by Nick Petrie
The man with the clipboard nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. “I appreciate it. It’ll only take a minute.” He unclipped the fill nozzle and walked slowly backward toward the house as the hose began to unspool from its reel.
Midden went through the splintered side door and down the rotting basement stairs into the yellow light of a kerosene lantern. It hadn’t seemed worth the effort getting the power turned on. He had just found the vacant house the day before. There were a great many to choose from.
There was no new oil tank.
Instead there were ten white plastic drums that had once held fifty gallons of pickles in their brine. Each drum would hold twenty gallons of fuel oil and get filled the rest of the way with fertilizer.
It would be easiest to steal a tanker from the company yard, but stealing an oil truck would definitely get noticed. Even the UPS trucks had GPS trackers on them now. And nobody sold bulk fuel oil anymore, not to a walk-in customer. You couldn’t just show up with ten pickle barrels.
Boomer had wanted racing fuel originally, which was what McVeigh had used, but that was impossible now, too. And gas stations all had cameras. He’d considered kerosene or paint thinner, bought a gallon at a time, but that would have taken forever. Midden had used up his patience buying ten thousand pounds of fertilizer in fifty-pound bags. And time was getting short. Veterans Day was only two days away.
He saw the legs of the driver through the high foundation windows. It was hard work to pull that hose all the way to the back of the house. He wasn’t quite there yet.
In truth, thought Midden, this way would make things easier. He could put the empty drums in the van again and fill them right there, straight from the tanker. No heavy lifting.
But standing in the basement in the light of a lantern, thinking through each step as he always did, it weighed on him. It was almost too much to carry now.
It was one thing to kill a man in combat, to protect yourself. Or to kill a man who you knew would be a threat because of incompetence, like the man who had driven the van. He had proven himself unreliable. A danger.
But it was another thing entirely to kill an innocent man in cold blood. A man whose only fault was that he kept an evening appointment to fill an oil tank, and had the principles to do his job well. To not take the money.
It was wrong, Midden knew that. Midden had thought he’d done so many wrong things that it didn’t matter anymore. That nothing mattered.
He wasn’t sure that was true anymore.
He thought he might be starting to unravel.
He looked around the basement. The concrete blocks were cracked and buckling inward with the pressure of the soil. It smelled musty and damp. That basement leaked every time it rained, and had for years. Black mold climbed the walls. How anyone had lived in that house was beyond him. But it hadn’t started out such a ruin. It had been like any other house once. Someone’s pride and joy. Now it was at the edge of collapse, and its owners had fled.
Midden had killed more people than he could remember. More than he could count.
So what was one more? Just one more, he told himself.
Of course, it would be more than one, before they were done.
His path was laid long ago. He was committed to this course. He already knew what the end would be.
He took the target pistol from under his jacket and looked at it.
It was light in his hand, an assassin’s weapon. The .22 had no stopping power, not unless the bullet went into the skull. Then it would bounce around inside like a Ping-Pong ball, turning the brain into scrambled eggs. It was a very efficient weapon. Little blood. Almost no mess.
He held the grip in his fist and put the barrel to his temple.
Just to see.
There were other ways, of course. He hadn’t decided yet.
And he had work yet to finish.
He would not be unreliable.
He moved to the bottom of the stairs and waited for the driver.
PART 4
29
The next morning, Peter decided to risk the library to read the newspaper accounts about the murder of Skinner’s wife.
It was a high-profile killing with a great deal of press but not, as it turned out, much information. Most of the discussion revolved around Martha Skinner herself, who was widely considered to be a saint and had used much of her considerable family fortune to fund her charitable works in the city.
The early articles were detailed and intent. It seemed as though every quote came from a friend of the deceased or the department spokesperson, who gave a thin account of the killing and repeated that the Milwaukee police were sparing no effort to find the killer. There was discussion of a task force to combat home invasions, but it turned out that home invasions were not such an epidemic, and perhaps a special team of investigators would be enough.
After the first few days, the articles moved off the front page, and the sparsity of information became more apparent. The MPD spokesperson continued to repeat that all possible leads would be followed, but that there were few clues, no apparent motive, and random killings were the most difficult to solve.
As the weeks passed, the articles became sparser yet, until they were just short status reports noting the lack of progress in the investigation. The final article was a few paragraphs noting the disbanding of the special team of investigators. The case was still officially open but unsolved.
On his second time through, Peter found something.
At the very end of an early article, there was a single statement, probably unauthorized, by a Detective Frank Zolot, who told the reporter that it was standard police procedure to consider members of the family as potential suspects until cleared.
But nothing else from Detective Zolot in the articles that followed.
Peter went to the Milwaukee police website, found the Criminal Investigations Division, and called the number.
“Hi, I’m trying to reach Detective Frank Zolot. Can you give me a phone number?”
“Hold, please.”
The vague hush of electronic limbo. Then, “Zolot.”
“Hi,” said Peter. “I want to ask you about Martha Skinner.”
