finally came he realized that he enjoyed learning about medicine more than actually practicing it.
Congress made the decision for him. The year was 1992, and they’d just passed PDUFA—the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, which authorized the FDA to charge drug sponsors for their services, expediting the approval process. Suddenly CDER, which had been impossible to break into, had hundreds of openings for reviewers. Bill had leapt at the chance.
“I was just in the right place at the right time. How about you? You’re a chemist, right?”
“Actually, I’m a pathologist, like my father. Specializing in neuropathology, of course.”
Bill’s confidence slipped another notch. Beautiful, and a brain surgeon.
“Exciting work?”
Theena laughed, a rich, warm sound.
“I think I’ve developed a permanent squint from looking in the microscope so often. No, it’s not what I would call exciting. But it’s not without rewards, either. What time shall we expect you at DruTech tomorrow?”
“Whenever is convenient.”
“Anytime is fine. Research continues around the clock. Your predecessor preferred to work during the night shift.”
Bill raised an eyebrow. “My predecessor?”
“The prior CDER agent. Did you ever find out what happened to him?” Theena studied Bill’s face. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you? He was sent by the FDA last month to review some preliminary research, worked with us for a week, and then left without a word. A Dr. Bitner?”
Bill knew Michael Bitner. They’d golfed on several occasions. He’d have to give him a call, find out what had happened.
“Someone call the police!”
The cry came from the other side of the banquet room, followed by shouts for a doctor. Bill hurried through the crowd, Theena on his heels. The activity was centered around the Men’s Room. Bill had to shove gawkers out of his way to get in.
“I’m a doctor! Give me some room!”
At first, all Bill saw was blood. It took his brain a second to register that under all that blood was Dr. Nikos.
Theena screamed.
Bill knelt down, soaking his pants leg. He automatically reached for the carotid artery, then stopped his hand when he saw the gash in the doctor’s throat, deep enough to expose the esophagus. Dr. Nikos was gone, long beyond anyone’s help.
“Over here! There’s another!”
Bill was ushered over to a second pool of blood. In the center of it was Manny. His tuxedo shirt was shredded, over half a dozen wounds covering his abdomen and chest. A scalpel handle protruded from his sternum.
“Tried… tried to save… da…”
Manny coughed, spitting red. Bill tilted Manny’s face to the side so the blood didn’t run down his throat. His pulse was strong, but when Bill tore off Manny’s shirt he didn’t hold out much hope. The guy looked like a lasagna.
Bill left the scalpel embedded, concerned that removal would cause more bleeding. He enlisted four guys with cloth napkins to keep pressure on Manny’s many wounds. He also put Manny’s feet up on a chair to stave off shock.
The paramedics arrived shortly thereafter, intubing Manny and carting him away.
Bill looked around the room, trying to spot Theena. He went back into the banquet hall, the crowd parting for him when they noticed his bloody clothing. He checked her table, the hotel lobby, and finally the parking lot.
She was gone.
Chapter 1
There were four black and whites already at the 7-11 when I arrived. Several people had gathered in the parking lot behind the yellow police tape, huddling close for protection against the freezing Chicago rain.
They weren’t there for Slurpees.
I parked my 1986 Nova on the street and hung my star around my neck on a cord. The radio was full of chatter about “the lasagna on Monroe and Dearborn” so I knew this was going to be an ugly one. I got out of the car.
It was cold, too cold for October. I wore a three-quarter length London Fog trenchcoat over my blue Armani blazer and a gray skirt. The coat was the only one I had that fit over the blazer’s oversized shoulders, which left my legs exposed to the elements.
Freezing was the curse of the fashion savvy.
Detective First Class Herb Benedict hunched over a plastic tarpaulin, lifting up the side against the wind. His coat was unbuttoned, and his expansive stomach poured over the sides of his belt as he bent down. His hound dog jowls were pink with cold rain, and he scratched at his salt and pepper mustache as I approached.
“Kind of cold for a jacket like that, Jack.”
“But don’t I look good?”
“Sure. Shivering suits you.”
I walked to his side and squatted, peering down at the form under the tarp.
Female. Caucasian. Blonde. Twenties. Naked. Multiple stab wounds, running from her thighs to her shoulders, many of them yawning open like hungry, bloody mouths. The several around her abdomen were deep enough to see inside.
I felt my stomach becoming unhappy and turned my attention to her head. A red lesion ran around her neck, roughly the width of a pencil. Her lips were frozen in a snarl, the bloody rictus stretched wide like one of her stab wounds.
