GD00 - ToxiCity

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  “A Lexus dealer. I’m a mechanic.”

  “Where’d you pick that up?”

  “Jack’s always been good with cars,” Stone cut in. “He rebuilt the engine of a Four-Forty-two when he was fourteen.”

  “So you ‘gonna make that a career?” Matt asked.

  “I dunno. I’m taking some business courses too.”

  “You could open your own place.”

  “Maybe.”

  Stone smiled proudly. Despite a rocky period, father and son seemed to be getting along okay. Child is father to the man. Or makes the father out of the man. Matt laughed at something Jack said and poured more Roditis. Surprising, Georgia thought. Matt usually didn’t drink.

  A shrill voice cut through the conversation as Laurie Levine, a blowsy friend of Deanna’s who knew everyone on the North Shore and made sure you knew she did, called from the other end of the table. “So Detective Sergeant Stone.” Her dark eyes flashed. “What heinous crimes are you ridding the village of these days?”

  “Sorry, Laurie. It’s confidential,” Stone shot back. No love lost there, Georgia thought. Laurie had made it clear months ago that she felt Deanna was marrying beneath her. Stone had made it equally clear he didn’t care.

  Deanna explained what had been going on at the Feldman site. Before she’d finished, Laurie’s head bobbed up and down. “I know Stuart. It’s not surprising.”

  “What makes you say that, Laurie?” Stone asked.

  “Stuart’s never had—what you’d call— the necessary social graces for someone in his position.”

  Stone tapped his spoon against his wine glass, then looked at Deanna. Their eyes met, and some private communication arced between them. Stone’s eyes softened, and he relaxed. Georgia let out a breath. True love was heady stuff.

  “You know, it’s too bad in a way,” Stone said.

  “What is?” Laurie said.

  “From what I understand, his daughter is running the show these days. She seems okay. But she’s saddled with his reputation.”

  “Stuart handed over the reigns last year.” Laurie thumped her chest. “Heart problems, you know. Ricki, isn’t it?”

  Stone nodded.

  “She’s quite a girl, I hear.”

  “How’s that, Laurie?”

  Though loath to give Laurie any credibility, Stone understood the value of information, and Laurie’s was usually reliable.

  “Well.” Laurie propped an elbow on the table. “A few years ago one of the daughter’s friends became president of a small bank downtown. So, naturally Ricki puts her business account there. A year or so later, the bank merges with First, and her friend is kicked out. Now, First starts wooing Feldman with all kinds of promises if she stays with them. You know, better rates and more service than anyone else in town. But you know what Ricki did? She pulled everything out of downtown and followed her friend to the new bank, a tiny place on the North Shore.” Laurie glanced around the table. “She’s like that, I hear. Loyal to her friends.”

  Georgia leaned over to Matt, about to make a comment about money and loyalty. But when she saw the expression on his face, she kept her mouth shut.

  ***

  When they got back to Matt’s, Georgia lurched into the elevator. Matt stumbled in behind her. With all the toasts and cheers, she must have refilled their glasses half a dozen times. The doors closed, and she moved close, rubbing her hands down both sides of his body. Matt drew in his breath. She bent her head to his neck and ran her tongue between his ear and his collarbone. Her hands stopped at his belt, and she slipped a hand under the waistband of his pants. His belly tightened.

  When the elevator door opened, she pulled away and led the way down the hall. He fumbled with the key, stabbing the keyhole several times before it caught.

  Inside the living room, blue-white light seeped in through the blind, casting slatted stripes across the room. She led to the couch and dropped her purse on the cushions. He didn’t resist as she lifted his arms and stripped off his jacket, letting it slide to the floor. Then she pulled out his shirttail and unbuttoned his shirt from the bottom, teasing his skin with her lips as she worked her way up.

  When she reached the top of his shirt, she slipped his arms out of his sleeves and tossed the shirt away. His eyes started to film over, and his breath came in shallow bursts. She unzipped his pants, offering her shoulder for balance as he kicked them off.

