Evie stared at those last three words. The same as the graffiti on the doors outside of school this morning—pay the piper. Evie was beginning to wonder if Fin was hinting at something else. Was she missing a greater point? Evie turned back to her tablet, this time bringing up her notes from the library, ATU 570:
The earliest known record of the story of the rat-catcher is in a depiction in a stained-glass window created for the church of Hamelin, which is dated to around 1300...
Fin sent another message.
“Do you always pay your debts?”
Evie did not have any debts. How could she possibly have any debts? She did not even have a part-time job. Her parents would not let her look for part-time work until she was at least a senior in high school. She was only a freshman. There was a long way to go before she had any financial independence.
“I don’t even have money. No way I’m even going to get into something where I owe someone money.”
“Right, I get that, but if you make a promise to someone, do you tend to keep it?”
“Yes, always.”
“I’ve got an odd question for you,” Fin text. “You don’t really like Daniel, do you?”
Evie could feel her nostrils flare. She hoped that Daniel did not put Fin up to this.
“Totally not interested in dating Daniel,” Evie responded quickly as that is where she thought this was going.
“No. Right. Nothing like that. I mean like, you just can’t stand him at all, right?”
Fin was right. That was an odd question. Maybe Evie seemed especially annoyed when she started talking to Fin on the bus. She was flustered that Daniel kept asking her questions. She just wished he left her alone.
Fin added to her message. “What if I told you I knew of an easy way to get rid of people you didn’t like. People who were a problem. You could get rid of Daniel.”
Evie laughed aloud to herself. “Nice, but I’ve tried everything you can imagine.”
“Not everything,” Fin quickly responded.
Evie stepped back to her bed and sat down, crossing her legs beneath her, and scanning her books on fairy tales and lore. It was in them that she read the hero generally enters a fairy tale world in order to escape their conditions at home but is very often exposed to more perilous situations where they have gone to seek refuge. Evie considered herself the hero of her own story and those from her old world, her mother, father, and people like Daniel were her monstrous adversaries. She was intrigued and wanted to know more. If there was a way to get rid of Daniel, then she was open to listening.
“The Pied Piper could get rid of him for you. No one would need to know.”
Evie felt like throwing the phone across the room and covering her face while at the same time screaming “yes” and charging forward with whatever quest this would lead her on. Yet, how could she know she could trust Fin? A girl who seemed to fall out of the sky with a wondrous tale? What if Fin and Mo were at the other end of that phone laughing their asses off? What if this was all a lie? Evie could feel tears in her eyes pooling. This is why she did not have friends, because all the kids she thought were interesting and smart thought her odd, and easy to make fun of. The only people who ever wanted to talk to her were her teachers, or Daniel: people who knew how alone she was all of the time since her parents were never home. Evie had practically raised herself, learning to cook on her own, learning to take the train and the bus on her own. Her parents were occasional tenants of this house who slept here, showered and left. Evie lived here in isolation, with her thoughts.
“Evie...” Fin texted again. “I’m serious. Meet us at Humboldt Park after 7. Bring Daniel. I can show you. Promise.”
Evie did her homework, then spent too much time online looking through people’s pictures and feeling like she was standing at the edge of her own life. She rechecked the clock, and it seemed like no time passed at all. Eventually, she made her way to the chair beside her window, curled up with a copy of The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, and as she read about the vampire shuffling her tarot cards Evie’s eyes closed. She was awakened what felt like just a few minutes later by her father’s knock on the door “Hey, you okay?”
“Yes,” she said from her chair.
“Did you eat? Need anything?” He said from the other side of the door.
“I’m good. I ate. Just going to work on a few things and then step out to meet some friends,” she said.
“Alright, be home before nine.”
Evie picked the book up again but forgot where exactly she left off with the vampiress alone in her crumbling castle. She closed the book on her lap and turned to the window and watched as the sky turned a golden red, then violet before shifting black. She sent Daniel a text asking him to meet her at Humboldt Park at seven, and within seconds he responded that he would be there. She closed her eyes again and awoke at the sound of rumbling.
Evie sat up, scanned her dark room and noticed a light flashing from the floor just next to where she was seated. Her phone must have slipped and fallen on the floor at some point during her sleep. She leaned over, picked it up, and turned off the silent alarm.
Evie stared at her phone and wondered if she should text Fin, but what would she say? She had no idea what Fin was planning. Yes, Daniel was annoying, and yes, Evie wanted him out of her life. Evie now wondered, how wrong was his presence and what would she be willing to do to remove him entirely? He had occupied this space in her life since kindergarten. He was there since she was five years old, and beyond, and had inserted himself in nearly any conversation he could and served as a constant reminder of how alone she was, and how her parents were never really there. Birthdays and Christmases were rushed celebrations because there was always work—they were always having to get back to work— and she was left alone to attend to the birthday cake leftovers and decorations that needed to be put away by someone, which always seemed to be her. Maybe Daniel was just lonely, like her. Perhaps he genuinely thought that there was a chance that their association could become romantic. Or, maybe he just really wanted to be her friend. Whatever it was Daniel felt for Evie she felt nothing for him other than distaste and hatred.
