Bada-BOOM!

by Wally Duff

  “Done, but I’ll encode the information before I send it to you as a second layer of protection from other potential hackers,” Linda said to Cas. “Tina, do you want the files too?”

  I thought about my discussion with Carter about this story.

  “Yes. Carter wants me to work on the story.”

  Linda raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything about that revelation. A few clicks and the results were forwarded to us.

  Cas’s jaw muscles tightened. “I better check with Peter about that. I don’t know how he feels about negative publicity at the hospital where he practices.”

  Not something I want to hear.

  I had to agree with Carter. This was a compelling story that would make the front page of the Chicago Tribune and, after that, all other major newspapers in the world. It would give his career a huge boost, which was why he wanted me to work on it.

  I want my status in the world of investigative journalism reestablished. I lost it five years ago when I ignored an FBI order, chased the abortion bomber story, and was blown up because of it. Maybe there would even be a Pulitzer nomination and, finally, redemption in my former colleagues’ eyes.

  Cas was the key, but our friendship now felt on a bit of precarious ground and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. She wasn’t going to roll over on Peter Warren, even for me.

  Unless I could figure out a way to get her to change her mind.

  Part 2

  31

  Wednesday morning, Linda and her daughter, Sandra, joined Kerry and me at Hamlin Park. Sandra is a toddler almost the same age as Kerry. Baby Jason was at home with the nanny. Molly and her four kids arrived fifteen minutes late, but that’s normal for Molly.

  Cas had called the three of us to meet her, but she was later than Molly, which never happens.

  “Where’s Cas?” Linda asked. “She sounded extremely upset when she called me.”

  “Almost hysterical,” Molly said.

  “We’re about to find out.” I pointed behind them. “She’s here.”

  Cas double-parked her Hummer and jumped out. She left the door open and engine running. As she ran to us, I saw tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “Cas, what’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I... It’s Peter. He’s dead.”

  What?!

  “How is that even possible?” Linda asked.

  “It happened early this morning.” Her breath caught in her throat. “He died in a one-car crash.”

  She lowered her head and stopped talking. We waited as she took in deep breath.

  “I was supposed to join him for lunch today. Two hours ago, one of his nurses called me to cancel the meeting. I pressed her to explain why, and finally, she admitted that he drove his Bentley into a bridge abutment on the Kennedy and died.”

  A Bentley?

  “Maybe it was Fertig,” I said.

  “Why would you say that?” Linda asked.

  “Fertig drives a Bentley.”

  “So does…” Cas abruptly stopped and took in a deep breath, “I mean, did… Peter. He made sure his car cost more than Fertig’s.”

  Eddie told me doctors are super competitive.

  “Tina, can you call Carter and see if he can have one of his reporters find out what happened?” Cas asked.

  I pulled out my cell phone. “I have a better idea,” I said. “I’ll call Tony. He can get the exact address where the accident occurred. If he’s back to work, maybe he can meet me there and get some answers for you.”

  32

  “Landed over there,” I heard the young Chicago police officer say, as I walked up to the scene of the car crash.

  A brisk Chicago wind blew in from Lake Michigan, but the stench from four incinerated rubber tires, gasoline fumes, and burned clothes and human skin still fouled the autumn air around us.

  “Must have bounced off the bridge abutment,” he continued. “Only way it could have wound up behind the car.”

  The cop pointed toward a scraggly, misshapen bush on the side of Kennedy Freeway about twenty feet behind what was left of the mangled car’s frame.

  The vehicle had been totally destroyed in the blaze, and only the smoking metal carcass remained. Even the tires had been vaporized. It was impossible to identify the make of the car.

  “Can’t say I’ve seen that before,” Detective Tony Infantino said.

  Tony was our best bet to finding out exactly what happened. He is a GQ-handsome Italian, always impeccably dressed. This time, he was wearing a blue silk suit, white shirt, and dark blue, patterned tie.

  Fourteen years ago, we were an item, and I thought he loved me. But he didn’t. I found out I was one of many women in his life, and he hadn’t changed. While I researched a story in July, I asked him for help, and he’s been my cop-contact since then.

  The only difference in his appearance was his newly-shaved head. Almost six weeks ago, he was shot in the right temple by the same man who hit me in the abdomen three days later.

  Tony had emergency surgery on his brain. He survived, but the OR nurses shaved off part of his hair before the operation. He’d had a barber remove the rest. I hated to admit it, but except for the fresh scar, his newly-bald head looked good. He’d gone back to work on Monday.

  I tugged on his muscular upper arm. “What are you guys talking about?”