  She sank to her knees, pulled down his briefs, and ran her hands up his legs. Her tongue followed. He shivered, and by the time she reached his thighs, he was ready for her. She took him in her mouth. Moaning softly, he gripped her shoulders and started to thrust. She grasped his buttocks. He pulled her towards him. She let her mouth ride him, feeling him pulse with excitement.

  Then, unexpectedly, she pushed him away. He gasped and fell back on the couch, his eyes glittering in the light. She took off her jacket, laying it gently on the couch. She slipped out of her black pants. The silk camisole. She turned around, taking her time, making sure he saw every curve, every angle. His eyes swam with desire.

  Straddling his legs, she lowered herself on his lap and guided him inside. He buried his mouth on her breasts and shoved hard into her. Crying, she arched and wrapped her legs around him, angling her pelvis forward, feeling each thrust fill her up. His hands gripped the small of her back, and they rocked back and forth, their coupling so fierce she could hardly catch her breath. When she finally came, she shuddered.

  ***

  Okay. She’d seduced him. But he’d made the right moves, whispered the right things. So why did Georgia sense a tiny seed of doubt? It wasn’t anything obvious, just a slight hesitation, a subtle shift from passion to awareness. It wasn’t coming from her. She rolled over. Was she just his shiksa after all—there to serve his physical needs while religion took care of the spiritual? That would make it all nicely compartmentalized. Just the way he liked it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Got a minute?” Doyle stopped Matt in the hall the next morning. “I’d like to see you in my office.”

  Matt forced himself to nod. His head pounded from too much Roditis; even three Advil’s hadn’t dulled the pain. Memories of last night, foggy and indistinct, strafed his brain. Georgia figured in most of them.

  Doyle led him into his office. “Close the door.”

  They both sat. Doyle picked up a newspaper on his desk. “You see this?”

  Matt shook his head.

  “They’re talking about all these exotic poisons and pathogens. Fringe terrorist groups, for Christ’s sake. We can’t let this go on, Singer.”

  “Since when did the press let the facts get in the way of a good story?” Matt said tiredly. “Who leaked?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I called a few toxicology experts around the country.”

  Doyle shot him a cryptic look.

  “The consensus so far seems to be poison.”

  Doyle threw down the paper. “Look. The mayor called. The village is uneasy having this hanging. It’s not good for Glenbrook. It’s been two weeks. You have a cause of death. It’s time to make this go away.”

  Matt stared at a photograph on the wall. Shot during a recent national campaign, Doyle was shaking hands with the President. Posed underneath a red, white, and blue banner, the two men were surrounded by a Congressman and the governor of Illinois. Matt thought of the picture of Julie Romano pinned above his desk. “We still have some leads to run down.”

  Doyle flicked his lighter and touched it to his pipe. “Did the tox screen come back?”

  “They did it on an expedited basis.”

  Smoke rose from Doyle’s mouth. “And?”

  “It was clean.” Matt tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “So was the heavy metals.”

  Doyle frowned.

  “But they did rule out arsenic and lead.”

  “Of course.”

  “They also eliminated cyanide and strychnine. There are a couple of other
screens we could do, but bottom line, there are thousands of substances that could trigger the same symptoms. We can’t test for something we don’t know about.”

  Doyle swiveled in his chair. “You just made my case, Singer. You can’t win. Let’s wrap this up. The press ‘ll start saying we’re boneheads anyway.”

  A muscle in Matt’s jaw clenched. He owed Julie Romano more than two weeks. “The ME’s going to do some histologies and look at tissue samples. And the Crime Lab wants to study the cultures again. And we’re still looking at how the body got into the dumpster.”

  “What about suspects?”

  Having recanvassed the school and Romano’s building, Matt knew more than he wanted to about the people in Romano’s life: the woman down the hall who was cheating on her husband, the student who shoveled a few lines of coke up his nose between classes, the old man upstairs who never took a shower. But he didn’t have anything new on Romano. He looked down. “No one says anything bad about the woman.”

  “So find something. How hard can it be? She was a dyke.”

  “She wasn’t out,” Matt said. “And people with something to hide can appear to lead perfect lives.”

