Hidden Graves

by Jack Fredrickson

  ‘Cold coffee and warm, uh …’

  ‘Peeps,’ I said.

  ‘Even if this is no act, you being certifiably crazy won’t stop me from coming at you, Elstrom.’

  ‘You said the Marilyn Paul case got kicked to your detectives. They’ve not called. Did you finally tell them about me?’

  She shrugged. ‘Nothing. They kicked the case, too.’ She picked up a particle of Peep and put it on her tongue.

  ‘Good, right?’ I inquired.

  ‘Surprisingly,’ she said, peeling a larger piece from the napkin.

  ‘Where was it kicked?’

  ‘Chicago PD.’

  ‘Marilyn Paul was discovered beyond the outskirts of Chicago.’

  ‘I know, but the sheriff argued the murder probably happened in the city and the body traveled downriver. It’s weak reasoning but the sheriff didn’t want the case. There are no leads, except to you.’ She licked her fingers. ‘Really, really good, Elstrom.’

  ‘Then there are no leads at all.’

  She studied me for a moment and said, ‘Want to know where Chicago PD kicked the case?’

  ‘They kicked it, too?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Where?’ I asked.

  ‘Into the trash.’

  ‘They give you a reason?’

  ‘They’re overworked, understaffed. They have no leads. Anyway, I’m not giving up and that’s why I’m here. You know things, Elstrom. Things you haven’t told Lieutenant Beech; things you haven’t told me. Things that will help me find Marilyn Paul’s killer.’

  ‘For that I need a peek at that old file I asked you about.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To make me sure.’

  FIFTY-THREE

  ‘Are your teeth chattering?’ Amanda asked when she called at eight the next morning.

  ‘I’m on the roof.’ I’d been huddled in my pea coat up there since before dawn.

  ‘Why are you on the roof?’

  I could have said I was keeping watch for the murderer, red-headed or otherwise, that wanted me blamed for killing Marilyn Paul. Or, I could have told her I was hoping the cold autumn air would help me understand why he’d seemingly given up, or maybe brace me into seeing symmetry in the facts and events that swirled inside my head, unconnected, like confetti blown wild by a wind machine. But the truth was I’d simply awakened too early and too nervous to stay confined indoors.

  So I said, ‘I’m not sure why I’m on the roof.’

  ‘I have an ulterior, conflicted reason to have dinner with you tonight.’

  ‘You don’t need an ulterior motive to suggest dinner. And as for conflicted, we’re working through the mess I made in our past. All is becoming good again,’ I said.

  ‘You talked to Tim.’

  ‘I already told you about that.’

  ‘But, did he help?’

  ‘He’s an engaging, bright, rich guy. He’ll fit fine in the senate. He read me like a book, or to term it more accurately in these wonderfully modern times, he read me like a digital mobile device. As I said, he knew I wouldn’t take his word alone so he sent me to meet with his security chief, who seemed to tell me a lot.’

  ‘Not so truthfully?’

  ‘We discussed all this. Why are you pressing me on it?’

  ‘I’m so close to his campaign.’

  Voices sounded in her background. She spoke to them. Then to me, she said, ‘I’m already late for my third meeting in what’s to be a full day of them. The Italian Village tonight, say at seven?’

  ‘It’s noisy and crowded,’ I said. We’d rarely gone there before our divorce, simply because it was noisy and crowded. That mattered more now. We might be noticed there by one or more of her new, well-heeled associates. My nuzzling into the life of another big-timer, Timothy Wade, might blow up in my face, and in hers.

  ‘Noisy and crowded and delicious food,’ she said. ‘We’ll see you at seven.’

  ‘We’re being joined by others?’

  She laughed. ‘My security duo, the guys who waited for my plane the other night, will be there. I owe them. They absolutely love the Italian Village.’

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Bohler showed up at the turret that afternoon. She brought along a Chicago cop that looked like a Chicago cop. His gray hair was cut close and the skin around his eyes was deeply wrinkled from decades of squinting at people who weren’t cops. His tag said he was named Gibbs.

