The crouched man jumped the chain-linked fence and coiled barbed wire. He disappeared in the tall weeds twenty yards from the trailer. The three heads turned and froze.
“Did you see that?” Irwin whispered. “Is that even possible?”
Stahl didn’t blink. His lips did not move when he spoke. “That guy cleared eight feet from a squatting position. I don’t understand it.”
The second POD followed the movement and auto-adjusted resolution. When the picture cleared, another sheet of sleet crossed the lot moving toward the hotel.
“We need to know who that man is, Stahl. This is not going to end well. Where in the hell are our people?”
“They gotta be very close. It’s been almost five minutes.”
On Lieutenant Stahl’s last word, the east POD flickered and went out.
“What the hell happened?” Irwin boomed as he straightened his aching back and rubbed his aching neck. “It went out fast. That was an instant failure. Something hit that POD.”
“Maybe a bird or large hail ball hit it.” He typed a flurry of commands, but kept his eyes on the original POD video feed.
“There’s no hail out there, Stahl. It’s sleet.”
“I think the three guys see him. Our people just turned onto 27th.”
The mystery man exploded out of the tall weeds and charged the three men standing behind the trailer. Stahl’s fingers stopped pecking. Irwin’s hands dropped to his side.
“Oh God,” Stahl sighed.
Seconds later the original POD video stream flickered out. Both men stared at the black monitor in silence.
Seven
“When was the last time you saw him, Mrs. Sorensen?”
Detective Joe Hutson sat in the small living room of the old brownstone surrounded by antiques and faded colors and perfume smells that reminded him of his grandmother and his childhood—nobody would ever hurt Pop and Gram. He watched the one log smolder on the pile of scattered embers. It sizzled in the fireplace moments away from being engulfed.
Margaret Sorenson did not look at the fireplace. She stared out the window and halfway listened to the third visitor from the police department. She had called them Saturday morning. Jacques was not in his room. He normally stayed up late, but he was always the first one out of bed. Jacques was one of those who only needed a couple hours of sleep. Margaret had learned to live with his twenty-hour days, but she still needed her eight hours. The difference worked in the beginning. Fifty-two years later it had led to separate bedrooms.
This time breakfast was ready before she knocked on his door. The bed had not been slept in. There were no notes. Jacques rarely used his cell phone. Her calls went directly to messages. But she had an idea where he was . . .
“Mrs. Sorensen, I’m sorry to go back over ground you may have covered with others,” Hutson said. “But I’ve been assigned. This is an active ‘missing persons’ case. It’s official. Everything you say is important. I will stay on this until we find your husband.”
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
Hutson smiled, again thinking of his grandmother. She too had trouble focusing. Hutson was accused of many things—selfish, distracted, uncaring, and slow—but he always had a soft spot for old people. It also made him feel superior for a change.
“Mrs. Sorensen, you said you last saw your husband on Friday afternoon. You got up Saturday morning and discovered he was gone. He had not slept in his bed. Is that right ma’am?”
She smiled at the detective as if he was a son visiting. “Yes dear. That is right.” You really don’t know me, do you? She thought. You don’t remember anything . . .
“Can you tell me what Dr. Sorensen was doing before he disappeared?”
“Certainly dear,” she said and turned back to the window.
Hutson smiled again. “That’s great.” He opened his small leather notebook with pen in hand and reframed his question. “Please tell me what your husband was doing Friday.”
“He was with him again.”
“Him?”
“Yes. Him,” she whispered.
“Who was your husband with, and where, Mrs. Sorensen?”
“Jacques has an office downtown. It’s not much. One room on the third floor four blocks away. He walks there every day. Jacques retired four years ago—should have ten.”
“He’s retired. I see. Please continue, ma’am.”
She pretended she didn’t know him. She could play the game, too. “I suppose all doctors think they can keep doing what they do no matter how feeble-minded they get.” She passed Hutson a crumpled card. “The address of the office is circled, in case you need to go there.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Sorensen.” He noticed her trembling hand. Is that because of your age, or are you nervous about something? “Did Dr. Sorensen see patients?”
