by Jack Kilborn
“Almost a full carat. Set in white gold. It’s a Cartier.”
“French? Really?” Tom asked. His disappointment at the lowball offer vanished. A diamond? And French? Joan would love that it was from France. Another inside joke.
“Yeah. Over a hundred years old.”
“What are you asking for it?”
“I couldn’t go less than seven grand.”
“How about in trade? The comics for the ring?”
The clerk’s face twisted in thought. “Nope. Couldn’t do it. Got too much in it. I’d have to get another $1500.”
Tom considered his bank account, which was a perpetual balancing act just shy of overdraft. He’d just paid rent, had been spending money on Joan’s visit, and didn’t think he had more than five hundred bucks left until next payday.
“How about a grand?” Tom asked. “I want to propose to my girlfriend.”
Gary spread out his hands, “C’mon, Jerome. Guy is selling his comics to get married. Cut him a break.”
Jerome the clerk rubbed the stubble on his face, then nodded. “Okay. Who am I to stand in the way of love, right? The comics, plus a grand.”
Tom took four hundred and fifty bucks from the hipster—who carried around cash like that?—and then handed his credit card to Jerome, hoping it would go through.
A minute passed. An uncomfortable, sweaty, breath-holding minute where every second lasted ten.
“This damn machine,” Jerome said. “It disconnects all the time. You okay if I do a handwritten transaction?”
Tom was very okay with that.
Five minutes later he was sitting in his car with the ring in his hand, staring at it, grinning like he’d just gotten the deal of a lifetime. He just knew Joan would like it. It was her style, and it felt right.
But would she say yes?
Tom didn’t have a clue.
His cell buzzed, and Tom expected to see Joan’s name come up. When it did, he decided he’d meet with her right then, and ask her to marry him the moment he saw her.
But it was Roy.
“I’m on vacation,” Tom said. “I’ve told you this. Repeatedly.”
“But you answered anyway. What does that say about you, brother?”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Wait! We got a hit!”
“You can handle it.”
“Can you listen just a second? I been up all night, working the sex offender angle. Our boy, Hector, he broke down. Told me about this online help group for pedos. Fight The Feeling, they call it. It’s a message board for child molesters who want to resist the urge. So I got a fake account, logged on, started poking around, see if anyone got themselves castrated lately.”
Tom didn’t say anything.
“You still there, partner?”
“I’m listening,” Tom said.
“Because you want to know what I found out. That’s the cop in you. That part don’t go on vacation.”
“You’re just daring me to hang up on you.”
“Hold up, hold up. I got in a chat room. Seven dudes, Tommy! The Snipper cut the shit off of seven dudes, in just that forum. Our perp is castrating kiddie rapers. Doing the world a goddamn public service.”
“Can we talk to any of these people in person?”
“Way ahead of you. Forum is anonymous, for obvious reasons. Don’t have any real names. So I checked out the domain registry, got the address of the guy who runs it. Check it; he lives in Bucktown.”
Tom was only a few blocks away from Bucktown.
“You’ll need a court order, get him to give up user addys.”
“I know. But it doesn’t hurt to ask. If The Snipper is targeting guys on that forum, they’re all in danger of losing their junk. That’s even more persuasive than a warrant, don’t you think?”
It was much more persuasive. But that didn’t change anything. “You can handle this without me, Roy.”
“I know. But seeing as how our ladies are at breakfast anyway.”
“You know about that?” Tom asked.
“Yeah. Trish texted me. Said she and Joanie were grabbing a bite.”
“She say anything else? Why they were going?”
“No. Why?”
Tom almost asked Roy about the hotel bill, but awkwardness stopped him. That was a big bomb to drop over the phone.
In person would be better. Even though it was a conversation Tom didn’t want to have. He and Roy were good at a lot of things. Intimacy wasn’t one of them. But Tom didn’t want to see his partner blindsided. Friends looked out for each other. Even when mistakes have been made.
Especially when mistakes have been made.
“Where are you at?” Tom asked.
