Rusty Nail

by J. A. Konrath

  “How big is the bottle? Two gallons?”

  “Thirty-two ounces.”

  Phin grinned. “For seventy bucks, it should clean my hair and then straighten up my apartment and make me dinner.”

  He pocketed the four ball. I took a pull from my Sammy and scanned the bar for the server. She was two tables over, her face shiny with tears. She tried to move forward, but the man standing next to her moved his body in her path, not letting her pass. The man was grinning.

  “Excuse me a second,” I told Phin. As I approached I heard the waitress saying, “Stop it, stop it,” as the guy pawed at her.

  “There a problem?” I used my best commanding tone, the one that scared suspects into confessing to crimes they didn’t commit.

  The man was young, early twenties, dressed in a golf shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. He looked like he just came from the beach, though I couldn’t imagine which one, it being April.

  “This is a private conversation, skank.”

  He said it with a dismissive sneer, and then turned back to the waitress.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  “She’s fine. Mind your own damn business, bitch.”

  With my left hand, I liberated my badge case from my back pocket. With my right hand, I set the tip of the pool cue down on his bare big toe and leaned on it.

  He yelped, jerking his chin left to face me, the perfect picture of fury and pain.

  Some of the fury disappeared when he saw my star. But the pain stayed.

  “Kind of early in the season for flip-flops, don’t you think so, Romeo?”

  I leaned harder on the stick. He squealed.

  “Let me see some ID.”

  I put my badge away and took the wallet he eagerly offered. I gave his license a quick glance.

  “Okay, Carl Johnson, here’s how I see it. Threatening a police officer is a felony. Plus, it pisses me off.”

  I twisted the cue to indicate my displeasure.

  “Shit! You’re hurting me.”

  “Oh, don’t be a baby, Carl. I’m not even pushing hard. See how much worse it could get?”

  I put some serious weight on the cue, for just a second, and he screamed like I was killing him. Now he had a teary face too, to match the one he gave the waitress.

  “Here’s the deal, Carl. This is my bar. I never want to see you in here again. Understand?”

  He nodded.

  “And this lady is a personal friend of mine. If she tells me you’ve been bothering her, I’m going to pay a visit to 3355 Summit Lane and break both of your knees because you resisted arrest. Are we clear?”

  I twisted hard. He moaned, “Yes.”

  “Now tip your waitress and leave.”

  Carl pulled out a twenty and handed it to the girl, his hand shaking. I lifted the pool cue and he ran out of there as fast as he could, bumping several customers on the way.

  The waitress grasped my hands.

  “Thanks so much. He’s been coming in here for a month, making comments, pinching my ass, not leaving me alone.”

  I gave her a card. “I don’t think he’ll come back. Call me if he does.”

  “Thanks. Really.”

  I smiled. “When you’ve got a chance, we need two beers.”

  “You got it. Thanks so much.”

  When I came back to the table, Phin was racking the balls.

  “What happened to the last game?” I asked.

  “I won. You owe me a beer. You better take this next break, or you might not have a chance to play.”

  I managed to sink a stripe on the break, and the waitress brought beer for me and Phin.

  “On me,” she told us.

  Being a hero had its perks.

  We played for two hours, Phin beating me five games to one. I blamed the losses on my burned hand, though the beer went a long way to easing the pain.

  I met Phin several years ago, before he had cancer. It was an odd friendship, because I was a cop, and Phin was a criminal, though I wasn’t entirely clear on what kind of criminal he was. I think he operated as some kind of unlicensed private investigator, and considered laws optional.

  Thinking of private eyes made me think of Harry, and the wedding rehearsal. McGlade had told me to bring a date, and I got the impression if I showed up solo our deal would be off and my fat alter ego would continue to embarrass the CPD on a new season of Fatal Autonomy.

  I wasn’t the type to call in markers, but desperate times and all that. Occasionally, Phin called me up, needing some bit of info that only cops were privy to, such as a plate trace or a criminal record search. Occasionally, I helped him. That put the karma debt in his corner.