It was getting close to time. Evie looked under her bed and retrieved the black page she had taken from Newberry Library on that school trip not long ago. She stood up and moved over to the window to pull aside the curtains and unveil the reason why even though her parents were never home she always felt she needed to be. It was then that she noticed movement across the street. It was as if he materialized from the shadows. While her parents were never there, at least he was.
She looked down at the bright, shimmering golden script against the black page, and knew this was the same man the words spoke of. He stepped out from the darkness and took several steps forward, standing beside the streetlight. The man in the black suit looked up at her bedroom window. He extended an arm up into the sky and waved hello. Evie could not see his face as it was mostly obscured by a massive black hat.
He tilted his head just slightly back, and that still did not help her make out the blurred features of his face, but she could make out that chilling smile bathed in shadow.
He waved again, and again, slowly, back and forth, back and forth, letting her know, like always, he was here watching, waiting.
She was not alone as long as she had him.
She pressed her face against the cold glass and waved back.
He pressed a hand to his heart, and dipped his head in a bow, as if to say at your service.
CHAPTER 7
She ran with her gun.
Her father had warned her against it. A gun made people nervous. Yes, she was an officer. Yes, Illinois was a concealed carry state, and that applied to the city of Chicago. But, if someone saw a bulge on your waistband, followed by the metallic handle of a gun, their mind did not automatically register you as law enforcement. You were the villain.
Lauren had told her father no
t to worry. Still, as fathers do, he worried.
“Where are you going?” He’d shouted from his office, the door was opened halfway. She saw through the crack in the doorway that his reading glasses rested on his face as he read something on his computer screen. A mug of coffee in one hand. It was a coffee mug she had made for him when she was in middle school, years ago. It bore the Chicago flag—two horizontal blue stripes on a white background, and across the white center, there were four six-pointed red stars. When she’d made it, Lauren did not know the meaning of the stripes or stars. The top white stripe represents the North Side, middle stripe the West Side, and lower white stripe the South Side. The top blue bar represents Lake Michigan and the north branch of the Chicago River. The bottom blue bar represents the Great Canal and the South Branch of the river. Four red stars are situated across the Chicago flag. The first for Fort Dearborn, then the Chicago Fire, The World’s Columbian Exposition, and the Century of Progress. Beyond that, each point of those stars represented something else. That was Chicago, every layer held significance, everything held meaning, and if you looked away too quickly you could miss history.
He did not wait for a response. He continued. “It’s late. It’s the middle of the...”
“Dad...” She opened the door completely, standing just outside of the office. She did not like entering. There were too many files in here, too many names ended in tragedy. Too much clutter and too much detective work centered on death. His office was like a morgue, but the dead here were stored in pages, in files, on notepads. His office was his own personal catalogue of cases he had worked on, interviews and notes, police reports and complaints. The stories of peoples and their lives unraveled and ended in this space. While the room felt overwhelming, with towering stacks of documents across his desk and every surface, there was a system here, and he could retrieve information within minutes. She had seen it herself when Washington called or McCarthy or another detective who was now working one of the many cases Armando handed off after retirement. No detective ever retired with a fully cleared desk. Most remained forever tethered to those they were meant to protect or find.
“You should be in bed.”
“I’m not sleepy,” he said.
“It’s 4 a.m. You should be sleeping.”
“So should you,” he countered. “It’s still dark out there.”
“I’m going for a run, Dad. The sun will be up by the time I get to the lake.”
“Don’t take your gun,” he said as he stood up and shuffled toward her. She took him by the arm and walked with him to his bedroom. He sat down on the bed. “Retirement, it’s lonely,” he said, and she wished she could tell him something to make him not feel so lonely.
“Once I get settled in, I promise, we’ll catch a Cubs game or something.”
He laughed to himself.
“What?”
“Washington’s going to keep you busy. There’s no settling into this job. This job rips you away from your friends and family.” He had said it jokingly, but he choked on the last word. “There’s a lot of things I regret, and a lot of things I miss. I miss them, all of them. I tried all that I could to find her…”
“Me too,” was all Lauren could say.
Retirement had given him time to think, time to mourn again, and with mourning again, came renewed suffering.
“I just want you to be safe,” he said as he lay down.
“I have my gun on me, for exactly that reason; so I can be safe.” She gave him a kiss on his forehead. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I’ll be back by the time you wake up.”
Her father closed his eyes. She turned off the light, shut the door, and hoped he would have a restful sleep without the nightmares.
“I’m proud of you, Lauren,” she heard him say softly from the room as he drifted to sleep. It was the first time he said anything like that in a very long time. He did not tell her that he was proud of her at her undergraduate graduation or at her master’s graduation. In fact, she was surprised he showed up to each of them because he was always busy, always working. He did not even tell her that he was proud of her when she was accepted into the academy or when she graduated as an officer. Maybe his illness was allowing him to finally say things he should have said long ago.