“Precinct.”
“I’ll pick you up in ten.”
“See you then, partner.”
Tom put the ring in his front pocket, then started the car. As he drove, he imagined proposal scenarios. Get down on one knee? Do it in public? Talk about all the things he loved about her first, or just come right out and ask? Tom saw a movie where the guy put the ring in a champagne glass, but he couldn’t remember what happened next. Did she choke to death? Or swallow it and then they had to wait a day or two to get it back?
Probably shouldn’t go that route.
Roy was waiting outside the precinct house, sipping a coffee. He hadn’t brought one for Tom. When he climbed in he gave Tom the address.
“So, Trish called Joan this morning, upset,” Tom said.
Roy didn’t answer. He was fiddling with his phone.
“She saw a credit card statement,” Tom continued. “Some big hotel bill.”
Roy grunted something.
“She thinks you’re cheating on her.”
“I ran the domain guy for priors. His name is Dennis Dale Cissick. Got nothing on him but a name.”
“I also sold all my comics and bought Joan an engagement ring.”
“Google brings up zip on Dennis. He don’t even have a Facebook page. What twenty-something don’t have a Facebook page? Isn’t it some sorta law?”
“Are you listening to me?”
“What? No. I’m talking about this dude we’re going to see. Now that last name rang a bell. Cissick. You remember that name?”
It did sound familiar, but Tom couldn’t place it. “Remind me.”
“Ten years ago. Some kid found a woman’s severed finger on the sidewalk. Got lucky with the ID. She worked at a bank, so her prints were in the system. Lilyana Cissick. Married, and a mom. Never found her. Husband Walter had filed a missing person report earlier that week.”
Tom nodded. “I remember now. All over the news. No one knew if it should be treated as an abduction or a homicide.”
“Body was never found. So I checked the husband. His Driver’s License expired a few years ago, he didn’t renew. But his address…”
“Is the one we’re going to.”
“Correctomundo.”
Tom played around with it in his head. He couldn’t work out how a missing woman from a decade ago was related to a maniac butchering webcam models and castrating pedophiles.
“I’m thinking Cissick and son maybe figured Mom was raped and killed, put up the Fight the Feeling site to punish other rapists.”
“What about the women?”
“No idea. But there may be two perps, right? Maybe one targets men, the other women.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s a weird coincidence, and the message board has nothing to do with The Snipper, who has nothing to do with these assholes getting castrated.”
“Lots of coincidences. I don’t like coincidences in a homicide investigation.”
“Me, neither.”
“You say something about Trish and comics?”
Tom pulled onto Artesian Avenue and parked next to a fire hydrant. “It can wait. We’re here.”
They got out, dead leaves from the large oaks lining the street blowing past their feet. The home was small, gray, two stories, stairs leading up to the front do
or, typical old school Chicago house. It was flanked on either side by similar structures, and a walkway led to an alley in back. Tom took his shield out of his pocket, flipped it open so it hung from his jeans, and automatically gave his jacket a pat to make sure his Glock was there.
The wooden steps were in need of a paint job twenty years ago, and Tom used the rail because he wasn’t entirely confident they’d hold his weight. At the top there was a handwritten note attached to the storm door.
Don’t knock. Just leave package.
“You bring a package?” Roy asked.
Tom shook his head. Roy knocked.
Then he knocked again, harder.
Tom tried the doorbell, but there was no sound.
“Does Dennis have a car?” Tom asked.
“Cargo van. Ford Transit.”
“Let’s check the garage, see if he’s out.”
As they walked around the house, Tom felt it. What he called his cop-sense. A little warning tingle that something wasn’t right.
“You hear that?” Roy said.
Tom listened. “No.”
“Someone screaming?”
“I don’t hear anything.”
But then Tom did hear something. Something very faint, but shrill. They picked up their pace, following the length of the house around the back, into the yard. There were concrete steps descending to the basement door, blocked by boxes filled with old newspapers. Roy knelt next to the building, put his ear next to the brick.
