by M. K. Gilroy
Kendra has scored two of our goals. Since then she’s been getting mugged. The other team is tugging on her jersey even now. She’s been tripped four times. These are sweet little seven-year-old girls, so the other coach has got to be instructing them to foul. No way are they thinking of this on their own.
I’m giving the coach a piece of my mind in my imagination when Kendra, who has lost the ball, steals it back and becomes a yellow streak set to score a breakaway goal. She’s not old enough to keep dribbles close to her feet, and the other coach—Attila the Hun—is screaming for his goalie to leave the box and charge the ball. Apparently her name is Olivia, as anyone within a mile of the soccer complex can attest.
“Charge the ball, Oliviaaaaaa.”
I might charge Attilaaaaaa.
It’s going to be close. Kendra isn’t quite in control of the ball. It’s about equal distance between her and the goalie with the speed of the roll. I’m praying, really praying for a miracle, for a win. Does God hear the prayers of sports fans? What if two people rooting for opposing teams are praying equally hard? I’m not a theologian, so I just keep praying—even if God is laughing at me or just not listening.
Please, God, help her to be first to the ball.
Maybe it was my prayer that did it. Kendra redirects the ball with the outside of her left foot—and any coach of seven-year-olds will confirm that this is a miracle, especially when you consider she is right-footed—leaving her all by herself in front of the goal. She taps the ball in for the winning score just as an opposing player tackles her from behind.
The goal counts. I feel a tingle in my surgically repaired knee as I start to run out to check if Kendra is hurt. She bounces up instantly and appears to be fine. The girls high-five her and jump in the air and attempt to do butt bumps as they head back for the other side of the field. As the Snowflakes line up for one more kickoff, the ref, with everything his ample pot belly can muster, blows the whistle to end the game. We get the win, but I’m still furious with the other coach. After the girls form a line, hold their arms out and slap hands with the other team, run through the tunnel formed by two lines of parents who have linked outstretched hands into an arbor, and then head toward the cooler for juice pouches—the highlight of the game for many of my girls—I am in the other coach’s face.
“Hey, pal, you better get your girls under control before someone gets hurt,” I say as I poke his chest with my finger. Not smart. Kristen. Don’t touch.
“What are you talking about, little lady?” he storms back, taking a step into my personal space.
Little lady? Who calls anyone that these days? Maybe his license plate is expired and I’ll arrest him in the parking lot and cuff him.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about, big guy,” I answer, not backing off an inch. “I’m making sure my girls don’t get injured because some Neanderthal is teaching seven-year-olds to trip and push.”
“Teaching girls to push and trip?” he nearly sputters. “How would I do that? You’re out of your mind. Is this your first time coaching youth soccer? They all trip each other without any coaching help.”
Do they? I don’t know if that’s true. It is my first year to coach little girls. I do know I’ve blown it again. What gets into me? Sometimes I excuse myself as the victim of an occupational hazard.
The ref, who has no sense of the drama unfolding right before his eyes—almost as oblivious as he was in the game—walks up and we both back up to let him stand between us. He sticks a game card in my face.
“Need your ‘John Hancock’ on the bottom line,” he says.
I sign. Attila signs.
“Good game, coaches,” he says as he trots toward the referee hut. I look over at my Snowflakes. They are contentedly slurping juice and munching on granola bars. Jimmy’s arms are folded and he is unhappy, though he won’t make eye contact with me. Kaylen does.
And she is scowling.
I know it happens in professional sports all the time, but I wonder how often volunteer soccer coaches get fired mid-season.
6
“KRISTEN, YOU’VE GOT to get your temper under control,” Kaylen says to me. We have our own table at Pizza Palace for the Snowflakes’ celebration lunch. It is only late morning, so I guess we’re having pizza brunch.
Eleven girls are munching greedily at a long table we’ve created by pushing several tables together. The parents, including Jimmy, have morphed into groups of four or five at surrounding tables.