  Doyle peered at Matt. “What about the student who saw her in the drug store?”

  “The girl says Romano had her arm around a woman but dropped it when she saw the kid coming down the aisle.”

  “You get a description?”

  “Pretty vague. The girl’s mother insisted on staying with her for the interview, and by the time we sat her down, the girl was freaked out. Officer Davis went back to the drugstore and asked around, but nobody remembers.”

  Doyle set his pipe down.

  “We do know there were no signs of forcible entry at her apartment. If that means anything.” Matt looked up. “And we might have a lead on a gay woman who knew the victim, thanks to Georgia –Officer Davis.”

  “She’s working the investigation?”

  Matt chose his words carefully. “She’s helping out. In her spare time.”

  “Can she handle it?”

  “She’s done a good job so far.”

  Doyle grunted. “What else?”

  “The crime lab is analyzing the picture we found in Romano’s apartment. By the way, I’d like to keep that under wraps for now. Along with the fact she was gay. And we’re still checking out the sister. She works for a paving contractor in Niles. We put out a LEADS, and we’re waiting for VICAP. So there’s still work to do.”

  Doyle gazed at Matt, his fingers fondling the stem of his pipe. His expression was contemplative. “I’ll give you one more week.”

  Matt knew he was expected to be grateful.

  “By the way,” Doyle’s face melted back into his usual acid countenance. “I’m ‘gonna have to do a press conference in a couple of days. You’ll brief me?”

  “Of course.”

  Doyle steepled his fingers. Matt thought he might suggest a new direction, recommend priorities, offer some words of encouragement. “I guess I need a haircut.” He sighed. “Okay. Go out and be a hero, Singer.”

  ***

  Staffing levels at the station were at their peak during weekday hours. Matt headed down the hall, listening to the chatter from offices, the brisk hum of machinery, the occasional page over the PA system. Those sounds used to reassure him. He’d believed in his purpose; he’d felt part of a larger whole.

  Until last year. Everything had changed in the few seconds he’d killed a man. The guy would have killed him had he not fired first, but that wasn’t what plagued him in the days, weeks, and months that followed. It wasn’t that he had interfered with the will of God or tampered with the Book of Life. The secret he told no one, the evil that would blacken his soul forever, was that the instant the bullet spit from his gun, he’d never felt more alive. Or powerful. The awareness that he’d been judge, jury, and executioner, was exquisite. He pulled the trigger. And he liked it.

  He tried to atone. He chanted prayers, made a commitment to uphold the sanctity of life, and took up with Georgia again, hoping to find a part of his heart that was still good and pure and strong. He thought he was making progress. But now, he suspected it was a charade. He was the worst kind of hypocrite. He wanted Romano’s killer—not for justice, or revenge, or to further his career. Like an addict who wants to use just one more time, he wanted to play God one more time.

  He skirted a conference table in the Detectives’ room. Eight desks, separated by modular tan partitions, flanked the walls. His was opposite Brewster’s.

  Brewster squinted at Matt. “You look like shit. Bad night?”

  Matt massaged his temples. “Stone’s wedding. Down in Greek town.”

  “That ouzo ‘ll kill you.” Brewster, a Wisconsin cheese-head, usually tossed back beer.

  Matt pulled out his chair. “Anything back from VICAP or Leads?”

  “Maybe.” Brewster reached for a curled up fax on his desk. “A LEADS came in this morning. From Peoria. Two guys jumped and rolled, their bodies left at the edge of a waste dump. Under some rusted barrels.”

  “And?”

  “I called down. The cops think they’re homicides. But the coroner’s ruling was inconclusive.”

  “How so?”

  “No sign of wounds, contusions or blood loss.”

  Matt raised an eyebrow. “Who were the victims?”

  “They worked for this waste type company.”

  “A waste company?”

  “A business that cleans up waste dumps and landfills,” Brewster said. “Prairie State Environmental Services. One of the dead guys was a contractor, and the other…” Brewster scanned the fax. “Looks like one of the owners. No. The son of the owner.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “About six months ago. Within a couple of weeks of each other.”