“Not officially—his medical license expired years ago. I know different.”
“What do you mean, you know different?”
“Jacques was too old to practice medicine, although he was just a psychiatrist. He wasn’t doing surgery or anything important like that.” She turned to Hutson with a stern gaze. “Jacques is a good man no matter what anyone says,” she declared. Then she softened. “He was not a great doctor. That weighed heavy on him. I wish he had not been so hard on himself.”
“You have suggested your husband was seeing a patient on Friday. Since he had only one patient, do you know the name? It could be helpful.”
“I don’t want to get my husband in trouble. He’s not certified anymore, you know.”
I know. You said that already. “I don’t think it will be a problem, ma’am. We just want to find him for you. If he saw this patient, it may be the last person he was with.”
She brushed off the arm of her chair as if she had spotted a small spider. Staring at the floor by her feet she whispered, “He had one patient. He’s been seeing him for a while. Friday was an important day.”
Finally. “What is the name of his patient?” Hutson asked again.
“Jacques came home for lunch as usual Friday. He was excited, nervous, and afraid. I know that is a strange combination of emotions, but I’ve seen it before.”
“You’ve seen it before?” he prodded.
“When he has made a decision about a patient.”
“When the patient has a breakthrough, gets better?”
“No. Not always. I mean it is when Jacques decides to let go. Some patients don’t make progress. For Jacques, the therapy is over. He can do no more. They are on their own.”
Hutson stared at her boney fingers and bulbous purple vessels pulsating under paper-thin skin. He doesn’t refer the patient to another doctor? He abandons them? Seems odd, he thought. “So, on Friday you husband possibly released a patient he may or may not have helped.”
Her eyes darted from the window to Hutson and back. You really don’t know, do you? “I’m afraid I cannot—”
“I need that patient’s name, Mrs. Sorensen. Your husband had one patient for several years. Surely you heard a name. This could be important.”
I will try it this way. “I heard part of a name—Dario. Jacques never meant to tell me. It sort of slipped out one day. He tried to cover it up. He said he meant Dr. Rio. Well, he doesn’t know a Dr. Rio. I checked. There’s no Dr. Rio listed in the international registry of psychiatry. I knew he made it up. I just left it alone.”
“Dario. Okay. We never know what’s going to be important, Mrs. Sorensen. Now, can you remember anything else out of the ordinary on Friday?”
“Jacques was going to Algonquin, the cabin. I haven’t been there for years. It’s in the middle of nowhere. The dirt road off Miller is terrible. It goes through Peter Exner Marsh. Nobody goes up there. It’s an awful place—mold spores.” Without a word she got up and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Mrs. Sorensen,” he yelled. “We’re not done here yet.”
“Last time I went up there I told Jacques I’d never expose my bottom to t
hat bumpy dirt road again.” She poked her head out. “That’s been at least ten years or so. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Sure. That would be nice.” Why does that place seem familiar?
He pulled out his cell and sent a text to Detective Crowley—CONTACT ALGOQUIN PD. SEND CAR TO JACQUES SORENSEN CABIN. DIRT ROAD OFF MILLER ROAD TO PETER EXNER MARSH.
He tapped maps and typed Algonquin and route from Chicago. “Algonquin’s an hour northwest of the city, Mrs. Sorensen,” he yelled across the empty room. “Weather was gettin’ bad Friday afternoon—started to snow. Forecast for the weekend, not so good. What makes you think your husband would risk going up there?” He could be snowed in the cabin—simple as that. Hutson closed his notebook and watched the fire pop and sizzle.
She approached with a silver tray and two steaming cups. “Jacques took his winter coat. He never wore that heavy old thing unless he was going to the cabin. Always bitterly cold up there in the winter, the winds whipping off all those little lakes and that miserable marsh. There’s no insulation. Jacques said the fireplace was good enough. Place never got warm.” She gave Hutson his cup. “And Jacques took his ropes.”
