“What do you make of this?” Drexel set the picture on the coffee table.
Ryan rubbed his nose and shrugged.
Ton bit his bottom lip. “Looks like part of a piece. Like there’re more photos that go along with it. Are there any matching ones?” He pointed to the slice of the car at the bottom. “I think another photo shows more of the car. I’m thinking several photographs the same size all hanging on a wall with a gap between them. She did that sometimes, you know?”
Drexel shook his head. “You’re right, but I don’t remember this one. And I didn’t see any that were this size when we moved them out of the office. Ryan?”
“Yeah. I think they were all bigger.”
Drexel pulled the laptop he left sitting next to the couch onto the coffee table in front of him. He flipped it open and started the database software he had used to inventory all of Zora’s artistic, non-journalistic photography. She had taken thousands of images over her life, many digital versions only, but she had never catalogued them, never systematized their storage, though she often swore she would and made a go at it before the size of the task beat her. Only a very few had she made into prints.
Ryan took a drink of his beer and bounced his heel against the crossbar on the stool. “I didn’t even know until we were making room for me here she did that.”
Drexel looked at Ryan. “She was always afraid of that.”
Ryan gave Drexel a quizzical look.
“Not you. Generally. She always said when she died she’d be remembered as a photojournalist, not as a photographer. I mean, she said she loved being a photojournalist, but she saw the two things as distinct. I didn’t always agree with her—I think the lines blur in some cases.” He waved his hand in the air. “Doesn’t matter. Being a photographer was what really mattered to her.” He took a drink of the whiskey. “That’s the fate for all of us, being remembered for something different than we feel we are.” He looked back at the computer.
Hart crawled over to Ton and curled up next to him.
Drexel closed the computer lid. “I’m never going to find it. I didn’t really capture descriptions of them well enough.” Too many photos and not enough time to look through all the images and describe each one. “I’ll just have to go through the images one by one to see if I can find the matching ones. If there’re matching ones.” He leaned back, holding the glass on his stomach. “Later. Not tonight.” He knew he would have to find the rest. They were pieces of her, separated from him, and he could not stand the thought. He must know what the rest looked like. Must find them and get them. Otherwise, and he could not explain it to himself, he felt like he failed her.
They sat in silence for a while, turned on the TV to the Blackhawks game, who were losing by a goal to the Blues. The game spiraled into a haze of penalties and checking with no flow. At some point, bags of potato and nacho chips appeared on the coffee table with French-onion dip and spicy pineapple salsa, and all three ate mindlessly. After the Blackhawks lost, Ton called it a night and left. Hart looked up. When the door closed, the cat scurried off to any of a number of his hideaways.
Ryan poured some more whiskey into Drexel’s glass and grabbed himself another beer. They sat beside each other. The post-game coverage muted. Ryan put his hand on the back of the couch. “I’m thinking, maybe it’s time—you know—maybe it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“To move out.”
Drexel took a drink. “You’ve only been here a little while.”
Ryan nodded. “But I’m not just talking about me.”
“Me, too?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Bad memories. Lots of them. She died here. I can’t imagine living—”
“She lived here, too.” Drexel tapped the bottom of the glass. “Yeah, there’re bad memories. One god-awful, nightmarish memory. But there’re a hell of a lot more good ones. Many more.” He downed the rest of his whiskey. “Besides, where would you go?” He looked over at Ryan and smiled.
His brother chuckled. “Sure.”
A few minutes later, Ryan retired to his bedroom. Drexel opened his messenger bag and pulled out the Brittany Missing Persons file. Benoit and the other detectives who handled the case had been thorough and used the volunteer search teams effectively. Maps indicated every stop at every residence or business, referencing a document that indicated when and whom the volunteers spoke with. Parks were searched. A Chicago PD Marine Unit cruised the shoreline in case she wandered out on nearby piers and drowned. No trace. Her credit cards and cell phone had no activity, and those items were not on her body or at the abandoned house. Her phone last pinged a tower near O’Neal’s at a quarter after nine. The teams had reviewed hours of video footage from multiple locations between O’Neal’s Pub and the area where she disappeared around the time she was last seen. Nothing. At least, nothing they could use. Benoit noted in one report that he was sure a vehicle was used to kidnap her and it appeared on some of the video they had obtained, but which one? He had no way of knowing.
He considered the phone ping. Five minutes between the video and it. Had the killer pulled up to the light, forced her into the vehicle, driven to a more secluded spot, and removed the phone? If Brittany had not attempted to call or text for help in that brief span of time she was bound, unconscious, or already deprived of her phone. Or too scared to think straight. Regardless, the killer knew enough to eliminate her ability to communicate.
Drexel looked at the crime-scene photos. He drew another rough version of the chalk markings and indicated Brittany’s body position and the jar of brain matter near her. These meant something to the killer. He drew another version as if drawing it would help him understand it, help him get a glimpse of the killer’s mind.