  ‘I brought the file you wanted,’ she said.

  I didn’t see a file and she carried no bag or purse. ‘Great,’ I said.

  I invited them in, offered them the two white plastic chairs set beside the new furnace and pulled up the orange can of tar I’d emptied before I could afford a new roof. I kept the can because it was a good reminder of my life’s progress, and also because it doubled nicely as unpretentious, supplemental seating.

  ‘You’re not going to offer hors d’oevres?’ Bohler asked with what I thought was a smirk.

  ‘I ran out.’

  She nodded, perhaps gravely, and turned to the man who’d still not said a word. ‘This is Benjamin Gibbs. I called around this morning and got mostly nowhere, until I was given Ben’s name. He knows the case you’re asking about.’

  ‘One car responded initially to the alarm in that convenience store,’ Gibbs said. ‘They called in more of us when they saw the Egyptian, Anwar Farrug. There was fear that some sort of rampage was going on, that other late-night places might be hit.’

  ‘Farrug – the Egyptian – was already dead?’

  ‘Head caved in along the side.’ He pointed to the right side of his head, behind the ear.

  ‘Blunt trauma?’

  ‘The bluntest,’ he said.

  ‘The weapon was never found, according to the papers.’

  ‘Maybe, or maybe it was consumed.’

  ‘A bottle, pulled from the shelves?’

  ‘The indent was narrower. The medical examiner thought the Egyptian was clubbed with a sixer of beer, never found.’

  ‘Unusual weapon.’

  ‘Spur of the moment, grabbed from a floor display,’ he said. ‘Not premeditated.’

  ‘There were traces of someone else’s blood at the scene?’

  ‘That was baloney fed to the press. There were more than traces. There was plenty on the floor a few feet from the counter and a solid dribble going out the front door. More was found on the street in the next block, by the curb. There was an awful lot of blood there.’

  ‘Too much to lose and live?’

  ‘That was the word in the department.’

  ‘What happened to the case?’

  He shrugged. ‘No clues, no leads. It got dropped. A couple of months later I got transferred to traffic, where I’ve been ever since.’

  He looked at his watch. He had nothing more. I walked them out.

  ‘When will you be sharing, Elstrom?’ Bohler asked me.

  ‘Soon, very soon.’

  ‘You might not have much time,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, are my DNA results back?’ I asked.

  ‘My request has become a non-priority now that the case got kicked to Chicago, but I remain hopeful you’ll be convicted. I expect to hear from you soon, Elstrom, with the complete truth.’

  FIFTY-FIVE

  I took the train downtown that evening because I didn’t want to fight traffic and because I figured that I’d be going no place after dinner except home, alone.

  Amanda was already at the Italian Village, upstairs and in front, where everyone passing by would notice her. Her two security guards loomed at the table across the aisle. They had napkins tucked into collars where necks should have been and wore excited smiles on their faces. I gave them a nod as I sat down across from Amanda.

  ‘You’re making a statement?’ I asked, gesturing vaguely at the crush of diners surrounding us.

  ‘We don’t need to slink around.’

  ‘With your business prominence and ties to Wade, slinking when with me mig
ht be wise.’

  ‘Tell me again about your meeting with Tim.’

  ‘Why are you so persistent about this, Amanda?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘As I said, he seemed straightforward. He admitted to being good pals with Shea, Piser and Halvorson twenty years ago, and claims he was shocked when all three suddenly quit the Bean campaign. He said that other than a preprinted card every Christmas from Halvorson, he’d heard from none of them until Marilyn Paul intercepted a shakedown call from Shea. She told the campaign’s security man about it, who told Wade. Wade said he had no idea what Shea supposedly had on him, and so neither of them ever responded to Shea. The security man backed Wade on everything, saying as far as they were concerned the matter ended when Shea, passing as Arlin, got blown up in Laguna Beach. The security man called me later on, said he’d asked Theresa Wade if perhaps he shouldn’t look into the Marilyn Paul killing a little more, just to make sure there was nothing that could adversely affect the campaign. She told him to drop it, and for him to tell me to drop it, too.’

