Cold Love: A Cillian Canter Mystery (Cillian Cantor Book 1)

by Conell, Zach

  Cillian and Rose were stunned when they discovered that even the Chicago Transparent had adopted a similarly misinformed and incomplete narrative that constituted a crude misrepresentation of facts by failing to mention the headhunter squads and celebrating the catastrophically inhumane consequences of the decision of leading CCFF officers to deny injured SNN residents access to hospitals outside of the South Side.

  “Considering the unbalanced reporting of the Chicago Transparent under the new editor-in-chief, it’s pretty clear that we don’t have to expect any help from the CT in identifying the dark forces behind this citywide mayhem,” Cillian remarked as he threw Rose’s tablet computer on the bed in vexation.

  “I know. It’s like someone is playing a cruel trick on us by placing us in the middle of a series of increasingly curious and alarming developments, while gradually removing all possible means we have of doing anything to turn things around or simply make sense of them,” Rose replied dejectedly.

  Their morose reflections were interrupted by the ringtone of Rose’s new phone. She took it out of her purse and looked at the screen.

  “I don’t know this number,” she said as she picked up the phone and put it on speakerphone so Cillian could hear everything as well.

  “Hello, who is this?” Rose asked.

  “Hello, this is Brian Mulvaney. Am I speaking with Rose McCormick?”

  So we might catch a break after all, Cillian thought hopefully.

  Rose answered affirmatively and casually mentioned that she was with Cillian before asking why Mulvaney called and from what number. Cillian figured that she adopted such an indifferent attitude because she didn’t want to get her hopes up. However, Mulvaney immediately reassured them both by expressing his intention to help them and mentioning that he was calling from a prepaid cell phone he had bought this afternoon for the purpose of safely contacting them. He went on to explain that he had been positively frightened to hear about the death of Professor Erdmann and then of Lucy Tiller, and had decided to lay low and await the publication of the Chicago Transparent articles exposing Gullfay’s corrupt practices on the basis of his sources, with the idea that once that happened, he would probably be safe, as by then Mayor Gullfay would be preoccupied with fending off the allegations raised against him.

  Cillian recalled that Mulvaney had told Erdmann and Mrs. Tiller something similar before and that the latter two had doubted the CT publications would guarantee their safety because they did not think Mayor Gullfay was the only threat to consider. This argument still applied now considering Cillian and Rose’s discovery that the Stigmata Man was behind the developments in the South Side, and there still was Mr. X to consider, whose identity remained a mystery. Cillian decided to be direct about his skepticism over Mulvaney’s argument, as he didn’t feel like trusting anybody too soon, especially after all the messed-up things that had happened in the past days.

  “Mr. Mulvaney, it’s Cillian here. I am wondering, why did you expect the Chicago Transparent publications targeting Gullfay to have the effect you describe? I mean, didn’t you think there might be other people involved that could still be a threat to you, especially considering the recent developments in the South Side?”

  For a moment it was silent on the other side of the line. Then Mulvaney answered in a low voice.

  “It’s a fair question and an important one. The thing is, I actually think that Mayor Gullfay himself has been financing the headhunters and the production of glacier, because those are the ‘developments’ you are referring to, am I right?”

  Cillian was so taken aback by this suggestion that he could only get himself to nod in response at first, until he realized that they were talking on the phone.

  “Yes,” he quickly murmured, feeling slightly embarrassed.

  “But why would Gullfay be behind an operation that undermines his own plans to reduce crime in the South Side through his zero-tolerance force? That makes no sense to me,” Rose chimed in, sounding as surprised as Cillian felt.

  “I agree that when you look at the matter so straightforwardly, my theory is counterintuitive. That is why I initially felt a little embarrassed to share it with Mrs. Tiller and your father. But I really regret that now, because it seems that I was right,” Mulvaney replied rather vaguely.

  “What do you mean?” Cillian asked.

  “Well, I always wondered why Mayor Gullfay insisted on his zero-tolerance approach to reduce crime in the SNNs. To me and many of my progressive colleagues, it was obvious that setting up a relatively small special police unit to carry out violent incursions into the South Side was unlikely to lead to actual improvements there. Instead, it could be expected to inspire forms of violent and nonviolent resistance among the local residents, while police brutality was another highly predictable side effect of this approach. When I learned about the glacier and headhunter phenomena, I initially adopted the same approach as Professor Erdmann and Mrs. Tiller, by assuming that there was probably some kind of unknown, powerful player behind this who wanted to thwart the mayor. But when I started asking my colleagues and acquaintances about these developments, I soon noticed that everyone was abnormally dismissive and quiet, especially my connections in Gullfay’s administration, which got me thinking that he might be involved himself somehow. As I said, I initially felt awkward to share this suspicion with Professor Erdmann and Mrs. Tiller. And then things got very disturbing, with us receiving death threats and being followed around, so I decided to hide out in a hotel for a couple of days and break off all contact with them.