“I can’t comment on an open investigation. Call the press office.” Zolot’s voice was flat and fading out toward the end, the receiver already headed back to the cradle.
“Wait,” said Peter. “I’m not a reporter. My name is Peter. I have some information. I’d like to talk.”
“I can’t comment on an open investigation,” Detective Zolot said again. But there was a different quality to the statement, a kind of attentive caution.
“Actually,” said Peter, “I’m not really calling about Martha Skinner. It’s about someone else. A friend of mine.”
A pause. Peter could hear the noise of a busy office on the other end of the phone. People talking, the sound of hard-soled shoes on a wood floor. The distinctive sound of an old file cabinet drawer as it opened and closed.
“You know Sobelman’s? Burger joint by Marquette?”
“No.”
“Nineteenth and Saint Paul. Just south of the freeway, west of the river. Fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll find it,” said Peter.
But the phone was already dead.
—
Sobelman’s was in a restored corner building just south and west of downtown, between a packinghouse and a dry ice warehouse.
Peter could tell from the outside that the white static wasn’t going to like it. Not enough windows. So he stood on the sidewalk, drinking in the smell of hamburgers that seeped through the closed door.
Good thing Mingus was locked in the back of the truck.
He turned to peer through the glass, wondering if the cop had beat him there. Then he heard a voice behind him, almost in his ear.
“You must be Peter.
” Detective Zolot’s voice.
Peter moved to turn, but a meaty hand landed on his shoulder, and another encircled his elbow in a practiced grip. “Inside, pal. Past the bar.”
The hand pushed him through the swinging door and kept him moving forward. Peter didn’t resist. The voice in his ear said, “Don’t worry, pal, I’m a police detective. We’re just going someplace quiet.”
It smelled even better inside. The place was full of happy eaters chowing on giant burgers, drinking Bloody Marys and beer. The clamor of conversation and the clatter of tableware were friendly and loud, the kind of place Peter used to like. Now he felt the walls close in, too many people and too few exits, with no sight lines to outside. He felt the clamps on his chest and sweat popping on his forehead.
“Someplace quiet” turned out to be the men’s room. Zolot was a head taller than Peter, with the barely suppressed violence of an offensive lineman retired too early. Hair uncombed, jowls unshaven, a grizzly bear in the small space. But he moved with surprising grace as he frisked Peter expertly, missing nothing, all without a word. He glanced through Peter’s wallet, noted Peter’s flushed skin and shallow breath, then seamlessly turned Peter out of the men’s room and down the hall to a service exit and out into the cold.
“Fuck’s the matter with you?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” said Peter. “I’d just rather be outside.”
“We’re outside,” said Zolot, heading west on Saint Paul, the hand back on Peter’s elbow. “So talk already.”
Peter shook off the hand. “Tell me what you had on Jonathan Skinner and why you gave up.”
It was a guess, but it felt right. And Zolot’s silence confirmed it. They kept walking as Zolot stewed. Peter could feel the contained heat coming off the man, even in the crisp November air.
Finally Zolot spoke. “You said this was about someone else, pal. Tell me about the someone else.”
“A friend of mine got killed,” said Peter. “He had one of Skinner’s company pens in his things. My friend was no investor, he worked as a part-time bartender. But it turned out that he had serious money hidden away, in cash. I can’t find any other source for that money. Skinner’s the only connection to it I can think of. I had a meeting with him—”
Zolot stopped walking. “You met with Skinner?”
“I told him I was an investor,” said Peter. “I mentioned the cash and he got very strange. I’m guessing Skinner had something to do with my friend’s death. And I’m looking for something to grab hold of.”
Zolot stared into Peter’s face. “What was he like, when things got strange?” The force of his attention was intense. Peter wouldn’t want to be a suspect of any crime Zolot was investigating.
“You met him,” asked Peter. “Charming as hell, right? A million-dollar smile. Like you’re his favorite person in the world. But when I mentioned the money it all fell away, just for a few seconds. Like a snake trying to decide if you were food. Then he threatened me and left as fast as he could.”
Zolot grunted and kicked at a rock on the sidewalk. Turned and started walking again. Peter walked beside him.
“How was your friend killed?” asked Zolot.
“They said it was a suicide. They said he shot himself, once under the jaw. His wallet was still in his pocket. But he didn’t do it, I know that. I know it. He had a lot to live for.”
“What was your friend’s name?”
“James Johnson. Jimmy. He died in Riverwest less than a month ago.”
“I’ll look him up.” Zolot looked at Peter sideways, from the corner of his eye. “And who the fuck are you, pal?”
“Peter Ash. I was a Marine lieutenant. Jimmy was my sergeant.”
They walked. The open sky felt good, calming the white static. Zolot’s contained rage burned like an oilfield fire, fueled by something deep beneath the surface.
“I never could fucking stand those money guys,” said Zolot. “It’s like you’re working for them personally, and they’re in charge. Like they run the whole fucking world. And maybe they do, sort of, until they fuck the whole thing up and bring it all down around our ears. Even then it’s not their fault. Nothing is ever their fucking fault. Even when they kill their wives. Because he killed her, pal. Skinner was the only one with any motive.”