  “I need a favor,” I said to Phin when he came back from the bathroom. “What are you doing on Saturday?”

  “Apparently, I’m doing you a favor.”

  “It’s easy. A guy I know is getting married, and he needs some people to stand up.”

  “You want me to stand up at a wedding for some guy I don’t know?”

  “Yeah. But this isn’t the wedding. It’s the rehearsal dinner.”

  Phin shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Thanks. I don’t know the time yet. Can I call you?”

  “No phone. I’ll call you, day of.”

  We played one more game, he won, and then we said our good-byes and I headed home. It turned out asking guys on dates wasn’t so hard after all.

  I entered my building and passed my new neighbor walking down my hall. She wore the same dirty uniform she had on that morning, and carried a large leather satchel.

  Though she didn’t look at me, I heard her whisper “Bitch” as she passed. I let it go. I’d already gone Rambo on her once today. Besides, the woman was entitled to her opinion.

  Back at my apartment, Mr. Friskers surprised me by leaving no surprises. No mess. No destruction. Everything was exactly as I’d left it.

  This bothered me. Perhaps he was sick. Or perhaps he’d spent the day deep in thought, plotting the annihilation of the human race.

  “Mr. Friskers? Where are you?”

  I made a kissing sound.

  There was an unbearable screech that shook my core foundations, and the cat launched himself at me from atop the refrigerator. He landed on my chest, claws digging in, and I had to clench to avoid soiling myself.

  My sweatshirt protected me from any scarring, but my heart was beating so hard I could feel it thump against the inside of my rib cage.

  I unhooked the cat from the fabric and placed him on the floor. He sat and stared up at me, apparently pleased.

  “You’re under arrest,” I told him.

  He yawned, then walked over to the litter box and began kicking litter onto the floor.

  I checked my answering machine. Nothing. Then I searched for edibles and found a can of potato soup that I made easy work of. I also had some vanilla wafers, but only after promising myself I’d exercise in the morning.

  My evening’s entertainment consisted of the new Robert B. Parker book, which Herb had bought me for Christmas. Why couldn’t I meet a guy like Spenser? To make it work I’d have to get rid of his shrink girlfriend, but I figured that was no big loss.

  When I was getting too tired to read I turned off the light and tried to sleep.

  Sleep didn’t come. I had a zillion things running through my head, and my mind refused to shut off. I thought about my mom. About Latham. About the case. About Herb. My hand hurt, and I couldn’t get comfortable, and I finally just gave up and flipped on the TV.

  Big mistake. The Home Shopping Club was selling designer shoes. I bought some black Prada sling-backs, some brown Miu Miu sandals, and thankfully they were out of my size in Dolce & Gabbana, because my credit card wouldn’t have been able to handle the shock.

  Two a.m. crept by. Then three. Then four. Then five. I tossed and turned, and finally dozed off trying to picture a woman stupid enough to marry Harry McGlade.

  CHAPTER 19

  THE PHONE WOKE me up, which was
a blessing. I’d been in the middle of a dream where I had to warn some children that danger was coming, but no matter how hard I screamed, no sound came out.

  After shaking away the disorientation, I picked up the receiver.

  “Daniels.”

  “Morning, Jack.”

  I sat up. “Hi, Herb. How are you doing?”

  “Okay. Didn’t mean to be a jerk the other day.”

  “You’ve got a lot on your mind. Any results yet?”

  “We should find out today. I heard about the fire. You coming in to work? I’ve got something.”

  I looked at the clock. Nine twenty. I’d gotten about four hours of sleep. Not too bad.

  “What is it?”

  “I got in early, went through the old Gingerbread Man files. Something was missing. I remember searching Kork’s house and finding an address book. Wasn’t there.”

  “Misfiled?”

  “Signed out. Bill checked the sheet, and the last person to go through the Kork stuff was our old friend Barry Fuller, right after the case ended. So I had Bill pull Barry’s things, and found the address book.”