  “Once I had heard about Professor Erdmann and Mrs. Tiller on the news, I was sure that my conjectures had been correct and that my friends had been killed by someone on Gullfay’s payroll. The involvement of the mayor himself was the only way to explain why the deaths occurred right after I had asked people in Gullfay’s administration about the South Side and why the police had closed the cases so soon despite the fact that the circumstances of both deaths were far from straightforward, since they had been reported by anonymous callers and Lucy Tiller had not shown any signs of depression prior to her supposed suicide. Moreover, I figured it shouldn’t have been difficult for the police to find out about the contact between Professor Erdmann and Mrs. Tiller and therefore establish a connection between the cases, but they apparently hadn’t cared to investigate the deaths at all. It therefore seemed evident that someone with powerful connections in the police department had ordered both cases to be closed. And no one had better connections than the mayor, who is in charge of appointing the superintendent of police who leads the department.

  “When I began to think of what motive Mayor Gullfay could have for financing the headhunters, I came up with the hypothesis that his zero-tolerance policy could be meant merely as a first step in a plan to take much more radical measures in addressing the crime levels in the South Side, like sending in a massive police force to sweep the SNNs and subsequently pacify them, like the Brazilian authorities have done in certain slums in Rio de Janeiro. In order to justify such a radical move, Gullfay would have needed a good excuse, and the headhunter/glacier scheme could provide just that. After all, if a bunch of glacier-fueled fighters would begin attacking the zero-tolerance force, he could argue that the situation in the South Side was spiraling out of control with drugged-up residents taking up weapons against the police and that drastic measures had to be taken to address the problem.

  “And isn’t that almost exactly what happened? I mean, if you look at the news of today, you can see that Mayor Gullfay nearly pulled it off. The narrative is exactly as he wanted it to be, except for the fact that he himself is under fire for ordering the unlawfully violent practices of the zero-tolerance unit in the first place. But the only reason for those allegations is the series of exposés the Chicago Transparent began publishing this morning on the basis of the information about Gullfay’s corrupt dealings that I brought to Mrs. Tiller. If you would take the CT’s articles out of the equation, the headlines woul
d read something like ‘slum residents take up arms and attack police unit during routine inspection’ instead of ‘slum residents take up arms and attack Mayor Gullfay’s brutal zero-tolerance unit in response to violent incursions.’ Just think about it.”

  “Damn,” Cillian mumbled. He glanced at Rose and saw that she looked about as perplexed as he felt. Could this really be true? Could Mayor Gullfay really be behind it all?

  “And I have evidence to back it up since like five minutes ago—that’s why I called. A friend of mine, a computer ‘expert,’ let’s say, just informed me that he has obtained a chain of emails between Mayor Gullfay and an unknown person whom he address as ‘Stig,’ in which Gullfay basically orders this ‘Stig’ to—well, wait, I will just send you the picture of one of the most incriminating emails my friend just emailed me. Wait, let’s see… yes… there you go.”

  Stig? Could that be a reference to the Stigmata Man? Cillian pondered.

  An instant later the image appeared on Rose’s phone. It was a photograph taken of part of a computer screen showing an email sent from what seemed to be Mayor Gullfay’s private email address to an email account with a meaningless series of letters and numbers before the at sign. In it, Gullfay ordered the recipient, “Stig,” to fulfill his “promise for the South Side” and emphasized that he wanted “his money’s worth” and “enough drugs, guns, and mayhem to justify a proper cleaning job by Chicago’s finest.”

  “So what do you think?” Mulvaney was eager to know.

  Cillian and Rose exchanged glances that expressed reserved optimism.

  “Well, if this is legit, it does look pretty bad for Gullfay,” Cillian acknowledged.

  “But do you have a digital file of the original email chain? Because that is essential if you want to use this as evidence,” Rose asked.

  “Not yet, because my friend only just got access to the account and is still sorting through Gullfay’s emails. It’s not exactly legal what he’s doing, as I’m sure you know, but desperate times call for desperate measures.”

  “I can relate to that,” Rose affirmed.

  “Anyway, my friend told me that he can get me a file with everything by tomorrow morning. He will bring it to me in person on a pen drive, as a precaution. So what if you guys come by my office at city hall at around noon? I should have it by that time.”

  Cillian gave Rose a questioning look. She nodded in reply.

  “Sure, that works for us,” Cillian responded.

  “Great. Do you guys have any more questions for now?” Mulvaney asked kindly.

  While Mulvaney’s account explained a lot, there were indeed still some matters that needed to be clarified before Cillian would be ready to accept it.

  “What about the CCFF task force? What was Mayor Gullfay’s plan with that?” he asked.

  “The CCFF? That is a separate issue not initiated by Gullfay. Some of my colleagues in the city council came up with that as an alternative to zero tolerance. It was designed as a means of reducing the spillover of violence and drug problems from the South Side into the rest of Chicago in the period leading up to the CCFF, although Gullfay then ran with the plan as if it was his own. Probably he thought it would incite SNN residents even more.”

  “Isn’t that exactly what it did?” Cillian remarked, more as a statement than a question.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We went to the South Side today to interview some contacts of Rose’s father. Because we took the ‘L,’ we had to pass a CCFF checkpoint at the station. It was awful—they really harassed people there, and the residents we spoke to all seemed outraged. Plus, we just talked to a friend in the South Side, who mentioned that some SNN residents who got injured as a consequence of the violence between zero-tolerance units and headhunter squads did not get permission to pass CCFF checkpoints in order to visit hospitals outside of the South Side. That’s just horrible.”