I guess I’m at the time-out table because it’s just Kaylen and me. I have an untouched piece of pizza in front of me and have taken just a couple of sips of my Diet Coke as I get chewed out by my older sister.
“Kendra could have been hurt,” I protest. “That guy is ruining things for the girls.”
“Maybe so, but he wasn’t the one trying to start a fight with you, and the girls seem no worse for wear,” Kaylen says. She points to the Snowflakes who are laughing and shoveling food into their mouths. Kendra is now standing on her chair and is rotating her hips like she is twirling a hula hoop. I hope that’s what she’s doing at least. She is explaining to the other Snowflakes how she scored the winning goal. I guess that’s her celebration dance.
“Kendra!” her dad barks and she is immediately back in her seat, a sheepish expression on her face. I can tell she’s trying not to smile. I’m doing the same thing because I know how she feels. I’m in trouble, too. No smiling allowed.
“Where did she learn to do that?” I ask Kaylen, hoping to change the subject. Doesn’t work.
“Kristen, I’m serious. You’re thirty and this in-your-face anger has got to stop. You were almost as bad as Tiffany’s dad today.” She looks over her shoulder to make sure he didn’t hear her. “Check that, worse,” she continues in a lower tone. “He was very well behaved and only cheered today, per the coach’s order.”
Ouch. I’d argue some more, but the problem is, she is right. I’ve always had a temper. I’ve always been in your face. But it’s never been so relentless and as personal until now. For a while now, actually, I admit to myself. And I’ve never lost it in front of the kids. Never before. I’m a good girl. I don’t smoke and I don’t chew, and I don’t go with guys that do. What’s happening to me?
I start to apologize when my phone begins playing Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture.” I am going to ignore the call, but I recognize Captain Zaworski’s number. The boss rarely calls on the weekend. I’m hoping this doesn’t have anything to do with Internal Affairs and the punk.
“Conner,” I answer, turning away from Kaylen and putting a finger in my free ear to buffer the noise. She is watching me with suspicion. She obviously thinks I’m trying to escape this conversation by slinking away. And she would be right most days. I listen for half a minute, tell him it will take me twenty—my eyebrows furrowed enough to cause permanent wrinkles—and hang up.
“Kristen, you can’t get away this easily; we need to finish this conversation,” Kaylen begins. I knew that was what she was thinking.
I cut her off. “But not now. There’s been a murder and I’m on the case.” I’m on the case? My language skills sound like a B movie.
I’m already standing up and pulling car keys from my purse. I’m about to leave without a word, but I stop myself. “I’m sorry,” I say as I turn and hug Kaylen close. “I am. Honestly. Just say a prayer for me and don’t be mad. I’ve got to go right now.”
“’Bye, Coach!” eleven voices chirp in near-unison. I turn and smile. I tell them they played a fabulous game and circle around the table to give a little love to each one. Kendra hugs my neck hard as I bend down to kiss her. Kids can be very forgiving.
There is almost a tear in the corner of one of my eyes as I walk out the door and into the sunlight. Man, it’s bright today. I blink it away.
Did my sister say I was thirty? She’ll pay for that.
7
I FLIP STATIONS the whole way over to the Second Precinct. I know more about who t
o call for all my insurance needs to save money, but don’t catch a peep about our murder case or the score of the Cubs game last night, the only two items of vital interest to me. Bulls might make the playoffs but since the day Jordan retired, I was never as interested in the NBA. On the murder case, the media usually gets it screwed up anyway, so better to start with a clean slate and no false information embedded in my mind.
I consider stopping by my place to grab a sixty-second shower and a change of clothes. No time.
I’m still the last person to the conference room after parking, entering the back door with my electronic key, and pounding up five flights of stairs to Homicide in the Second Precinct, too impatient to wait for an elevator. I look around and realize this could be about a hundred different rooms in our precinct. Gray table and chairs. Gray walls. The white ceiling must have been the interior designer’s idea of a contrast. A couple of the ceiling tiles are cracked and chipped at the corners. Several tiles are rust-stained from a leak on the floor above and look like they are ready to cave in. I used to drink water from our antiquated porcelain fountains when I first joined the force. I shudder and thank God for bottled water. Who knows where that leak came from.
