Black Widower

by Thomas Laird

  “He’s killed her.”

  “She was only just reported as a missing person,” I inform her.

  “What makes you think she’s dead?” Doc asks. “It’s only been a little over thirty-six hours.”

  Irene is blonde and well put together. If it weren’t for the severely short haircut, she might be thought of as an attractive thirty-something woman. I don’t see a ring on her finger.

  “Do you know this man, Skotadi? Derek Skotadi?” she asks.

  “Yes. We know him. He’s a policeman.”

  She stares into me.

  “He’s a son of a bitch!”

  “I take it you don’t get along with him,” Doc tells her.

  “You can’t get along with the devil,” she replies.

  “He’s just a man,” Doc continues.

  I wonder if my partner is struggling to conceal how he really feels about Derek Skotadi.

  “He’s killed her and all you can say is that?” she sneers at both of us.

  “Why do you suppose he’s done away with her?” I ask.

  “I knew from the beginning something like this would happen.”

  A black poodle comes meandering into the living room toward her.

  “C’mere, Judy,” Irene commands, and the dog hops onto the chair and into her lap.

  “This is my friend and my companion,” she explains to us.

  “You’re not married?” Doc asks her.

  “I was engaged, once.”

  She scratches the pooch’s ears.

  “Are you going to find out what he’s done with my sister?” she demands.

  “We’ll look into it. But Missing Persons handles these things, not Homicide,” I explain.

  “You’ll look into it!”

  “That’s all we can do at the moment, Miss Wentworth,” Doc apologizes.

  “We can’t intervene unless there’s a body,” I add.

  “He’s very clever, that one. He’s a cop, for Christ’s sake! He knows what to do, how to hide what he’s done. You cannot let him get away with it.”

  “As I said, we’ll look into it. As of now, she’s simply missing. She may very well turn up in the next few minutes or hours or days. Has she got friends she might want to stay with?”

  Her eyes are enflamed, and she looks at me as I’m the one who killed her sister.

  “You guys all stick together. Like doctors and lawyers. You never speak ill of each other, do you.”

  I rise off the couch, and Doc follows my cue.

  “We’ll do what we are able to do, Irene. We have to follow protocol.”

  She walks us to her door as the black poodle leaps from her lap, and she’s not gentle about slamming the portal behind us.

  *

  We talk to Donny Malloy in Missing Persons. His office is on the ground floor of Headquarters.

  “You’ve been over to Skotadi’s residence?” Doc asks.

  Donny’s cubicle has no windows. My beloved lake is rendered invisible, down here.

  “Sure. Clean. No blood. No fibers. No mess. But there was a strong smell of bleach, as if he’d given the place a through scouring before we got there.”

  “You think Derek might have done Jennifer Skotadi, Donny?”

  He looks at me and laughs.

  “That’s sort of your department, isn’t it, Jimmy?”

  I grin sadly back at him.

  “I know a lot of coppers don’t like this guy. I know his rep. But killing his wife, killing anybody’s wife, is a rather drastic measure, no?”

  Donny Malloy is a medium-sized, athletic-looking guy in his late thirties. He’s got a pale face and yellow blond hair. He was once an all-Catholic League running back from Mendel High School on the far south side.

  “Yeah, it is,” I confess. “But her sister is convinced Jennifer didn’t just take off.”

  “Sounds like her sister has no use for this prick, either. But there’s nothing in Skotadi’s home that suggests a struggle of any kind. We looked it over very thoroughly. She probably is just pissed at the miserable bastard and she took off to a girlfriend’s to cool off before she finds a divorce lawyer.”

  *

  We take a closer look at Jennifer, at her bank accounts. She has a separate one at a downtown bank. With considerable funds - $97,000, in fact.

  When we dig deeper we find out that she’s got a life insurance policy for $250,000 from a well- known company.

  Her sole heir is Derek Skotadi.

