Hidden Graves

by Jack Fredrickson

  Jenny turned almost halfway around and her cameraman turned with her. Behind her now, recognizable to almost everyone in the room, was Timothy Wade’s white frame house, lit up bright in the night. Many gasped. More began to murmur. There was no mistaking the inference.

  ‘One forensics team member speculated, and cautioned me to clearly call it as such, that the body recovered in the pine coffin might belong to a young woman in her early twenties, perhaps someone who lived nearby.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Amanda murmured.

  ‘Today’s gruesome discovery of three bodies,’ Jenny went on, as her cameraman resolutely kept the Wade house in her background, ‘comes on the heels of yesterday’s search of the estate of Timothy Wade, tonight’s presumptive winner in the race for the US Senate. Though the two locations are across the street from one another, authorities have not indicated that the two investigations are in any way linked.’

  Jenny signed off, all five screens defaulted back to the Channel 8 studio and the ballroom fell into a hushed silence. Only the panelists on television were speaking, though they were doing so in hushed tones, having heard the news, too.

  Everyone in the ballroom looked to the man at the podium.

  As ashen-faced as he’d been when the hatchet and bones came tumbling at him, Wade had stepped out from behind the podium and was flapping his arms crazily at two young aides who were standing below the stage. No one in the ballroom had to guess what he wanted; he wanted the televisions shut off. They nodded and began pushing their way through the crowd, heading toward the curtain at the back. In just seconds, the screens went silent and dark.

  Wade suddenly became aware that everyone was watching him. He straightened up, his face a strange contortion of fury and fear. He walked slowly back to the lectern, for there was no place now to run. For a long moment, he looked out at the crowd that had come to cheer his stunning success, a crowd now as silent as mourners at a burial, staring back at him. The horror on their faces told him there could be no words.

  I looked to the side of the room where Jimbo stood pressed against the wall, still recording. Jeffries, Wade’s campaign security chief, was walking quickly toward him. I tensed, thinking I might have to run over to pull the security man off Jimbo.

  Jeffries slowed and gave Jimbo a nod that might have meant nothing or might have meant everything. And then, without a backward glance at his candidate at the lectern, Jeffries walked out of the room.

  I turned to look back at Wade. He still stood stiffly behind the lectern. Only his eyes moved, restlessly. He was looking for someone.

  He stopped. His eyes had found mine.

  His lips tightened and, for a moment, I thought he was going to scream.

  I heard myself speak the four syllables slowly, conversationally. They carried easily across the hushed room.

  ‘Marilyn Paul,’ I said.

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  My cell phone rang at two-thirty in the morning. It was no matter. I was awake and cold and alone at the turret.

  ‘You ditched me at the Palmer House,’ Amanda said. ‘I looked around and you were gone.’

  I’d taken off right after I blurted out Marilyn’s name, hoping Amanda might escape being photographed with me.

  ‘That’s why you’re calling at two-thirty in the morning?’ I asked.

  ‘You’re up anyway,’ she said.

  ‘How could you know that?’

  ‘You’ve been to the window more than a dozen times. Are you waiting for the press to storm the turret, demanding to know why you called out Marilyn Paul’s name or, like Leo, are you worried about the car parked down your street?’

  It was true enough; I was troubled by the car but I didn’t understand her question. ‘What does Leo have to do with it?’

  ‘That car down the street belongs to one of my people.’

  ‘You put security on me?’

  ‘I’m confused about Tim Wade but clear about the look he gave you at the Palmer House. I’m having you watched because I’m guessing you need it, and because I can afford it.’

  ‘It’s no worry. All of Wade’s guards have taken off. The daytime thugs and, according to Jenny when she called right after her newscast, the night shift, too. I’m hoping he doesn’t own anyone else.’

  ‘Tell that to Leo. He must have seen your star turn on television calling out Marilyn Paul’s name and was worried it would spell trouble. He’s been watching my man watch your turret. That made my man edgy enough to run his plates. I thought Leo drove a Porsche, not a big van.’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘Then tell me a shorter one. I saw your face when Jennifer Gale reported that one of the corpses might belong to a young woman. You were the only one in the ballroom who didn’t appear surprised.’

