by M. K. Gilroy
I’m leaning hard with two hands on the chair in front of me. Kalen’s giving me sideways glances and decides to forgive me for slinking in late. I get a sideways hug. Maybe she has put on five pounds.
My mind sometimes wanders in church, but not today. It stays focused. Just not on church. I’m thinking about yesterday’s meeting at headquarters. After Reynolds’ presentation, Captain Zaworski recapped the FBI profile of our alleged perp. Male. White. Very methodical, maybe an accountant or engineer. He’s intelligent. Watches TV, because he leaves next to no trace of his existence at the scene. All those shows on forensic evidence have seen to that, even though, technically, every human encounter does leave some physical record. He blends in well. Probably helps old ladies cross the street. Will say hi to new neighbors, but won’t engage. His relationships won’t be in his neighborhood. He’s a good actor.
How the FBI has identified his bonding issues, his desire for narrativity—a fancy way of saying he likes to tell stories about himself—and a childhood filled with an alienating, abusive, and neglectful mother and an absent father—left the family? died?—is beyond me. And as I like to tell Don and anyone else who will listen, I’m not just muscle and good looks. I am a college graduate. Not summa or magna cum laude, but cum laude by the skin of my teeth, and that’s still honors in my book. I’m on the slowest boat possible toward a master’s degree in criminal justice. That means I sign up for three classes a year and usually drop one of them on the exact date that doesn’t count against me grade-wise, but where I don’t get much of my tuition money refunded. My mom gets after me for wasting money, but I’m on my own dime now and can be stupid with money any way I want.
I’m not sure how all this psycho data is going to help us actually find him. But Reynolds does have one clue we can actually work on. In five of the six known cities our murderer has worked, multiple victims attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. This apparently confused the FBI a lot at first because the profiling doesn’t suggest someone who abuses alcohol or drugs. Someone suggested the obvious; he is pretending to have a drinking problem. Duh. All the pieces fell together.
Of course, we’re putting a lot of confidence in a computer program called Project Vigilance. We’re assuming Virgil—I’ve given the program a name of my own—hasn’t missed other cities that would reflect a broader or emerging pattern of behavior. To be fair to good old Virgil, he’s only going to be as good as the input he has to work with.
Reynolds is convinced that the connection of the forty-seven previous crime scenes is valid and that we are factor number seven. Why can’t he just say we’re the seventh city? Our perp has been hibernating for six months and is ready for serious business again.
Sandra Reed and many of the victims didn’t attend AA, but twenty-nine did—more than half—so it’s a major priority in our investigation.
Kendra, my niece, has switched spots with her mom and is at my side. She tugs on my sleeve. How long have I been the only one in the congregation standing? Kaylen looks over and stifles a laugh. Very funny, big sis. I guess long enough to be noticeable. Is Jimmy giving me a dirty look from the pulpit? I’ll remind him that pastors aren’t supposed to do that. I’m sure his message will be scintillating as he starts off with a joke that people find very funny, but my mind wanders away again to yesterday.
• • •
We agreed that the four detectives in the room would start attending a couple AA meetings a week. I don’t drink—okay, I’ve had a sip of Klarissa’s white wine once or twice—but I’ve heard enough sob stories from winos when I walked a downtown beat that I can fake it well enough. For that matter, there are enough cops with drinking problems—self-medicating with alcohol is one of our occupational hazards—that everyone on the force likely has firsthand experience with someone who has been in, or should be in, AA. We considered putting out the word that any department employees already attending AA meetings need to keep their eyes open. But we couldn’t quite figure out what they were to look for—or how to keep that kind of information from getting leaked to the press—so we scrapped the idea.
There was nothing else but the crime scene. We dispersed quickly and all seven of us headed for separate cars to caravan over to a small apartment house in Washington Park. I didn’t even mess with the starter on my Miata. I rolled it back and popped the clutch.
• • •
Jimmy is winding things down up front. He asks a couple of questions about the current state of our soul when it comes to anger. That wakes me up. If I had paid attention I wouldn’t have been so surprised that he wasn’t talking about having too much bad anger—the kind I’ve been wrestling with—but rather not having enough godly anger. Holy anger. Righteous anger. My mom’s kind of anger. Things that make God mad are supposed to make us mad.
I can embrace that. First of all, I already feel lousy enough about myself right now, and it’s nice to not feel judged, especially at church. And yesterday’s crime scene made me feel a little of God’s fury; it still was resonating in my chest today. I shook my head, remembering. It was unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed. Worse than any of the films they showed us at the academy. Slasher film bad. Torture more than murder. If seeing that doesn’t stir some godly anger, I don’t know what will.
We pray the benediction in unison as I stretch and arch my back; I think I sigh out loud because Kaylen leans over and gives me an elbow to the rib. Not very nice of her. Again.
Jimmy says “amen” and I turn into the aisle. I see Dell about six rows back. Our eyes lock. I squint and tilt my head to the side to give him a plaintive “I’m sorry” expression. He takes a step backward and half turns as a twentysomething puts her hand in the crook of his arm. He looks back at me, trying to stifle a look of triumph.
Okay. That was unexpected.