  ‘Theresa Wade,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘You’re sure you didn’t tell Jeffries that it wasn’t Shea in the rubble?’

  ‘No, only to call Laguna Beach. Beech confirmed that he had. I don’t know what they discussed. Now there’s a new problem. Jenny Galecki.’

  Her face tightened.

  ‘As we learned in Reeder, she’s chasing this story—’

  ‘Because you told her about it in San Francisco,’ she interrupted.

  ‘And later, when I told her of a possible connection to Timothy Wade. She flew to Tucson and talked to Halvorson’s landlord. She found no trace of Halvorson ever having lived there. The landlord said Halvorson rented the place over the phone, sent in a generous check to secure the deal and didn’t bother the landlord for twenty years.’

  ‘The ideal tenant.’

  ‘Or a beard.’

  ‘Someone else rented the place to establish a presence?’

  ‘Someone wealthy enough to maintain the ruse for twenty years,’ I said.

  The waitress came. Amanda told her to take the two guards’ orders first, and then she ordered spaghetti with marinara. I ordered lasagna. Both of us needed time to think, so we hid behind talk of the electric utility she’d inherited. Our food came and we kept talking about electricity, with occasional glances at the guards across the narrow aisle. They’d ordered a platter large enough to feed an extended Italian family of first, second and third cousins, and were attacking it with a speed and ferocity that suggested they were worried an army was about to charge up with big spoons.

  Amanda was never a big eater, but that night she didn’t even touch her meal. When I’d finished eating – the guards finished ahead of me by several minutes – she signaled our waitress to take her spaghetti and wrap it up, along with a couple of extra meatballs.

  ‘I’ve upset you,’ I said.

  ‘Everything I’ve heard so far is circumstantial.’

  ‘After Tucson, Jenny came here. She and her old cameraman from Channel Eight set up surveillance cameras in the woods across from Wade’s place. When they went back to retrieve them they got beaten, badly. No broken bones but plenty of damage inflicted by professionals.’

  ‘My God! Because of Tim Wade?’

  ‘That’s my guess.’

  She sat for a moment, stunned. Then she said, ‘About my ulterior motive for this dinner …?’

  ‘The one you mentioned earlier today.’

  ‘Theresa Wade emailed, asking me to be their deputy campaign manager.’

  ‘The election is in only a few days,’ I said, instantly regretting the demeaning sound of my words. I was stunned, and appalled, at the Wades.

  ‘You don’t think I can handle it?’ She grinned as though she was teasing, but she was dead serious.

  ‘You can handle anything, as your recent entry into big business attests. It’s just, just …’

  I was stammering, babbling.

  She held up her hand for me to stop. ‘Of course, I understand that it’s just titular, a ploy,’ she said. ‘They don’t want my advice, especially since the campaign is essentially over and Tim’s election is a sure thing. So why, Dek? Why offer me such a title?’

  She was baiting me, wanting me to say the obvious: that the Wades were playing her like a harp to get me to back off.

  The waitress walked up with Amanda’s dinner in a white plastic bag and set it on the table, along with the check.

  I grabbed the tab before the billionairess could. ‘My treat, gents,’ I said across the aisle.

  Both bodyguards smiled. They were still sweating.

  Amanda shook her head, grinning again. ‘Tim and Theresa quietly pull strings to get good things done,’ she said. ‘Things you never hear of. Hospital funding, school additions, personal medical assistance – they do it all without one word of self-aggrandizement. So what you’re inferring makes no sense to me. They’re good people.’

  I suspected both Wades to be nothing for certain at all, so I said nothing.

  ‘Come on, there must be dozens of words circling in that brain of yours,’ she prompted after a moment. ‘You can’t summon up one?’

  There were more than dozens. There were hundreds, mostly variations of the words, ‘Run like hell,’ encircled in a cartoon balloon above the beaten, swollen face of Jenny Galecki.

  I set down cash for the bill. She stood up. I stood up. Amazingly, the two guards stood up, and lightly despite the family platter they’d just knocked down.

  She handed her spaghetti to me. ‘Not one word, Dek?’