  ‘Almost the only one in the room,’ I corrected.

  ‘Tim wasn’t surprised?’

  ‘Remember I told you Wade’s guard shack was empty when I got to Winnetka this morning? I thought that was odd, given all the strangers that were milling about. But it wasn’t until I was leaving that I realized the guards had taken off. Wade had been paying them very well – in money and in Rolexes – to do more than simply guard his estate, but obviously they decided it wasn’t enough to hang around and get arrested for assault and maybe even murder.’

  ‘They killed Shea and Marilyn Paul?’

  ‘I’m hoping a DNA analysis of Shea’s body will tell us exactly who killed her.’

  ‘And the young woman in the woods?’

  ‘I didn’t know about her when Wade left his house early this morning, I thought I might catch an unguarded—’

  She groaned at the wordplay.

  ‘An unguarded moment to speak with Theresa Wade,’ I went on. ‘I knocked on the front door and when the supposed invalid didn’t come down to answer it, I stepped inside.’

  ‘You expected her to answer the door herself?’

  ‘I hoped to provoke a moment of candor. Don’t forget, Jenny’s short video captured a woman walking in Theresa’s bedroom, something that was borne out by a chairlift that hadn’t been used in a very long time.’

  ‘It should have been in constant use ever since the girl was little.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure what to think when I stepped inside. I called out Theresa’s name from the base of the stairs several times.’

  ‘And when she didn’t answer you ignored any thought that she might have been asleep or in the bathroom, and took it upon yourself to go up?’

  ‘I kept calling out at almost every step.’

  ‘And when you got upstairs?’

  ‘There are four bedrooms. One had obviously belonged to Tim’s parents. One had been turned into a small study. The third was Tim’s. The fourth was Theresa’s.’

  ‘What did you say when you barged into her room?’

  ‘She wasn’t there. The bed was made and the room was recently dusted.’

  ‘You tossed her bedroom?’

  ‘I peeked in discreetly and saw a gray wig on one of those Styrofoam heads on the dresser, a wig that likely wouldn’t be needed by a woman who never let anyone see her.’

  ‘So, a wig to fool, like the wig Marilyn Paul had worn to fool you?’

  ‘Maybe not identical, but the intent was the same, except the wig in the Wade house was worn by a man.’

  ‘A man mortified that he’d accidentally killed his sister,’ she said.

  ‘A man who needed to convince the world that she was still alive.’

  ‘Tragedy had struck him again,’ she said.

  ‘No. Theresa was the first. She disappeared from the newspapers right after she graduated from college. That was well before Halvorson got killed.’

  ‘What a nightmare that must have been for him, looking out his front window every day for the past twenty years knowing two secret graves were across the street.’

  Neither of us said anything for a moment; we just listened to each other think. And then she said, ‘Give me Leo’s cell num
ber. I’ll tell him I’ve got the turret covered and that he should go home and sleep. You should sleep, too.’

  I gave her Leo’s number and went to bed, sure I was in for the first of many restless nights, mulling over the tragedies of Timothy Wade.

  But I was wrong. Those were for the future. I fell asleep in a minute.

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  Sergeant Bohler stopped by a week later. Her eyes were puffy and her cheeks seemed sunken. She looked like she hadn’t slept in a month. That didn’t surprise me.

  Her uniform was different, too. That didn’t surprise me, either.

  ‘You can’t return my phone calls?’ she asked in a rasp.

  ‘I’m racing to get my furnace working before winter.’ She’d been calling twice a day. I wasn’t ready to talk; there was still so much thinking to do.

  Her eyes narrowed, recognizing the lie. ‘Got any of my coffee left?’

  ‘Plus newer, old yellow Peeps,’ I said. I’d bought more like the ones she’d brought over, hoping their sunny color would bring cheer. They hadn’t, though I was optimistic about a report yet to come.

  She sat heavily at the plywood table as I put the last of her grounds in the coffee-maker. ‘You haven’t been in the news since that first day,’ she said.