  “Stuff about the crash,” Tony said.

  The other cop put his head down and walked toward his patrol car.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Doc came roaring down the Kennedy going over a buck-twenty.”

  “How fast?”

  “Over a hundred twenty miles an hour, according to the accident investigator. No problem for a big car like that. Dude drove directly into the cement bridge abutment. Never hit his brakes.”

  “What kind of car was it?”

  “Bentley, according to the doc’s DMV registration.”

  “You’re sure it wasn’t a malfunction of the car?”

  “Doubt it.”

  “But it could have happened.”

  “Could, but doesn’t explain why he wasn’t wearing a seat belt and the air bags didn’t work.”

  I pointed at the charred remains of the vehicle. “Does a car usually burn up like this?”

  “Only if there’s an accelerant in it.”

  “A what?”

  “Cans of something, probably gas, in the back seat, passenger seat, and trunk. Car hits the bridge. Bada-bing, fire is first. Becomes a blaze. Bada-BOOM!, all that gas explodes.”

  “What a terrible way to die.”

  “Doc was a crispy critter. Be a quick autopsy.”

  “That bad?”

  “Worse. When they arrived on the scene, they couldn’t even ID him.”

  “Then how did they know who it was?”

  “His head.”

  Uh-oh.

  “His head?”

  “What that rookie cop was talking about. He couldn’t find it. EMT guys put the rest of the doc in a body bag and took it downtown.”

  “But his head was missing?”

  He nodded. “Doc drives into the bridge. No seatbelt. Goes headfirst into the windshield.”

  “If he was ejected from the car, why was he burned so badly?”

  “His whole body didn’t make it all the way through the windshield.”

  “What did?”

  “His head.”

  “That doesn’t seem possible.”

  “High velocity impact. Doc’s head slams into the windshield. It shatters. Doc’s shoulders get trapped by the broken glass.”

  My head started to throb. I’d had problems with PTSD after I was blown up, and I felt an attack coming on.

  “But not his head?”

  “Nope. EMTs pried what was left of the doc’s neck and the rest of his body back out of the smashed windshield, but his head was gone.”

  Bile welled up in the back of my throat, and I got queasy.

  “Where did it go?”


  “Cop found it an hour ago. Pieces of glass from the windshield sliced it off.”

  My head started to spin.

  “Doc’s head ricocheted off the bridge,” he pointed at the bush, “and then landed right there.”

  I threw up on the street.

  33

  After I left Tony at the accident site, I called Carter. He would find Warren’s death a compelling part of this story, and I wanted to alert him to assign a reporter to cover it.

  My next call was to Cas. She met me at my house. Linda babysat Kerry. Cas had previously left her kids with Alicia, and they were still there.

  Cas was too frazzled to sit down, and we stood in our entrance hallway. I was almost as upset as she was.

  “I want to see his body,” she said.

  I pictured what Tony told me about how Warren had been incinerated. I reached out to try and comfort her. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  She pulled away. Her jaw muscles were tightly clenched, making it hard for her to open her mouth. “I’m a nurse. I worked in the ER. I’ve seen plenty of dead bodies.”

  “You haven’t worked since Luis was born four years ago.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I can handle it.”

  “Let’s sit down.”

  “I don’t want to sit down.” Her lips moved, but her mouth didn’t open. “I want to see Peter’s body.”

  I hesitated, trying to find an easier way to say this. “He was... There was a fire after the crash.”

  “A fire?”

  “A bad one. There wasn’t much left of him.”

  “Then that proves it.”

  “Proves what?”

  “Fertig killed Peter.”

  “Fertig’s a doctor, not a killer.”

  “Peter texted me early yesterday morning. He thought he’d figured out how Fertig had done it.”

  “Done what?”

  “I don’t know. I suggested lunch in the afternoon, but he didn’t have time to meet me and we set it up for today.”

  “Why didn’t he have time for you yesterday?”

  “He said he wasn’t feeling well, and he was finally going to go to see his doctor.”

  “Now that you mention it, the last time I saw him he looked thinner.”

  “He had lost weight, but he ignored his symptoms because several doctors in his building were sick, and he didn’t want to look like a patient with a high serum porcelain level.”

  “You can get porcelain in your blood?”

  “No, it means a crock, a person who thinks he or she always has a new disease but doesn’t. That was why he didn’t want to bother asking a colleague to see him for vague complaints of weight loss and tiredness.”

  “Those were his symptoms?”

  “Yes.”

  “He did look kind of pale to me.”

  “My guess is he was anemic. That’s why I want to see his body. I need to know what was wrong with him.”