  I found one for those cunning siblings, the Wades.

  ‘Pre-emptive,’ I said.

  FIFTY-SIX

  Pre-emptive.

  Absolutely pre-emptive, I thought, looking out the train window into the darkness. By enfolding Amanda tightly into their campaign, the Wades hoped I’d stop investigating and threatening it.

  I couldn’t imagine what it was that the Wades thought I knew. Worse, I couldn’t guess why they’d had Jenny and her cameraman beaten. Jenny said the footage they’d gotten from the one camera showed nothing sinister.

  I got home at eleven o’clock that night; still early enough to sit at my computer to see what the satellites saw of the woods across from the Wade estate. Waiting for the picture to come up, I half-remembered an ancient prophecy that foresaw a rain of locusts hurtling down upon the earth. I wondered if the spirit, if not the specifics, of that prophecy might soon come to pass, though I imagined it might not be locusts, or even satellites, that would darken the skies, but rather swarms of drones with video cameras, set loose by drooling, pimpled peepers to crash into one another, tall buildings and airplanes. Then it would be no ordinary pestilence raining down on some dark day but rather harder hails of plastic, solder, microchips and people.

  The woods across from Wade’s estate looked ordinary enough, just acres of trees and nothing else. I dragged the cursor back across the road, to the wide house, broad lawns and circular driveway, all encircled by the tall wrought-iron fence that ran along the road, tucked back along the sides, and crossed to meet at the rear of the house. From there, the ground sloped sharply down to the road that ran along the shore of Lake Michigan. Like the woods across the road in front, the woods in back were thick with trees.

  A long green rectangle stood out stark down that slope, about fifty yards up from the back road. It was devoid of trees but dense with low vegetation, like a carefully tended garden plot, except that no garden could function in such thick woods. A faint pair of parallel ruts, probably only recognizable from the air, ran from the road up the fifty yards to the plot.

  That rectangle, so far down from the house, and those ruts up to it made no sense. And though the night wasn’t young, my worries were thick. It would be hours before I could sleep. I grabbed my pea coat and headed out the door.

  There was little traffic. It took less than forty minutes to get to Winnetka and the back road
that ran along the lake. I pulled off to the side a few hundred feet before where I guessed the Wade estate would begin.

  A quarter moon lit the sky, enough to see. I walked along the road and soon came to a rusted chain-link fence that marked the back of the Wade property. I stopped several times to look up through the trees, almost bare now of leaves, and finally I saw a house at the top of the slope, ablaze with lights. The Wades were pulling late nights, undoubtedly double and triple checking every last effort to ensure a flawless victory.

  Strangely, I saw no guards nor heard dogs. I saw no motion-sensor security lights being tripped by animals running through the back woods. There seemed to be no security beyond the wrought-iron fence at the back of the house.

  There was a break in the fence fifty yards down. The ruts I’d spotted in the satellite picture ran up through it. They were tire tracks, cut deeper into the soft ground than I’d imagined from looking at the photo. There was no fresh vegetation growing up along them; they’d been freshly tramped down by a vehicle.

  I followed the tracks slowly up into the woods, tensed that with every step I might set off a security light. None came, and that brought a new certainty. The Wades wanted their house guarded at the front but not at the back, because they used a vehicle they kept back in those woods.

  The rectangle I’d spotted on the satellite photo confirmed it. It wasn’t a flat spot of ground as it had appeared from high up but a structure sunk deep into the hillside. Weeds grew, or had been planted, on its dirt roof. Only the front was exposed – two unpainted old doors hinged at the sides, weathered to almost the same brown as the trees surrounding them. Several small tree limbs had been leaned against them to further camouflage the structure.

  I pushed the limbs off the rightmost door and turned the wood latch. The door opened noiselessly. Its hinges were kept well oiled.

  I stepped in and immediately hit my knee against the rear bumper of a white SUV. I pulled the door closed behind me and switched on the pinpoint flashlight I’d brought. I’d seen that vehicle before. It was the Ford Explorer I’d chased before Sergeant Bohler had pulled me over.