  “You wouldn’t be telling me this unless you found something.”

  “Book was mostly empty, except for some scribbles. They look like the letter L, except some of them were upside down and backwards.”

  That got me fully awake. “Is it a code?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get here.”

  I showered, and dressed in a gray Shin Choi A-line skirt, a white Barbara Graffeo blouse, and some Dior flats, no hose. The shoes were acquired at an outlet store and had been mispriced. I got them for eight bucks. I remember holding my breath when the cashier rang them up, figuring she’d notice. She didn’t. That’s been the high point of my year so far.

  The day was dark, cool. Looked like rain. I stopped at the churros cart before going to my office, and bought Herb two with extra cinnamon.

  “Churros?” Benedict lit up like a hundred-watt bulb. “Jack, my stomach thanks you. Both for me?”

  “Both for you.”

  He bit a sizeable portion out of the first. “Mmmm. I’m taking you to dinner on your birthday.”

  Benedict had been saying that for years. By my count, he owed me 108 dinners.

  “What have you got, Herb?”

  He handed me the address book, open to the page with the scribbles on it.

  “I thought it was a doodle at first. But then I realized it had ten characters.”

  “A phone number with an area code.”

  Herb nodded, his mouth full of fried Mexican dough. While he chewed, I stared at the symbols.

  “Pigpen code.”

  My partner frowned. “That took me an hour to figure out.”

  “We learned it in Girl Scouts.” I drew a quick tic-tac-toe board and filled it in with numbers. “Each symbol represents the number inside it. So the first number is a two.”

  Herb stared at me as if I’d grown a tail. “You were a Girl Scout?”

  “My mother thought it would build character.”

  “Can you get cookies at a discount?”

  I quickly deciphered the first nine numbers. The dot on the end had to stand for a zero.

  I clucked my tongue. “Two-one-nine area code. Indiana.”

  “I already looked up the number. It’s in Gary. Unlisted. And you won’t believe who it belongs to.”

  Herb waited for me to ask, so I did.

  “Tell me if this name sounds familiar, Jack. The owner of that phone number is Bud Kork.”

  “The Gingerbread Man’s father?”

  We’d tried to locate him after the murders, but he never turned up.

  “The one and only.”

  I thought about the jar of severed toes, all of them at least thirty years old. Too old for Charles Kork to have done it, but not too old for his father.

  “Insanity runs in families.” Herb shoved the remainder of the churros in his mouth.

  I rolled it around in my head. Could our perp be the father, taking over where his son left off?

  Only one way to find out for sure.

  “Want to go for a ride?”

  CHAPTER 20

  GARY, INDIANA, LIES forty minutes east of Chicago. I filled Herb in while he drove, covering everything I’d done over the last few days. Rather than praise my heroics, Benedict latched on to the mundane.

  “I can’t believe that asshole McGlade is getting married. She a hooker?”

  “Haven’t met her yet. That sounds about right.”

  “Currency must be changing hands. There’s no other way. Unless the woman has some serious mental problems.”

  “I told you about the fire, right?”

  “Twice. Hey, if Bud Kork’s our man, how does the rental car fit in?”

  I shrugged. The other five Eclipses on my list had been found, their side mirrors intact.

  “He could be working with an accomplice. Or Bud Kork might not be our man. Or maybe the fireman ID’ed the wrong car. Or maybe the car that lost the mirrors wasn’t driven by the killer—maybe it was just a citizen who panicked.”

  He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Lots of maybes.”

  “Someone killed Diane Kork and burned down her house. Someone familiar with the Gingerbread Man case.”

  “Could be a copycat.”

  I made a face. “In the thirty years you’ve been a cop, have you ever encountered a copycat killer?”

  “Not once. But it happens all the time on CSI.”

  Herb took a box of orange Tic Tacs out of his ashtray and offered them to me. I declined, and he emptied the whole box into his mouth.

  “Maybe,” he said, the candy clicking against his molars, “Diane Kork is the killer. She put a fake tattoo on the woman in the video, making us think she’s dead.”