  Chapter 3

  Doc and I start nosing around about Jennifer Skotadi. After we find out about the insurance we are also made aware that Derek won’t be able to inherit his bucks until his wife is declared legally dead, and that’s several years from now if she doesn’t surface first.

  But the more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to believe the tale the sister, Irene, told. It just seems to fit this Vice cop’s profile. Maybe he doesn’t want to lose the money from the policies, and maybe he’s sly enough to wait all those years. It’s like money in the vault for him. It’ll be there when he hits middle age. He’s about the same age as I am—heading toward my forties. Perhaps he has the patience to wait it out.

  Or maybe he just wanted to kill her and avoid the cash the divorce would cost him. Whatever it is he’s thinking, he’s the kind of guy who could pull the trigger on an innocent woman. It just feels right, when I think about it.

  *

  I’m in charge of the kids, Mary and Mike, when my mother is off duty on the weekends or whenever I’m not on shift. I take them to their Catholic grade school in the morning, and I pick them up if I’m available in the afternoon. They’re old enough to take care of themselves, but I like to be there to keep an eye on them. My mother, Eleanor, watches them when I’m at work, now in the summer months, but August is on the wane and they’ll be back in the classrooms soon enough.

  The classroom is where my wife Erin spent most of her work time in this life. She loved her inner city kids and they loved her right back. She was excellent at her profession, and everyone around her knew it. She is missed by the people at her public grade school, but she is irreplaceable here in my house. The few dalliances I had with the other women weren’t even in the same ballpark with my relationship with Erin. Some people you can’t get over, no matter how long it goes.

  So after the thing with Rita, I’m kind of backing off into the underbrush, like some wounded feline in Kenya. Might sound over-dramatic, but it doesn’t feel that way. The ache over missing her is worse than any rotten tooth I’ve had to have filled or removed, and there really isn’t any cure for what ails me.

  No, not everyone is expendable, in my world.

  *

  We follow Skotadi off the meter because there’s no official case to put us on him. The Captain does not take it well when man hours are spent on perps who aren’t even perps yet. But we drive by his house in my Chevy so that he won’t make our copper ride, the Crown Vic. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know the car I drive, so we follow him in my family ride.

  Doc doesn’t mind this unpaid overtime because I saw the grimness in the set of his jaw when he stepped between Skotadi and me back at Garvin’s joint, a few years ago. And I’ve seen the look in his eye when I merely bring up the Greek’s name. He dislikes Derek Skotadi with extreme prejudice, and I think I feel about the same way. Skotadi isn’t hard to like. He’s impossible to like.

  Which is no reason to suspect him of murdering his old lady, but there it is.

  We cruise past his bungalow two or three times in the early evening to see what he’s up to, but he never emerges. So I come up with the bright idea.

  “That’s breaking and entering, Jimmy……Hell, I like it.”

  Doc smiles, and I head back to the Headquarters parking lot downtown to get Doc to his car.

  I have a friend in Vice who does the scheduling. She’s a very discreet friend; in other words, someone who can keep her mouth shut.

  Her name is Jackie Bishop, and she’s be
en the head of the office in Vice before God entered the picture.

  “You know I’d get in trouble for this, Jimmy.”

  She’s a widow with a grown son, but she’s only in her early forties, and she’s a not-so-natural blonde with a pretty face and with a body that always gets a second look from her co-workers and everything else male. From what I hear, though, she’s unapproachable. Her divorce left lasting scars. She was married to a Burglary dick, and I use the word dick intentionally. Word goes that he physically abused her. He was fired, and no one’s heard from Billy Bishop in a very long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jackie shot him and threw his pieces in the Chicago River.

  But then she’s too much of a sweetie. Doc tries to hit on her all the time and fails miserably all the time.

  “It’s important, Jackie, or I wouldn’t be asking. And you know you can trust me, no?”

  “Can I trust any swinging dick, Jimmy?”

  “Yeah. You can trust me.”

  Doc giggles.