She had parked her car at 31st Street Harbor. This is where she started her run, mostly because there were no businesses nearby. It was just her and the lakefront running path that took her toward the city skyline. Running towards those buildings that stretched into the sky gave her encouragement. Like if she was focused enough, ran fast enough then maybe she could catch up to those skyscrapers and their fairy lights that illuminated the heavens. The run from 31st Street Harbor took her through Museum Campus that held The Field Museum of Natural History, The Shedd Aquarium, and the Adler Planetarium. Then, she ran through Millennium Park, and to her destination, Lincoln Park Zoo. One way it was 6.2 miles, and the round trip gave her more than enough practice for the upcoming Chicago Half Marathon.
Lincoln Park Zoo opened at 10 a.m., but she had made it there shortly after 6 a.m. Her father called. He said he could not sleep. So, he got out of bed, made another cup of coffee and was reading the news.
“Don’t be too long. You have work,” he reminded.
She told him she would be home before 9 a.m. She was meeting with Washington after 10 a.m. After working as a police officer for a few years and passing the written exam and two months of detective training, her trainer had conveniently become her father’s previous partner, Earle Washington. There were cries throughout the department that reached her, people accusing her of not having to have worked as hard as others, and of getting by quickly. The system was rigged, they said, to make it easier. Just look who was training her? Washington assured critics and Lauren that there was to be nothing easy about her training after the academy. She would have to do the work. She would have to read the case files, interview witnesses, the coroner, paramedics, and whoever else seemed critical to any pending investigations.
Reaching Lincoln Park Zoo was one of the highlights of her run. She did not run through the zoo, like many joggers in the early morning hours. She had preferred to walk and enjoy the place to herself. The city’s zoo was free and set within the more massive Lincoln Park that spanned thirty-five acres.
Like many of the city’s neighborhoods, the Lincoln Park neighborhood held a wealth of history. When tourists visited Chicago, they were often curious about the city’s criminal present and past. Of course, the city’s most famous crime boss was Al Capone, who many believed orchestrated the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929. The murders happened just a short walk from where she had found herself, where seven members of the North Side gang were gunned down, suspected murdered by Al Capone’s South Side gang. No evidence ever connected Capone to the crime, but everyone knew he did it. In Chicago, criminals very often got away with it.
Chicago was a graveyard. Even Lincoln Park itself was a literal graveyard, once holding the Chicago City Cemetery, where the first recorded burial was in 1843. Maybe that is why Lauren had visited the zoo frequently. Thousands of bodies were exhumed there and relocated to several new cemeteries throughout the city beginning around the 1860s, or so people thought. In many cases, they moved the headstones but not the bodies. To this day, during construction in the area, bodies were still being found. It saddened Lauren to think that beneath her footsteps lay the bones of a forgotten someone. Like the horrors of Chicago’s past, some things remained the same in this city; crime and how quickly the dead were forgotten.
Lauren entered at the main entrance off Fullerton Avenue. She noticed a handful of cars parked in the lot, likely belonging to other runners like her who ran through the park or along the lakefront path. At the East Gate a sculpture of beloved African lion Adelor who had prowled the Kovler Lion House from 1995 to 2012 greeted her. She rubbed the bronze statue’s nose for good luck and entered. Just beyond the entrance gates was the
actual lion’s enclosure. No animals would be outside for some time, still. She continued up past the enclosure towards the lion house. Lauren stopped, and walked up the steps and looked inside. She placed her hand on the door, not thinking that it would open but it did. Lauren stepped inside the damp hall, with vaulted ceilings. Inside there was an information board that welcomed visitors to the historic landmark built in 1912.
“It’s not open yet,” a male voice said.
She searched and spotted a man standing in front of one of the empty animal housings.
“I know that,” she said.
“Then why are you here?”
Lauren searched his shirt for the insignia of the zoo or anything to indicate he worked here, but there was nothing. He was in a leather jacket, faded jeans, black shoes, and wearing dark sunglasses. Not an early morning jogger.
“I can ask you the same,” she said.
“You a cop?” He looked her over.
For a moment Lauren’s mind raced. Why would he ask that question? And just when she was going to ask him why he would ask something like that he pointed to her navy-blue sweatshirt. CPD emblazoned across. Chicago Police Department.
“I see the new recruits jogging in those same clothes in the morning outside my house.”
“You’re a South Sider hanging out way up north at,” she considered her watch “6:22 a.m.?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “You have a gun on you and everything?”
He caught her completely off guard. She collected her thoughts, looking down the long hall. When she looked back, he was smiling.
“I think I should go,” and she took off, walking briskly towards the exit.
“Here,” he jogged ahead of her, pushing the sunglasses up over his forehead. He reached for the door, but Lauren beat him to it and opened the door for herself.
She walked back toward the entrance gates. It was time to start heading back home. She had that meeting with Washington she could not miss, and her father was waiting for her.
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