He leaned back in the sofa and rubbed his eyes. His iPhone was low on battery charge. It was after midnight. He turned off the TV and retreated to his room in the dark, closing the door behind him. He undressed and crawled into bed, turning on the lamp on the dark wooden nightstand. He opened the copy of Montaigne’s essays Zora had given him. The thick book by an unknown—to him—Frenchman she had encouraged him to read years ago. Drexel had read few other books since—though he had never read a lot—slowly reading his way through again and again the views and insights into a man long dead. The book fell open to Montaigne’s essay on the lame. Drexel read a few paragraphs before falling asleep. The last words lingering as his mind closed itself to the world: “So gross, obscure, and obtuse is our perception.”
Chapter 6
He slapped the alarm off at six a.m. Hart sat in the window sill, looking down at the ill-kept public yard at the central courtyard of the apartment building. The splashes and the mild hissing sound of water in the pipes alerted him Ryan was in the shower, so Drexel put on his running shoes, shirt, and short-sleeve T-shirt. The morning air was crisp, cold on his skin. He warmed up as he ran west alongside Division Street’s three- and four-story brick buildings. Passed one of his favorites, Thai Village, closed until lunch time. Passed the two pet-supply stores and a pet-grooming place. Passed Saint Mary of Nazareth Hospital—its logo a cross set of two infinity symbols with a Greek cross in the center—and its associated medical buildings. He turned north onto Western Avenue and ran the sidewalk beside Clemente Park’s baseball diamond. And by then, Drexel had cleared his mind, forced out the job, the stream of ghosts as corpses he had investigated over the years, the unsolved murders, Ryan’s comments about moving on, Ryan living with him and his constant fear of his brother relapsing—pushed it all aside and down and away. He knew these worries remained, of course, but mercifully out of sight. Instead, he concentrated on his breathing, letting the sounds of the Fords, Toyotas, Acuras, Cadillacs, and BMWs up and down the avenue and distant clatter and screech of the L, the slight breeze rustling the leaves of the trees filled his mind with their noise of life.
&n
bsp; He found himself back at his apartment building, standing outside on the sidewalk under the gray morning sky and breathing hard, without having realized he had completed his course.
Ryan, dressed in his Plumber Savior gray uniform, walked by him. “Hey, bro.”
Drexel nodded. “So your birthday’s coming up.”
Ryan stopped. “It is.” He pulled out a pack of Pyramid cigarettes and shook one out, placing it between his lips. “What of it?”
“Do you want to do something? What do you want?”
Ryan flicked the bright red Bic lighter twice and stuck the flame to the cigarette and inhaled. “It’s another day. Because I was born doesn’t make it a special day. Meaning isn’t there.” He turned around and walked down the sidewalk to where the Plumber Savior van was parked.
Drexel shook his head and returned to his apartment. He showered, put on khakis, a light green Oxford with pointed collar, red tie with small black dots on it, and a brown sport coat. He ate a slice of toast with butter and peanut butter while Hart watched from the floor. On the way to Damen Station, retracing part of his running route, he stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts for an extra-large coffee that he added six packets of sugar to. By the time he got to the station, the coffee was long gone and the sky was still overcast. He grabbed a second cup of coffee before walking into the building.
The third floor was busier than usual. Detective Naresh Mehta looked like he had been up all night, which was usual, except that it was now early in the morning and he normally did not stay much beyond his normal shift’s end. Naresh’s tie was loose at the collar and his white undershirt poked through the triangle between the center buttons. Detective Darrell Newgate was standing beside his desk. “I don’t get it. I don’t see how the kid has time to get from Pill Hill to the Back of the Yards, find the vic, sneak up behind him and put the bullet in the back of his head, and get back home to have dinner with his mom. I don’t see it.”
Naresh shook his head. “It’s not impossible though, right?”
Darrell rubbed his forehead. “No. Not impossible, but it might as well be.” He saw Drexel and nodded a hello. “I just don’t see the kid crossing that much enemy turf. I think it’s local. Someone in the neighborhood did this.”
Drexel walked passed them both to his desk, which he set up before waking his computer. The screen lit up. An email from the superintendent about a new policy directive was the only new email in his inbox, which he told himself he would read later. Daniela’s desk looked untouched, so he went into the conference room, where she was sitting. An empty Monster can with the center crushed in sat on a napkin. She had a laptop open on the table.
“Morning, boss,” she said.
“Hey.”
“Looking through the video they have of the night Brittany disappeared.”
“A shot in the dark. Missing Persons reviewed it all.”
“Yeah.” Daniela kept her eye on the screen. “But better than nothing.”
“What’s up with Darrell and Naresh?”
“Last night, a Latin Saint kid was shot in the back of the head. Point blank.”
Drexel nodded. “I’m hoping the ME will have something to tell us today.”
“Do you think she was able to do an autopsy? Brittany was frozen pretty solid.”
They called the ME, who told them she might be able to do the autopsy in a week, maybe a day or two sooner. She had to let the body thaw at a controlled temperature or risk damaging her ability to conduct an effective autopsy. Drexel asked how long the body had been out of the freezer. Noelle seemed reluctant to offer an answer, but she finally said—full of caveats—within 24 hours of them showing up at the scene.