Peter didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to interrupt.
Zolot kept talking. “It was mostly her money, you know,” he said. “Lake Capital? She was the heir to some Chicago meatpacking fortune. I met her once, at a first responders’ widows and orphans benefit. She looked like the daughter of a meatpacker, I’ll tell you. One of those square Polack faces, and she didn’t starve herself. But there was something really lovely about her, you know? She really looked at you. She listened. And no pushover. There was some talk about her shutting down the fund back in 2006, at the height of the bubble.”
“She could do that?”
“I’m telling you, it was her fucking seed money. A lot of people respected her. She was on the board of her family’s company. If she pulled out, everyone else would follow.” Zolot made a face. “We looked into all this at the time, my partner and I. But there was nothing substantial to tie Skinner to the murder. There was no hard evidence at all.”
“So how do you know it was Skinner?”
“Lot of things pointed to random violence, burglary gone wrong.” Zolot ticked the points off on his fingers. “She was killed in the house. The mailman and the cleaning lady both said the door was never locked during the day. She was killed with a butcher knife from the kitchen like a crime of opportunity, like maybe she walked in on the guy. The envelope of petty cash they kept in a kitchen drawer was gone.”
Then he flicked his hand, dismissing those points as if shaking water off his fingers. “All bullshit designed to point us toward a random killing. The most important information is what we didn’t find. No defensive wounds on the victim, so it was likely someone she knew. The knife was left on the scene, but it had no prints, nothing, like it was scrubbed clean. In fact, no unknown prints anywhere in the house. Just a few smears where prints had been wiped, or maybe he wore gloves. Footprints in the blood; there was a lot of blood. But the tread was new, the shoes probably never worn before, cheap-ass sneakers you could find anywhere. No other clues of any kind. Just this perfectly nice woman stabbed twenty-one times.
“That’s what got my attention right there. A thief looking for a quick payday might stab someone once or twice, out of panic, maybe misplaced aggression. But twenty-one times? That’s a fucking crime of passion. That’s a killer who knows his victim, pal. Or a killer who really fucking likes it.”
Peter thought of the reptilian look that had flashed across Skinner’s face. But he didn’t want to interrupt. Zolot kept talking like he’d been waiting to get this off his chest for years.
“So we went deeper on the husband,” he said. “Standard practice, anyway. The killer’s almost always known to the victim, a family member or friend. We talked to Skinner’s secretary. She said he was in the office all day, meetings and calls. He didn’t even go to lunch. I saw the call logs, I talked to the people in the meetings. The man was alibied up the ass, like he’d done it on purpose. I even went through his closet, looking for blood traces on his clothes. Nothing. I have no idea how he did it.”
“He’s sleeping with his secretary,” said Peter. “She might have lied for him.”
“My old partner interviewed her,” said Zolot. “So I don’t know. He could have had time. But it doesn’t matter, he killed her, I know it. I fucking know it. I knew it even before the captain called me to shut it down. My last conversation with Skinner, he shook my hand and he thanked me for my time. Said I know it isn’t personal, I know you have to exhaust all avenues, et cetera, et cetera, with that charming fucking charm of his. And I could tell that he knew that I knew. He just smiled at me, and it was like he’
d told me himself, that shit-eating grin was his fucking confession.”
Zolot shook his head. “A lot of cops have a hobby case, something you couldn’t solve, something you can’t quite shake. This was going to be my hobby case. I was going to catch that cocksucker. But the captain called me in and told me word had come down, the case was over. Officially open but forever unsolved.”
“And that’s it? You let it go?” Peter couldn’t see Zolot, this furious bear of a cop, letting anything go.
“Hey, listen, I’m no fucking angel. Twenty years on the job, I’ve crossed the line a few times. I get results so they let things go. But this time the captain told me to sit down and shut up or my past would come back to haunt me. I’d lose my pension, everything. As it is, they transferred me to fucking District Five. The shitheap.”
Peter could practically hear the man grinding his teeth.
“My old partner liked financial crimes. He was made for that rarefied air. Very smooth, no ruffled feathers, he knew how to finesse those high-fliers. Nobody had to tell him to lay off the bigwigs. I always figured he’d retire early and go into corporate security, where the money is.” He shook his head. “Not me, though. No way. Give me a good hatchet murder any day. I can’t stand those fucking money guys. Some sociologist did a study, did you hear about this? There are four times as many psychopaths in finance as in the general population. About the same percentage as in prisons. And these are supposed to be the fucking bastions of our society, the bankers and financiers.”
Zolot had taken them in a loop. They were back at Sobelman’s, walking up to Peter’s truck.
“I don’t know how Skinner did it. It was the perfect fucking crime, except he never managed to get anyone else arrested for it. The best way to get away with murder, if you want to know, is find some other poor son of a bitch to take the rap. But the man killed his wife. Personally. And I’m pretty sure he’s done a lot more than that. The fucking thing of it is, he made money when his wife died. You know what selling short is?”