  “Really? I have not heard any reports about this so far, but I will look into it. That is certainly not what the CCFF checkpoints were intended for. Generally I am aware that not everything has gone as smoothly with the checkpoints as we had hoped.”

  “That’s an awfully diplomatic answer,” Rose replied sarcastically.

  “Fair enough,” Mulvaney admitted with a chuckle. “But what can I do? I am still an alderman after all, and diplomatic language is an occupational hazard. As much as I dislike it, I find myself forced to use it all the time. But the point is that I am working with some colleagues on legislation requiring better training of CCFF task force personnel and more direct oversight from the city council to prevent future incidents at CCFF checkpoints like the ones you just described.”

  “I guess we’ll have to take your word on that for now,” Cillian responded. “But what is your take on the reports that the city is preposterously underprepared for the CCFF itself? Do you think that may have been one of the reasons that Gullfay took such an extreme approach to crime?”

  “Well, it’s interesting that you ask that, because I was very upset to read about this at first. However, when I looked into the matter, I discovered that those publications were solely based on verbal accounts by anonymous sources that seem gravely exaggerated when compared to the information I found when I investigated things myself. I agree that the preparations for the CCFF are behind schedule, but this is mainly due to Gullfay’s flawed oversight, and I am fairly confident that a decent replacement should be able to get them back on track and attract some additional sponsors to help cover the costs of the event.”

  “So what about that replacement?” Rose wanted to know. “What do you expect will happen with Mayor Gullfay? And what do you think he will say at tomorrow’s press conference?”

  “Honestly, I hope he will announce his resignation. I am currently cooperating with a number of fellow alderman to make that happen.” Mulvaney sounded very excited as he shared this. “We’re putting pressure on Gullfay through back channels and are about to publish a petition on social media calling on him to step down. Naturally we are also considering legal options in case this doesn’t work.”

  “All right, but does that mean that you aren’t planning to go public with Gullfay’s involvement in the headhunters scheme?” Cillian wondered.

  “Well, I first need to properly check the evidence. But it may not matter, because right now the media, the public, and the city council are all adopting the same narrative against Gullfay on the basis of his involvement in the unlawful activities of the zero-tolerance unit, so I think we can win this even without playing our trump card, so to speak. And pragmatically speaking, it may be better not to play that card as it might serve to weaken the unity of the fragile coalition that is forming against Gullfay. But that’s my political side talking again.” Mulvaney laughed heartily.

  “Politics or not, everything has to come out eventually,” Cillian stressed.

  “Don’t worry, I will personally devote myself to that. But all in due time and for the benefit of Chicago,” the alderman passionately reassured them. “But I have to go now, so shall we continue our discussion tomorrow at noon?”

  “Let’s do that,” Rose confirmed.

  “Perfect! Good night,” Mulvaney replied.

  “Good night,” Cillian and Rose said in unison.

  After Rose hung up the phone, Cillian sat down on the bed with his back against the headboard. He didn’t know what to think, feel, or do. Rose sat down next to him. He imagined that she felt similarly flustered. Since returning to the hotel, they had not given themselves any time to process what had happened in the South Side, and now they had just taken in an additional load of staggering information to deal with.

  If he remembered the events of this afternoon, Cillian felt dazed and disillusioned, but if he focused on Mulvaney’s revelations about Mayor Gullfay and the prospect of the latter stepping down from his post—possibly as soon as tomorrow morning—with legal action against him likely to follow in the very near future, he felt hopeful, almost
ecstatic even. And yet when he began scrutinizing the theory of Gullfay’s involvement and tried to connect it with the account of Professor Erdmann and the discoveries made by him and Rose, he was dismayed to find that he still didn’t have answers to all his questions, as if something was still missing.

  He especially struggled with the question of how Mr. X fit into all this. Because if Mayor Gullfay had really orchestrated everything, why had he ordered Mr. X to provide Rose’s father with that obviously false data set? Had he really expected an experienced, devoted, and stubborn scientist like Erdmann to fall for that? And subsequently just to let it go? The move of approaching Erdmann in this manner through Dr. Leamington appeared so amateurish that it completely contradicted the image of Mayor Gullfay as a cunning strategist, which he certainly seemed to be, based on the evidence of Mulvaney’s hacker friend.

  After staring at the ceiling for a few minutes, ostensibly absorbed in thought like himself, Rose let out a deep sigh and turned her face toward his, placing her cheek in the palm of her hand as she looked at him restlessly and perturbed and asked him what he thought about all of it. Seeing that the expression on her face mirrored his own feelings, Cillian knew there was no point to mince words and decided to be straight with her. As he related his reflections to her, she occasionally chimed in to express empathy and agreement. Rose couldn’t fully explain the Mr. X affair either, but she suggested that Mr. X may have merely meant to bribe Dr. Leamington to write a report without involving her father at all. Or Mayor Gullfay might have been convinced that everyone could eventually be bribed, including Professor Erdmann.