But you go, Dell. I had it coming.
11
I CAN’T STOP thinking about the crime scene.
We should have carpooled, but no one wanted to lose any more of a Saturday afternoon in the salt mine. But we all pulled into a narrow street in Washington Park about the same time. Three- and four-story houses, each two units wide—the classic Chicago row house neighborhood. There were a few double-wides here and there in the neighborhood, as well as some small apartment houses. It was one of those timeless kind of streets that looked like an elegant ’50s film set but was now a contemporary, neo-bohemian enclave. The side yards weren’t much more than the width of a sidewalk and maybe a row of tomato plants. A back alley serviced the small parking lots behind each house that could each accommodate one car each. That meant half the street’s residents parked out front. Everything was well cared for, and a lot of high-ticket cars were on the street.
Even more than five hours after the crime scene had been established, there were still six or seven black-and-whites with rotating blue lights, a couple of dark brown Crown Vics and shiny black 300Ms, indicating more detectives and some brass had arrived, along with an ambulance and two crime scene tech vans. Both of the vans were wedged on the strip of grass and sidewalk in the front.
As we approached the apartment house’s front steps, we could hear a neighbor complaining to a uniform that the vehicles would damage the lawn and somebody was going to have to pay for it. The kid, stoic in a starched blue, was looking right in the lady’s eyes, but obviously not listening. Good man.
Two of the uniforms had set up sawhorse roadblocks a couple houses away in each direction. One of the guys had pulled the barrier aside to let our train of cars trail in. Our entourage officially finished filling in the center of the street. I thought I was last to pull up, which I figured was good because it would be easier to get out when we were done.
I had forgotten about Major Reynolds’ car. He drove a rented Cadillac in behind me. I didn’t think the government approved luxury cars on expense reports. He’s either more important in the Bureau than we already suspected or he got a free Hertz upgrade.
The seven of us huddled at the fro
nt steps, and we found out the Caddy was an upgrade courtesy of Enterprise. I was relieved to know he was a humble everyday officer of the peace, just like the rest of us. Not. He looked like he should be picking up a date for dinner rather than visiting a bloody crime scene.
A techie offered each of us a cotton ball dipped in a little ammonia mixture at the front door, in case we needed something to help us with the odor ahead. No one wanted to be the first to touch a drop beneath our nose because it looked weak. But when an EMT staggered through the front door, leaned over the rail, and sent his breakfast and lunch spewing—maybe even a midnight snack—we applied the ammonia in unison.
Martinez led us up the steps into the foyer. The security door was propped open. We walked past twelve white buttons underneath twelve dull brass-colored mail slots, each about four inches wide and eight inches tall. That meant four two-bedroom apartments per floor. I did a little calculation in my head and figured at least 2,000 square feet each. Probably storage cages and a laundry room in the basement. Twelve-foot ceilings on the first floor. A wide circular staircase and a small three- to four-person elevator dominated the lobby. Everything was in great shape, including the elevator with a checker-sized black button for each floor. I rejoined the circle of investigators in the foyer.
“According to the neighbors, our victim lived alone,” Blackshear started. “Nice apartment and furniture. She appears to be a very tidy person. No sign of anyone breaking in. We’ve checked all ground-floor windows and front and back doors. For right now we’re assuming the victim knew the perp and let him in voluntarily.”
“Or her,” I said. I thought it was a good point and worth noting. You know, not starting with any assumptions on anything, including gender. No one commented.
“Our victim—” Blackshear started again.
“What’s Sandra’s age?” Don asked, interrupting.
“Late twenties, early thirties,” Blackshear said. He flipped back in his black notebook. “Thirty-two. Not that her attacker made it easy to tell.” He paused until he caught his train of thought again. “She’s single, an accountant in a big firm downtown. She’s got a VP title on her card. Must’ve been smart, to be a VP this young.”
“Divorced? Married?” Don asked.
“The human resources director from her firm has been helpful. She’s divorced. No kids. And before you interrupt again, Don, we’ve already got a call in with the ex, but no answer yet. He doesn’t live here anymore. He’s in the L.A. area. Maybe he sleeps late. Local cops are checking in with him.”
Don just nodded calmly at the rebuke. No big deal. Maybe I could learn how to handle such things from him. It was just the type of comment that would’ve sent me stewing for the rest of the day.
My mind went to the ex-husband. Family always ranks as the first suspects. Especially an ex. If he was sleeping in, he was about to get a wake-up call from the LAPD.
“The perp took her cell phone, just like every other case, so there’s no phone log. No sign of forced entry in her third-floor door either,” said Blackshear. “And before you ask, no one we’ve talked to remembers hitting the entry buzzer to let a stranger in yesterday.”
That was the oldest trick in the book for burglars. Hit buzzers until someone answers. Tell them you’re UPS delivering a package or you’re dropping a cake off for your aunt on a different floor. People hit the entry button because they don’t want to be hassled. Of course, after a murder, who admits they were the one who opened the door for a serial killer to get in the building?
“Time of death?” I asked.