  “Seeing his remains might be more than a little shocking and, I’m afraid, heartbreaking for you.”

  “I can take it.”

  “Cas, Tony said Peter was a...”

  I’m a reporter — or used to be. But since I’ve become a mom, I’m no longer any good with this death-talk stuff.

  “For God’s sake, Tina, tell me!”

  “He was a crispy critter.”

  Her olive face color blanched. “What did you say?”

  “There wasn’t much left of him except a badly charred corpse.”

  “Then it might have been someone else.” The color returned to her face. “It was a Bentley. You said Fertig drives one too. It might have been him.”

  “No, it was Peter.”

  “Unless they’ve already done DNA tests, how could the police know that?”

  “Part of him survived the crash unburned.”

  “How is that possible?” she asked.

  I took in a breath. “His head was severed off by the broken glass in the windshield,” I said. “They found it in a bush. It wasn’t burned. That’s how they identified him.”

  My Taser-using, Raid-spraying pit bull, who isn’t afraid of anything, broke down and began sobbing.

  34

  Cas was an emotional mess, and I was afraid to let her drive her Hummer. I took charge and drove with her in the mommy van to the Chicago medical examiner’s office.

  The gunmetal gray tile walls, cement floor, and scratched orange plastic chairs didn’t do anything to comfort her. The cold temperature of the room and irritating odors from the industrial strength cleaning solvents didn’t help either.

  Linda left Kerry and her two kids with her nanny and met us there to give any legal advice we might need in our attempt to see Peter’s remains. She sat down next to us. Cas stared out of the grimy windows, oblivious to the surroundings.

  Linda nodded toward Cas. “She doesn’t look good. Are you sure she needs to see the body?”

  I touched Linda’s arm. “Not body,” I whispered. “Head.”

  “What? Talk louder, Tina. I can’t hear you.”

  “Head,” I whispered again, pointing at my own skull.

  “That’s all that’s left?”

  Cas whipped around. “Yes, Linda, that’s all that’s freaking left.”

  Linda held up her hands. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “All I want to do is see his remains,” Cas said.

  “Legally, I think it would better to call it ‘his remain’,” Linda said.

  “Remain?” I asked.

  “Head. Singular. Remain.”

  “You know what?” Cas asked. “You lawyers suck.”

  Linda and Cas frequently disagree on various subjects, but this time Linda let it go. Cas didn’t need any more stress right now.

  “Where’s Molly?” Linda asked me.

  “Late as always,” I said. “We’ll go on without her. What’s our plan?”

  “I’ll try and bluff our way in,” Linda said.

  “How are you going to do that?” I asked.

  “You don’t want to know,” she said.

  Linda strode down the hall. Two minutes later, she returned with a tall, slender woman who wore green scrubs and a wrinkled, white doctor’s coat. She had tousled dishwater blond hair. As she walked toward us, she took off her wire rim reading glasses.

  She stopped in front of Cas. “Mrs. Warren, I’m Dr. Sharon McDermott, one of the medical examiners. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Cas looked around to see who the doctor was talking to. The doctor didn’t notice.

  “Your attorney suggested you might want to view the remains alone,” she continued.

  Linda stepped forward. “Mrs. Warren, that’s exactly what I told Dr. McDermott. Follow her to the viewing room.”

  Cas’s eyebrows elevated. “Mrs. Warren?”

  “Yes,” Linda said. “You. Mrs. Warren. Got it?”

  “Is there a problem here?” Dr. McDermott asked.

  “Shock,” I said putting my hand on Cas’s shoulder. “She’s in shock. I’m sure you understand.”

  The doctor turned to Linda. “Then I suggest we do this immediately before Mrs. Warren falls completely apart.”

  “I agree,” Linda said. “Mrs. Warren, follow Dr. McDermott.”

  “Dr. McDermott?” Cas asked.

  “Her,” I said pointing at the doctor. “You wanted to do this. Hurry up.”

  The doctor led Cas toward the viewing room. “I think that went well, don’t you?” Linda asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  “She’s going to see his remain.”

  “She is, but it might get a little crowded in the viewing room. The real Mrs. Warren just walked in.”

  35

  I recognized Diane Warren from the pictures in her husband’s office. She posed in the doorway of the waiting room with her chin elevated and her back slightly arched. She was tall and thin, with unwrinkled, porcelain skin, a square jaw, and a heavily sprayed bubble-blond hairdo. She wore a bl
ack designer suit and medium-heeled black pumps with a gold logo on the toe and carried a matching, logoed black purse.