“Right.” Drexel stretched his neck. “So I’m thinking today, we re-interview some of Brittany’s friends and keep searching through that video. And look for a van or car that’s in an alley or parking lot. One that pulls in around 9:11 and through a quarter past.”
“Works for me. Why don’t you do the interviews. I’ll keep going through these.”
“You sure?”
Daniela nodded. “Bring me a new can of Monster, will you?”
Drexel did, walking by Naresh and Darrell still in their debate. Drexel thought as he left the station that at least they had something to debate, theories to consider—no frozen, chopped-up corpses. But even then, their kid might be like Kid Dunkadelic—a victim in a city full of victims and unsolved cases.
* * *
Drexel called the number for Kayla Logenfeld from the missing persons report. She said she was at The Beans coffee shop. As Drexel made his way to the northwestern edge of the University of Chicago, the clouds dissipated, leaving a nearly cloudless sky and sun. The cafe’s interior used what looked like old, beat-up furniture. Large, plush couches and chairs filled the corners and open spaces in sets of twos and fours with end and coffee tables between and beside them. Every piece of furniture looked nicked and scarred or faded. Stacks of used magazines and decks of cards decorated the tops of the tables. A few boxes of Catan, Risk, and Ticket to Ride—as beat up as the furniture—sat beneath the tables. The place was filled with a half dozen people. He walked up to the barista, who pointed out Kayla to him. She sat with her legs over the sidearm of a green chair, her back plastered against the seat, and focused on her iPad. She wore jeans, a light brown top and a large, dark brown knitted cowl. An oversized coffee mug, with a splash of liquid in it, sat on the end table.
“Hello, I’m Detective Drexel Pierce.” He had ensured his badge was visible.
She looked up, startled. She brushed her sandy-blond bangs away from her eyes. “Oh, hello.”
Drexel pointed with this thumb at the barista. “He said you’re Kayla.”
“I am.”
“Like I said on our call, I want to talk to you about Brittany.”
She sat upright, tucking the tablet between her leg and the sidearm. “Yes. Yes.”
“Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”
He returned with two mugs, a handful of packets of sugar and artificial sweeteners. “I noticed you didn’t use cream.” He nodded to the empty mug.
“I don’t.” She took the cup from him and ignored the packets.
As Drexel grabbed three sugar packets and ripped off the tops and poured them into his mug, he said, “I know you spoke to several detectives in December, but I wanted to talk to you.”
Kayla’s lower lip trembled and her eyes moistened. “You found her, didn’t you? And not in a good way.”
Drexel nodded.
She shook her head and wiped a tear away from under her eye. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He pulled out a tissue. He had grabbed a handful from the car’s glove box. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded. “I... I thought something like that would be the case. When we didn’t find her at any of the hospitals.” She looked at Drexel and then away, out the windows into the sun-drenched street lined with locust trees. “What happened?”
“We’re not sure yet. We’ve only begun that part of the investigation. That’s why I’m here.”
“It’s definitely her?”
Drexel folded his hands together. “It’s not official, but I’ve no reason to doubt it’s her.”
Kayla nodded.
“So can you tell me about the day she disappeared?”
“Ah, sure. We met here. Early in the afternoon. We had a couple of coffees and talked. Probably were here a couple of hours. I went with her to sell her books. After that, we went to O’Neal’s. A few of our friends were already there. We drank and talked. Brittany left a bit earlier than us. The last words I said to her were, ‘See you tomorrow.’” Kayla grabbed her mug and took a small drink. “We just say those things, don’t we?”
“We do. But we mean them at least. When you said a ‘couple of hours,’ do you mean two or more generally?”
“I can’t remember anymore. No more than three, but at least two.”
“How much time between here and O’Neal’s?”
“Let’s see. It took us about fifteen minutes to get to the bookstore. There was a line, but she didn’t have many books. I’d say we were there thirty minutes. Then to O’Neal’s.”
“Did you notice anything strange at any of the places? Strange person? Odd face? Weird vehicle?”
“No. Nothing. Not that I can think of at least.”
“Was this place as busy as it is today?”
Kayla shook her head. “No. It’s not as busy when school is out. O’Neal’s, too.”
Drexel leaned back in the chair and rubbed his chin.
“I’m sorry I’m no help.”
“No, no. Don’t be sorry.” He sat back up. “You’ve nothing to be sorry about. And you are helpful.”
“But maybe if I’d seen something or remembered something.”
Drexel shook his head. “That’s a path you don’t need to go down.”
She daubed her eyes with a tissue.
“So at O’Neal’s, it was you and?”
“Carrie, Janay, and Isaiah.”
“Anyone else you know that was there? Anything strange?”
Kayla looked down at the floor and thought for a few seconds. “Well. Maybe.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t mention it before. It wasn’t odd or anything. Well, maybe it was.”
“What was it?”
“We had our table, had a pitcher. Brittany got up to go to the restroom or grab another pitcher, but on her way back, she stopped to talk to a guy at the bar.”
“She stopped or was she stopped?”
Kill Them All (Drexel Pierce Book 2) Page 5