I knew I couldn’t win them all. It went with the Job.
But I really really wanted to win this one.
Chapter 11
Herb and I sat in my car, parked outside Dalton’s building. It was going on ten p.m., and he hadn’t come home yet. A team followed him from Spill to Bradstreet’s palatial estate in the neighboring suburb of Evanston.
“I tell you,” Herb said, “that bottle of Jack Daniels is looking better and better.”
I agreed. I could use a drink. Herb and I were both tired, depressed, and discouraged. Nothing was panning out. The boy hadn’t matched any recent missing person reports, and hadn’t been identified yet. We’d even given the picture to the TV stations to air, but so far, no hits.
Tom and a rotating crew of ten cops were continuing to call storage facilities within a thirty-mile radius, asking about locker 515, with not a single promising lead. Hajek, from the crime lab, had done a full workup of the photo, and the only thing he could tell us was it appeared to have been altered somehow. Hajek believed the color and contrast had been enhanced. He had passed it on to a colleague who knew more about photographic manipulation, and we were waiting to hear back.
Still no ID on the John Doe who died on the Catherine Wheel. And after calling four different judges and pleading our case, none would sign an arrest warrant for Dalton or a search warrant for his condo.
Things weren’t looking good for our heroes. Which is why I brightened up when Herb said, “Let’s break in.”
“You serious?” I asked.
“He’s probably playing it safe, spending the night at the lawyer’s. Maybe we’ll find something in his home.”
“Wouldn’t stand up,” I said. Any evidence we found would be inadmissible in court.
“I care about the kid, not a conviction. Besides, the wallet gave me an idea. What if his passport is in his house?”
I nodded, getting it. If we swiped Dalton’s passport, he wouldn’t be able to leave the country. Those things took weeks to renew. That would give us more time to hang something on him.
“First we break into his car, then we try to frame him, then we steal his wallet, now we’re going to burgle his residence. Not our finest day, Herb.”
“While we’re inside, I may also piss on his sofa.”
I had a gym bag in the trunk. I took out my sweats and put the cement-filled milk jug and some yellow tape inside. Then walked across the street to 1300 North Lake Shore. It was a new doorman, and we flashed our badges and took the elevator to Dalton’s condo. As far as disciplinary action went, I doubted we’d get into any trouble for this little action. Dalton wouldn’t be able to press charges from Cape Verde. That is, if he even knew we were the ones who broke in.
We stood outside his door, and I gave it a gentle knock. When no one answered, I asked Herb, “Did you hear a scream coming from inside, prompting us to enter without a warrant?”
“I heard a scream, and also smelled smoke,” Herb said. “It’s our duty as police officers to break in and try to save lives. Plus, the door was already broken when we got here.”
I hefted the milk jug. “Did you notice a burglar alarm when we were here earlier?”
“Nope.”
“Me neither.”
I reared back and swung the makeshift battering ram with everything I had, just to the right of the doorknob. There was a loud CRACK and the door burst inward, the jamb throwing splinters. I went in low and fast, drawing my Colt from my shoulder holster, quickly scanning the hallway. Then I made my way through the rest of the condo, Herb at my heels. When we deemed it empty, Herb got started putting some yellow CRIME SCENE tape over the doorway. If anyone walked by and noticed the door, the tape would prevent them from calling the cops, because the cops obviously already knew about it.
Though Dalton’s condo was massive—far bigger than my house in Bensenville—it was pretty easy to search because there wasn’t anything there. Even though it was fully furnished, there were no personal items of any kind, other than books. No letters, or bills, or photo albums. No computer. No clothing. No passport.
“Fridge is empty,” Herb said.
I went back to the hallway, staring at the pictures on the walls. Dalton had said he’d taken those photos. I didn’t have much of an artistic eye, but they seemed a bit drab and lifeless to me. Even the shot of his house on the beach made a tropical paradise seem rather bland.