  “You, I know I can’t trust. Not ever,” she accuses my partner.

  Then she smiles coyly at Doc.

  “You’re killing me, Jackie. Don’t tease me. You know I can’t take it.”

  Then she aims her steel blue eyes at me.

  “What day or night?”

  “When’s he on afternoons next?”

  She looks into her file on the desk in front of her.

  “As a matter of fact, Skotadi starts three to elevens this very evening, Jimmy.”

  “Thanks. We never had this little interview.”

  “When are you going to hit on me, Jimmy? I’ve been waiting ever so long.”

  She grins at me maliciously.

  “What’re you doing Friday night?” I ask.

  The words just spilled out of my mouth.

  There is a genuine look of surprise on that very sexy face.

  “Well, my word. I thought you’d never ask…..I’m doing what I always do on Friday. I watch the dregs of entertainment that is known as TV, the great wasteland. Wanna come watch with me?”

  Doc is staring at me in awe. His mouth is literally hanging open, his chin nearing his chest.

  “Sure. What time?”

  I figure I might as well continue until she pulls me back on my leash, back into reality.

  “How about seven? Dinner, then vast wasteland. Sound appealing?”

  “I’ll be there,” I tell her.

  I’m still waiting for the punchline, but Jackie writes something on a small slip of paper and then she hands it to me.

  “Be on time, wiseguy.”

  It’s her address and phone number.

  I look at the note as if it’s my draft notice. But this note is far more user-friendly.

  “I have to go back to work, boys. I assume you have other things to do, too?”

  “Thanks, Jackie,” I tell her.

  Doc finally closes his gaping mouth.

  “Don’t forget. Friday. Seven. Be punctual, Jimmy.”

  “I…I always am.”

  She smiles again, and then I have nothing left to say, so I turn and walk away, and Doc is right behind me.

  When we get outside the Vice office, he grabs me by the arm.

  “You son of a bitch. You son of a bitch.”

  Then he laughs and walks out toward the parking lot.

  *

  We wait until it’s fully dark outside. Then we approach Skotadi’s bungalow, but we park at least a block away from his front door. We hoof it to the entryway, and then Doc takes out his magic bag of burglar’s tools. Skotadi left no lights on, so none of the neighbors will be able to pick us out on his dark porch. Doc has the lock popped in less than a minute. He could’ve had a career on the wrong side of our profession if he had so chosen.

  When we’re inside, I click on the flashlight. The curtains are drawn in Skotadi’s living room, so no one outside will see the small beam from my light.

  “What are you realistically expecting to find here, Jimmy?”

  “Don’t go practical on me.”

  “The Missing Persons guys already went over this place very hard. They’re very good at that kind of thing. No blood, no fibers, no nothing. Do you recall?” he teases.

  “Then why’d you go along for the ride?” I ask.

  “I just want to write him off our suspect list so I can continue to despise him only because he’s a genuine, four-star asshole. I don’t want to hate him just because he knocked off his wife—who was quite the specimen of feminine pulchritude, by the way.”

  “I know. I saw her once at a cop’s funeral.”

  “Why would a man want to eliminate a beauty like her from all the other beasts that roam the fields?”

  We move through the living room quietly, then. We don’t expect to find anything, of course. Skotadi’s a cop, and he knows what the police look for with missing persons who might not really be missing but dead, instead.

  It occurs to me that Doc and I are breaking the law over something that may very well not have occurred. But I keep remembering the surety in Irene Wentworth’s voice about her sister’s fate. Some people you just believe.

  We move to the back of the top floor, checking the kitchen and then, last, the bedroom.

  Doc goes into the adjoining bathroom. It has a large shower stall.

  “Perfect for wet and wild carnal pleasures,” Doc snorts as I flash the light into the stall.

  “Where would you kill her, Jimmy? In the house, here? Remote location?”

  “I wouldn’t kill her at all. It’s your theory about wasting well-formed flesh. Think I’d divorce her. It’s more expensive, but then you don’t go to the shithouse for murder, either.”