“This was stapled to her chest.” Benedict handed me a plastic evidence baggie. In it was a 3”x5” piece of paper, crinkled edges on one
end indicating it had been ripped from a spiral pad. It was spotty with blood and rain, but the writing on it was clear:
#1 YOU CAN’T CATCH ME I’M THE GINGERBREAD MAN
I let the tarp fall and righted myself. Benedict, the mind reader, handed me a cup of coffee that had been sitting on the curb.
“Who found the body?” I asked.
“Customer. Kid named Mike Donovan.”
I took a sip of coffee. It was so hot it hurt. I took another.
“Who took the statement?”
“Robertson.”
Benedict pointed at the store front window to the thin, uniformed figure of Robertson, talking with a teenager.
“Witnesses?”
“Not yet.”
“Who was behind the counter?”
“Owner. Being depoed as we speak. Didn’t see anything.”
I wiped some rain off my face and unbunched my shoulders as I entered the store, trying to look like the authority figure my title suggested.
The heat inside was both welcome and revolting. It warmed me considerably, but went hand in hand with the nauseating smell of hot dogs cooked way too long.
“Robertson.” I nodded at the uniform. “Sorry to hear about your Dad.”
He shrugged. “He was seventy, and we always told him fast food would kill him.”
“Heart attack?”
“He was hit by a Pizza Express truck.”
I searched Robertson’s face for the faintest trace of a smirk, and didn’t find one. Then I turned my attention to Mike Donovan. He was no more than seventeen, brown hair long on top and shaved around the sides, wearing some baggy jeans that would have been big on Herb. Men got all the comfortable clothing trends.
“Mr. Donovan? I’m Lieutenant Daniels. Call me Jack.”
Donovan cocked his head to the side, the way dogs do when they don’t understand a command. Under his left armpit was a magazine with cars on the cover.
“Is your name really Jack Daniels? You’re a woman.”
“Thank you for noticing. I can show you my ID, if you want.”
He wanted, and I slipped the badge case off my neck and opened it up, letting him see my name in official police lettering. Lt. Jack Daniels, CPD. It was short for Jacqueline, but only my mother called me that.
He grinned. “Name like that, I bet you really score.”
I gave him a conspiratorial smirk, even though I hadn’t “scored” in ages.
“Run through it,” I said to Robertson.
“Mr. Donovan entered this establishment at approximately 8:50 PM, where he proceeded to buy the latest copy of Racing Power Magazine…”
Mr. Donovan held out the magazine in question. “It’s their annual leotard issue.” He opened it to a page where two surgically enhanced women in spandex straddled a Corvette.
I gave it a token look-over to keep the kid cooperative. I cared for hot rods about as much as I cared for spandex.
“Where he proceeded to buy the latest copy of Racing Power Magazine.” Robertson eyed Donovan, annoyed at the interruption. “He also bought a Mounds candy bar. At approximately 8:55, Mr. Donovan left the establishment, and proceeded to throw out the candy wrapper in the garbage can in front of the store. In the can was the victim, face down, half covered in garbage.”
I glanced out the storefront window and looked for the garbage can. The crowd was getting larger and the rain was falling faster, but the can was nowhere to be found.
“It went to the lab before you got here, Jack.”
I glanced at Benedict, who’d sneaked up behind me.
“We didn’t want things to get any wetter than they already were. But we’ve got the pictures and the vids.”
My focus swiveled back to the scene outside. The cop with the video camera was now taping the faces in the crowd. Sometimes a nut will return to the scene and watch the action. Or so I’ve read in countless Ed McBain books. I gave the kid my attention again.
“Mr. Donovan, how did you notice the body if it was buried in garbage?”
“I… er, Mounds was having a contest. I forgot to check my wrapper to see if I’d won. So I reached back into the garbage to find it…”
“Did the can have a lid?”
“Yeah. One of those push lids that says THANK YOU on it.”
“So you reached into the push slot…”
“Uh-huh, but I couldn’t find it. So I lifted the whole lid up, and there part of her was.”
“What part?”
“Her, uh, ass was sticking up.”
He gave me a nervous giggle.
“Then what did you do?”
“I couldn’t believe it. It was like, it wasn’t real. So I went back into the 7-11 and told the guy. He called the police.”
“Mr. Donovan, Officer Robertson is going to have to take you into the station to fill out a deposition. Do you need to call your parents?”