There were six pictures total, three on each side. Besides the house, there was a shot of an empty cornfield, a shot of the Chicago skyline, one of some trees in the winter, and one of a sunset over a lake. The only one with a human figure was of a house, with a woman sitting on the porch. The picture was taken far enough away that the woman’s features were tough to make out, beyond the fact that she had long, dark hair and was Caucasian. She could have been anywhere from eighteen to fifty, and the clothing she wore—a blouse and shorts—didn’t lend itself to being dated.
On a hunch, I took the picture from the wall and then spent a minute removing it from the frame. The back of the photo had something written on it.
“What do you think?” I asked Herb, who was peering over my shoulder.
“No idea. Maybe it’s one of his victims?”
“If Dalton is Mr. K, he’s too careful for that. He wouldn’t ever let anything lead back to him.”
“A girlfriend? Relative?”
“Not a very personal photo. Normally, if you take a picture of someone you care about, don’t you move in for a closer shot?”
Herb shrugged. “Maybe the woman doesn’t matter. He’s got the whole house in the frame. Maybe the house is what’s important. Or maybe it doesn’t mean anything, and is no more personal than the cornfield or the sunset.”
I frowned. My subconscious was nagging at me, trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t get it to come forward. While I was thinking, I began to liberate the other photos from their frames. Herb joined in. We didn’t discover any more writing, or anything else that would have been useful, like a signed confession, or a map showing where bodies were buried.
My cell rang. I slapped it to my face.
“Daniels.”
“Lieut, it’s Tom Mankowski. We may have a hit on the storage locker.”
“What did you find, Tom?”
“National Storage. They’ve got a unit rented out to John Smith. Unit 515.”
Smith was the name Dalton had used for his victim at the U-Store-It on Fullerton.
“We’ll meet you there,” I said.
Then Herb and I hurried for the elevator.
Chapter 12
Six Corners used to be an historic shopping district, clustered around an intersection where Milwaukee Avenue, Cicero Avenue, and Irving Park Road all intersected.
National Storage was housed in a six-level brownstone, and Tom Mankowski, along with his partner, Roy Lewis, were standing on the sidewalk in front. Tom was tall, lean, and in profile he looked a lot like the image of Thomas Jefferson on the nickel. Roy was a bit stockier, broader in the shoulders, and resembled the boxer Marvin Hagler.
I parked in front of a fire hydrant, figuring I’d disregarded the law so many times that day, once more wouldn’t matter. I normally wasn’t such an ends justifies the means type of person, but endanger the life of a child and I was willing to be flexible.
“Have you been inside yet?” I asked as we approached. Both men wore suits, as befitting Homicide detectives, though Roy’s fit better and was less rumpled.
“Just got here, when we saw your bucket roll up,” Roy said.
“My bucket?” I said.
Roy became sheepish. “I meant your classic vintage automobile, Lieutenant.”
I turned to Tom. “Background on John Smith?”
“Manager wouldn’t reveal personal details over the phone. Said we had to show up in person and prove we were cops before he gave us an address.”
“Then let’s go prove it.”
The lobby was a step up from Merl
e’s U-Store-It, and contained a water cooler and several floor plants, along with a security camera hanging on the wall. The watchman sat behind a large desk, sans bulletproof glass. His nametag read AL. He was in his sixties, and had a gray pompadour that rivaled the King’s during his Blue Hawaii years. He also smelled like he took a bath in cheap cigars.
“You the cops?” Al asked.
All four of us flashed our tin.
Al nodded. “I took the liberty of pulling up John Smith’s rental agreement.”
He tapped some papers on his desk, which Herb snatched up. It was refreshing to deal with someone cooperative for a change.
“Do you recall what John Smith looks like?” I asked.
“No idea. We got close to a thousand units here, and six other employees.” He reached into his desk and pulled out half a cigar.
“Can we check out his locker?”