“Anyone there!” he yelled.
This time Tom knew for sure it was a scream.
“Do you need help?” Roy yelled.
There was a stuttering sound, sharp and staccato, that went on for several seconds.
Sobbing?
Or some kind of crazed laughter?
Roy used his radio and called it in, and Tom walked up the back porch stairs. The door looked heavy, formidable. The windows had old, rusty, iron bars covering them in an ugly fleur-de-lis pattern. Probable cause gave them permission to enter the home, but this wasn’t going to be easy.
“How long for back up?” Tom asked his partner.
“Three minutes. See a way in?”
“No easy way.” Tom banged on the back door, announced himself as a police officer. There was another mournful wail from the basement.
“Tom! Side of the house!”
Tom followed his partner’s voice to the walkway. Roy was staring up at a side window, about three meters off the ground.
“You gonna fly up there?”
“Get on my shoulders. You can reach.”
“How about you get on my shoulders?”
“I weigh more. Muscle. Come on.”
Roy laced his fingers together and Tom stepped onto his hands, placed his palms on the side of the house, and climbed up to his shoulders. The window didn’t have bars across it, but it was a security model with wire mesh inside the glass. Tom squinted inside, but couldn’t make out anything in the dark room.
“It’s safety glass,” Tom said. “I don’t think I can break it.”
“Check to see if it’s open.”
There was no handle on the outside, so Tom took the Emerson folder from his front jeans pocket, and wedged the tanto blade under the window. He gave it a tentative pry, not wanting to bend his knife, and the window went up a few centimeters.
Tom folded his knife, clipped it back inside his pocket, eased his fingers underneath, and lifted. The movement wasn’t smooth, but the window opened. The air inside was warm, and had a faint, unpleasant odor; a cross between a well-used public restroom, and a high school gym.
“It’s open. Boost me up.”
Roy grunted, getting his hands under Tom’s feet, and for a few seconds they did an awkward acrobat act until Roy pushed Tom up far enough for him to climb inside.
“Let me in the front door,” Roy told him.
Tom paused, hanging halfway over the window frame, letting his eyes adjust to the dark. After fifteen or so seconds he could make out a bed and dresser. Tom shifted his weight, pulling himself inside, handwalking until his feet were through and he was kneeling on the floor.
The smell was stronger, and had a harsh, chemical undernote. He sensed the room was empty, but recently used. Tom recalled how his house felt when he got back from visiting Joan; after a week away the air inside was always stale and empty when he returned, like the space knew he’d abandoned it. This room didn’t feel that way. Someone had been in here recently.
In his shoulder holster, next to his Glock, was a Fenix penlight. Tom tugged it free and panned two hundred lumens around the bedroom. The wood floor first, to make sure there was no pet fur; Tom didn’t want to be surprised by a Rottweiler or a leaping Tabby. Finding it clean of both dust and hair, he turned the beam upward.
Pink walls. Purple sheets. Stuffed animals on the carefully made bed. Posters on the wall of the Powerpuff Girls and Dora the Explorer. Dolls on the nightstand, a lone Barbie and five or six Kens in various stages of undress, some with their pants off and sporting their asexual, featureless groin bumps. A toy pony that looked too big for Barbie and crew. A jump rope with glitter handles, hanging on a drawer handle.
This was a young girl’s bedroom. But something was off about it.
Tom did another quick scan of the room, trying to spot what was missing. No TV. No computer. No stereo. An old clock radio that appeared to be unplugged. Besides the bed, there were two dressers and a bookshelf full of paperbacks. Tom didn’t recognize any of the authors, but they looked like teen romances of the Sweet Valley High variety.
Tom looked at the outlets for a cell phone charger, or a tablet.
Nothing.
That was odd. The room looked like time stopped in the year 2002.
He took a step and almost tripped over a pair of blue Converse All-Stars with neon green laces.
The shoes were larger than Tom’s.
The occupant of this room was a big girl.