  ‘They only pestered me about calling out Marilyn Paul’s name. I told them she’d worked for the Democrats, was murdered and no one seemed to be investigating the case. They accepted that’s all there was to it and left me alone.’

  ‘Wade was on the news last night, first time since he went underground after that mess in the ballroom. He’s saying he and Theresa buried the Jane Doe in their family plot because everybody deserves a proper interment.’

  ‘He’s got connections everywhere, including the medical examiner’s office. No one else would want the body so the ME let him have her the moment he was done.’

  ‘Where she can never be examined again?’

  I could only shrug at that. ‘Next, Wade will say that Theresa’s health is getting dangerously worse. Then, after another month or two, he’ll announce that she passed away. He’ll have a friendly mortician bury a weighted coffin next to Jane Doe, and that problem will be put in the ground.’

  ‘Officially dead at last.’

  ‘He’s tidying up, Bohler.’

  I put four Peeps onto a paper towel in the microwave. Such was her weariness, she made no move to get up and flee when I turned it on.

  ‘They’ll never identify Halvorson’s body either?’ she asked.

  ‘Even if the cops did suspect it was Halvorson, there’s no one to compare his DNA to. Red’s sister-in-law told me her husband had no other blood kin, so short of digging him up for comparison, the young man in the woods will remain a dead end John Doe.’

  ‘Chicago PD might still have blood evidence taken at the convenience store.’

  ‘Worthless as well, even if they knew to compare it to the young man’s body in the woods. A match would prove nothing, unless an eyewitness came forward to say the person shot was Halvorson.’

  ‘And that could only be Wade, and he’ll admit no such thing.’

  I nodded.

  ‘So there’s nothing to tie Wade to the convenience store killings?’

  I nodded again.

  ‘And proving Wade owns the land across the street won’t tie him to the bodies there either,’ she said, speaking faster now. She was coming at Wade from every direction, testing his vulnerability.

  ‘Even if it can be proved he owns it, he’ll just say the bodies were buried there without his knowledge.’

  ‘Case closed, for sure,’ she said.

  I turned suddenly from the counter, for she’d spoken almost gaily.

  ‘I meant, that’s too bad,’ she said quickly.

  I slid the towel of collapsed Peeps out from the microwave, added some scrapings of the bit that had seeped out from beneath the door and brought it with coffee to the table.

  ‘There’s still that DNA recovered from Marilyn Paul that you threatened me with, remember?’ I said.

  ‘I never did submit that to the lab, you know,’ she said, smiling outright now.

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I have a friend at that lab,’ I said. It was a lie. It was Jenny who knew someone in the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.

  ‘There was a recycling cart full of empty soda cans in Wade’s guard shack but I heard that none matched Marilyn,’ I added.

  ‘So, Wade’s in the clear?’ she asked. It was the big question, the reason she’d been calling, the reason she’d driven out after I hadn’t returned her calls. She was desperate to know, desperate to sleep.

  I shrugged that away, too, and asked, ‘New uniform?’

  ‘I’m on loan to the forest preserve police. I chase out neckers at dusk and chain gates.’ She took a sip of the coffee and grimaced. I’d made it too strong, suddenly anxious to use it all up. ‘My boss wanted me gone for the stir I created at Wade’s back slope.’

  ‘He’s wrong to want that. Bodies were found. They were just across the street, instead of down Wade’s back yard.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said.

  ‘Wade complained?’ I remembered his threat to have her badge, but now I suspected he was merely bluffing, creating another ruse.

  ‘He probably complained just enough to make himself look innocent.’ She fingered a Peep but left it on the paper towel. ‘Woods are everywhere in this thing, right? I mean, Wade’s back slope, the trees across the street and now my non-future as a forest preserve cop?’ She forced a laugh at the symmetry. ‘I’m going to quit. I’m going back to private security. I used to work it sometimes as a second job.’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  That startled her. ‘How?’ she asked.

  ‘I asked Jeffries, the Democrats’ security chief. He remembered you from a few years back.’

  She nodded absently. She saw no threat.

  ‘Is this almost over?’ she asked.

  ‘Wade is tidying up,’ I said.