  “I don’t think so. The tattoo was hard to see in the video.”

  “Still, we can’t rule it out. We haven’t found her body, and after what she lived through, maybe it pushed her over the edge.”

  “Diane Kork was a schoolteacher. Whoever shot me missed my head by less than an inch.”

  “Could have had lessons. Or could have gotten lucky.”

  Herb called Dispatch on his cell, and had them check if Diane Kork had a FOID card. Illinois required all gun owners to have one. The info came back quickly.

  “No firearm owner ID for Diane. But she could still have a gun.”

  “Doesn’t feel right to me. It’s someone else. I told you about the suitcase.”

  He frowned. “The guy’s keeping trophies.”

  Thrill killers liked to keep little reminders of their deeds. The burned human hair probably came from a scalp. And I knew the curved piece of metal was the underwire from a bra, having been poked by enough of them in my time.

  “If Diane Kork were the killer, I don’t think she’d keep a victim’s bra.”

  “Could have been Diane’s bra.”

  “Was it her hair too? We can call the Feebies, get a lecture about how rare female serial killers are, and how none have ever been found that take trophies from their victims. No, Herb, it’s someone else. Someone picking up where Charles Kork left off. Someone who knows the case.”

  “That could be twenty million people, Jack. Maybe more. Is the movie out on video yet?”

  “I hope not.”

  Before Fatal Autonomy became a crummy series, it was a crummy made-for-TV movie about the Kork case. I’d been forced to watch some of it; Harry had conned me into being a technical advisor.

  “For verisrealityitude,” he’d said.

  My input had been ignored, and the movie turned out to be a travesty. But it still had a lot of real facts in it. And after the case ended, there were the inevitable quickie true crime paperbacks, and that TV documentary.

  Much of the world knew about the Gingerbread Man. It made me reconsider the copycat angle.

  Herb slowed for the toll. We were about to get on the Skyway, Chicago’s largest bridg
e. It ran about eight miles long, and high enough to see deep into Indiana. Our view proffered a smattering of factories, their gigantic chimneys spitting copious amounts of smoke and filth, staining the overcast sky. Industry wasn’t pretty.

  We drove in silence for a few minutes before Herb finally spoke.

  “I’m scared.”

  I reached over and touched his arm.

  “You’ll be fine, Herb. Even if it is cancer, you’ll get through it.”

  “That’s what Bernice says.”

  “Smart lady.”

  “I’m the homicide cop, and she’s stronger than I am.”

  “People deal with death in different ways, Herb.”

  Drizzle accumulated on the windshield. Herb hit the wipers, causing a dirty rainbow smear.

  “Do you ever think about death, Jack?”

  “Sometimes. I almost died yesterday, in the fire.”

  “Were you afraid?”

  “At first. Then I accepted it, and I was just sad.”

  Herb’s voice, normally rock solid, had a quaver in it. “My father died of cancer. Strongest man I ever knew. By the end he weighed ninety pounds, had to be spoon-fed.”

  I thought of my mother, steadily losing weight despite the feeding tube. I pushed away the image and tried to be jovial.

  “Don’t get your hopes up, Herb. You’ll never weigh ninety pounds.”

  My joke fell flat. Herb looked out of his side window. We passed a particularly ugly factory, its smokestack belching flames like the great Oz’s palace.

  “What scares me the most is no longer existing. Everything I am, everything I think, everything I feel, all of my memories and thoughts and dreams—erased. Like I’ve never been here at all.”

  “You’ve got family, Herb. And friends. They’ll remember you.”

  Herb’s face was a mask of sadness. “But when I’m dead, I won’t remember them.”

  We continued down I-90 east for another twenty minutes. The expressway was newer, and the asphalt better, on the Indiana side. It ran parallel to a train track for a while, and then we turned north on Cline and west on Gary Avenue, and we were soon on the plains, no buildings for miles.

  I checked the MapQuest directions.

  “We’re looking for Summit. Should be coming up.”