“Not official, of course,” Martinez chimed in. “But probably a six-hour window between 7:00 p.m. yesterday and 1:00 this morning. The techies got her temperature about ten this morning and it was down about fifteen degrees. Jerome was looking at dilation of her pupils and thinks time of death is closer to 1 a.m. Once the ME has her on the table, he’ll be able to see how long the bugs have been nibbling on her.”
“Didn’t take long for someone to note that a person living alone is dead,” Konkade said. “Is there a clue there? Who found her?”
“A neighbor on the second floor,” Blackshear answered. “They run together most Saturday mornings. She confirmed with Ms. Reed that they’d meet at eight in the morning. That was at 6:30 last night. We think she is the last person in this building to see or speak to her.”
“Except for the perp,” Don added. Everyone nodded.
“Yeah, except for him,” Martinez shrugged. “Este tipo es un loco diablo.”
I don’t speak Spanish, but I had a pretty good idea that Martinez wasn’t being complimentary.
“Are we assuming that she died from the cutting wounds?” Don asked Blackshear.
Reynolds had just caught up with us and answered for Blackshear: “If the perp is who we think it is, then yes, he bled her to death. It’ll take a little time for your ME to confirm, however, because there will be a list of pharmaceuticals to factor and rule out, and his binding method does suggest possible asphyxia.”
“Yeah, what he just said,” Blackshear said with a nod of his head at Reynolds and a little shrug of his shoulders. “We’ve got more to give you,” he continued, “but let’s get everybody upstairs for their own look before the body really starts going bad. It’s been a nice cool March, but the perp turned up the thermostat all the way. That’s why Jerome’s being shy on his guess as to time of death.”
“It’s April,” I said.
No one commented. Am I invisible? I turned and was first in the elevator.
“Let’s do the stairs,” Blackshear said with a nod away from the elevator. “Unless you’ve got all day. That thing is slow and we can’t all fit in there.”
We trudged up after him, me with my face burning red. Don wouldn’t have given it a second thought.
As reported, Sandra’s place was neat and stylish. Except for the pale corpse tied to the corner posts on a blood-soaked bed. Reynolds had reported in the profile session that the killer didn’t have sex with his victims. Possibly some foreplay. But apparently he—or she—got jollies in inflicting pain and cutting up women, not having sex with them. He would drug them, secure them with duct tape, and spend a lot of slow, seemingly deliberate time with his knife; for most of that time they would be alive.
Cause of death: exsanguination.
Toxicology reports from the various cases could not definitively declare the extent to which the victims were conscious and aware of what was happening to them. On the majority of victims that followed the pattern we were looking at, there were signs of struggle on the wrists and above the ankles—the main areas where they were taped down. But this could simply be in keeping with someone who is drugged but not quite knocked out, and therefore putting up a last-minute fight. The abrasions were not so severe as to suggest the kind of frantic thrashing that someone in intense pain would exert. So there was no definite confirmation of torture. Back in the pre-crime scene meeting, Konkade had said that maybe our guy has a streak of mercy in him. Looking at Sandra Reed in the middle of her bed, I doubted he would say it again. Maybe our killer has some kind of code, but mercy wasn’t in it.
We all took our time searching for clues, moving room to room and lingering in the main bedroom, while the two techies waited patiently to bag the body and get it down to the morgue. I did a solo version of a line search, starting in one corner of each room, moving to the far corner, and then taking one step to the right each time so that I was sure to cover every square inch visually. Furniture made it an inexact survey method, but with four detectives and a horde of other cops in the apartment, it was good to have any sort of system in the midst of the orchestrated chaos.
I did a total canvas of the apartment—I would love to have a place this big and roomy—and then went back to the primary crime scene, doing my best to imagine what might have happened. I went back through every room, just trying to get a sense of the world of the victim and what might have drawn a killer to her—or her to him. I
didn’t have to struggle too much with her draw. It was clear she was good-looking, successful, tidy, and had great taste in art and furniture.
I wondered if she had an interior designer help her decorate. The place was put together almost too well. But the indelible image burned into my mind during and after our crime scene review was the victim herself. Sandra. A real person with a real life, filled with joy and sorrow, dreams and disappointments. And she was gone.
We are a product of our upbringing and mine was very religious. There were signs of that scattered through the modest little Chicago row house I grew up in, from the picture of Jesus knocking on a door that hung by the thermostat in the hall leading to our three bedrooms, to the big, beat-up, black leather Bible that sat on Dad’s nightstand. Sandra had no such imagery anywhere. My mind started wandering toward thoughts of the afterlife, but I forced myself back on task.
Konkade left first. When we exited the building, we saw him talking with the uniforms that were first on the scene, probably reviewing protocol on how potential witnesses were separated and the evidence protected.
We reported to Zaworski on the front lawn and then Blackshear barked out orders to a group of ten uniformed officers. The two youngest were put on garbage pull. Seniority does have a few rewards. The rest were given a few instructions and assigned to help us start canvassing the immediate and adjoining blocks. When we met together three hours later, all of us had the same story. Nobody remembered seeing anything unusual the night before. We didn’t talk to anyone who actually knew Sandra Reed. Chicago is supposedly a city of neighborhoods, but this section of Washington Park wasn’t being very neighborly right now.