“Grab a seat,” Zaworski says, barely nodding at me. I sit next to Don. He looks dapper in designer jeans and a white mock turtleneck. Summer weight. Loafers with no socks. You’ve got to be kidding me. Does he not have to clean the garage or mow the lawn on a Saturday morning?
Four other men are at the table besides Zaworski and Don. One is in uniform with sergeant stripes; I think his name is Kincaid. Then there are two detectives from another precinct that I recognize, both wearing jeans with one in a cotton pullover and the other in a couple layers of T-shirts. I don’t know either by name. Finally, there is a very nice-looking man, maybe early thirties, wearing a suit way too fine for local law enforcement. Except for Don, of course. Navy blue with a light blue stripe, white oxford shirt with button-down collar and monogram on the chest pocket and sleeves—AER—and a pale yellow tie with a diagonal blue stripe. This guy has got to be a federal agent or a salesman for IBM. I am suddenly self-conscious of my worn-out soccer shorts and ratty NIU sweatshirt. I wore my cleats to the game but have switched into a pair of Crocs with Mickey Mouse smiling on one and Minnie Mouse on the other. Christmas present from Kendra.
I don’t catch myself in time to not take a quick glance at the Fed’s ring finger, which is naked. I think he catches me looking, which is very embarrassing. I kick myself for even wondering because I have a sort-of boyfriend who is madly in love with me—at least that’s what he tells me. The problem is I’m not crazy in love with him. So I don’t reciprocate with the words he longs to hear. Every time I try to break things off completely, he assures me that he’s very comfortable just being very good friends and that he is willing to wait for me to feel the same way for him that he feels for me. I have got to put him out of his misery and end this thing.
Captain Zaworski makes the introductions.
Nice suit guy is FBI, like I guessed, and his name is Austin Reynolds. The sergeant’s name is Konkade, not Kincaid, so I was close. If he has a first name other than Sergeant, he’s not giving it out. The detectives are Bob Blackshear and Antonio Martinez from Third Precinct. We all shake hands, say our “heys,” and nod.
The mood is somber and I resist any temptation to crack a joke. Don’t know why I would think to do so in the first place. We’re talking about murder—and no one laughs at my jokes anyway. Except for Kendra. She thinks I’m hilarious. Focus.
Captain Zaworski passes crime scene photos around the room. A very pretty girl in the alive photos; a very disfigured girl in the dead shots. No details were given on the radio. Good thing. She died at the hands of someone very nasty and very good with a knife. Nope, no jokes today.
“How long have we been on the scene?” Konkade asks.
“Detectives from the Third got there at five or so,” Zaworski answers, nodding at Blackshear and Martinez. Don and I look at each other in surprise. Konkade purses his lips and runs a hand over his “bald scalp.
“Why aren’t we all there now?” Don asks for both of us. “Time’s wasting and the bugs are eating our clues.”
For detectives, rule number one in investigating a murder is that you get to the scene of the crime as quickly as possible to see things as they really are with your own eyes. Even though you can practically guarantee the first officer on the scene will be diligent in protecting evidence—everything from segregating witnesses to establishing a noninvasive traffic pattern to the victim—you know there is going to be corruption. If every criminal leaves a trace of his activity—so does every investigator looking for him. Or her.
“Soon enough,” Zaworski answers. “Everything will still be in place, including the body, when you get there. I know that on one hand, we’re not doing this exactly by the book, but on the other hand, we’re going to make sure the book is followed to the letter of the law. So we’ve decided to go slow on this one. Blackshear and Martinez got the first call and they got to look around a couple minutes before we pulled them out for this briefing. They’ll share initial impressions in a moment. The deed was done right on jurisdictional lines.” Zaworski pauses and continues, “We’re not sure if the Second or Third Precinct owns it, so you’ll be working together.”