Hutson stopped the cup at his lips and stared at the old lady. She looked familiar to him but why? Ropes? Did he go to your cabin in a snowstorm with ropes? Am I looking for a missing person, or did I just find a missing body—a suicide?
His next set of questions had to be carefully crafted, or he could push the old lady into shock or fall down another rabbit hole. He would lose hours chasing purple butterflies. “Mrs. Sorensen. Why did Dr. Sorensen go to the cabin? Why did he take his ropes?”
She sat and stared out the window still holding the tray.
What are you thinking? Hutson wondered. Maybe she knows he ended his life.
A log popped and sprayed tiny sparks across the hearth. Hutson watched the fat glowing embers devour the underside like a school of piranha devouring fresh meat. Soon the log would be gone, nothing left but a pile of nondescript ashes. Its existence was but a small meaningless memory carried to the grave by him and the old lady. Why does anything matter?
“Dario told me he was at the cabin,” she said. Maybe that will trigger something.
Hutson’s phone vibrated. The new text message was from Crowley. SORENSEN DEAD. BROKEN ROPES. HOMICIDE. BE CAREFUL!!!
Maybe Hutson should have taken Dr. Sorensen’s disappearance more seriously. He visited the brownstone alone and failed to do the walk through. Did you say Dario said?
The wood floor creaked. Cold eyes watched the dying log long enough.
Eight
“I couldn’t get here sooner,” Wolfe said. “My text message should have been sufficient.”
Lindsey Fetter opened the door wider and nodded looking at the floor. The homicide detective brushed snow off his shoulders and walked in as if he owned the place. Stopping him in the entry, she held out her hands for his coat. “I’ll take that.” Her tone revealed pent-up emotions only Wolfe would be able to detect. He did not respond to her the way he knew he should. Waiting three days was inexcusable. The delay meant much more.
Winged gargoyles were perched on each corner of the rooftop of the exclusive downtown apartment building. The single residence on the top floor had ten-foot arched ceilings, ornate carved molding, and colors from the dark end of the light spectrum. Tall shrouded windows stopped lights from the sprawling city below. Dark wood floors, black marble halls, and large rooms with sparse furniture transported one back in time to a cold mansion out of a Dickens novel. The two sat at one end of the long dining room table. They were surrounded by giant oil paintings of rogue stallions running wild in night storms. Like attentive ghosts, a dozen chairs were positioned at the table draped in linen reflecting candle light. On the tray between them was an opened magnum of Petrus—2008 and two Baccarat Chateau crystal wine glasses.
“You know I don’t like $8,000 wine,” Wolfe said with a hint of sarcasm.
“Why didn’t you come when I texted you?” she asked.
Wolfe never explained himself, but this time he would make an exception. Lindsey Fetter was more than a victim to him. “You killed the man who dared to return to the scene of his crime. The ME took the miserable carcass away. The crime scene had been worked and released by CSI. No need for a judge, jury, or executioner. My work was done.” He picked up the $400 glass and held it to the nearest candle—money meant nothing to him.
Lindsey Fetter was a naturally attractive woman. The one-time Illinois beauty queen and Paris model did not need to marry money. She came from a wealthy family of land barons and commodity traders, and had a law degree from Harvard. After Paris she pursued her passion. She signed on with the Cook County State Attorney’s Office and served five years. There Lindsey met Malcolm P. Fetter, an oil & gas entrepreneur. Malcolm’s first wife had been killed by a multiple felon. The then Lindsey Nolan prosecuted the case. She lost. Pesky legal technicalities. The two shared the trauma and married six months after the dust settled. He was a broken man and she was hopelessly guilt-ridden.