“My dad works nights.”
“Mom?”
He shook his head.
“Do you live in the neighborhood?”
“Yeah. A few blocks down on Monroe.”
“Officer Robertson will give you a ride home when you’re done.”
“Do you think I’ll be on the news?”
On cue, a network remote truck pulled into the lot, faster than the crappy weather warranted. The rear doors opened and the obligatory female reporter, perfectly made up and steely with resolve, led her crew towards the store. Benedict walked out to meet them, halting their advancement at the police barricade, giving them the closed crime scene speech.
The Medical Examiner pulled up behind the truck in his familiar Plymouth minivan. Two uniforms waved him through the barricade and I nodded a goodbye to Robertson and went to meet the ME.
The cold was a shock, my calves instant goose flesh. Maxwell Hughes knelt down next to the tarp as I approached. His expression was all business when I caught his eye, drizzle dotting his glasses and dripping down his gray goatee.
“Daniels.”
“Hughes. What do you have?”
“I’d put her death at roughly three to five hours ago. Suffocation. Her windpipe is broken.”
“The stab wounds?”
“Post-mortem. No defense cuts on her hands or arms, and not enough blood lost to have been inflicted while she was alive. See how one edge is rough, the other smooth?” He used a latex-gloved hand to stretch one of the wounds open. “The blade had a serrated edge. Maybe a hunting knife.”
“Raped?”
“Not from what I can tell. No signs of semen. No visible trauma to the vagina or anus. But this isn’t an autopsy.” Max was fond of adding that final caveat, though I’d yet to see an instance when the coroner didn’t corroborate every one of his observations.
“The mouth?”
“No apparent damage. Tongue intact, protruding slightly. Consistent with strangulation. No bite marks. The blood in the mouth seeped up through her throat after she died. That coincides with the pooling of blood in her face. She was stored upside down.”
“She was found face-first in a garbage can.”
Hughes made his mouth into a tight thin line, and then reached into his pocket for a clean handkerchief to wipe the rain from his glasses. By the time he tucked it away, the glasses were wet again.
“Looks like you’ve got a real psycho here.”
“We’ll need the report on this one right away, Max.”
He opened up the yellow plastic tackle box that housed the tools of his trade and began bagging the corpse’s hands. I left him to his work.
More cops and newsies and gawkers arrived, and the carnival atmosphere of an important murder got into full swing. It would offend me if I hadn’t seen it so many times.
Benedict finished his impromptu statement for the media and began selecting uniforms for the door-to-door witness search. I went to pitch in. It boosted morale for the men to see their Lieut pounding pavement with them, especially since it was probably futile in this instance.
&
nbsp; The killer had dumped a body in a public place, where it was sure to be found. But he’d done it without attracting any attention.
I had a feeling this was only the beginning.
Chapter 2
Morning. The stale sweat that clung to me and the sour taste of old coffee grounds were constant reminders that I hadn’t slept yet.
As if I needed reminders. I have chronic insomnia. My last sound sleep was sometime during the Reagan Administration, and it shows. At forty-six my auburn hair is streaked with gray that grows faster than I can dye it, the lines on my face shout age rather than character, and even two bottles of Visine a month couldn’t get all the red out.
But the lack of sleep has made me pretty damn productive.
Spread out before me on my cluttered desk, a dead woman’s life had been reduced to a collection of files and reports. I was combining all the information into a report of my own. It read like a test, with none of the blanks filled in.
Twelve hours had passed and we still didn’t know the victim’s name.
No prints or hairs or fibers on the body. No skin under the fingernails. Nothing solid in the door-to-door reports. But this lack of evidence was evidence in itself. The perp had been extremely careful.
The victim wasn’t sexually assaulted, and death had resulted from suffocation induced by a broken windpipe, as Max had guessed. The lesion around her neck was six millimeters thick. It didn’t leave fibers, which would indicate rope, and didn’t bite into the skin, which would imply a thin wire. The coroner suggested an electrical cord as a possible weapon.
Ligature marks around her wrists and ankles bore traces of twine. Staking out every store in Illinois that sold twine wasn’t too clever an idea, though it was mentioned.
The stab wounds were post-mortem and made by a thick bladed knife with a serrated back. There were twenty-seven wounds in all, of varying depth and size.
We were unable to pull any fingerprints from the garbage can Jane Doe was found in. Even Mike Donovan’s prints had been washed away by the rain. The contents of the can were an average assortment of convenience store garbage, except for one major item.