  “What did that heavenly creature do to piss him off badly enough that he’d commit a capital offense? The big red one.”

  “Marriage isn’t all about sex, Doc.”

  “Then what’s it about? You know the old tale that if men could fuck themselves they wouldn’t need women.”

  “You can’t be that big of a chauvinist pig.”

  “I guess not. All those courses in college said I shouldn’t be. Anyway, I liked women before I got married.”

  “I’d have to get rid of the body, naturally.”

  “No blood, Jimmy—Hey, what time is it?”

  “About ten. We haven’t got much time. Unless he’s working over, he’ll be off in an hour.”

  “Strangulation, James. No blood.”

  “But no sign of a struggle, Donny Malloy said. No busted furniture. No drag marks anywhere.”

  “He’s a big man. Much bigger than Jennifer. He could’ve crushed her throat. Maybe while she was sleeping. Maybe he threw her into that oversized shower, took her by surprise. If it were a gun or knife, something would’ve got left behind. If he bludgeoned her, there would’ve been a weapon, which he could’ve got rid of easily enough. But I think he kept it simple, Jimmy. I think he used those two big meat hooks of his.”

  I walk back into the shower.

  “There’s room enough for a small orgy, in there,” I tell my partner.

  “He might’ve fucked her for old time’s sake before he choked her to death.”

  “We don’t have to get him for rape. And they were married. If she was still alive, rape would be difficult to prove if there were no bruises and shit. No, murder will do. Skotadi won’t get to bully anyone ever again. No, all we have to do is prove that he killed Jennifer.”

  “Let’s get the hell out of here. Too many slugs in the Russian roulette pistol.”

  We run down to the basement. The door’s in the kitchen. We give it a quick once-over, but it’s immaculate. Everything down here has its place.

  We go back up to the main floor, but this time we depart by the back door. Doc locks the back entrance with his burglar’s tool, and then we head toward the alley, behind Skotadi’s micro-sized backyard, and we proceed in a circular fashion back to our car, a block and a half away.

  “Doesn’t look
promising,” Doc pronounces as he drives us back to Lake Shore Drive and toward Headquarters.

  “You knew he wouldn’t leave anything behind for us, but we had to find out.”

  “We can’t keep watching him, Jimmy. It is possible that Irene is wrong and that she just took off and lighted at one of her girlfriends’.”

  “But she said Jennifer didn’t have any female acquaintances,” I say.

  “Maybe. But she could’ve gone to an aunt’s or something.”

  “I’ll check it out. You’re right, though. The smart thing is to back off and let Missing Persons handle it.”

  “Yeah, that would be the intelligent thing to do. But I don’t fucking like it,” he grumbles.

  “That makes it unanimous.”

  *

  Jackie Bishop lives in an apartment on the northwest side. It’s the top flat in a three apartment building. I get there at seven on the appointed Friday night, and as I trek up the flight of stairs to her door, I can smell the food.

  When she opens the door, I see her standing there in an eye-filling black, sleeveless dress. It’s something you would wear if you were going out on the town.

  I’m dressed casually, so I feel very self-conscious.

  “Maybe I should go home and change,” I tell her as we get inside.

  The apartment is filled with bright colors, but it seems very tasteful, not gaudy or showy. The hues seem to blend with each other. There are greens and yellows that make it seem as if we’re in a meadow. But Jackie is more magnetic than her walls and carpet and furniture.

  “Don’t be silly. I overdressed. But I wanted to impress you.”

  “Mission accomplished. You look great.”

  We head right to her dining room table and she seats me while she goes into the adjacent kitchen. She brings out steaming platters and bowls filled with delicious looking meatloaf and green vegetables and then she goes back to retrieve a gravy boat of ungodly aromatic brown gravy.

  “You went to way the hell too much trouble,” I tell her.

  “Shut up and eat, Jimmy.”

  So I follow orders, and we eat.