Wolfe had met Lindsey in her Cook County days. Heinous crimes he investigated were handled by her office. Their time together grew into more. In the beginning it was a shared disdain for the darkest elements of society. Then it evolved into a frustration over the limits of due process. Their impossible missions in a dark world, and their growing angst over injustices had created a shared oasis, a place to escape the pain. Entangled feelings turned into passionate love, but their future was too frightening to entertain for even a moment. How could a burned-out homicide detective and disenchanted county prosecutor ever have a life together? Unspoken fears grew. They backed away. Weeks turned into years. Then Wolfe saw Lindsey had married. It was the last time he smiled—the girl he loved had found peace. He sunk into his dark world.
“Don’t be that way,” she whispered. But he was too alone and too thick-headed to know Lindsey Nolan had never stopped loving him, and that she was too afraid to ever tell him.
He rubbed his chin and sidestepped the moment. “Are you pouring, or shall I?”
Her eyes spoke. She took the glass from him and poured. “We need to talk, Aaron.”
“What about?” he quipped.
“About what happened here,” she said and then sipped her wine. He stared. She set her glass down and touched his hand with one finger. “You are a smart man, but you don’t know what happened here. You think you know, but you don’t”
“Really! I guess Eric Ramsey did not die here, the man who killed your—”
“Say it, Aaron.”
He pulled his hand back and stared at her perfect face. “—killed your husband.”
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“I’m sorry he is dead,” Aaron muttered.
“It’s been three years,” she whispered. “You never came to see me. You never—”
“Never what . . . ?” Wolfe shifted in his seat. I don’t know what to do, how to be, he thought. I was sad for you and mad for him. I stay confused. He looked at the shrouded window as if he could see through the thick curtains. He whispered, “This city swallows me. Staying away is best for you. When you see me, you see the world that takes life, the one that haunts us both. I bring you pain. You’ve had enough for one life.”
She touched her handkerchief to the corners of each eye as she studied the only man she ever truly loved but could never be with. “There’s more going on here than you know, Aaron. What you think happened is not what happened.”
He picked up his wine glass and drank half. “You don’t know what I know.”
“I didn’t kill him. I mean I did but there’s more.”
“Stop talking now,” he ordered. “This is why I did not come the night you texted. I want you to have time to think carefully. You are talking to a Chicago Homicide Detective. You do not want to give me information I must act on. Do not make me do this.” He drank the other half of his wine and slammed the crystal Baccarat
on the oak table rattling the tray.
“There’s an organization,” she said.
“Please stop.”
“They are like me. They are like you. They know our justice system is failing. They know it is not going to change for a long time, if ever. Bad people are winning too often, Aaron. Innocent people are dying. Victims are losing. Justice is failing one case at a time.”
Wolfe stared at the woman he adored since the day they met. He would do anything to protect her, but he was a rule man. Rules got him out of a shattered home. Rules got him through college and post graduate studies and into the police academy. Rules got him to the pinnacle of his profession—homicide investigation. He would fix a broken world by taking the monsters off the streets. Soon he despised the justice system—it had failed his victims. Too often predators were put back on the streets to hunt again. Too often the law and due process were the enemies of the innocent.
“Please, Aaron. You must listen to me with an open mind.”
Wolfe had to justify his world. He knew the law was not working in all cases, but it was working in many. The law had become the delicate infrastructure he built his life around. Without compliance, he would lose the line between good and evil. He could not have this conversation with Lindsey Fetter. He had to avoid the whole topic.
“Did you know there are only 25,000 bottles of 2008 Petrus on the planet?” he said as he studied the label. “The low yield is only a part of the story. This is a wine of great intensity and unique blend—perfume of mocha, caramel, black cherries, black currants. After five years of cellaring it’s good for twenty-five more.” His eyes found her rapping fingernails. “If I were you I’d save the rest of this bottle for a more important occasion.” He started to get up.
“They came into my bedroom before Eric Ramsey,” she said. “I was petrified. They stood in the dark. They were shadows like vampires. One stood on each side of my bed.” Her eyes sharpened. “At first I thought it was a bad dream. Maybe I was reliving that terrible night when Malcolm was tortured and killed, and I was—”
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