  “It wasn’t a double?”

  Brewster shook his head.

  “They determine cause of death?”

  “Get this.” He rolled up the fax and aimed it at Matt. “The screens came back with nothing on them. They couldn’t find a motive either. Or much evidence. In fact, the dick down there said it was one of the cleanest scenes he’d ever been to. Everything was wiped.”

  “He got nothing?”

  “Said it was creepy. His word.”

  “We get their reports?”

  “On the way. Technically, the cases are still open, but, well, you know—”

  “Any links between RDM and this company?”

  “It’s not the same business, Matt. Prairie State isn’t your average garbage collector.”

  “Still. Check their incorporation records. Maybe there are overlapping owners or stockholders.” Matt opened his desk drawer, pulled out his case file, made some notes.

  “One other thing came back on LEADS,” Brewster said. “A school teacher in Harvey was shot a while back. Turns out she was pregnant, and the daddy was one of her students. I guess they got different kinds of extra-curricular activities these days.” He said. “What about you?”

  “Georgia met a woman who may have known Romano.”

  “No shit. Where’d she find her?”

  “At a bookstore on Clark Street.”

  “Another lesbo?”

  Matt ignored him. “I’d like you to follow up.”

  Pete grabbed a pen and flicked it back and forth. “Me?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Can’t you send Georgia?”

  Matt paused. “She’s not on this case, Pete, and she’s not a Detective.”

  Brewster’s eyes darted from Matt to his pen. A Midwestern farm boy, Brewster followed the rules and rarely questioned authority. Matt figured his family for American Gothic, complete with pitchfork and apron and bigotry. To be fair, though, Brewster was still young. Tolerance wasn’t high on his list of skills.

  Which was why Matt couldn’t send him down to interview a gay woman. He’d screw it up.

  “Okay,” he sighed. “I’ll take downtown. You
go to Adam’s Rib. A waitress there knew Romano. Maybe she saw her with someone.”

  Brewster loosened up so fast Matt wondered what he really thought about gays. He let it go. He only had another week; he needed all the help he could find.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Donna Cleveland lived on the second floor of an old building with a view of Wrigley Field. White curtains fluttered in a half-opened window. Bookshelves supported by cinderblocks bulged with paperbacks, and the walls were hung with cheap Impressionist prints, the kind you find rolled up in bins in the back of a bookstore. Georgia sat on a battered sofa next to Cleveland. Matt was on a straight-backed chair. Despite the open window, the air was musty with the peculiar smell all old apartments seemed to have.

  “When did she split?” Matt asked.

  “About two days after you were at the Bullet.” Wearing jeans and a man-tailored shirt, she twisted around to face Georgia. Her pinched face was framed by short, spiky hair. “I had no idea. I really didn’t.”

  “Shit happens,” Georgia said.

  Cleveland threw Georgia a smile. Matt was glad he’d brought her along.

  “Why do you want to talk to her? Does this have something to do with that woman you showed us the picture of? The one who was killed?”

  Georgia glanced at Matt.

  “How long were you two—when did you meet Brenda Hartman?” he said.

  “We met at the Bullet a few weeks ago. We had a few drinks. We really clicked. She came home with me that night. She never left.” Cleveland swallowed. “Until now.”

  Matt folded his arms.

  “What’s the problem, Detective?” She said, the hint of a smile on her face. “You ‘gonna lecture me about safe sex?”

  Matt felt his face grow hot. He cleared his throat. “What can you tell us about her?”

  Cleveland leaned her arms on her knees. “Well, she was from Indiana and was thinking of moving here.”

  “Why?”

  “She never said.”

  “Why not?” Matt said.

  “A lot of women think they’re straight. They get married, have kids, do the white thing—you know what I mean? I figured Brenda for one of those.” A smile crossed her face. “She was a character though. She had all these crazy habits. She made sure the spices were all lined up in a row. Alphabetically. And the glasses. They all had to be upside down in the cabinets so they wouldn’t collect germs.”