Uh oh. Sharing and police work rarely go hand in hand.
“We’re not sweating the politics,” he adds, looking pointedly at me. “This one gets even more complicated.” He looks around to make sure he has our undivided attention. “The second our initial report hit the data ports, a red flag went up in DC at FBI headquarters. They’ve tagged a guy with a very sophisticated and extensive crime pattern. He’s been killing lots of people and moving to new cities for a number of years now. They think he’s been a member of our community for the past six months, getting ready for his first victim in Chicago and a good number to follow. Sandra Reed may have been first, not last.”
Oh man. What’s a “good number”?
The captain goes on. “Major Reynolds was flown in specially by the US Army this morning in order to assist us in our investigation. He’s going to fill you in on what the FBI knows about our perp and help us apprehend him. Not only are we going to work well between the Second and Third precincts but also across agency lines. That order has been jointly issued from the director of the FBI and the CPD commissioner. Mayor Doyle’s office strongly endorses it. I do too.”
He nods to Reynolds.
“Actually, I wish we knew more about who the perp is and how we’re going to apprehend him, but we don’t,” Reynolds begins, clearing his throat. “About six years ago we received some software programming money from the Department of Homeland Security. We hired some geniuses from Silicon Valley to create a specialized search engine to cross-collateralize and correlate a number of local, state, and federal databases. The purpose was tracking terrorist activity, but some other good things came out of Project Vigilance.”
Reynolds pauses dramatically for a sip of water and I whisper to Don, “Wow, it’s got a name—Project Vigilance, just like a spy novel.” Don leans away, frowns, and arches his eyebrows to let me know I need to keep my mouth shut, and let anyone else know with his body language we are not a team.
We all wait as Reynolds sets his water bottle down slowly and picks up his papers again. I can’t pull off a similar “pregnant pause” because I live in a constant state of fear that I’m putting people to sleep when I talk. There’s precedence to support me on this one.
“PV is one of the biggest breakthroughs in profiling unsolved crimes,” he continues. “Obviously, it connects the dots between federal, state, and local investigations. It gets computers talking to one another—and that leads to people talking to one another. One of the key ideas was to make information available whereby other law enforcement agents and analysts could study and make suggestions on a case, even if there was no solid line of connection with something t
hey were working on. PV stole a page from a business textbook and has become a kind of ‘best practices’ online symposium.”
“I bet that goes over real good with the guys working the case,” Martinez chimes in. “Sounds like one more way everybody in the world wants to second-guess you and look over your shoulder if you’re a cop.” “You’d be surprised at how well it works and how well it’s been received, Detective Martinez,” Reynolds answers. He’s good at remembering names. “I guess ideas and advice don’t offend as much when someone’s nose is in your case from a thousand miles away. But the unexpected positive outcome from Project Vigilance is that it has revealed to us almost 1,000 connected cases. PV has correlated crime events that were once treated as singular and jurisdiction-specific crimes into non-isolated crime streams.”
What did he just say? Jurisdiction-specific? Non-isolated crime streams? I’m writing this stuff down. I think I’m back at NIU in an advanced level criminal justice seminar.
“So, Boss, how come we aren’t on Project Vigilance, if it’s so good?” Martinez asks, turning to face Zaworski.
“It’s still under review,” the captain answers curtly. His steely look suggests further comments and interruptions are not welcome.
I look straight down at my notebook. No way am I going to snicker. Don must have been worried about me because he kicks me under the table. Ouch. That one I didn’t deserve.
“So did you start this Project Vigilance? Do you run it?” Blackshear asks Reynolds.
“I wish,” he snorts. “No, I’m a single investigator who has benefited from someone else’s vision and work.”
I’m impressed. Handsome and dutifully humble.
“I do have the distinction, however,” he continues, “of identifying thirty-seven streams; more than any other investigator. I’ve spearheaded seventeen busts nationwide.”