He nodded. “Absolutely. We reserve the right to examine the contents of our renters’ units if we believe they contain dangerous or illegal materials.” Al jammed the cigar into the hinge of his mouth, then pulled a bolt cutter from under his desk. “Let’s go and see.”
We walked down an access hall, to the freight elevator.
“According to this, John Smith lives in Portage Park,” Herb said, reading the paperwork. “Paid by credit card. He’s had the unit for two months.”
I wasn’t feeling good about this one. John Smith was a common name, and it was doubtful Dalton would rent a locker somewhere with security cameras.
“What’s this guy done?” the manager asked just as the lift arrived. “Kill somebody? Drugs? Kill somebody for drugs?”
“We think he’s smuggling Cuban cigars,” Tom said. “You ever have a Cuban?”
“Years ago. Best thing I ever put in my mouth.”
“These are special cigars,” Tom said, “full leaf wrappers, rolled between the thighs of promiscuous women.”
Apparently Tom didn’t feel good about this one either.
The elevator spit us out on the fifth floor, and Al led us to unit 515. Wielding the bolt cutters with apparent enthusiasm, Al snapped off the combination lock and gripped the door handle. He pulled it up in a quick, smooth motion, lifting the door up on rollers, and we all got one of the biggest surprises of our lives.
Chapter 13
“That’s just…wrong,” Tom said.
The five of us were gaping at the contents of John Smith’s storage unit. The twenty-by-twenty-foot locker was populated by lawn gnomes. Hundreds of them. They were all lined up in rows, each maybe eighteen inches tall. Red, pointy hats. Green suits. White beards.
“There’s a whole army of them,” Tom said. “Like they’re ready to march out of here and fight a tiny little war.”
“That settles it.” Herb nodded his head, his chins jiggling. “I’m buying a lottery ticket later.”
“Buy one for me, too,” I told him.
As far as lawn gnomes went, these weren’t particularly attractive. Their pinched, elvin faces had odd, shocked expressions on them, and their backs were bowed, as if suffering from some sort of gnome scoliosis.
“What is wrong with you white people?” Roy asked.
“Excuse me?” Al said.
“You don’t see no brothers putting these creepy little fuckers out on their lawns.”
“How about that one?” Herb asked, pointing.
One of the gnomes had brown skin.
“I am not seeing that,” Roy said, shaking his head. “That doesn’t exist for me.”
I tilted slightly left, then right. The gnomes seemed to be tracking my movement, their eyes following me. It was eerie.
“Maybe they’re filled with cocaine,” Tim said, bending over and picking one up.
They weren’t filled with cocaine. They were just what they seemed to be—hideous decorator items for the lawn and garden. Al closed up the door and snapped on a new padlock.
“Someone owes me seven fifty for the replacement lock,” he muttered. “Cuban cigars my ass.”
Twenty minutes later, we were all headed back to the station. There were over three hundred more storage facilities to call, and we had less than ten hours before Dalton’s digital watch reached zero.
Chapter 14
2007, August 10
Dalton won.
We were up all night, calling twenty-four-hour storage facilities. When we ran out of those, Herb had the idea to call hotels, checking for guests in room 515.
We were still calling when Dalton’s plane took off for Cape Verde.
In between calls, Herb, Tom, Roy, and I had devised several techniques to stall Dalton. Ramming into his car on the way to the airport. Calling TSA and saying he was a terrorist with a bomb. Arresting him on a made-up charge.
But we didn’t attempt any of them. Much as I felt Dalton was Mr. K, I couldn’t prove it. My duty, as a police officer, was to uphold and enforce the law. In the past two days, I’d failed at my duty. I not only failed to catch the bad guy, but I’d done a lot of things I wasn’t proud of in my effort to catch him.
The end did not justify the means, because there was no end.
I said goodbye to Herb and was heading back to my house in the suburbs to try and get some sleep, though I doubted I would. That’s when I got the text message on my phone. A message from Dalton.