  She left visibly happier than when she arrived, despite not having had a taste of Peep, or even asking what I’d meant.

  SEVENTY-SIX

  Two mornings later, Jenny attached a DNA report to her email. ‘I can’t use this at present because it’s unsigned and unofficial. Cheers. Jenny.’

  I took it up to the roof. I stayed there for two hours and then I emailed it to Amanda.

  She called twenty minutes later. ‘You’ve sent me a bomb.’

  ‘I’m thinking about Wade’s Committee of Twenty-Four,’ I said.

  ‘Me, too.’

  ‘How many of them do you know well?’

  She didn’t hesitate. ‘I’ll start with the two who were closest to my father. If they get on board I’ll let them decide how far we should ripple out. We won’t need all twenty-three.’

  I told her, then, exactly what I wanted. ‘My concern is with speed, to get him quickly off the stage.’

  ‘And Jennifer Gale?’

  ‘She’ll report only what can be doubly confirmed as fact. That will play hell in her reporting for quite some time.’

  It took Amanda the rest of the work day. By five o’clock it had been decided, by fourteen of the twenty-four. The most senior of them, an insurance magnate, would make the phone call that evening.

  In Cook County, Illinois, sharks swim faster than other fish.

  The biggest sharks swim fastest of all.

  SEVENTY-SEVEN

  We met in the side room at Galecki’s at eleven that evening, after the restaurant had closed and once Bohler’s shift patrolling the forest preserves was over.

  And after the phone call had been made.

  I told Jenny I’d pay for the Polish cabbage rolls and beer later if her cousins managed to keep things under control. Stanley, Bernie, Frank and Eloise sat toward the front at a table big enough for the large platters and their handguns, set out in full view. The blinds had been
closed against the night.

  We sat farther back, at a table in the middle. Jenny wore tailored jeans and a finely woven yellow sweater. Bohler wore a beige holiday sweater that had a Thanksgiving turkey on the front and enough double-knots to suggest it had been someone’s introduction to knitting. It was a little too tight and showed the outline of the small revolver, perhaps a .22, holstered at her waist. I wore what I had: khakis, a blue button-collared shirt and my best sweatshirt.

  Mrs Galecki was our waitress and the only other person in the restaurant. She wore black slacks, a white blouse and a meat cleaver in the pocket of her faded yellow apron. She hadn’t smiled when she let me in. I’d brought trouble to her daughter, and by the looks on the faces of the cousins and the guns they’d set on the table, I was bringing more.

  She took our order for drinks. Jenny asked for a dirty martini and Bohler an upscale Pilsner Urquell. I ordered a Pilsner Urquell, too, since I’m almost never out, socially. Mrs Galecki set down their drinks as ordered, in glass and stein, and slammed down a Miller Lite in a bottle for me.

  ‘So, what’s the urgent news?’ Bohler asked me. She’d seen the guns on the table in front and had chosen to sit facing the cousins.

  ‘Marilyn Paul’s killer shared some DNA markers with the Jane Doe found in the pine coffin,’ I said.

  Bohler inhaled sharply; she’d understood in a hard heartbeat. ‘You told me Wade buried the girl without them doing any tests,’ she managed, almost whispering. She was wonderfully frightened.

  I could have said I hadn’t known of the testing but I was done lying. I was after some measure of satisfaction now.

  ‘Timothy Wade has been told he’s going to resign tomorrow,’ I said. ‘He’s going to say he has to take care of his sister, whose health is deteriorating.’

  ‘We talked about that sister story,’ she snapped. ‘Why resign over it?’

  ‘Wade’s being given no choice if he wants to avoid prosecution.’

  ‘We decided there’s no way to prosecute Wade.’

  ‘There’s no way he’ll even be swabbed for DNA,’ I said, ‘just as that DNA analysis done on the girl will likely never see the light of day. The samples will be destroyed, the report will get lost. Wade’s DNA will never be linked to his sister, Jane Doe, or through her to Marilyn Paul. In Illinois, Democrats and Republicans are vultures of a feather. They work together to avoid embarrassments, so Wade must go quietly.’