“This is the police,” he said, loudly. “I heard a scream from inside, and I’m upstairs. Is anyone home?”
He listened for a reply.
None came.
The silence was so complete, Tom could hear his own pulse. His heart was beating faster than he would have liked. The key to dealing with stressful situations was being able to maintain calm. Fear caused mistakes.
He took a moment to slow his breathing, then headed for the open door and stepped into a hallway, the floorboards creaking under his feet. There were no lights on and the house was dark. Tom reached for a light switch, flipped it on.
Nothing happened.
Being in someone else’s house never ceased to be a creepy experience. Trespassing didn’t feel nice. Tom always felt sneaky, and a little ashamed, when he was in a stranger’s home uninvited. Even though he was legally allowed to be there, it made him nervous and he didn’t like it.
Blame his childhood. Tom was raised on a diet of 1980s VHS slasher movies like Don’t Open the Window and Don’t Go in the House and Are You in the House Alone; titles that seemed oddly appropriate at that moment. In those scary dark house movies you always knew that some crazed maniac would leap out of the shadows with a meat cleaver. It didn’t help Tom’s imagination that, in this particular case, they were actually chasing some crazed maniac. He recalled the last victim, her eyelids sliced off, intestines tied in a bow, and he considered drawing his firearm. But there was protocol against doing that, and Tom didn’t feel threatened. Just on edge.
He passed a door, peeking his light inside. Bathroom. Sink. Shower. Toilet. Towels. Seemed ordinary enough.
Further down the hall was another bedroom. Tom peeked inside. This one belonged to a boy. Batman sheets. Star Wars and GI Joe figures on the dresser. A poster above the bed with Batman punching Two-Face. Harry Potter and Tolkien on the bookshelf. No TV. No computer. No stereo. But there was an older model iPod with headphones on the floor next to the bed.
Just like the girl’s bedroom, this one looked li
ke time stopped ten years ago. But it was dust free. And the bed was unmade, the covers pushed down.
Recently slept in?
Next to the bed, on the nightstand, was half a glass of water.
Tom felt an adrenaline surge, and all the tiny little hairs on his forearms went erect. Roy had done a background check on this homeowner, but there hadn’t been any mention of kids. It was Saturday, so no school.
Where were they?
It was creepy.
Something else was creepy, too. Except for the toys and posters and color scheme, this room was exactly like the girl’s room. Beds and dressers and bookcases all the same type, in the same spots.
Maybe the children were strange, fraternal twins who imitated each other.
More old horror movies from Tom’s youth flashed into his head. Movies with weird kids. Children of the Corn. The Brood. The Shining. What weekly allowance Tom didn’t spend on comics, he spent renting fright flicks at Blockbuster Video. As an adult, Tom had seen enough real-life horror to make all of those old films seem trivial. But for some reason, as he walked through this house, he felt like there should be eerie violins playing in the background, raising in pitch until the shocking monster revealed itself.
Tom realized he was freaking himself out a little. He needed to let Roy in to help search the place.
He walked past the bedroom and froze.
Ahead, in the hallway, was a dark, huddled shape.
Someone was squatting next to the stairs.
One of the children?
“I’m Detective Tom Mankowski, Chicago Police Department,” Tom said, using his authority voice, pointing his light at the figure while automatically reaching for his gun with his free hand.
There was no response.
It took Tom a second to realize why. He’d just announced himself to a pile of dirty laundry.
He blew out a breath, walked past the dirty clothes—a combination of male and female items—and slowly descended the staircase, watching his step.
The funky smell grew stronger. The stairs ended at a living room, and Tom saw a large desk with three computer monitors set up on it. Flat screens, up-to-date. All were off. But underneath the desk, in a large snarl of cords, there were blinking router and modem lights. The computer tower’s cooling fan hummed softly.
Besides the desk, there was a well-worn sofa, an older model TV from the era before flatscreen, and a blanket hanging up on the wall. Tom guessed it was covering the window. He walked in the direction of the front door, and was reaching for the handle when an abrupt knock startled him.