IT ALL WOULD HAVE WORKED OUT FOR YOU, JACK, IF YOU’D ONLY GONE TO SEE MY SIS…
Looking at the word SIS, I realized what had been nagging at me, and I wanted to shoot myself for missing the obvious. On the back of the boy’s picture, I’d assumed Dalton had written the number 515. But he hadn’t written that. He’d written SIS.
I got on the radio to the watch commander back at my district and had her search for any of Dalton’s relatives in the area.
“Anywhere specific?” she asked.
I thought about the photo I’d swiped from his condo, of the woman sitting on the porch.
“Schaumburg,” I said.
Three minutes later, I was heading to Golf Road and Bode in the Northwest suburbs, going to visit Janice Dalton, John Dalton’s younger sister. I called Herb en route, and he told me he’d meet me there. Maybe Janice knew something. Maybe the boy was still alive. I kept my foot on the gas, even without my siren, hoping against hope that we still had a chance.
After exiting onto Route 53, I got a call from the crime lab.
“Lieut, it’s Hajek. My expert buddy looked at the photo and told me what was altered about it. It’s not an original. It’s a picture of picture, which has been colorized.”
“Explain.”
“These days, many photo studios can do photographic restoration. You know, fix scratches, rips, folds, fading. They can also add color to old black and white photographs. That’s what was done with the boy. It’s a professional job, and we could probably trace who did the work.”
“I’ll get back to you.”
I arrived at Janice Dalton’s house—the same house as in the picture on Dalton’s hallway wall—before Herb did. I knocked on her door without waiting for him.
Janice was older than I was, gray, with smile lines on her face that had deepened into serious wrinkles.
“Ms. Dalton, I’m Lieutenant Daniels from the police department. Do you know this person?”
I held up the boy’s picture.
“Of course I do. That’s my brother, John, when he was a kid. Is everything okay?”
I recalled Dalton’s words, at the storage facility.
“I’m saying that we can only be here for so long. For some, it could be years before we leave. For others, it could be just over twenty-four and a half hours.”
He hadn’t been talking about a child’s death. He was talking about a child leaving the country. And that child was him.
“Can I come in, Ms. Dalton?”
She nodded. I still wasn’t sure why Dalton would send me on a wild goose chase. For fun? To prove he was smarter than I was? All of the books in his condo pointed to hi
m being a true crime junkie. Maybe he just wanted to mess around with the famous cop he’d read about.
So what about all the innuendo? All the double-talk? Was Dalton even a criminal?
“Please, sit down. Would you like some coffee, Lieutenant? I can make a pot.”
I plopped onto the sofa and stifled a yawn. “No, thank you. I just have a few questions about your brother. You know he left the country a little while ago?”
She nodded, sitting on the love seat. “A dream of his, to live on an island. He worked hard his whole life, saving up money. He finally earned enough to retire.”
“What did your brother do?”
“Construction, I think. He never talked about his job. I know he made a lot of money. He helped me buy this house. You know, he told me, before he left, that someone would be stopping by here. He wanted me to give you something. Can you hold on just a moment?”
I nodded, tensing up. When Janice left the room, I reached into my blazer and unbuckled the strap on my shoulder holster, resting my hand on the butt of my Colt. But when she returned, it wasn’t with a machine gun or a live grenade. It was with a notebook.
“I have no idea what this is,” Janice said, handing the pad over.
It was a standard Mead school notebook, black cardstock cover, spiral bound, seventy pages. I flipped it open and saw it was filled with handwritten names and dates, starting in the 1970s.
I don’t think my heart actually stopped, but that’s what it felt like. Because I recognized some of those names. I began turning pages, and I watched as the dates progressed, over a hundred of them, eventually stopping two days ago. The date of the John Doe murder, the man who died on the Catherine Wheel.
This was Mr. K’s murder book. A complete list of everyone he had killed.
I had just let history’s biggest serial killer leave the country.
“Are you all right?” Janice asked me. “You just got a little pale.”
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